Whole Wheat Bread

There is nothing better than fresh baked bread. I started experimenting with baking my own bread about 10 years ago. I didn't like paying so much for good bread and the cheap bread was worthless nutritionally. As I learned more about how good whole wheat was, I switched to whole wheat flour, but the wheat was often bitter and I found it difficult to find. That's when I discovered how much cheaper it was to grind my own wheat. I was able to obtain a Nutri-Mill several years ago and started buying my wheat berries in bulk from a family-run company called BreadBeckers. I learned that wheat tastes REALLY GOOD when it is fresh. Not to mention, MUCH better for you. The nutritional content is 40-80% higher with freshly ground wheat. The costs for having bread in the house plummeted as well and now I knew for sure what was going into the bread I was serving my family. Below is my recipe. I make this bread 5-6 times a week. I prefer to have the loaf freshly baked as opposed to baking several loaves all in one day and letting it sit. Its not hard to do anymore as I usually enlist my kitchen-aid in the kneading. The recipe is easy for me to remember since I make it so often. This makes a nice soft loaf that is excellent for toast in the morning and sandwiches at lunch. Having a good sized bread pan helps too. It also makes pretty good sandwich rolls or hoagie rolls for meatball sandwiches.

Whole Wheat Bread

1 1/4 cups warm water
1/3 cup Sucanet(evaporated cane juice) or Honey
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tsp sea salt
1 T rice bran extract
1/2 cup freshly ground flax seed (optional)
1 large egg
1 T yeast
4 1/2 to 5 cups freshly ground wheat

Put the water, olive oil, sucanet(honey is acceptable) and salt in the mixer. Add the egg, rice bran extract(a lecithin substitute) and yeast in and turn on the mixer. Ground the flax seed in a small grinder and add that. Gradually add the flour. Once the dough is pulling away from the mixer sides, allow to knead for 5-7 minutes until the dough is well kneaded. Turn off the mixer and place the dough in a well greased bowl and cover with a moist towel. Allow to rise until double(about an hour) in a warm draft-free place. When the dough is fully risen(it yields completely to a finger poke), dump it onto the counter, lightly punch down and fold in thirds and place in your greased bread pan. Allow to rise approximately 20 minutes, preheating oven to 350 degrees shortly before the second rising time is over. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until it sounds hollow when tapped on the top. Enjoy!

CROCKPOT APPLE PIE

8 apples, peeled and sliced
1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 cup milk
2 TBS butter
3/4 cup sucanet(or sugar)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour, divided
1/3 cup brown sugar, molasses granules or sucanet
4 TBS cold butter

Toss apples in bowl with cinnamon, allspice
and nutmeg.
Place in lightly greased crock pot.

Combine milk, softened butter, sugar, eggs,
vanilla and 1/2 cup flour.

Spoon over apples.

Combine the flour and brown sugar.
Cut the cold butter into mixture until crumbly.
Sprinkle over apples.

Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours

Triples at HT

This week at Harris Teeter, they are tripling coupons up to .99
This is the super sale of sales because when you combine triples, coupons and sales you have the trifecta of deals and can save HUGE amounts on your groceries. Going once a day for the week, I can usually bring in several hundred dollars worth of groceries for pennies on the dollar.
Here is an example of my shop:
Breyers Ice cream .44
Pace Salsa .87
Ortega refried beans - free
Grande Tortilla chips - free
daisy sour cream - free
Kelloggs waffles - .54
McCormick garlic powder - free
1 lb beef(used peelie off chips) - .31
dawn dish detergent - .25
Ortega taco shells - free


After spending a little over $2 for these groceries, a $3 off beef coupon came out of the catalina machine. I can use that to fill tacos later next week!

Tips on couponing can be found all over the internet and I will post tips on this blog. My first article on the way I do it is here. Its really a matter of getting organized, keeping up with sale ads and remembering one simple rule:
If you don't have a coupon and its not on sale too, don't get it.
By following that rule alone, you will have plenty to eat and your costs will be cut in half and more.

farmer wannabe

I love my garden. Its a good thing, because when it gets this hot, you have to love it or you would never venture out in the muggy mornings to see what's there. I have a small garden in the scope of farms. I like to use the Square Foot Gardening method because it is easier on me and my back to keep it weeded and grow enough for my family to eat. The 4' wide blocks are easy to manage and I have 2' paths between each bed to provide access to the entire area. Several years ago we have added chickens to our life, so they are now aiding in the entire process. They are allowed into the area whenever I have finished harvesting and they are let in on occasion to scratch up the paths, weeding and ridding the area of bugs. They leave behind fertilizer and I regularly clean out their coop so I can add it to my compost pile. When they are not in my garden they are foraging for food in their own yard. We have Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, Australorps, an Aracauna and a Silver Dorking. We also have two Bourbon Red Turkeys.



I let the ladies in to "garden" quite a bit. I can block off areas I don't want them to eat in and send them back to their plot of land when they start causing trouble or I want to close the area off for the evening. This summer we got an early start with two liter bottles as mini-greenhouses. I had squash and tomatoes flowering long before I have before and it was much easier to transition them to the garden because I never had them inside in the first place. Most of the seeds I had from previous years, but I always order from Pinetree or Fedco seeds in the winter to try new plants. Pinetree offers seed packets in sizes I can use. I have never found a need to plant 50 zucchini plants and I don't see much point in purchasing that many seeds when I will only plant about 6 of them. This year we have a nice selection of tomatoes. I try to plant a variety of open-pollinated varieties and then save some seeds each year from the plants that we like the most. When we moved to the mountains, I had to reassess what I was growing since the climate is so different. This year we have some new squash and pumpkins that are more naturally resistant to powdery mildew since that decimated my squash plants last year. Outside my "garden" I also have various fruit vines and bushes and several varieties of herbs that I can harvest almost year around. This didn't all happen overnight. Some of the cuttings were started from plants at our previous home. Some were purchased over the past year. The land here needs a lot of attention. While the woods are healthy, the areas where plantings and grass were added are suffering from too much round up, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This will take years to undo. The deadly combination not only kills unwanted pests, but the good ones too. It destroys the helpful, disease-preventing microbes that survive in the soil and the natural process of rebuilding its nutrients is lost. So, we must improve the soil by NOT using pesticides and chemical fertilizers and then continually compost, plant cover crops and use other sustainable gardening methods to make the earth rich with nutrients and good to our plants. The results are where we are today. We still battle bugs, but I have found that with diligence it is manageable and we have a wonderful garden that feeds us well. My hope is to work toward not just feeding ourselves, but selling, trading and bartering our wares with others as well.

One Income Worksheet

A lot of parents question how it could possibly be feasible to have a one-income family when they can hardly get by on two incomes. It stops them dead in their tracks when they consider homeschooling and realize what it means for them financially.

If you step back and look at your individual situation you may find that it would not be all that difficult. You would be surprised at how much it COSTS to work full time! Consider this worksheet when figuring out whether it is feasible for you to quit working and home school your children. Take your income per month and subtract the following:

• Gas to and from work (ouch!)
• Eating lunch out with co-workers
• Corporate Wardrobe
• Dry-cleaning Corporate Wardrobe
• Meals your family eats out because you don't have time to cook
• Day care or Before/Afterschool care for children
• Convenience foods to save you time because you work
• Maid service?
• Kid's lunches at school



Now get rid of all those costs and add in these cost benefits

• Your children no longer need "Brand X" to stay cool with their peers
• You can cook from scratch lowering your food bills dramatically
• You can clip coupons and actually use them
• You can shop at a sale because you have the time
• Your tax base lowers



In addition to the cost benefits think about these things You have more time for your family

• Your kids spend the day with you instead of other adults who you may or may not know
• Your kids spend less time with unkown peer groups and peer pressure
• You have regular meals at home together rather than on the go in the car on the way to who knows where



In our situation we were better off with me home. My job required numerous lunches out with clients and a horrendous dry cleaning bill. I never would have gotten to know my children the way I have if I wasn't homeschooling them. I can't say that I miss the deadlines, the long hours or the pressure either!

Doughs of the "Play" variety

I thought I would share some recipes for a basic fun dough that my kids loved to
manipulate when they were younger. I will also share a few other recipes you may not have tried. Each kind has different colors, scents, and textures and these doughs provide a smorgasbord of sensory stimulation!
Playing with dough has proven to be therapeutic and calming
for people of all ages, as well as helping to develop manual
dexterity and hand strength. So, dig out the dough when the
kids need to settle down. You can refrigerate it to make it last longer when not in use, but most of these will mold if left out for days at a time.

Basic Dough
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
2 T. cream of tartar
2 cups water
1 T. mineral oil
*food coloring if desired

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat,
stirring until stiff. Allow to cool. Knead until smooth.

You can add flavored extracts to this mixture at the end, for
a variety of scents.

* Paste food coloring gives a more intense color, but is also
more expensive than the liquid. Tempera paints are usable and some people use packages of powdered, unsweetened drink mix or jello. Other more natural options include turmeric, cinnamon, cocoa powder(below) as well as colored powders from chalk or a natural food store. I myself am not a big fan of artificial colors and find the kids will work fine with the plain dough(no colors) or natural options we can find.


Chocolate Dough
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup salt
1 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 1/2 tsp. cooking oil
1 cup boiling water

Mix together dry ingredients. Add liquid ingredients. Stir
quickly and thoroughly. Cook over low heat until mixture forms
a ball. Knead when cool.


Fall Fun Dough
1 cup water
1 T. oil
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
2 tsp. cream of tartar
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice or use 1/2 ginger and 1/2 nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
a brown or orange form of food coloring

Mix together all ingredients. Cook mixture until it forms a
ball. Knead when cool. Add more flour if needed.

For Christmas dough, you could omit these seasonings and add
peppermint extract and a red or green food coloring.


Oat Dough
1 cup oatmeal
2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup oil

Mix until desired consistency. You can add more water or flour as needed. Again, the texture is appealing to some children. I like the smell of this one too.


Coffee Dough
2 cups used coffee grounds
1/2 cup salt
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
Mix all together and add water to moisten. This produces a very grainy type dough. The texture may be very appealing to some kids and may be annoying to children with sensory issues.


Hardening Dough
2 cups baking soda
1 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups water

Combine all ingredients and cook over low heat, stirring
constantly, until the mixture thickens. Cool and then knead to
a smooth texture. You can shape this dough and let it dry
overnight. It can be painted after it hardens.


Edible Peanut Butter Dough
1 cup Peanut Butter
1 cup honey
1 1/2 cup powdered milk
1/4 cup powdered sugar

Combine all ingredients thoroughly. Truly edible, so this
would be a good one for toddlers who like to taste everything.


Miscellaneous Favorites

Paste
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups boiling water
1 1/2 tsp. Alum

Combine flour and sugar in a saucepan. Slowly stir in cold
water until smooth (a whisk will help). Slowly add boiling
water. Stir to break up any lumps. Bring to a boil, stirring
constantly, until thick and clear. Remove from heat and stir
in alum.


Fingerpaint
2 T. sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
2 cups cold water
1/4 cup dish liquid
tempera paint

Mix sugar and cornstarch in a sauce pan. Slowly stir in water.
Cook and stir over low heat until smooth and transparent.
Remove from heat and cool. Stir in the dish liquid. Divide
into a few containers and color each with the food coloring or
paint.


Bubbles
3 cups water
1 cup dish liquid
1/3 cup corn syrup
Mix together. Keep in a jar and use within a couple of weeks.
*Finally a use for corn syrup!


Sparkle Finish
1 large jar of hair gel
1 small container of very fine glitter

Stir together and paint over any finished art project for a
beautiful sparkly finish.

KFC Unfry Day April 27th

KFC will offer free pieces of their new grilled chicken next monday. Here are the details...


Since Kentucky Grilled Chicken was introduced last week, America has been UNTHINKING what they always thought about KFC; there's a lot more to us than fried chicken! Now, America will get to UNTHINK their definition of "Monday," as KFC introduces "UNFry Day."
KFC is so confident America will love our new Kentucky Grilled Chicken, we're inviting you to sample our newest mouth-watering menu item on “UNFry Day,” Monday, April 27. Consumers are encouraged to stop by KFC throughout the day on “UNFry Day” and receive a FREE* piece of Kentucky Grilled Chicken.