Have flour?? Make bread!!!

I am pulling up an old favorite!!  I think it may come in handy in the coming months for many.

How to make homemade White Bread!!

I personally use bread flour, however if you only have All purpose I strongly recommend at least sifting it.  If you don't have a 'real' sifter, use a strainer with small holes or whatever you have on hand to help loosen up any clumps!

I use a basic bread recipe for many things:

*Pizza (add less flour for a thinner crust)
*Rolls (make balls and raise them in a muffin pan or on a cookie sheet)
*Cinnamon rolls (that is shown in the link below)
*Cinnamon raisin bread
*Of course loaves of white bread.

This is my recipe:  I find it is very similar if not the same as many recipes I find related to Amish breads.

2 1/2 c. hot to touch water
2 T (or 1 pkg) dry yeast
2T sugar
2t salt
1/4c. oil
3 c. flour

Step by steps instructions are on my post from 2007 (back when I was not allergic to cinnamon.. sigh!!)

Homemade White bread

Enjoy!!

Banana Bread

I have been working on getting my recipes all typed out and into a printable format.  I even made a goal to print a cookbook for at least my family....  for a few Christmas's ago lol..

Many of my favorites are posted on this blog already so I am consistently referring friends and family and decided THIS is where I should focus!

For those who have never seen my blog before, it was really active quite a few years ago, a quick search should find you a few good recipes to try!   Life changed and my posting slowed down but it's time to finish what I started, more recipes that use up ingredients you can actually find in the stores!!

Here is one I get asked for often!!

This recipe will work well if you use GF flour blend in place of the Flour listed here as well!

Cornbread chicken pot pie..

** I found I have two post that were never published.. from 2018.  So here they are!! **

Ok, so I kinda made up this recipe, but adapted it from several ideas. Either it was really good, or everyone was really hungry, because the pan was practically licked clean.

I start almost EVERY recipe with sauteed onions, garlic and mushrooms.  No I don't measure, just use bacon grease or butter and cook them up!

I then added some fresh peeled and cubed carrots and potatoes, as well as leftover chicken!
You can easily replace the leftover chicken with canned chicken or any cooked meat.

Simmer with some cream of mushroom soup and broth until they are almost cooked and it thickens a bit.  I use Progresso GF Cream of Mushroom soup but you can use which ever your go to is.







Pour into your favorite casserole.  I feel deeper dish is better, but as long as it fits, it should work.

I topped with our corn bread recipe (posted below).  You can use a box mix or make it from scratch.  Aldi has a GF corn bread mix as well!

Bake @ 400  until the bread is cooked. 

.

SETX animal sightings ~

SETX animal sightings.... with wings

Dragonflies are all over the place.  They are bigger than I expected as well.  BRIGHT blues and green colors.  A very beautiful addition to the landscape

SETX animal sightings.~ Lizards

One of the awesome things about being in a new place is seeing new wildlife.  Going from Michigan to Texas has been quite the adventure. 

We see a huge variety of animals that we would never have seen in MI.  Here is a collection of some of them. I will have a few post about all the things we have seen here.

Part of our schooling has been learning about all of them.

SKINKS

Skinks are very common here.  We find them all the time.  Some have bright blue tails, some are more red.  They are pretty fast and are hiding unless it's a sunny day.

ANOLES

They are EVERYWHERE!!  They are in the lizard family but are not a true chameleon. They change colors from green to very dark brown.  They have a dewlap aka a red neck flap that puffs out.  They are to fast for me, I have not been able to get a good picture of the dewlap yet. 

Can you find me???

Another Hobby ~ photography

Here is a slightly random post for you.  Usually I post about recipes, which happens to be one of my favorite hobbies..  Here is another, Photography.  It travels well and takes little space which is great for our traveling style.  I am by no means a professional, but I love capturing those moments in time.  Candid moments with kids or just the beauty of nature. I miss it when I can't get out and grab some snaps.  I am not a huge fan of highly edited photos, I prefer to keep it natural.  There are many really neat features you can do with editing, layers, colors, etc... I just like to keep it as natural as possible.  I almost always have my camera with me, not just my phone camera but a Canon 12.1 pixel.  Nothing special but works great for me.  It only cost $350 (a few years back) so that helps to. 

Here are a few (because I literally have thousands of photos saved) of my favorites.  These are my easy assess ones (I have thumb drives full as well).

I LOVE water photos, the reflections of the water are just so beautiful. 

~Enjoy~

Homemade butter... well sorta

In an effort to save money and do things from as scratch as possible... I thought it would be fun to at least try some homemade butter..  I say sorta because the cream was not fresh from a cow but from the store.  I can't get fresh cream here.  I did a few searches and found some great recipes for it.  None really gave exact measurements of how much it actually cost or saved them.  Most use fresh cream as well.  Here is what we did and, even though it's not necessarily cheaper, it was fun.

I used an empty 18oz PB container to mix it in.  I tried putting it in our blender and it didn't work.

Our blender is to wimpy.  I was going to try my manual PC food processor but was surprised it was clumping up by that time.

I poured the whipping cream into the plastic PB jar, put the lid on tight and the kids passed it around to shake.

It actually wasn't that hard but my 7yr old wasn't quite as vigorous as the older kids.  Once it started clumping

I poured the liquid (buttermilk) into a different container and shook it some more.  Once it got to a creamy butter consistency we stopped.  You can whip it more to make it more firm and many suggest rinsing it with water to make it last longer.  I didn't rinse it because we had cornbread to go with it for dinner.  I figured it will get used up pretty quick and the softer consistency would work great for spreading.

At this point you can add salt, honey or even herbs and mix it in.  We left it plain but I see many options to play with in the future..

So here is how the cost play out. 

~We have one small grocery store in town that carries whipping cream, so it's not the cheapest place to buy it. You can make it cheaper if you find the cream cheaper

~We use buttermilk in pancakes and waffles alot so this is something that gets used.  I buy powder buttermilk since it has a longer shelf life. Fresh is of course better.  If you don't use it up, you can always freeze it for later 
~It really isn't THAT much cheaper unless you can find the cream cheap..  BUT it's fresher, taste better and fun!  

Cost to make: 

          Whipping Cream 1/2 pt..   $1.89

yields:  1/2 c buttermilk

             1/3 c butter

Store bought:

           Butter:  price varies from $2.50 to $5 depending on brand and sale price per pound.

           Buttermilk: $2.19 qt.(4 c)

Breakdown:   1/2 c buttermilk                  ~ $0.55
                       1/3 c butter (using $4 lb.)  ~ $1.33
                                               TOTAL:     ~ $1.83

http://lifehacker.com/shake-heavy-cream-into-homemade-butter-with-nothing-but-665497265
I love one of the comments on this one.  Next time David can stand still while shopping I will give him a pint of cream to shake in the store.  By the time we get home it will be butter lol.

A few links I found helpful and informative in my searches.
http://www.cheesemaking.com/Butter.html

http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2013/12/how-to-make-butter.html

Broccoli & Cheese soup

I love one pot meals.  Especially since we have limited space.  So when it feels like a soup kind of day, I don't hesitate.  Broccoli & Cheese is an awesome recipe because itn
can be so versatile.  I am not impressed with our local options for ham, and bacon gets mushy in soup....  so I tried something new, ground sausage.  It's all pork, right?

1# cooked and drained ground sausage ( or chopped ham or cooked bacon)
4 or 5 peeled and cut potatoes
8 cups of broth (canned, boxed, homemade, bouillion all work
Chopped onion, garlic, celery, mushrooms (I don't measure)
Chopped carrots, just a few is fine.  I add any leftover veggies I have as well

Boil and simmer until the potatoes are almost done.

Add 2 c. Fresh or frozen
Simmer until veggies are all cooked

Add cheese.  I use a mix of whatever I have.  About 2 c total.

If you like it thicker you can add cream of mush soup, a mix of flour and water like you would gravy, some instant potatoes or some leftover mashed potatoes.

I opt for mashed potatoes since I am Gluten free

And enjoy!!!!