Fluffy Bread Every time

I've finally figured out how to make my bread fluffy and like store bought after about 2 months of trial and error. Here's the secret. It's not the recipe, it's HOW you make it.

The key is HOW you make it.  For wheat, multigrain or white.

I’ve been using this 7 grain recipe that uses hot cereal as a base and since it’s not so wheaty the kids love it.  This last time I almost made it too fluffy, tho, lol!

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2012/01/multigrain-bread/

So the key is to mix in a bread maker on the dough setting. (I only make ½ of the recipe as this one makes 2 loaves, we just don’t eat enough bread to go through 2 loaves. Do enough for either a 1 pound or 1 pound loaf.  Then take the dough out. Push into your bread pan. If you are using a Pampered Chef stone one that is not thoroughly seasoned or a regular loaf pan, use some non-stick spray. LET IT RISE AGAIN! 

My kitchen never seems warm enough so what I do is put about a cup of water in my microwave and heat for 2-3 minutes until boiling. Then take out the water and let the bread pan sit in the microwave oven with the door closed (basically you’ve turned your microwave into a proofing oven) let it rise until it’s as big as you want it, probably 20-40 minutes, then bake at about 350-375 for about 35 minutes until it’s as dark as you want. 

 Try turning it out onto a cooling rack when you take it out, but if it doesn’t pop out, let it sit in there for 10 minutes, the steam will loosen it, do not try to dig it out with a knife. 

Hope that helps, I’ve tried it with several different recipes and always get wonderful, fluffy bread this way.

A sample freezer cooking session

Now that I've got a freezer full of chicken enchiladas, I thought I'd try freezer cooking for myself. I do freezer cooking, but I do about 8 meals at a time and swap them with others, I wanted to try something just for us this time, so I turned to a book my mom passed to me, "Frozen Assets Lite & Easy: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month" by Deborah Taylor Hough.

This book has lighter recipes than her original book, Frozen Assets and has something my usual "Once a Month Cooking" by Langerberg & Wilson doesn't.... mini sessions. This is how I usually cook anyways, I take a meat I find on sale and cook several meals from it. The mini sessions take a meat and have you prepare 4-5 meals with it as the centerpiece. I couldn't find a mini session I thought we'd all like, though, so I took 3 meals and tripled them. This book has you cook ahead more than OAMC but the reheat times are much quicker. She has you cook most things until ALMOST done and then you finish cooking the meal when you prepare it for your table.

I cooked 9 meals (3 each of Lemon Mushroom Chicken; Cheddar Chicken & Chicken Pasta Italiano). It took me 2.5 hours for them (pretty good considering I've never made them before and they were 3 seaparate meals, normally it takes about this much time for me to do 8 of the same meal) then another .5 hours to finish cleaning up the kitchen. Only one run of the dishwasher (sometimes it takes me 2) I did wash and reuse two saucepans (these recipes used my giant skillet with the high sides heavily) and hand washed 2 huge bowls I used to mix all the ingredients in at the end and let them sit to cool before packaging.

To make 9 meals-each recipe was for 6 servings, we typically eat 4, so I doubled each recipe and packaged 1/3 of the total separately I used:

Purchased:
10 pounds of chicken-$1.88 a pound skinless boneless from Albertsons. Albertsons typically has these 1.88 or 1.99 about every 3 months or so. The only way I've found it less is to buy in bulk packages of 40 pounds or more, so I try to hit Albertsons when they have these on sale.

1 package of mushrooms (8 oz? 16 oz?) 1.99

3 large lemons (used juice of 2.5 of them, saved peels and last .5 hoping to make something else this week)3 @ .79 ( 2.37)

12 oz cheddar cheese ( safeway had a great price on cheese this week-2 pounds shredded for $4.99 which is only $2.50 a pound for cheese already shredded-so I used $1.50 worth)

1 bunch green onions  .50

3 roma tomatoes 1.06

3 slices bacon (bought a bargain brand for $2.00 for a pound)

1 large zucchini .84

1 yellow onion .27

1 large red pepper 2.00


On hand:
1 can of diced tomatoes and 1 of mushrooms I already had on hand from overbuying on another cooking day that I used to replace fresh ingredients called for. Flour, butter, olive oil, garlic (I've got a Costco bag I'm trying to make it through... a Costco bag is too big for our family!), Chicken broth (I use Chicken Better than Bullion from Costco-I have a container of the beef in my pantry but have never used it-I'd buy the chicken again from costco, but probably not the beef, or I'd split with someone), cooking wine, dried parsley, milk, pasta and rice for serving meals with.

While I'm on the subject-a word about my pantry. I know this seems like I have a lot in my pantry. I have a typical closet with shelves type pantry (2 sided, with sliding door).  I only use one side of it, my large fridge and freezer and I have a chest freezer which typically holds done meals or meat I get on sale if I can't use it right away.  I keep lots of baking supplies on hand now that we make bread and cookies weekly (I used Costco baking supplies, sometimes splitting the huge bags with people).  1 shelf (so only the one side of the slider closet) is baking stuff, 1 is snacks/lunch stuff, 1 is "pantry"-canned goods, rice, pasta, etc. the bottom is storage of larger items and juiceboxes during the school year.  I keep tabs what is in my pantry and use it up. Since watching my pantry and only allowing it to be on the one side and doing more meal planning, I spend less money and I throw less away. I have many couponing friends who swear by keeping a stash and they pay less than I do for groceries (my budget is about $550 a month for the 5 of us, but I'm constantly battling that) but I love having the other 1/2 for appliance storage and I know exactly what's in my pantry at all times.

So the total I added to what I had on hand, including the main ingredient, chicken was $30.51 for 9 meals or $3.39 in additional ingredients per meal, or .85 per serving. Everything got packaged in 1 gallon bags and frozen flat to save room. I get gallon bags at Costco, we use them for everything.

Writing letters

Carter's learning to write letters at school. His first one was to his teacher:

Dear Mrs. Swenson,
   I am good at playing games.  I dont all weas play sutimes I guit playing cuss thae dont lett me do sumthing.  In Socint grade are we doing times like 2x1= cus my cusin sed he did times in socint grade.
   Love,
   Carter

My daughter, the drama queen

I'll be the first to admit I threw an excellent tantrum as a child. However, Valerie brings it to a whole new level.  It combines dancing, tumbling and yoga along with her newest-a voice like Linda Blair... that girl that needed an exorcism in The Exorcism.  She's still not really talking, so every time she's angry or frustrated, this is the voice we hear, kind of a growl.

The last 30 seconds are pretty boring, but the first 90 are pretty entertaining...

Last week of school... and other stuff.

Well, for Carter. Henri finished up last week with a little program at preschool.  Next year he'll be moving to the preschool Carter went to just down the street, so it was his last time with his classmates...

The oldest class is in back, Henri's is in the front, sitting, so he of course decides to stand with the middle class... whatever.  I didn't get video of it, but everytime he'd forget the words, he took advantage of standing up and just twirled around in his spot!

They sang some songs and did a graduation for the kids going to preschool next year.

In other news, we got a visit to the zoo courtesy of my parent's neighbors who work there. 

Valerie continues to climb constantly. and Jump.

Still throwing tantrums...

We frequently remember why we put her hair in pigtails.

Carter's been trying out Soccer

and I chaperoned on his school trip to the aquarium

I got to see my local friends after I offered up quiche to everyone. One of the lovely children (I suspect the girl) turned off the urge protector into which the garage freezer is plugged into.  I went to grab some chicken from it and the chicken was not frozen like a brick. It was cold, but squishy. ARG!!! I ran Carter to school and dealt with it.  I'm thankful for many things.  It was only about 1/3 full (I frequently keep it packed to the gills).  My other meals that were ready for swapping besides the quiche were still frozen in the bottom.  I had nothing going on that morning. 

I refroze what I could, gave away the thawed quiches and cooked up the Costco bag of kitchen. Then Saturday I made 72 chicken & rice enchiladas to put back into my now turned on freezer.  We're also have chicken a lot this week. Sigh.

I'm still doing crafty/baking things... like trying my hand at strawberry pie...

tending my crazy climbing rose (double center)

and otherwise trying to tire out these kids...

Quick art for the walls

I took these pictures while we were at the inlaws over Christmas and frankly they were a little blurry, but I loved the expressions of how much they enjoy each other, so I turned them to sepia and printed them in 5x7. I then spraypainted white some oak frames I was a little tired of without sanding to give them a shabby chic appearance.  I then mounted them on the wall going up the stairs :)

Quest for the best bubble blower

My kids love bubbles. I'm lazy at blowing bubbles, so I'm in the market for bubble guns.  So far I've not been impressed with the Sizzlin' Cool Exstream Bubble gun in the $5 price range.

I loved the Super Miracle Bubble Dip Fans, for less than $5, but it's a little too complicated for the 1 year old to blow her own bubbles I do however recommend this bubble maker that we got at Target (don't pay $40 on Amazon though, I think it's more like $12-$15 at Target) after a dismal showing from the Little Tikes Octopus which was way too slow to blow bubbles.  blue & yellow one is like a hurricane of bubbles. 

We headed to Toys R Us to get some new subjects for our testing and found some that on day one are winners (time will tell if they keep their good review). I upped our maximum to $10.

My personal favorite is probably the Sizzlin' Cool Ultra Spin Bubbles made by Toys R Us. It's not on the website that I can see, but it's in the video below. No batteries. Just attach the bottle of bubbles, squeeze it to get some in the fill chamber and pull back and let loose. It says to gently pull back, but it works better to get it ripping pretty quickly. Makes a ton of bubbles and did I mention no batteries?

Henri's favorite is the Super Miracle Bubbles Hover Bubbles which uses 2 AA batteries (not included) and has an on/off switch for the fan (so V would probably leave it running if she used it) and makes nice, big bubbles and lots of them. It takes a minute or two to get primed, so don't get discouraged. It's worth the wait. 

My wait and see pick is the Super Miracle Bubbles Ever Bubble Blaster  I say wait and see because it is designed very closely to the Exstream which I had mixed results, like the reviewers. Some work fine, others come out of the package and pretty much break immediately. This one V managed to make work while pointing it straight up in the air...right at her face which probably wouldn't normally work, but did, so it's stayin in the running until it stops working. 

Valerie's pick is the No Spill Little Kids Bubble Blastin' Plane  I did have already one instance of pushing the button and nothing happening, but touched the screw for the batteries and it started up, so maybe I overtightened the compartment. Anyways, not a lot of bubbles, but super easy to use, it fills up rather than the bubble container attaching to it like the other 3, the filling party is very small however, so it will need to be filled a lot, good for a 1 year old. Henri's less impressed.

Here's video so you can see them in action.