Monday Message

"There is still much in life to be hopeful about and grateful for." Jeffrey R. Holland

Yes there is!!!

The way things are right now won't always be this way...We should not give up, we should not despair!!! When we have our darkest time and things look too hard, roll up your sleeves instead of throwing in the towel.

Learn to make do. Play with your kids. Learn to do something fun as well as learn a skill. I know someone who learned to watercolor and she does a really good job. What have you always wanted to learn (within the current parameters)?

If you have been laid off, use this time to create a business. What is needed that you can do? If needed, learn things, research online. Only you can stop you from learning and even if you still will have a job, learn to increase your skills.

I like to have bread mixes made up ahead of time. I put one and a fourth cups water (I just use cold from my tap) in bread machine but if you don't have one, not to fret! Just put it in a bowl to mix by hand. I just dump in my machine and set to dough setting and let it rise till it is higher than the pail lid in my machine and that can take a little over an hour. 

When I have done this by hand, I stir in bowl and knead it right in the bowl you mixed it in but only flour your hands, do not add flour to your dough. Then I cover and let it sit for an hour then, in both cases, I take it and flatten the dough and form a rectangle as wide as the pan is from end to end and a bit longer then that so you get a rectangle. Then I roll up end to end, pinch a seam and place that seam side down in the sprayed or greased bread pan. 

Spray or grease the top, cover and let rise. I preheat my oven to 350 degrees while it rises. When it is one inch over the top of the rim of the pan, I uncover and put in oven and bake for forty minutes. Remove it from the pan onto a cooling rack. I then butter the top of the hot loaf.

When I have it flat in rectangle, I sprinkle with sugar then sprinkle with cinnamon. I also sprinkle a few raisins and then roll it up, only I pull it a bit so I get more swirls and continue like the other.

So in this jar I have:

3 cups all purpose flour (you can use bread flour)
3 tsp of vital wheat gluten (omit if using bread flour)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
One handful of oatmeal
2 1/4 tsp of yeast, I give a stir at the top so yeast isn't on top
2 tbsp veg shortening

That is what is in the jar shown here.

Then when my loaf is cool, I slice the whole loaf up at once and I use an electric knife though you don't have to, I just like the look better. The reason I do the whole loaf at once is after a couple days if you slice as you go it will crumble.

I store my yeast in the freezer, you should too. I keep a quart jar of yeast in the refrigerator...this is my using jar. I make a loaf like this about every four or five days but there is just the two of us.

I have noticed yeast is hard to find right now so go back to last week's blog and check out sourdough - http://frugalmeasures.blogspot.com/2020/05/monday-message_18.html

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-itm-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=itm&p=how+to+cut+hair#id=1&vid=d33d271016c6dbf91cdc62d5ce065c91&action=click
- this has tons of videos on cutting hair as we are all still inside pretty much, you may find this helpful.

https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=267287 - this took a lot to find, this recipe makes the best flour shells though the picture doesn't do it justice, if you roll even thinner they make great wraps.

Gus says have you run out of crackers?

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/258126/homemade-crackers/

https://www.almanac.com/recipe/old-fashioned-soda-crackers#

Missy says she would rather have muffins...https://www.littlehouseliving.com/chocolate-muffin-mix-recipe.html

Missy says stay in and be safe!