The Bread

I had some questions about the sourdough bread recipe I use. First let me say, I am NO professional bread baker. In fact, I'm not even a beginner. I'm whatever comes before beginner!! HA! I was not too successful in my previous bread-baking escapades from last year. I maybe got it right once. But it must the these pregnancy hormones. Because every night in bed (you know, after my huge dinner AND couple of rounds of desserts) all I can think about is a fresh, hot loaf of sourdough bread with butter on it. And yes, the real butter - not my fake spray butter I use sometimes! Oh, my mouth is watering just thinking about it now!

This is the same recipe my mom used when I was growing up! She had it down pat....I mean, down to a science. Every loaf was perfect!

Sourdough Bread Starter

1 package dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons instant potato flakes (basically 1/4 cup)

Mix yeast with 1/2 cup of the warm water. Combine sugar, remaining one cup of warm water and potato flakes. Stir. Add yeast mixture, stirring again. Cover loosely with foil or plastic wrap (punch holes in cover). Let mixture stand all day. Refrigerate that night. After three days, take it out and feed it.

Sourdough Feeder

1 cup warm water
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons instant potato flakes

Mix all ingredients, then add to starter. Allow starter to stand out of refrigerator all day. Mixture shouldn't rise, but will start to bubble. At the end of the day (or 12 hours), remove one cup of starter o use in making bread. (If not making bread, give one cup of starter away or throw it away.) Return remainder to refregerator. After 3-5 days, feed again.

Sourdough Bread

1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup starter
6 cups of bread flour

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, stirring with a wodden spoon until a stiff dough is formed. (You can use your bread hook on you standing mixer) Oil another large bowl. Put dough in oild bowl, then turn dough over so oiled side of bread is on top. oil a large peice of wax paper, cover bowl with oiled wax paper, then cover with a towel. Allow oto stand overnight, or until dough has doubled in volume.
Punch dough down. Knead 3-4 times (too much kneading will release gasses needed for rising). Divide dough into two equal portions. Place each portion in a greased 5 inch by 9 inch loaf pan. Let rise all day, or until doubled . Bake on bottom rack of 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes. REmove from pans and brush with melted butter. Cool bread on a rack. If bread runs over sides of pan, next time make three loaves from this recipe.


Tips (yeah, I know tips from a less than beginner)

1. I used a big glass pickle jar with holes in the lid to hold my starter.
2. I used my bread hook on my kitchen aid mixer to mix the dough. Then left it in the bowl, sprayed it with pam, sprayed some saran wrap with pam and loosely covered it.
3. I left mine in the oven with the light on to rise - gives it just a little heat.
4. Salt kills yeast. So don't add those to ingredients right on top of each other. I add the salt in the middle of the flour, then add the starter last.

My biggest problem was it not rising enough while I cooked it. Well, the first loaf always turned out okay, it was always the subsequent loaves. I could never find a reason for this and kept up my starter as best I could. I decided to start over, with fresh new ingredients. Also, I'm hoping the soon to be more humid days will help with the rising. I also plan on trying to cook only one loaf at a time. Two loaves was just too much for me. Plus, I couldn't give it away or eat it fast enough and was wasting money. They say that the starter has to "get used" to your house. That the longer you have it going, the better it gets. So it can take some time. I've heard of people having starters for YEARS and years and years. Crazy, huh. You can't forget about it...it's like a pet. It'll die if you don't feed it!


So go ahead, my fellow bakers! Give it a try! And then let me know how it turns out! :-)

FYI

When you know your son has a double header soccer game his first day of soccer ever, BRING A CHAIR! I don't know what I was thinking...standing there for hours. And knowing I was going to stand some more...whew, I learned my lesson.

But, wasn't it a GORGEOUS weekend. Finally, it just makes me HAPPY! All that sunshine! And I have a nice u-shaped sunburn, right on the middle of my chest...bright red, staring at everyone. Hopefully I can get it evened out soon. :-)

Landon had his first soccer game. And after only 2 practices, everyone thought it went much better than expected! Robert was an awesome coach. Landon, well, he kinda wanted to wrestle around out there more than play. But he did very well!



It was so nice to hang out with friends this weekend....and be able to keep the kids outside! What a difference it makes! We also went to Bruster's (I think they're starting to know us there now) Friday night. They were sure to remind us (of course, I was already on top of it!) that Saturday night was PJ night and if you wore your PJs you got a FREE waffle cone! Not a shabby one either..big, huge, yummy waffle cone! So you bet your bottom we were there in our PJs! And were treated to one monstrous ice cream cone!

Continuing our "stay outside the whole weekend" weekend, we celebrated a birthday at the park Sunday afternoon. Another gorgeous day. I'm so ready for this weather. Except, when cluttering my room with spring/summer clothes on Saturday, I had a complete meltdown. I mean, crying and all. (darn hormones) Nothing fit. (I guess that's what you get in the second trimester!) But you know when you're pregnant and you don't like things to fit the same way when your not pregnant. Not that I'm huge, but I've hit that point where everything's uncomfortable. Maternity clothes don't even look right on me yet. And it's not fun to go through pretty much all your clothes with no luck on anything fitting. It's quite depressing. For some reason this time around, I'm having a hard time embracing the physical changes that come with pregnancy. Usually, everyone is so excited to have a little belly and start showing. Ugh, not me this time. I dread getting on that darn scale, or trying on clothes that used to be big and now aren't. I'm sure I'll come around. But going up and down, up and down, 3 (and now 4) times...it's hard.

Ok, sorry about that rant. I've just hit that really awful "in between stage".


No pics of Olivia today..she was at the lake all weekend! But even in nice weather, pictures turn out better!!!




Mmmm...strawberries!



Love that shot (above) of Landon! Wind in hair, nice bright sky! Have I told you I LOVE this weather!?

Lucky Day

The icecream man showed up at the park today....and it was Olivia's treat! Yum!

Parenting Tip #133 and #134

#133 - Don't let a baby (who you knows loves lipstick) find a bag full of red tubes of lipstick.

#134 - WD-40 has special powers.



We all know how much Lillian just loves lipstick. So I can't say I was shocked when she found a bag of lipsticks (given as a gift) and play Leonardo da Vinici in her room.

I found about 20-30 red lipstick stains all over the girls' (semi-white) carpet in their room. Now, I did not freak out too much because the carpet was a bargain carpet from an outlet store and I spent the little $$ I spent on it knowing that I could part with it one day because it was nice and "loved" on. :-)

BUT, I also didn't want to leave the stains there.

So I summoned my stain fighting weapon of choice - WD-40.

The first try:





Oh my goodness, I think it worked. But that wasn't a big one.

Try #2 - this one was a doozy - nice and dark:



OMG....it came clear out!

One more try - I cannot believe my eyes!


Ah, WD-40, you will stay a dear, close friend. You're many talents are multiplying through the years! And to that mother at chick-fil-a who made fun of me when I said WD-40 was going to take the lipstick stains out - well, you should really think before you speak next time!

Now the million dollar question is how to get nail polish out of Lillian's dress. Because she tried to paint her toenails yesterday. (And yes, I already tried the WD-40 AND Goof off!)

Club Pub

I haven't posted any of my savings in a while. I've been doing my Publix shopping (cutting ANY corners we can these days!) and it's been going really well. I find myself less and less at Walmart - praise the Lord! And my weekly trips to Publix have been in the $20-$30 range per trip!! :-)



Total before savings: $98.04

Coupon savings: $28.49

Sale savings: $32.94

Total out of pocket: $36.61


This made the yogurts $0.33/each, bags of frozen biscuits $0.70 each! The veggies were practically pennies a bag, granola bars and cereal $1.00/box.

The only things that I got that weren't on sale or that I didn't have a coupon for were some bread flour (yes, I'm attempting my sourdough bread recipe again and have to get the starter going again!) and some potato flakes (to feed the starter), and the eggs - which I guess were on sale..they were a great price!


Also, has anyone else noticed the lack of really good CVS deals lately? They just haven't lured me in. I hope next week is good, because I have some ECBs I need to use!! :-)