"Dud" bread = Home made Grilled Flat bread sandwhich

I love baking bread, as you probably already know. Well even I have days that they just don't work. Sometimes is because, as mentioned in my previous post, I unknowingly killed the yeast. Others, well it's just not a good bread day. When it is super humid outside, it can appear to be done after only 5 cups of flour. If I don't add the rest anyways, it just won't raise. So what do you do with dud bread? Well if it didn't raise the first time I'm usually at a loss for what to do. I use it for pizza dough most often, OR this last time I tried some flat breads.

Yes I tried something new, imagine that lol. I decided to try a few things. First I tired to make tortilla shells with them. I rolled them out really thin and fried them in a dry pan. Well they were good with some butter and jelly on them, but were to stiff to roll. So I decided to try baking them next. I separated the dough into smaller dough balls. I got 2 - 3 per loaf of bread. I rolled them into a rectangular shape at thin as possible. I than cut them in half, so I had two rectangles in a 4"x6" shape. I had made some onion/garlic butter to spread on it (chop some onion and garlic and put in some melted butter) after I placed it on the pan. Than I baked it on 350, just till cooked, NOT too brown. Coat with more onion/garlic butter when they come out, BOTH sides this time.

So for the filling, YUM..

Boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked and sliced into strips. Fry some bacon, than use the grease to partially cook some onion, garlic, green peppers and mushrooms, you can also brown the chicken strips in it. Cook them for a few minutes DO NOT COOK all the way. You want to leave a crunch. When they are perfect fill up your flat bread. Fold it in half, layer some cheese first ( I used provolone for chicken), than add the bacon and meat vegi mix. I added some Feta cheese on top, it was on sale and I had it so YUM...

I used my George Foreman Grill to grill it like a panini. Be sure to make the opening towards the back, so your stuff doesn't all fall out. Grill it, press it flat in there, until it's nice and toasty looking. Than you can take it out and add pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, and dressing. Ranch or even some Sweet Vadalia Onion dressing is really good (it's in the dressing section, made by "Kens") YUM.

You can vary the meats but what you have left over. We tried some corned beef last night. I left out the onions and used Swiss cheese instead. It was still good, but not AS good as the chicken. The chicken were SO good, hubby wanted them again yesterday LOL.

Yesterday I tried it with a good dough, and it really worked better with the "dud" bread. They got too thick, they were still GOOD. I made some extras and threw them in the freezer for a quick lunch. So if you want to try some, my bread recipe is here.

Winter Blaaaaaaas....

I know we still have a month or so to go, but this year the winter is really bumming me out. I guess maybe because I'm stuck in the house more. I mean last winter I was very pregnant and going out to the doctor all the time it seemed. This year I have no appointments. In an effort to save gas and not have to cart all 4 kids out, we've condensed alot of activities. On Monday nights when our kids have their music, they alot of times ride with their Aunt (who lives around the corner). I really like to go and get out, but dragging 4 kids, just is daunting. Only the older 2 have a class, so that leaves the younger 2 to run in circles and be board lol. David is the biggest challenge. At 3 1/2 he's not to keen on sitting still and being quiet. Now Abigail (who will be a year old on Sat!!!) is very mobile and has learned there is a door she can run thru... I go when I can, and miss it when I don't.

So our shopping day is our only day out, really. Thankfully my nieces live close, so I can leave some or all of the kids with them to go shopping. It doesn't always work out that way, but when it does, it's a HUGE relief. Have you taken a 3 yr old into a store? YIKES. He just has to much energy for me. If it was just him, I wouldn't be so crazy, but with Abigail, who is not sure she likes the cart anymore...... I'm not complaining about having 4 kids, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't trade them for anything, (but maybe more sleep?? just kidding) but being that we homeschool, I need a break at least once in a while LOL. So I can't wait for summer. I can sit on the patio and watch them run off some energy. They seem to think the house is a gym and the couch is a jungle gym. I can't blame them really, they are kids.......

OK, so enough complaining....

Is it Spring yet???

Well we got our first bill since putting in the Geo-thermal. Of course it was for the move previous, so we know how much we hope to save. Our Gas and electric together was $525, yikes... They came by yesterday and read the meter, so we will see how it works out. They estimated it last month. I'm not sure if that means they will give us a refund or what, ha I know, probably not... But I am anxious to see the difference..

So we are back into the singles and teens for temps around here. It's 10 degrees right now. BRR. It got down to singles over night.

Well I better go dig something out for supper. I'm thinking pork chops and rice maybe??? Hmm you think I could bring the grill inside?? lol, no I'll wait till it's warmer outside. I know it's on our patio and I COULD use it, but I would freeze....

sigh

Is it spring yet??

An update on the Geo-thermal...

If you live anywhere near the North east, you've experienced some of this extreme weather we've had lately. We have been in the negatives at least at night for the last week, at least. We were lucky to get above 20 today. Of course we aren't even the worst. Mark was in the Quad cities and it was in the -20's and the windchill in the -40's. That's COLD!! Well we of course had our geo-thermal running and thought I would give you all an update on how it worked....

We live in a very old house. We've been doing alot of work to it, since we bought it. New roof, siding, insulation, windows. We even had new duct work put it, since there wasn't any in the 2nd floor before. That said, it's still an old house and still has alot of leaky places. All along the foundation, along the floor you can feel the cold air. We have some floor boards missing that leak air. It's far better than it was. That said our gas furnace has a hard time keeping up when it gets below 0 degrees outside. Well the geo-thermal had a hard time under 10 degrees. Not because it froze or anything, but just because the house leaked so much it just dropped the temp to fast. You see the geo-thermal is more of a constant heat. It runs more often and takes longer to bring up a temp. The gas furnace you turn it on and it blast hot air and warms it up faster. That is why you have to have a back-up source of heat. Most units have an electric backup. It kicks on when the temp drops to fast and warms it up. The Geo takes over and keeps it there. Well we have a new gas furnace, we had to put one in when we moved here, so we opted to use that instead. All it means is, when it drops below 10 outside esp if the windchill is lower, we have to turn the gas on and the geo off to warm the house up. I mean it was dropping 5 degrees in an hour when it was REALLY cold out. So we did have to use some gas, but all in all, we're still happy with it. It saved us a bundle already. We only had to run it for probably 1 day total since we put it in. Mostly at night. A gas furnace would've been running constant with these temps.

So our next big project??? Well figure out how to fix the foundation so it doesn't leak so bad. Maybe we can put a basement in?? Who know at this point. We're still considering our options.

Stay warm!!!!

Rice soup...

is NOT good. Yup I tried it and it just was NOT a good thing. I had some chicken and rice that I had made, used homemade broth and everything. Well the leftovers I thought might make go farther if I made into soup. So I added more broth some vegi's and water, and well it didn't get any farther than the trash. It just was not good. Unlike barley rice get's blander as it cooks. The broth was fine, but the rice was just to blah. I cooked it in lots of flavor and it was great as a casserole type dish. Soo it went into the trash and we had PB & J instead. The kids all tried it, but it just wasn't good. SO I advise don't try this at home LOL. Maybe if there was less rice and potatoes maybe??? but just rice, don't waste your time or food.

TTFN

Our snow bank is heating our house!!

Well kind of lol. Actually our Geo-Thermal is now up and running. It's been running all day, and our house is warm, so IT'S WORKING YAY!!! That means, our home has stayed 70 degrees all day, and it's only been in the 20's outside. We haven't used ANY gas...

(Ok that was suppose to wave, but maybe it won't)

So now our home is all green. Well after I get a better washer machine, that's NEW and saves water and all. (It's making a strange noise, not sounding so healthy right now. I hope it makes it.) So as of Jan 1, 2009 we are running without gas to heat our home. Our range and water heater are gas, but that's it!! I want one of those sign for my front yard that say

"This home is heated and cooled by the EARTH"

I'll keep track of our bill and be sure to report the difference. I will also get some pictures up of our project. I have some sorting to do.. I took a TON..

Hope you all have a Happy New Year!!

Snow pictures!!

Our bird feeders in the back yard are always full of birds, unless of course, I open the door to take a picture LOL.

Note the glimpse of the bottom step you see. The snow is above it by a ways.

Abigail found an Oreo. Goodness did she like it LOL.

This was in a shallow spot between the house and camper. But still plenty deep.

The bird feeders and houses on our front porch attract lots of birds. It's so nice to sit and watch them while we do our school This one has a really pretty black and white one on it. They move so fast I had a hard time getting a good picture of them.

Dec. 23,2008

Well a little update, Yes a sugar free day or two is possible and YES you feel like crap (thanks for the warning Mandi). But I feel much better now. After you get over the hump of the de-tox of sorts I feel much, much better. The fog in my brain went away. Now staying that way, isn't so easy. It's so hard to not grab a cookie or two as a quick snack. So we went shopping and stocked up on some fresh fruits and vegi's. When your on the run and need to grab on the go, even harder. Fast food just doesn't offer much in the way of healthy food, but we all knew that right???

The pancakes where awesome. I've made them a few times since, I'm getting some strawberries to try in them. The possibilities are endless. I think that's why I love cooking so much. The possibilities go as far as you can imagine. I never take a recipe and follow it exact, why be normal???

Have any of you been stuck in this snow? I measured a minute ago and we have 13" of snow on the ground, most of it came down in one day. It's been snowing daily for the last week and we are expecting another 5-10" in the next day.. We've already got over 3 times more snow by this date last year. WOW, it's going to be a white winter. I'm hoping hubby gets that Geo-Thermal done soon... He's almost there. It's been sooo cold outside, he was welding and cutting in my backroom. I had to put up a blanket so the smells didn't get not the rest of the house. Hopefully by the first of the year it will be up and running. Doing it in his spare time, really makes it take longer. Can't wait, when that's done we will have a "green home". Between the Low-E windows, blown insulation (made from newspaper) and the Geo-thermal we are there!! YAY..



Here's another "green" idea.

What are they you ask?? Well we come from a family of hunters. Although hubby wasn't able to hunt this year (he had time, but opted for family time instead..) Many Uncles hunt and when they have as many as they want in there freezer, they offer them to family to process. Soo this year we got a deer from his uncle, cut it up and froze as much of the meat as possible. We use it just like beef. It's healthier since it's free range. On top of the meat we got, i boiled the bones and hard to clean pieces for broth. I buy it all the time, why not make my own. So we brought home the bones, neck and ribs and put them in a pan with some onion, celery, garlic and salt and pepper. I put it in the oven on 350 for, oh I don't even know how long, all day.. Used some cloth to strain it and pick the bigger chunks of meat from it. I than froze the broth. Well aside from alllll of that, I also kept the suet from the deer as we cut it. The fat is what they make those nice square chunks with bird seed you can buy at the store (they usually use cow, but pig and deer work as well). So I made my own. They have alll kinds of varieties, the citrus one caught my eye. Since we have a box of grapefruit, we saved the skins from them. After I melted the suet in the oven, mixed birdseed in it, I stuffed the peelings with the mix. I set them outside and froze them. I now have home made bird feeders. We love watching the birds on our front porch. Now with the cold weather it's even more important to feed them. So Suet bird feeders.... I put the rest in my large rectangular pan and later cut them into squares, I store them in the freeze and fill my wire mesh holders as needed.

This post is getting quite long. I guess I should post more often. So I'll add some pictures to the next post.

Here's a link to a previous post I wrote about the Christmas Holiday. If you are interested in seeing our point of view, you can find the post here.

To check out my blog on living healthy and green click here. I am trying to post a new green tip weekly. I will try harder to keep up with it. I have all these ideas, but they are getting left in my head LOL.

TTYL, I'll post some winter pictures for you in my next post.