Homemade Bread

I love the smell of homemade bread, it is among the greatest smells on Earth.  A couple weeks ago I found a bread maker at a garage sale for $8!  I am considering it the steal of the summer.  I started baking homemade bread every morning and it is Wonderful!  My kids will actually eat bread slices as a snack now.  It's especially good with a little butter and some homemade strawberry jam.  ☺

The base recipe for this bread is from the King Arthur Flour Company I added one ingredient but other than that it is the same. 

White Sandwich Bread
(add ingredients in this order)
4 Tbsp. Melted Butter
1/2 C. Cold Milk
2/3 C. Hot Water
3 C. Bread Flour
2 Tbsp Rye Flour
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 1/4 tsp. Salt
1 pkg Active dry yeast

place all wet ingredients in bottom of breadmaker pan, add dry ingredients on top, all except yeast.  Use spoon to make a small indent in the top of the dry ingredients, put yeast in there. 

Turn bread maker on to Dough Only, let it to it's thing, should take about 1 1/2 hours between kneading and rising.  Carefully remove dough from breadmaker pan and place in a lightly greased bread loaf.  Careful not to disturb too many air bubbles.  Bake at 350° for about 30 mintues or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped, the inside temperature of the bread should be 190°.  Remove bread from loaf and let cool on a wire rack.  Do no cut bread until completely cooled, it will cut much easier if you wait.  If you desire a softer crust rub a stick of butter gently over the top of the hot loaf until you have buttered the top completely (this only uses a little bit of the butter stick, set it back in the fridge and save it for your next loaf).

This bread is amazing.  I love it.  We use it for sandwiches and snacking.  It's so easy and with the breadmaker requires less than 10 mintues hands on time.  Which is Awesome!

Apricot Chicken

Tired of plain ol'chicken? Heres a new recipe to try! All you need is:

3 chicken breasts

1 small jar apricot jam

1 cup water

2 cups rice

2 Tablespoons dehydrated onions

Put the chicken in a 9x13 pan. Pour in the water and the rice around the edges. Sprinkle the onions on top of the chicken and rice. Then pour the apricot jam all over the top of the chicken and rice. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. (Baking times may vary, check your chicken and make sure it is cooked all the way through and the rice is done)

Enjoy! It is a very easy and delicious meal!

Bedroom Wall Decor

A few weeks ago we moved our T.V. downstairs into our "living room" that is currently acting as our bedroom. This move was done because it is pretty hot upstairs and we don't want to pay to have our air conditioning up very high :) Anyways I was feeling kinda like we didn't really have much of a bedroom so I decided to make some decorations to help it feel a little bit more like a bedroom instead of a bedroomlivingroomplayroom. Anyways I just painted some stripes that matched our bedspread. I think it turned out pretty cool. Anyways sometimes all it takes is a little bit of color on the wall to make it look great!

Toddler Bag/Purse

I made my daughter a purse the other day after she carried....well attempted to carry my purse around everytime we got ready to leave the house.

I have been kinda space cadet the last couple weeks and I totally spaced taking pictures as I made this bag. So here is a brief description of how I made it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

I found 2 pieces of fabric that matched and were about the size that I wanted for her bag. They were about 1 1/2 feet by 1 foot. I put the fabric so the right sides were facing each other. Then I sewed down the long sides. Then I flipped it right side out and folded it in half. I folded in the corners next to the folded line. Then I sewed a seam down the edges. I then folded down the top edge of the bag and sewed that around. Then I attached a big ribbon to both sides and added some cute little brown bows for decoration! Anyways, it was a pretty easy project and I pretty much just made it up as I went. :) Hope you can understand my directions!

Pulled Pork

I love Pulled Pork! It is good stuff! If you haven't tried it, you will have to get a pot of this going for dinner tomorrow night!

Pulled Pork

5 pound pork roast

Rub

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

2 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon salt

Mix together and rub all over your roast. Put in a crock pot and cook overnight on low. The next morning add:

1 can Coke

3 cloves minced garlic

1 cup chicken broth

1 clove (or ¼ teaspoon ground cloves)

1 small onion

Cook all day on low. About 1 hour before serving, shed the pork and add:

1 to 2 cups brown sugar

Serve on a bun for a pulled pork sandwich, use as a filling in enchiladas, taco salad, or eat it plain!

Enjoy!

Remodeling

In case you hadn't noticed, we're currently in the middle of a blog remodel.  Old posts might be a little hard to find, but we'll get everything sorted out soon.
Thanks for your patience!

Kristie and Holli

Garden

So the last time I showed you an update of my garden it looked something like this:

Look at it now:

It looks much more like a garden, yes?

And my backyard... is finally a yard!

I LOVE IT!

In my garden I have:

1 Acorn Squash

1 Butternut Squash

3 Zucchini Squash

3 Yellow Squash

4 Pumpkins

1 Cantelope

2 Watermellon

Several Cucumbers

3 half rows of corn

7 Roma Tomaotes

2 Basic Tomatoes

1 Cherry Tomato

1 Grape Tomato

8 Broccoli

3 half rows Lettuce

5 Banana Pepper

5 Bell Pepper

1 half row radish

a Few green beans

and over 100 Yellow Onions

Needless to say I do not plan on buying vegetables in the grocery store for the entire summer.

Bathroom Storage Solution

Is it really June 15th? I've really been slacking haven't I? Sorry. I've never been so busy in my life as I am this summer.
Anyway now for the only project I've had time for in the last couple week....

Remember this shelf?

Well in recent months it just hasn't been doing it's job very well. My daugther ripped the doors off, don't ask me how... then she covered it in stickers and crayon. It looked terrible. So I bought her a new and better toy storage unit and I took this ugly bookshelf and repurposed it.

Into a beautiful bathroom storage solution.

I managed to get all the stickers off, cleaned it up the best I could and covered it in a really nice black glossy paint. Now...as you can see I use it to store all my bathroom needs from towels to cleaners to candles and colognes. I love it.

Plus it fills that terrible empty void in my bathroom and makes it feel more...complete.

Super Easy and Amazing BBQ Chicken

Sorry I've been kinda slacking on the blog the last few weeks. My husband (he's in the USCG) recently got orders to the USCG Cutter Forward. He's visiting places like Spain and several countries in Africa for the summer. Unfortunately that leaves me home alone for a while with the kids, the dog, the yard, the house, and my schooling. So crafting has kind of taken a back seat in my life for a few months.

I did, however, make the most amazing BBQ chicken for dinner last night that I wanted to share. This is actually a recipe for a Dutch Oven (ya know the big cast iron pot used when camping...) but I made mine in the oven last night and it worked just fine.

If using a Dutch Oven use 8 Charcol on Bottom and 14 Charcol on top, have extra charcols ready, you'll need to replace them once or twice.
If using your home oven, preheat oven to 350°.

Dutch Oven BBQ Chicken

1 Tbsp Olive Oil
3 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts, tenderized just a little.
1/2 C. Ketchup
1/2 C. Vinegar
1/2 C. Brown Sugar
1/2 C. Water

Heat oil in Dutch Oven, or large pot with lid. Add Chicken and brown on both sides, don't cook it all the way though, just brown the outside. Pour remaining ingredients on top and stir. Cover and bake in oven for 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours until the chicken is done and tender (mine shredded really easy after an hour in the home oven). Stirring every 20 mintues.

This dinner is REALLY good with some potatoes, I like the red "new" potatoes the best. Last night I just used russets and I also served it with some purple cauliflower. (You should try this cauliflower, no I didn't dye it. You can find it in the produce section of your grocery store, there is purple, green, orange and white. It's really good. Healthy for you too.)

4 Seasons, finally with Glitter

I finally got the glitter on my SPRING blocks. I think it looks much better with the glitter, it gives it that finished touch! What do you think?