Goodbye November!

 

This fall has presented so many challenges - from my son being rear-ended and totalling his car, to finding out I had some strokes to hubby getting a severe ear infection and flu, a broken sewer pipe in my son's home (that we still can't locate the problem part of the pipe) plus so many odd things in between. Will I miss this autumn? Still yes. All the beautiful sunrises and sunsets, the autumn colors, the skunk that visits the cat dish and compost bin every day. my son's search has ended and new to him home has been found (with lots of fixing to do)... There are so many things that I am grateful for and will miss. And this month held 2 days of snow - the first on November 11th where we had about 1/2 inch and November 20th with just a dusting - either way, it was still white. Black Friday bestowed black ice for the travelers and many local accidents. So we are having more seasonal weather than we've had in years!

I purchased most of my baking items yesterday. Usually this is the time of year to find some decent deals. If you use evaporated milk, Walmart has their GV brand on sale for $1 a can and they also have their GV brand of Sweetened Condensed Milk for $1.77. (maybe different in your area). I use a few cans of each for baking so I need to stock up on these at this price. I cannot remember Aldi's prices, so I will be checking there first. I know the Aldi's online prices are different that in store.

Today is preparing to can all the broth day and then refill the roaster with beef bones. My local farmer gave me lots of beef bones to make broth with. He says no one else usually uses them. I find that interesting, since bone broth is so expensive. I have to buy more onions, celery and carrots for the beef broth, so will be picking up some this week. I'm freeing up space on my shelves and moving this around for all the broth that will be canned. There's going to be a lot!

The monstrous bird is now pack safely away in the freezer. I'm searching for recipes on top if the tried and true ones in my recipe box. Turkey potpie will be tasty this winter as well as other favorites!

One more month to go. I really can't believe it. How did this happen? It seems the year has flown by so quickly. I'm now in the mood for baking and candy making. I haven't had the itch to do that in a long, long time. Sadly, chocolate has skyrocketed, so I won't be making a lot with chocolate, but there are so many other cookies to make that I don't think anyone will miss them. I pulled out my grandmother's Betty Crocker Cooky Book and did a flip through. So many wonderful recipes and memories. I'll be putting it to good use this year.

I dug out my cookie press and my rosette iron. I forgot these recipes were both in this book. And so many others that Grandma had made for the holidays (not just for the Christmas season). Chocolate Crinkles were one of my favorites as well as the Spritz. Now I'm going down the memory path of when we were children and all gathered at Grandma's house. Everyone is pretty much gone now, but the memories still live on. See what opening a cookbook can do?

Next month will also hold some planning time. I usually do it through the month when I have some time. I know already that I want to complete some knitting, crochet and cross stitch WIPs. I have this need to get a lot done and not really start much. So many things are kitted up, and so much yarn and floss to use, plus all the crafts to get done that I have wanted to do, but have not so far. 

I love this time of the year!

Homemade - Cheaper and Better

So many times my friends and family members will comment that it's really not worth it to make things from scratch when you can purchase it from the store. My daughter always says, "Time is money" and she doesn't have the time to put into it. Yes, it is - to a point. I don't work outside the home and she does, so her time is quite valuable to her. Yet, if she is buying things that really don't take much to make, is she really getting the best for her money?

For example, let's talk about store bought Vienna Rolls. First, I had no clue that the store sold its bakery rolls by the pound! My local store sells the rolls at $4.80 a pound and this package of 6 rolls cost $4.50 for 15 ounces! (I guess you can tell that I don't buy bread or rolls much.)

When I make bread, my loaves run between 2-3 pounds and the cost of ingredients runs about 50 cents to 80 cents if I decide to make a more specialty bread. If I make a dough for a one pound loaf, roll it into balls and let it rise - my homemade rolls will cost 25 cents, plus I know exactly what is in them. The texture might be a little bit different (depending on the recipe/type of dough I make), however, everyone says they are so much better than store bought.

If one uses the kneading cycle on a bread machine or uses a mixer to mix and knead the dough, the only time spent is the time it takes to put the ingredients in the bowl or pan. The time that it takes to raise, one could be doing something else - so it's not really working on the rolls. Then there is the punching down and shaping the rolls and putting them on a pan. That takes just a few minutes. The are put aside to raise again, and again, one could be doing something else. Into the oven they go - and baking time is another amount of time that could be spend elsewhere. So really - how much time total is actually going into these rolls? There's 25 cents in ingredients, a few minutes spent putting them into a bowl and then shaping the dough. There is the cost of running the oven, but if planned correctly, one can bake something else at the same time. With 6 rolls, the savings wouldn't be so impressive if you figure minimum wage in. 15-20 minutes is about $2 of labor, however, that's counting the pay BEFORE taxes and other deductions.

If you were to double the amount of rolls baked at one time, you would have about 20-25 minutes invested, and about $3 of labor BEFORE taxes. Three dollars of labor plus 50 cents in ingredients for $9.60 worth of store bought rolls. My rolls will weigh a little more than the store bought ones, because I am using a recipe for a 2 pound dough. By making my own rolls, I've saved over $6 (not counting the energy cost of the oven since that will vary depending on what type one uses). That's about an hour of minimum wage pay AFTER taxes that you SAVED by making your own from scratch!

Is it worth making things from scratch? Yes it is, for 2 reasons...
1. I save money and
2. It tastes better!

One more interesting fact... your rolls would be considered Artisan rolls and that would up the value even more!

Trying New Breads - Sourdough & Sun Nut

Herman is now ready to use. His last "baby" feeding was yesterday, and he is now mature! This morning I had to decide which recipe I would use for our first official sourdough item. I had a few picked out, and then realized that the bread was low, so I found a sourdough recipe for our bread machine. So far, it looks good, and smells great! It will soon be baking in a few minutes. I can't wait to see how it turns out!

Sourdough Bread for Bread Machines

1 1/2 cups starter
1/3 cup milk
3 tbsp. melted butter
1 1/2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 cups flour
1 tsp. active dry yeast

Add ingredients in the recommended order for your bread machine. Set for 1 1/2 pound loaf. After bread is finished baking, allow to cool in pan 10 minutes before removing.

On Saturday, I tried another new recipe for my bread machine. I'm always looking for a healthier version to bread - something that will give some extra vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc. This one looked very interesting, and would have to have extra vitamin B because of the sunflower seeds. It turned out yummy - especially toasted!

Sun Nut Bread (from Electric Bread page 112)

1 1/4 cups water
2 Tbsp. dry Milk
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. honey
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
3/4 cup wheat flour
2 1/2 cups white bread flour
3 tsp. active dry yeast

Put all ingredients in your bread maker in the order according to manufacturer's instructions. If you use unsalted sunflower seeds, add a pinch more salt. Program your bread for white, but after the first kneading, allow to rise, then restart the machine again. This will give it an extra kneading for a finer texture bread. This makes a large 2 pound loaf.

Wheat Storage

I have been looking at different places on the net to find information on wheat storage. One of the best finds I had was on youtube.com. This man did a 3 part series on food storage, and has answered a bunch of questions for me. He also did a 2 part follow-up that also needs to be viewed. I had no idea that grains could be stored so long!



The forecast for this week calls for rain showers every day. I put my laundry in last night hoping I could miss the rain and hung out my first load a little after 6:30 am. I got quite lucky, and had things out until noon, when we got hit with rain. Things are mostly dry, so I have the damp items hanging around. I can't tell you how much I had missed the smell of things hung out to dry. Now, I can't wait to see the difference in our electric bill!

We are already on our last loaf of bread, so I took the rest of the morning to make some Honey Oatmeal bread. I used the recipe that I used for my bread maker in a previous post. I doubled the recipe and baked it in 2 large bread pans at 375 degrees F for around 35 minutes. They came out nice. I read that if you cut 2 small x's in the top of the bread, you won't get air bubbles and you'll end up with a nice rounded top. I tried it, and you can see the result for the rounded bread. HA! One went up - one went out. Now, we'll see if I ended up with any hollow spaces.



Now that our "official" school year is over, DD took the day to get out all her summer clothing and sort through them all. She pulled out what no longer fits, and some that were out of style, she decided to keep and revamp them - giving them a new look. She's been at the sewing machine all day, and has done some creative things to them. Other things, she altered to fit her better. She's my fashion diva!

It has been a really nice, productive day at the homestead. :)

Saturday Bread Baking

Yesterday turned out to be a nice day to bake bread. The morning was cool, and it was supposed to rain, so I wasn't planning on working outside. DH asked me to make muffins, but being low on milk and not being able to get it until Monday, made it pretty much impossible. The dairy only bottles milk on Mondays and Thursdays, so we wait until those days to get milk. It's a fresh as it gets. Thursday wasn't a possibility, because of the kids' evaluations, so we just decided to stretch it out instead of buying commercial milk.

I felt badly that DH wasn't getting his muffins, so I asked if he'd liked something like a Danish instead. Would you believe he had no idea what I was talking about. I felt just awful that all these years I was married to him that I never made him anything close to a Danish. What's worse is - my grandmother always made all kinds of yummy things, and I never did for my family. Well, that just had to change!

First thing I did was start 4 loaves of wheat bread. We ground the wheat - making it half red and half white hard wheat. While that was sitting in a bowl to rise, I did the dough for making a sweet dough braid filled with homemade preserves and cream cheese.

Peaches 'n' Cream Braid

Place the following in your mixer using the dough hook:

1 1/2 cups very warm water (110-120 degrees)
3 Tbsp. dry milk powder
2 cups unbleached flour
2 Tbsp. yeast

Mix on low until combined. Add:

3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. sea salt
3 eggs
3/4 cup oil

Mix until combined and then add unbleached flour - 1 cup at a time (up to 6 more cups). Add until you end up with a soft workable dough. Knead for 2 minutes with KitchenAid on #2 or on medium speed with another mixer for 5 minutes.

Turn out dough on a lightly floured surface and divide into 3 equal parts. (Weigh to get more accurate sizes). Roll each on into a 9" x 12" rectangle. Spread 1/3 of filling (see below for recipe) and approximately 1/2 cup of an all fruit peach preserve (really any flavor works with this recipe - we used homemade peach jam on 2 of them, and some homemade strawberry rhubarb on the other.) Make cuts into dough at 1" intervals along the long side of the rectangle - keeping about 1/2" away from the filling (this prevents leakage). Fold and overlap the strips diagonally over the filling in a braid-like fashion. Let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes to an hour. This braid doesn't raise much until it goes into the oven, where it will make a lovely size bread. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until done. Drizzle with a mixture of Confectioner's sugar, a little milk and a couple of drops of almond extract (make it a pretty thick spreading type consistency) while the braids are warm. You can also sprinkle with toasted sliced almonds.

Filling Mixture: Blend 8oz cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar and 1 Tbsp. lemon juice until smooth and creamy.

After I set aside the braids to rise, I shaped the wheat bread into 4 1-1/4 pound loaves. They rose and baked just in time to put the braids in. They all turned out lovely, and while I was getting things set up to take a photograph, the crew came in hungry for dinner, and spied the bread. So much for a photograph this time! LOL

**Graphic from http://www.grandmasgraphics.com **

Baking and Loving It!

The new KitchenAid mixer had become my new love. I have been putting it to the test, trying out new recipes and all I can say is that we are going to have a long and happy relationship.

We have been spending a lot of time finishing up the school year. The kids had their evaluations on Thursday, and all went very well. When they took the time to look at their portfolios, they were surprised at how much they really had accomplished in a year. When not working on school, I was working with our budget and coupons, and spending the rest of the time in the kitchen experimenting with new bread recipes.

The first recipe I made was the cheddar cheese cracker recipe from the manual that came with my KA. To say they turned out YUMMY is an understatement! These were fantastic!!! My husband was not looking forward to crackers since my last batch that turned out OK, but didn't stay crisp. This recipe put out a nice size batch, and my sweet hubby has asked me to make them again - soon.

Crispy Cheese Wafers

3 cups shredded extra sharp Cheddar Cheese
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon cayenne

Mix cheese and butter in bowl - using flat better to mix. Mix on low for about 45 seconds to combine. Beat on medium for about 30 seconds, or until well blended. Add flour and cayenne, and mix on stir for 45 seconds or until mixture forms a ball. (or stir in by hand - or low with another beater)

Divide dough in half. Wrap one half in plastic wrap and place in fridge. On floured surface, roll remaining half of dough to 1/4" thick. Cut into squares or desired shapes. With floured spatula, place on large, lightly greased baking sheet. (prick with fork if desired). Bake at 375 degrees F for 10-12 minutes or until set. Let stand one minute, then transfer onto wire racks to cool. Repeat with remaining dough.

We tried these at different points of "doneness": Baking until set - with hardly any color change, then with them being a bit golden, and some a darker golden. The lightly golden had the best flavor according to DH and myself, the darker golden was DD's favorite, and the one with hardly any color change was DS's favorite.

I also tried my hand at making French bread using Garden Gnome's recipe and instructions for making it in the KitchenAid. We were pleased with the results, but I have not found the exact bread I'm looking for yet. The search will continue on this one. I'm looking for more of the classic taste. DH was still very happy and ended up taking part of one for his lunch. He took a hoagie for lunch and said it made a nice tasting roll for it.

**Public domain image from United States Dept. of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. Photo by Scott Bauer.**

Who Loves Muffins?!

Our family is crazy about muffins. When I bake them, I make dozens. The gang is let loose on them and then we freeze the rest for quick snacks or to have with breakfast.

Raspberry-Filled Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips
1/4 cup raspberry jam

Beat , oil and egg together until well blended. Combine dry ingredients and stir into the liquid mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.


Fill muffin cups 1/3 full. Place 1 teaspoon jam on top of batter.


Top with remaining batter. Sprinkle with sugar if desired. Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes.


Cool - and enjoy!!

Getting Fall Plantings In

We were lucky to get the garlic in today before the rain. We allowed things to try as much as possible, but the ground was still wetter than we'd have liked it. It now is snuggly nestled under composted manure, straw and leaves - all ready to set roots and quietly hang out until spring. We also moved all the winter onions and replanted them, as well as a couple of horseradish plants. Not much left to do in the garden, except to put it to bed. I still have a few tomatoes to pick before the killing frost they are calling for this weekend, and a couple of carrots to still harvest, but that's it.

As you can see, the trees here are still green. This was taken from our backyard through the lilacs...


What is even more amazing is the peppers - here they are STILL producing.....


The milkweed pods are opening and they are drawing in some new friends - can you see one here? You have to look closely.

If not, maybe this picture will show them off better....

Every other Thursday is interrupted with a trip to take the kids to their biology lab, so I can't get involved with anything time consuming. It's about a 40 minute round trip, so I decided to put some bagels in the bread maker to try. I found a recipe on RecipeZarr that sounded quite good. I was quite surprised how easy they were. To think all this time I've been putting them off because they appeared to be more difficult than they actually are. They turned out nicely - and everyone here is insisting that we don't buy them from the store any more. (Note - if you see marks under the bagels - please ignore. I cooled them over the parchment paper I baked them on so I could catch all the wandering poppy seeds.)

Bread Baking

There is nothing like a homemade loaf of bread, and to have it warm with butter, is like having a slice of heaven on your plate. Besides the wonderful taste, baking your own bread is so much cheaper - easily getting 3 loaves of home made for the cost of one loaf of store bought. If you usually purchase the expensive whole grain breads, you will save even more to make your own.

I prefer the flavor and texture of kneading and baking the bread in the oven, however, there are times that I'm so busy or the kitchen work area is taken up with other things, that I can't easily make it like my grandma used to. A bread maker has been a great blessing on those days. I never realized that, until this past summer, our bread maker died and I was determined to do everything else and on top of getting the bread baking done. Canning jars were all over cooling or set to be filled, washed, etc. and every work space was loaded with something. Our kitchen is small and with no work area to knead, I really had to put things off. The freezer was full, so I couldn't bake bread and freeze it, so, we ended up buying bread. Yes, I hang my head in shame, because the stuff my dear husband brought home from the store was very expensive, and certainly didn't even resemble bread. It was awful - and a premium price.

My husband decided that enough was enough and surprised me with a very nice bread machine! So we are now back to home made and healthier bread - all the time. Everyone is truly thankful :)

This morning, I decided to get up extra early and start a loaf of raisin bread so when everyone got up they could have a nice hot piece before going about their daily duties. Usually, I will just set the timer so that the bread is done when we need it, but this recipe has milk in it, and the raisins are to be added at the second kneading. Yes, you can put them in at the beginning, but they get chopped up more, and just aren't as pretty to look at. Everyone was thrilled with waking up to the wonderful smells of cinnamon through the house.



Cinnamon Raisin Bread

1 1/4 cups warm milk
1 Tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons organic sugar
3 cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons yeast

Put all ingredients in pan in order listed or according to your maker's manufacturer's directions. Select the white bread setting and bake on light to medium color crust. Use the 1 1/2 to 2 pound loaf setting.

At the beginning of the second kneading (or at the beep) add:
2/3 cup raisins

When the bread has finished baking, I will take it out of the pan and put in on a cooling rack, and brush with butter, then allow to cool. By brushing the finished loaf with butter, you will end up with a nice soft crust.

After the raisin bread came out, I put in a loaf of my husband's favorite bread, Drew's Famous Onion Dill Bread. This recipe came from the DAK Turbo Baker IV recipe book. The DAK (which we fondly called R2D2) was our first bread machine, and that machine lasted over 10 years. It would have kept going, but the pan inside broke, and it cost much more to replace the pan than to just purchase a new bread maker. We then bought a Toastmaster that did well, but didn't last nearly as long - two if I remember correctly. We are now on our 3rd machine - a Sunbeam and it is working well and makes larger loaves.

Drew's Famous Onion Dill Bread

Mix together and warm until lukewarm:
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup cottage cheese
3/4 cup sour cream
3 Tablespoons organic sugar
3 Tablespoons minced onion
2 Tablespoons whole dill seed
1 1/2 Tablespoons butter

Pour the above mixture in your bread maker pan. Add:
1 unbeaten egg (room temperature)
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 1/3 cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons yeast

Bake on the white bread cycle using the light setting. Use 2 pound loaf setting. Remove from pan, place on wire rack and brush with butter.