Bread recipe

Here is the recipe for the bread I have been making. There are many more recipes in the book or on their website at www.artisanbreadinfive.com but this is the main one. I may take some pictures of the next loaf I make if I remember.

The master recipe is adapted from Artisan Bread In Five Minutes a Day

3 cups of lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
6 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough

In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. You can mix this with a wooden spoon or in a large mixer, like a Kitchen Aid, with a dough hook. You do not need to knead this just mix well. Dough will be quite wet. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours.

Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks.

When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. (I find for my family I need a larger portion than this)Turn dough in hands while coating lightly with flour to lightly stretch surface, creating a round loaf. You do not kneed the dough at this point. Just form it into a loaf. Place the dough on pizza peel or a greased cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.

Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone ( I don’t have one and it still turns out fine)on middle rack and turn oven to 450 degrees (I do 475 ); heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes.

Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times. Slide onto stoneor put cookie sheet in oven.Pour one cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

EDIT. I forgot to include this dough makes a large batch that you store in the refridgerator until needed. It can keep i nthe fridge up to 2 weeks and the longer it rests in the fridge the more sourdough-y it tastes.

Up your nose with a rubber hose!.... or a googly eye. Your choice.

I can't tell you about girls yet, but boys are crazy and do stupid things. For about 2 days that I am sure of, Tait has had a stuffy nose. I just assumed he was getting a cold since that is the usual around here this time of year. I also noticed when he talked, his nose made a rattly almost buzzy sound. I just figured it was snot in his nose since what else would it be right? I even called my friend who was supposed to visit that day with her 2 girls not to come because we were getting sick.
Well last night I was playing with him and had him in my lap tickling him. I was asking if random body parts hurt and then would tickle it when he would say yes to every one. When I asked if his nose hurt he say yeah ( with a buzz/rattle sound). Well i looked at his nose as he tipped his head back and saw something weird stuck in his left nostril. At first I thought it was a booger, but it looked too big to be a booger. Jerek went and got me the tweezers and I ended up pulling one of these googly eyes you glue on crafts out of his nose. Instantly he was breathing normal and no more buzzing was coming from his nose. Oy. If this is the type of things he is doing at 2 I don't want to know about the coming years. For your viewing pleasure I have added a picture of the eye that was lodged in his nose for 2 or possibly more days. Enjoy!

More no 'poo

I forgot to add this link when talking about no 'poo. It talks about one woman's personal experience with not washing her hair with shampoo, but only using water.

No 'poo and stuff

So, i have been on a homemade kick lately. There seems to be an infinite supply of recipes, how-to's and instructions on how to make anything you need from scratch.
I have made a lot of foods from scratch as that is how I was taught to cook.i can make most anything from scratch given i have the right ingredients or a recipe. I can improvise if I need to. I feel this is something I am good at.
I have recently been making homemade bread for dinner most every night. It is something I really enjoy making and what could be better than fresh bread for dinner every night? I have been using a recipe from a cook book called Artisan Bread in 5 minutes A Day
I LOVE this cook book. You make a big master batch of dough that you keep in the refrigerator and each day you cut off a piece, raise it for an hour and bake it. It makes really good bread too.
I have also been making my own dishwasher detergent. It works really well and is a lot cheaper than premade stuff. And a tip I learned is you don't really need ti fill the soap cup all the way 1 tablespoon works good and 2 tablespoons for really heavy loads.
Next I am going to make my own Laundry detergent. I have a friend who swears by it and it ends up costing .01 cents per load. Yes you read that right. Point zero one cents per load.
You can make home made window/all purpose cleaner easily and cheaply. I personally think this works better than Windex or 409.
This last week I have been going no 'poo. That means no shampoo. You scrub your scalp and roots with baking soda and rinse the ends with apple cider vinegar. There are a lot of harsh chemicals in shampoos that are absorbed into your skin very easily through your scalp. Here is a good article on that.
I get some of my inspiration from this website. This lady makes a lot of things from scratch and has raised and home schooled 8 kids.

ZZZZZZZZZZ...

It is so exhausting waiting for mommy to make dinner.

pictures

I have had many requests that I add some new pictures of the kids to my blog. Here you go.

We went to the zoo last week . This is a replica of a bald eagle's nest. With 4 little chickies!

This is Alison in her stroller at the zoo.

Jerek and I went to go see my sister and her family in California a few weeks back and here is a picture of her little girl faith with Alison. Faith is on the left, Alison on the right. They are about 5 weeks apart.
More Faith and Alison. Faith on the left Alison on the right.

Super Happy Cute!

I neeeeeeed this book. My friend has it and I want to make all the super cute baby animals.

Here's to homeschooling.

Through a series of events out of my control we are looking at not being able to start the school year till October. That puts us at ending the year in July. This makes for either a short summer break next year or we are stuck on this new schedule forever.Neither one is a choice I like. Anywho, this little video is pretty funny.

It's a girl!

Alison Nichole Hodge
7lb 10oz 20" long
May 23rd 4:44am

My Hero

For the last couple weeks we have had a suicidal bird intentionally running into our bedroom window over and over in the mornings. It would arrive between about 5:30 to about 8. You could even stand in the window and it would still sit on the gutter and then fly into the window repeatedly for a couple hours. Really annoying. Especially on the days he would show up at 5:30 on a Saturday.
So Jerek went and bought pellet gun and took care of it this morning. Oh happy day! Now I can sleep again. Or at least attempt to sleep since that is hard to do anyway lately.

Birthday from the darkside

So Jeshua wanted a Star wars cake this year. More specifically the death star. Here is what I came up with.
I have to say it turned out better than I expected.





I will be posting pictures of the party yet to come in a few days.

Easter

I am finally posting some pictures of the kids. Sorry it took so long.Here they are with the Easter baskets. I had to take the picture fast before Tait started tearing into his. Jeshua doesn't like smiling for pictures lately.
This is what my boys look like when their hair is actually combed and they are wearing nice, clean clothes that don't have holes in the knees. They clean up pretty well I think.

Happy Valentines Day.

Here is a lesson in sweet talking for all you guys out there. Being cute and fuzzy doesn't hurt either. ;)
happy valentine's day!

No,No Touch! HOT!

Tait has ,hopefully, learned a valuable lesson.Last night as I was getting dinner ready, I turned on the oven to preheat before I put in a chicken pot pie. Then I went downstairs to do a load of laundry while the oven heated up. While I was doing that Tait started crying so I went to go check it out. He was standing in the livingroom holding out his left hand. I asked the other boys what happened, but they were heavily absorbed in watching a movie and had no idea. I looked at Tait's hand and it had dark brown scorch looking marks on his fingers on the palm side. I went to the kitchen to get some ice and I noticed the oven door was hanging open. I know I didn't leave it like that so Tait must have opened it and tried to grab something inside. I ended up having to take him to the urgent care and they bandaged him up and gave me a prescription for silver sulfa-something that I have to put on everyday and keep it bandaged at all times. He seems not to mind it too much yet, but I have the feeling it may get on his nerves after a few days.
Be prepared for pictures as soon as I get around to taking some.

Remodel update

Here is the most recent development of our remodel project. Let me tell you the crown molding kicked our butts! Jerek measured and we cut it exactly but when we got it up to the top of the ceiling the corners just didn't match.if we held it against the wall lower down it was fine, but it just didn't fit against the ceiling. I am starting to think you can fix anything with a big box of joint compound though.

Cookie on a stick and asbestos floor tiles.

We took a trip to Ikea Saturday to look at some furniture and some laminate flooring.I have never seen a store so packed with people! We had to drive around the parking lot for about 20 minutes just to find a parking spot. We finally found one back by the freight doors. We are doing some remodeling around here to make room for our next addition.
As we pulled up the carpet we decided the vinyl tiles underneath look ancient. Jerek looked online and they appear to be asbestos tiles. Fun! So we are going with plan B and we will lay the laminate over the vinyl instead of ripping it out first. Here is a picture of our progress so far.



After our shopping the kids were starving so we went to Shari's just down the road. Kids eat free on Saturdays! They give these huge cookies on a stick to the kids with their kid's meal. Tait thoroughly enjoyed his as you can see.

We're having a......

Healthy baby! Sorry, couldn't resist teasing all you who wanted us to find out the sex of our baby.
We didn't, but I do have some sonogram pics to share.
They are a little low quality as I don't have a scanner. I took a picture of each of these with my camera them loaded them on to my computer.


These are of the profile looking at the side of the baby's face.


This is the baby's foot.
This is a head-on look at the face.
Everything looks right on and the baby is perfectly healthy. They did bump up my due date by a week so it is now June 7 instead of May 31. It is a little disappointing to be back a week but I am sure I will survive.