Stamp Room

Did some organizing in my stamp room. It's nice to have things a little more organized. 

Make your own dishwasher soap

Here is a super easy recipe for making your own dishwasher soap:

1 box borax

1 box of washing soda

3 cups of epsom salt

24 packages of lemonade koolade

Mix these together and use 1 tablespoon per load.

Four in One Bread Dough

Basic White Bread - 2 loaves 

 

1 1/2 tsp yeast

1/2 c. lukewarm water

2 tsp honey

Mix and proof

 

In a large bowl put:

 

1 3/4 c. lukewarm water

3 tbsp honey

4 tbsp melted butter

*7 c. flour  add at end little at a time

1 tbsp salt

 

Add top mixture to 2nd mixture minus the *flour. 

Add 3 c. of the flour and add more till you get a kneadable dough...knead for five min.  

Spray and cover, let raise 1 hr.  Punch down and divide in 2 loaf pans spray and cover. 

Let rise till one inch above the rim of the pan. 

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees bake 40-45 min, remove to racks.

 

Variations:

 

For rye bread replace 2 1/2 c. of the flour with rye flour.

After the 3 c. of the flour are stirred in with next flour addition add 2 tbsp caraway seeds.  

Before last rising, brush loaves with water and sprinkle with caraway seeds. 

Let rise and continue as above (basic white)

 

Cinnamon raisin swirl

 

Before the 2nd time adding flour, add 1 c. raisins and make like basic white as it rises last time.  Mix half c. sugar and 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon when you roll out dough. 

Spread with water and sprinkle mixture over leaving a half inch border using 1/2 for each loaf roll up as for cinnamon rolls but instead of cutting put in prepared loaf pan and finish like for basic white.

 

Multi-grain

 

Replace 4 c. flour with 3 c. wheat flour and 1 c. rye flour. 

Soak 1/2 c. bulgur in 1/2  c. warm water for 20 min.  

Set aside add 1 1/2 c. of water instead of the 1 3/4 c. 

Before the 2nd addition of flour, mix in the bulgur mixture and 1/2 c. rolled oats old fashion and 1/4 c. flax seeds and 1/4 c. raw sunflower seeds.  brush tops with the egg wash (egg white with a little water) and sprinkle with oats and sunflower seeds rise and bake like for basic white.  

I made a few changes, I used half cup of rye flour instead  and next time I make it I want to try it without. I changed the half cup of bulgar to half cup of seven grain cereal and soaked it and omitted the rolled oats and the flax seed as they were in the cereal. Those were the changes I made in the pic with the grain on top of the bread and that was the seven grain cereal. I did not soak. Sunflower nuts on the top of this was fantastic bread. And one more thing, when making wheat bread of any kind put equal amounts of vinegar in as you do yeast. 

 

 We tried the the cinn swirl bread and it was fantastic, I used splenda in the swirl part and it was excellent. 

 

the other recipe we used was 

 

Sister Miller's Featherlight dinner buns....make a mix style

 

Into a 2 qt plastic bowl place:

3 3/4 c. flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

 

Into a gallon plastic bag place:

1 tbsp dry yeast

1/3 c. dry milk powder

1/2 c. sugar

2 c. flour

 

Zip bag shut and place in bowl with flour

When ready to make rolls in a large mixing bowl put:

2 c. hot tap water

1 stick butter

 

Add contents of bag and mix well making a batter, sprinkle flour mixture on top of batter but do not mix in yet. 

Let set until batter doubles in size and large cracks form in the dry flour. 

Mix now & mix well.

 

Knead on oiled surface till smooth and satiny (about five min). Form into 35 balls and brush with melted butter, if balls are to be frozen make into balls and freeze. Now otherwise place on baking sheet in a warm place until light and have about doubled in size 2 - 2 1/2 hrs.

 

When ready to use frozen, place on baking sheet and let rise until size to cook 6-8 hrs.

 

Bake for 14 to 16 min until brown at 400 degrees, do not over bake.

 

Sis. Miller says that these can be made white, or using half white half wheat or can be done whole wheat.

 

The same day you bake these they are so light and airy and wonderful.

 

Definitely these recipes are going to be in my favorites. 

Visit With The Grandkids!

Our grandkids, Mckenzie and Riley, came up from Florida for a visit! We had a great time taking them on picnics to the park. I can't wait to see them again!

Canning Chicken & Drying Mushrooms

I canned 40 pints of chicken. It is a wonderful thing to have and a great addition to your food storage.

Mushrooms were on sale. They were very easy to dry. I washed them, sliced them with an egg slicer and laid them on the trays. Out of 20 boxes I got a gallon jar full and almost a quart jar more! 

Harvesting Yarn

Recycling older or unused sweaters is a great way to get cheaper yarn. You can find a more in-depth tutorial here

Preserving your children's artwork

I got this idea from my good friend, Liza. Since I love primitive stitchery, I thought this would be a great way to display my kids' artwork. I traced the artwork with a pencil on muslin using a window or a light box. Once it's traced, I chose the same embroidery floss colors that the children used in their artwork. When the embroidery was done I covered a cookie sheet with tin foil and laid the muslin over it. Then I boiled a cup of water and put two or three tea bags in the cup and let soak for a few minutes. When that was ready I took the tea bags and used them like a sponge, dabbing water from the tea cup onto the muslin till the whole surface was wet. Put the cookie sheet with the muslin on it into the oven and set it to bake at the lowest setting. Check the muslin ever 10 minutes until it is dry. Then take it out of the oven and remove it from the tin foil. All that's left to do is frame it!  

The hands I had traced off some individual artwork off projects from school. I made it as a Christmas present to ourselves. 

When Laura was four the story was her Family Home Evening lesson that she gave to all of us. In the original she used a real leaf that we still have taped to the paper we helped her to write it on.  

This was self-portrait of my youngest daughter, Sarah. I used the same colors that she did right down to the freckles. 

On the left is a snowman Laura drew, once again I used the same colors she did, hence the brown snowman. On the right is a drawing Sarah did of our visit to Kennebunkport, Maine where we played on the beach and fed the seagulls.