Baking Day

So today was Baking Day. I had 4 things that I wanted to make but I only made 2. I made 3 loaves of sandwich bread and homemade granola bars. Before dinner, I will make some cornbread to go with our chicken soup. Tomorrow I will make the banana bread.

So here is my second attempt at a chewy granola bar. My first attempt came out more like a bar cookie which tasted good but was not passing as a suitable substitute for store bought granola bar.

Here is how I made them:

1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup peanut butter
5 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup applesauce (I used homemade which had some cinnamon in it)
2 teaspoons real vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1 cup rice krispies
1/3 cup wheat germ
1/3 cup finely chopped nuts (I used pecans that I had in the freezer)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 11x15 inch baking pan. In a large bowl, stir together the brown sugar, peanut butter, honey, applesauce, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, stir together the oats, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, cereal, nuts and wheat germ. Stir the dry ingredients into the peanut butter mixture until evenly coated. Press lightly into the prepared pan. Bake or 25 to 30 minutes or until slightly golden. Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Cut into 20 bars and wrap in foil or plastic wrap.

You can always substitute other things for the chocolate and peanut butter chips like raisins, dried cranberries, etc.

Here are my bars all wrapped and ready to eat!



Here is my sandwich bread. The house smells so good!



It rose very nicely. It is the perfect height for sandwich bread.



I am off to make some chicken soup for dinner and enjoy the snow that is falling.

The After Pictures - I Need Your Feedback!!!

OK, so the rooms are not completely put back together but, they are about 90% done. The trim and thresholds are not done yet but, neither is all the flooring so we will be doing that when all the flooring is laid. Please, feel free to leave me comments and/or suggestions for a diferent furniture arrangement or ideas for some new accessories. I am always up for new ideas.

This is a picture of the formal living room taken from the office door. The front door is to the right and the dining room is to the left. The curio cabinet is supposed to be in the corner but, the extra flooring planks are stacked in the corner. I deas for an area rug???

This is the living room taken from the kitchen. Again, the curio is usually in the corner.

This is the dining room taken from the living room. The kitchen is to the left and is divided by a penninsula and upper bank of cabinets. We recently replaced our brass chandelier with this beautiful Tiffany style fixture. We love the colors. Please disregard the boxes on the table and all my homeschool stuff stack on the sideboard. What colors would you paint in these 2 rooms (really one big room) keeping in mind that we love the wood moldings?

Here is a view of where we stopped for now. I am standing in between the 2 rooms facing the kitchen and past that, the family room. Please pretend the cluttered countertops are nice and clear and clean. The floor will continue through the kitchen and into the family room (where the kids are). I love how well the floor matches the cabinets. I can't wait for all of it to be done.

This is taken from the same spot. The kitchen is to the right and the office door is to the left. I need to do sometthing different interms of pictures here. I know that one of the pictures is crooked. The lamp is the one I aquired at the Nester's Swap Meet a few months back. I just bought a Better Homes and Garden shade for it at WalMart. I like it but, not with the wall behind it. Any suggestions???


I am linking this post to DIY Day at A Soft Place To Land.

I Think I May Have Compulsive Hoarding Disorder!

I think I need an intervention!

I know . . . I know . . . it looks like I need to be on an episode of the show "Hoarders". You know, that show on A&E where people with Compulsive Hoarding Disorder get a therapist and an organizer and they clean their homes. I like to watch it. In a sick way, it makes me feel good about myself and it makes my mess seem . . . well . . . not so bad. Anyway, My dining room only looks like this because the living room has been pushed into the dining room so we can start laying the new floors! YAY!!!



My boys see an empty room as an opportunity to set up a battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons. This is a view of the formal living room taken from the office door.

Here is a view taken from the kitchen . The battle is still waging as Devastator fights . . . well . . . I don't really know who that little guy is.

Here is the table saw that we used to cut our flooring. Very exciting, I know. Please try and restrain yourself from leaping with excitement.



Here are some of the boxes of flooring which we got from Sam's Club for a very good price.



This is Jeff. He is the husband of my good friend, Rona. Jeff was a tremendous help. He even brought his own power tools. Thanks, Jeff!



Here is the first row of flooring. Isn't it so pretty and shiny?!?!?! Humor me! I have been wanting these floors for a very long time. I cannot tell you how good it felt to pull up the carpet on Wednesday morning knowing that Thursday and Friday, my dreams would come true.



Here is a picture facing the office (PLEASE . . . ignore the real "Hoarders"-style mess in the office!) Jeff and my dad had a good rhythm going and the floor went down pretty quickly. Jeremy wanted to help but he kept stepping on the planks so we sent him into the family room to play the Wii.



After we got the living room floor down, we had to take a break and move that giant pile of stuff carefully onto the new floor so we could continue laying the floor into the dining room. This is the living room taken from the kitchen at the end of day 1 (Thursday). Fancy, huh?



Jeff came back at 8 the next morning (Friday). He laid the flooring in the hallway up to the bedroom doors and then continued moving toward the dining room. You can sort of see the opening to the hallway in the background of this picture. We are taking it straight through the kitchen. See how well it matches the cabinets! BTW . . . I will be changing the hardware and counter tops. Just not yet.



Because all the rooms are open to each other, we had to lay some flooring in the kitchen which we were not planning to do until next week. We ended up having to move the refrigerator. We had to take the doors off of it so we could get it out. The island doesn't allow for the refrigerator to come all the way out of it's spot. The floor under the refrigerator made me want to throw up. Did you know linoleum could grow fur? EWWWWW!!! After I cleaned the floor with ammonia, we had to cut the cabinet above this space to allow for the added height the flooring would give to the refrigerator. VERY MESSY! Saw dust was everywhere . . . and I mean everywhere! I had to clean saw dust out of my purse! This is a picture taken from the dining room of Jeff laying the flooring in the alcove.



Here is the refrigerator with no doors on it in the middle of the kitchen floor.



This is the refrigerator door leaning against the wall of the family room. It didn't take very long to get that whole section done. The doors were back on and everything was reconnected with in an hour. Nothing was lost except the ice in the ice maker and a small container of shrimp sauce that fell out of the refrigerator while we were moving it.


Finally, here is a picture of Jeremy helping to clean up all the sawdust. He was a big help today. Tomorrow I will post pictures of the finished rooms after all the furniture is back in place. Now I am off to bed. I am so tired and I didn't even work as hard as my dad or Jeff.

Thanks, Dad and JoAnn for the lovely Christmas gift of new floors! We love them!

I am linking this post to DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land.

So . . . It Is 2010!

Welcome to a new decade! We rang in the new year with a quiet dinner and movie night at my Mom's house. We had to wake the kids at 11:50 so they wouldn't be mad that they missed the ball dropping. Really they just wanted to spray everything with Silly String. After going home and sleeping in, we cleaned the house so we could have some company over for dinner. My good friend, Susanne, came over with her family for dinner. We had Spaghetti and Meatballs and homemade Italian bread. YUM!!! We played a game called Apples to Apples and had a blast.

This morning, however, I was awake from 4 until 8 with a puking 4 year old. He's fine now. He has kept a bowl of soup down and is in the bath tub as I type but, those 4 hours killed me. I was tired all day. Oh Well!

I think I am ready to get back into the swing of things. We'll be taking down our Christmas decorations next Saturday as I like to keep everything up through Little Christmas (January 6th). This coming week promises to be busy as we get back to homeschooling, classes at the Y, and trying to organize all the new stuff the kids got for Christmas. We need to purge some things from every room in the house. There are some goals I am setting for the New Year. I would like to continue to make all of our our bread and soaps. I would like to try to cut some more of the processed foods from our diets. I would like to have more time to myself. Wouldn't we all!?!?!

I plan to keep the blog updated at least weekly but, I make no promises.

2009 Comes to a Close

Tomorrow is New Years' Eve and as I sit and reflect on the year that has just passed, I am overwhelmed by God's goodness, mercy, love, grace and provision. Our family has been truly blessed this year. We have made so many wonderful memories, spent time with friends and family, welcomed new babies, said tearful farewells to loved ones lost . . . and in all these things, we are extremely grateful for the life He has blessed us with.

From our family to yours . . .

We pray God's richest blessing on you for this coming year. We hope this photo leaves a smile on your face as you start your New Year. This is my new favorite family photo.

Autumn Harvest Soup

I am linking up with the following:

Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam


Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace


Today was really kind of cold and damp so it was the perfect day to rummage through the cupboards and the freezer for "soup-er" inspiration. This is what I came up with: Autumn Harvest Soup and Homemade Flax Seed Bread with Cinnamon Honey Butter!
Isn't it pretty?

Here is the base recipe that I wrote down and added to my recipe collection. I made note of extras or substitutions that I used today.

Autumn Harvest Soup

1 pound mixed split peas (I only had 12 oz but, it was close enough.)
1/3 c. pearl barley (not instant)
1 lb. bacon (I had 1/2 pound of bacon and 1/2 pound venison sausage that I had browned and frozen.)
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp dried marjoram
6 carrots, diced
4 sticks celery, diced
1 sweet potato, cubed
1 lg. ham bone
1 bay leaf
14 cups water
Kosher salt and Pepper to taste (I did not add pepper because my sausage had a kick and sufficiently peppered my soup.)

Soak the split peas and barley in cold water while you are assembling your soup. Dice bacon while frozen for easier cutting, put in hot large kettle and cook until well browned and crisp. Add onion, garlic and marjoram and cook until soft. Add all your other veggies and stir to coat for about 5 minutes more. Add your ham bone, bay leaf and water. Bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer for at least 3 hours. Stir occasionally and check your peas; when they are soft, it is done. Remove your bone and bay leaf. Pick all the ham from the bone and add it back into your soup. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (I used my Pampered Chef chopper to dice the onion, garlic, carrot and celery very fine. I just cubed the sweet potato with a knife. I salted to taste at the very end because sometimes cooking dry beans with salt makes them tougher. It didn't really need alot of salt because of the bacon and the ham.)

See how lovely the texture is? There is a piece of ham and sweet potato on that spoon!

The bread was some I had made for sandwiches which turned out really well except for the rising. I need to learn to wait. The Honey Butter is something that I have been making for years whenever I made homemade bread. Today I was watching Barefoot Contessa and Ina Garden was making the recipe I always use. I guess there are not that many different ways you can make honey butter.

Sandwich Bread with Flax Seeds

2 tablespoons yeast
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon of sugar
3 cups of warm water
3 Tbsp ground Flax Seeds
10 cups of flour
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup melted butter

Combine 1 tablespoon of sugar, the yeast and 1 cup of warm water in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Let set for 10 minutes. Mix the yeast in well. Then add the 2 remaining cups of water, 1/2 cup sugar and butter. Mix together. Mix in 3 cups of the flour, one cup at a time. Then switch to the dough hook attachment and mix in the remaining 7 cups of flour, one cup at a time. Once all your flour is incorporated, set the mixer a notch higher for 4-5 minutes to knead. Put the dough in a large oiled bowl and flip to coat both sides with oil. Loosely cover bowl with plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray, and place in a warm place. Let it rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size. Punch down dough to remove air bubbles and divide into 3 even pieces of dough. Shape into loaves with floured hands and put into greased loaf pans. Cover pans with oiled plastic and then a dish towel. Set in a warm area for another hour or until doubled in size. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. It is ready when it turns golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped! Remove from pans and cool on a cooling rack. (I let my dough rise for 1 hour but it had not doubled in size. I should have waited another 30 minutes at least. Then I was running out of time so I only let the loaves rise for 1 hour. The loaves should have been taller but I was impatient. It was delicious anyway.)

Cinnamon Honey Butter

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup honey
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of kosher salt

Blend all ingredients together with a hand mixer until smooth. Put it in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate.



It was the perfect meal for a chilly fall day!

Eureka!!! No More Clumps In The Laundry Soap!!!

Back in April, my husband and I ventured to Lowe's probably 10 times in one week. Every time we were there, we asked a ton of questions and spent at least an hour with pad and pencil trying to figure out which washer and dryer were the best bang for our buck. Our washer and dryer was a stack mates set from Maytag that was 20-25 years old. It still worked but was starting to make this crazy noise when you started the dryer. It was also too small for all the laundry I was doing every week. It took forever. You can read more about the whole experience here.

So we opted for the Maytag Bravo set. It is gigantic and I was beside myself with glee when I did my first load of laundry. Now I only have to do 1-2 loads per week. When we bought it we were told that we had to use HE detergent so on our way out of the store, I grabbed a bottle of HE detergent. I have been making my own laundry detergent since 2006 after finding this recipe on the Internet. I haven't purchased laundry soap since I bought a laundry soap making kit for $17 from Soaps Gone By in 2006. It has lasted that long! Well that one bottle of HE detergent that I purchased in April is just about gone. I have been reading on other people's blogs that the homemade stuff is safe for an HE washing machine because it is low suds.

Last night, I got out all my supplies to make a batch of laundry soap and was wondering if there was something I could do about the gloppy consistency since my new machine has a dispenser. I was thinking that the clumps of gel might be an issue when it was put in the dispenser. Plus, I thought that a smoother consistency would make it easier to measure out and pour. So, I thought about the homemade hand soap that I made just recently. You can read about it here. And I thought, "What if I used the same amounts of water, soap, washing soda and borax but just changed the way that I put them together and make it more like the hand soap?"

So here is what I did:
* Pour 1 gallon cold water in a large bucket. Set aside.
* Pour 1 gallon of water into a large pot and bring to a steam (you should just see tiny bubbles on the bottom of the pot and steam coming up off the top of the water.
* Add 1 bar grated soap. I used Zote (Pink and smells nice).

* Stir until the soap shavings are dissolved but do not boil.
* Add 1 cup Super Washing Soda and 1/2 cup Borax. Give the pot a stir, turn off the heat and stir until the powders are dissolved. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes uncovered.
* Use your immersion blender and blend until smooth and creamy (no little bits of soap should be left).
* Pour your soap mixture into your bucket of cold water and use your immersion blender again until smooth.
* Leave the bucket to cool and gel overnight UNCOVERED.

* In the morning, you will have soap jello. It will be springy to the touch but not wet. Use your immersion blender again and blend well. Break up all the chunks of gel. It should turn the consistency of liquid laundry detergent. Even and smooth. At this point, you can add 10-15 drops of essential oil to scent your detergent, although this is not necessary. After the addition, blend well with the immersion blender.

* Use a funnel to pour your liquid into old detergent containers for easy pouring. Shake before using if you want to but you shouldn't have to. Those large clumps should be a thing of the past. Use 1/8 to 1/4 of a cup for HE and front load machines and 1/4 to 1/2 cup for top load and non-HE machines. I wrote directions on some masking tape and put it on the bottles.

As I was cleaning up the kitchen last night after making my laundry soap, Michael called me into the family room where I saw this little four-year-old boy "watching" TV.

This is what he was watching . . . the backs of his eyelids! He was completely asleep propped up on his elbows. So cute!

This is what we had for Sunday lunch . . . Chicken Parmigiana with Linguine. YUM!!!
I used the sauce that I made here. It was delicious!