Tuesday, August 30, 2011

I don't know what I'm doing!

This blogging thing is new to me, hopefully the simplicity will be appreciated!
These pictures are from Kian's baptism. Grandma Irene actually gave Kian a copy of the picture in the background.

These were taken the day of Kian's baptism at our house.





8th Birthday, 2010
Kian's 8th birthday. He had a great cake and you can hardly tell Kaleah tried to drive the train around the cake!

Kids at Christmas 2010.




Halloween 2010. I couldn't get a good picture of Kaleah's face and her costume at the same time. She was a gypsy.
This was the good old days. Now she won't even sit in a highchair.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Homemade Bread

I have been trying to find a bread recipe that is healthy for my family and will work in the mixer I already have (Professional Kitchenaid) and not have a lot of weird ingredients. My mixer can handle up to 11 cups of flour. I found this recipe, but I had to change it. Nothing I was finding had what I wanted exactly. I used half the honey from the original. I have been adding 1 to 2 cups white flour so as not to put my family's digestive tracks into a tizzy since not all of the bread we have been eating is whole wheat.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/simple-whole-wheat-bread/detail.aspx
So here is my altered version.

Whole Wheat Bread

3 cups warm water
2 pkgs dry yeast or 4 1/2 tsp
1/3 cup honey
4 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat gluten flour
1/4 powdered milk
3 T melted butter
1 T salt
up to 3 1/2 cups flour (part white and part wheat if desired)

Mix water, yeast and honey. Then add the 4 1/2 cups of flour, the gluten flour and powdered milk and mix well.
Mix in the melted butter and salt. Add 2 more cups of flour. Add as much more of the flour as you can by kneading it in the machine or by hand. It will still be sticky when you are done but easier to work with. Place in greased bowl, turning once. cover and let rise to double. If you use instant yeast, it may not take very long.
Depending on how full you want the loaves to be, you can divide into 2 or 3 loaves. Shape into a loaf and place into greased 9x5 pans. Let them rise covered with a damp paper towel until double or and inch above the rim of the pan for the small loaf and a little higher for the big loaf. Use your judgement on this, pans vary.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees. 25-30 minutes for the small loaves and about 40 minutes for the big ones.