Bread in Five Minutes a Day!

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I made bread!  Excuse my excitement but I have never made bread before.  It was actually fairly easy.  I keep hearing people talk about Bread in Five Minutes a Day and I finally gave it a try. 
I wanted to keep it simple for my first go round so I just made their Master Recipe. 
I also watched their video just to make sure that I was doing it right.

I was a little concerned that my dough didn't seem to rise enough so I left it out for closer to 4 hours instead of 2 hours.

 

On the second rise the recipe says to leave it out from 30-90 minutes so I did 60.

Just cut a few lines in it and pop it into a preheated oven on a pizza stone.  Pour a cup of water into a broiler pan under the pizza stone and bake for 30 minutes.

Guess what?!  It was really good! 

My little girls said it tasted like Panera Bread.  I'll take that compliment!

 

The best part is that the recipe makes plenty of dough that you can keep in your refrigerator for up to two weeks.  That means when you want more bread, you just break off a piece and set it out to rise for a bit and pop it in the oven.  That's how you get bread in 5 minutes a day!

Happy Baking!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Play Dough Recipe

 

Have you ever made homemade play dough?  I have tried a few recipes and this one is my favorite.  It was given to me last year by my girls’ preschool.  It is easy, quick, affordable, and fun!

 

Our Favorite Play Dough Recipe:

Include your child in measuring, pouring and kneading. Making the dough is great science fun. Playing with play dough strengthens small muscles in the hand, crucial to later writing skills!

Microwave until boiling:

2 cups water

2 tablespoons oil mixed with drops of food coloring

In a separate bowl stir together:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

4 teaspoons cream of tarter

Pour wet ingredients into dry and stir together vigorously. When cool to the touch, your child can knead the mixture to blend. Store in a plastic bag or container to keep fresh. 

We made lavender and pink play dough.

 

For the lavender we used Wilton’s food coloring and for the pink we used traditional food color.  Both worked great!  The nice thing about the Wilton’s is that there is a lot more variety.

 

Oh and if you are trying to take a picture of your Play Dough title, be quick about it and watch out for cute little boys because this could happen before you know it!

Happy Playing!

Girls’ Night Halloween Goodies

I hosted book club at my house this week so of course I had to search blog land for some yummy treats to serve.  The most helpful sites were Twin Dragonfly Designs and I Heart Nap Time.  Be sure to check out these sites for even more ideas.  O.K. so here is what I made.

Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Sugar Chips.  For the salsa, I cut up some apples, strawberries and kiwis.  I also added fresh blueberries and a bag of frozen mixed berries drained.  Lastly, I added about a Tbs. of fresh lemon juice, a Tbs. of white sugar and a Tbs. of brown sugar.  For the chips, I followed the directions on Twin Dragonfly Designs for cutting and baking tortillas and sprinkling them with cinnamon sugar.  I did have to bake mine for closer to ten minutes though to get them crispy.

Ghost Pretzel Sticks.  My girls had fun making these.

This last recipe is also from Twin Dragonfly Designs.  No Bake Oreo Cheesecake!  I like this recipe because it can be given as a party favor.  Just make it the night before and put it in some small jelly jars.


I put some cute Halloween fabric on top.  I planned to cover the metal ring with some Halloween ribbon but I ran out of time.  Oh well.


Witch Hat Cookies.  I didn’t serve these to the ladies but my girls made these later in the week for a treat.  They are super easy. Take a  Keebler Fudge Striped cookie and turn it upside down.  Add a dollop of Wilton colored frosting in the tube.  Then place a Hershey’s kiss on top.  Easy peasy!


Bat Decorations!  I saw this cute idea on Made last year and I knew I wanted to do it.  Super easy!  Just cut out some bat shapes and tape them to the wall.  They have been up for a couple of weeks and so far only a few have fallen down and we just stick them back up.

My boys really like these!

Check out my post from last year HERE to find out about Spider Snacks and Mummy Dogs!

I just had to share this picture because I thought that it was funny.  On the rare occasion we let the kids eat dinner in front of the t.v. and they love it.  Yummm hot dogs and Mac-n-Cheese what’s better than that.  Yes, my  boys are wearing costumes.

Friday Favorites: Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

I would have to assume that most of you already know Dana from MADE.  She is kind of amazing!  If you are one of the few who haven’t visited her blog, you need to go right now!  It is full of wonderful sewing and crafting tutorials.  Well as if that wasn’t enough, Dana also has some pretty yummy recipes on her blog as well.  See my post HERE about her Pumpkin French Toast.

 

A few weeks ago, I tried her Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.  As Rachel Ray would say, “YUMMO!”  Seriously, I don’t think I can express to you how very good these are.  One of my two year old boys is sitting with me while I write this and he just saw the pictures and said, “Cookies!  Yumm Yumm!”    

 

 

What’s even better than rows and rows of yummy cookies?

 

How about enough dough left over to make six logs to put in the freezer for later?  This could be dangerous!

If you would like to try these too, please click HERE for the recipe.

Happy Baking!

Friday Favorites: Perfect Roast Chicken

 

Don’t forget to enter the Tooth Fairy Pillow giveaway!  Click HERE to enter.  Giveaway closes May 14.

 

  

Look what I made!  I know, you’re probably thinking “O.K. it’s a chicken.  What’s the big deal?”  Well I have somehow managed to get to be 3# years old and have never cooked a whole chicken or turkey.  When it was just me and the hubby, I would just buy a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken at the market.  Now that we are a family of six those just don’t cut it.  Next I tried those whole Perdue chickens.  Ya know the ones that are pre-seasoned in the bag.  You don’t even have to actually touch the chicken.  Just cut a slit in the bag and pop it in the oven.  Now they are actually pretty good and are big enough to feed our family.  However, it is much more economical to make one from scratch so I finally took the plunge.

Now I wish that I had a camera rolling because we could have won some serious money on America’s Funniest Home Videos.  The first step in the recipe very simply states to remove the giblets.  No problem right?  Not unless you are a total spazz like me!  I kept reaching my hand into the chicken and then pulling it out at the last minute and squealing.  My little girls kept cheering me on.  “You can do it mommy!”  I finally reached in and pulled it out.  Oh, it’s in a bag!  Duh!  :)

Anyway, once we got past the giblet trauma, it was a really simple recipe.  The end result was soooo delicious and my kitchen smelled awesome!

Here is the recipe  or you can click HERE for the link.

Perfect Roast Chicken: Ina Garten

Ingredients

• 1 (5 to 6 pound) roasting chicken
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large bunch fresh thyme, plus 20 sprigs
• 1 lemon, halved
• 1 head garlic, cut in half crosswise
• 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter, melted
• 1 large yellow onion, thickly sliced
• 4 carrots cut into 2-inch chunks
• 1 bulb of fennel, tops removed, and cut into wedges
• Olive oil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Remove the chicken giblets. Rinse the chicken inside and out. Remove any excess fat and leftover pin feathers and pat the outside dry. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with the bunch of thyme, both halves of lemon, and all the garlic. Brush the outside of the chicken with the butter and sprinkle again with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. Place the onions, carrots, and fennel in a roasting pan. Toss with salt, pepper, 20 sprigs of thyme, and olive oil. Spread around the bottom of the roasting pan and place the chicken on top.

Roast the chicken for 1 1/2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh. Remove the chicken and vegetables to a platter and cover with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes. Slice the chicken onto a platter and serve it with the vegetables.

 

That’s it!  Serve up your yummy dinner!

 

 

 

 

Take in all of the happy faces of your cute little family members enjoying their chicken dinner!

 

We’ll except for maybe your husband who’s thinking, “Really, now we’re taking blog pictures at the dinner table?”  Sorry honey!

 

Enjoy!

Don’t forget to enter the Tooth Fairy Pillow giveaway!  Click HERE to enter.  Giveaway closes May 14.

Baked Pumpkin French Toast

This post is going to be short and SWEET!  A few days ago Dana over at MADE posted a really yummy recipe for baked pumpkin french toast.  It looked really good so I decided to give it a try.  Oh my goodness!!! Super Yummy!  It was a nice breakfast to have over the Thanksgiving weekend when we had family around.  My mom said that we need to make it again for Christmas morning.  It’s perfect because you do all of the prep the night before and then just pop it in the oven in the morning.   If you would like to give baked pumpkin french toast a try, click here for the recipe.  Thanks Dana!

 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  We had so much fun as Toy Story Characters.

 

Woody

 

Buzz

Jessie

    

Barbie

 

And of course the Aliens!

(Oh honey, don’t be shy.  It’s not as embarrassing as last year’s lion costume I made you! HEE HEE!)

I made the alien shirts using freezer paper stenciling.  For a great tutorial on how to do this check out Dana’s post at MADE here.

 

We tried out some yummy Halloween treats too.  These were suggested by Christine at From and Igloo.  Go here for her original post.

 

Spider Snacks!

Mummy dogs!  These were a great quick dinner before Trick or Treating.

Last but not least….

I made my sister (yes, we look alike) this totally hilarious shirt.  She is due with her first baby on Valentines Day!  I saw these on-line and thought, “Hey I can make that with freezer paper stenciling.” 

  

I drew the ribcage free hand from looking at the smaller version.  Thankfully, I was able to enlarge the baby skeleton enough to just trace it onto the freezer paper.

 

The skeleton baby was a little time consuming to cut out.  Especially all of those little toes and fingers.  His whole foot only measures 1 1/4”.  I think it turned out really cute and my sister was a good sport for wearing it.

Hope you had a fun Halloween!  We sure did!