Bread Making 101

Several of you have requested my 'One Hour Bread' recipe. Sorry it's taken me so long to get it posted.

Before you run to you kitchen to make a batch of this bread, you will need the following:

Lehi Roller Mills Turkey Flour. (Secret code meaning... this is BREAD FLOUR!!) I buy it at Costco. It's actually several dollars cheaper to buy it at Costco than to buy it directly from the Mill in Lehi. For those of you that aren't able to get Lehi Roller Mills flour, I would suggest using a HIGH QUALITY BREAD FLOUR. It does make a difference!


Next you need to stock up on saf-instant yeast, and liquid lecithin. Lecithin is a natural product that is extracted from the soy bean. (If you want to know more, do a google search) You will most likely find liquid lecithin at a health food store, or a kitchen type store that would also sell Bosch bread makers. Yes, I am putting in my plug for the Bosch bread maker here. It is the best.


I got my lecithin from a place called 'Kitchen Kneads' in West Jordan, Utah. They sell it by the pound in plastic bottles. For another quarter or so, you can buy a squeeze top thing for it. This comes in handy as lecithin is really thick & sticky and is hard to wash off. When you add the lecithin, you don't need to be exact. The lady who taught the bread making class I went to, said she used to put about 5 Tbsp of lecithin in, now she just uses 3 Tbsp. If you squeeze a glob about the size of a quarter, you will get about the right amount.


Here's my lecithin with the squeeze lid thingie on it

Ok. Here is the recipe:

HOMEMADE BREAD RECIPE
from start to finish in 1 hour!
10-1/2 cups white unbleached bread flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon salt
3 rounded Tablespoons saf-instant yeast
3 Tablespoons liquid lecithin*
4 cups hot tap water

Mix dry ingredients. Add lecithin and water. Mix for 1 minute and check consistency. If dough is too dry, add more water. If dough is too moist, add more flour. Mix for 5 minutes. (Do not ad water or flour to the dough after it has finished mixing.) Spray counter and pans with Pam. Shape loaves - place in pans and cover with a dish towel. Let raise 25 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. This recipe makes four loaves of bread.

*Squeeze or pour approximately 3 Tablespoons of lecithin directly into the bowl. Do not measure.

(For whole wheat bread, use the same recipe but add one cup of applesauce as part of the hot tap water. Mix for ten minutes.)

There you go - easy as can be. Here is my bread making process in pictures:


This is what my dough looks like after mixing it for 5 minutes. I usually add a little more water (1/4 cup or less, depending on the day) at the one minute check. The dough is nice & leaves the sides of the bowl, but the lady who taught the class said she likes it a little more sticky. Sometimes she even has to get out her spatula to scrape the dough out of the bowl. Once you get the dough onto the oiled counter top and knead it a few times with you hands - the dough will turn into this lovely warm soft dough that is not sticky at all.


Don't forget to spray your counter top & pans with Pam (or generic equivalent). After spraying your countertop & before you scrape the dough out of the bowl, just slap your hands on top of the oiled countertop a couple times to get your hands greased up too. Then the dough won't stick to your hands.


Here is what my dough looks like after I have kneaded it a few times.


After you have kneaded the bread a few times on the countertop, cut it into 4 even pieces. I have a handy-dandy pizza cutter that I use, but a long knife would work just as well.


Shape each piece of dough into a loaf and put it in a greased bread pan. I use my 8 x 4-1/2 x 2-3/4 pans. It is not the largest bread pan size, but the next one down. It just makes a nicer size loaf.


Cover with a dish towel and let raise for 25 minutes. (Make sure the oven is on by this point - preheat to 350 degrees!)


After 25 short minutes, this is what your bread will look like.


Carefully place in oven...


25 short minutes later - golden brown & ready to come out from the oven


Immediately remove from pans and place on racks to cool...


When bread is cool - place in sacks & wrap end of sack with a twistie tie.


I have several bread knives, but I have found my electric knife to be the best. It now stays out on my counter & is never put away.

TA DA!!! That's your cooking lesson for the day - just like being in my kitchen, eh?

Ayyyy, Matey!

Avast, me hearties! You know you want an eye-patch, a parrot, and a fast galleon to sail the seas. It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

I'm also celebrating another event this weekend by spending time in St George with the entire family.

(September 19, 1957 - Madison Memorial Hospital, Rexburg, ID)

Pure Maple Syrup

I've been reading a book this week about a fictional family that lived in rural Pennsylvania before the Civil War. On their farm they have a grove of sugar maple trees which they tap every spring to get sap which they then boil down to get maple syrup. It's quite a process, they have to watch the weather & temperature closely, and tap the trees at just the right time to get an optimum, high quality flow.

This got me thinking... we have sugar maple trees in Utah, why don't people tap them for maple syrup? This lead me to an article in the Deseret News from 2005, written by Larry Sagers. In the article, he talks about the bigtooth maple which is native to Utah. The tree goes by many different names depending where it grows. These include lost maple, sabinal maple, Western sugar maple, Uvalde bigtooth maple, canyon maple, Southwestern bigtooth maple, plateau bigtooth maple and limerock maple.

Because the bigtooth maple is closely related to the sugar maple, it was a source of sugar and syrup for the early pioneers, who supposed this tree would be as valuable as the trees they had on their farms back east. But it never had the cash value of the sugar maple.

It takes 40 gallons of sugar maple sap to make one gallon of syrup. bigtooth maple sap is much less concentrated; it takes 160 gallons of sap to get one gallon of syrup. That's why the industry never thrived here.


This bigtooth maple is a broadleaf tree with a spreading, rounded crown. Its height will average about 35 feet, and the trunk diameter averages 9 inches at maturity. Sugar maples on the other hand are about four times that size.

Although I've never purchased it, you can buy a pure maple syrup at several local grocery stores that is called 'Land of Joseph' Maple Syrup. It is made in Sharon Vt. I've never had a desire to purchase it. But after reading about it, I now feel a connection and would like to try some...

Land of Joseph Maple Syrup, of Sharon, Vt., boasts U.S. Grade A pure New England maple syrup with a bit of a Utah connection. John Lefgren, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, bought 10 acres of land for a family retreat near the birthplace and memorial for the church's first president, Joseph Smith. Over the years, the retreat became a bed and breakfast and then a gift shop. He buys the syrup from local farmers who have been producing it for generations.

The Utah connection? "The simple fact is there are a lot of Mormons in Utah, and there's a very clear story that connects maple syrup to the Smith family." He points out that in her history, Lucy Mack Smith wrote about making maple sugar "of which we averaged one thousand pounds per year."

To give an idea of the labor involved, Lefgren calculates that the Smith family would have to tap 500 trees, collect 60,000 pounds of sap and burn 10,000 pounds of wood to boil down the liquid.

OK. After reading all this, I decided I need to become a pure maple syrup connoisseur. Sadly, I only have one bottle of pure (all natural) maple syrup in my cupboard at the moment. The label says that it is 'grade A dark amber'. It's in a small bottle that is about the size flask (I'm sure I look funny taking sips from it). It is indeed very tasty, with a darker taste. I'll have to buy some other brands so I have something to compare it to.

YEA!

This was a HAPPY sight for me yesterday.  The last apricot on the tree.  Thanks to all who came by and took some home with you.

I've never seen so many apricots on one tree in my life.  I've never picked them up off the ground for so many days & weeks...and so late into the year!

Today... I am dehydrating tomatoes. It smells great.

Conversations & Events That The Mind Remembers From Long Ago...

I don't know why, but yesterday I kept thinking about things that happened a long time ago. It made me wonder why some experiences make such an impression on you, that you remember them for the rest of your life.

I remember being very young, when we lived in our old house at 247 East Main. Randy and I were in the bathroom washing our hands before we ate lunch. I remember very vividly, Randy telling me as we were standing at the sink, that in some places of the world, there are people so poor, they can't afford to buy peanut butter!

I remember being in kindergarden. One day Shannon Rydalch told Jack Zollinger that she had a ghost in a bottle at home. The next day Maxine Lamprecht pulled Shannon aside and told her that Jack's mother said that story really scared Jack and he hadn't been able to sleep that night. I remember Maxine saying to Shannon: "You really don't have a ghost in a bottle at home, do you?" She made Shannon tell Jack she was sorry for telling that story. I also heard Shannon when she was telling that story, but it didn't make me afraid to go to sleep at night. I just remember thinking how neat it would be to have a ghost in a bottle.

I remember my sisters playing with matches. When my mom found out, she made them go to the store and they each had to buy a big box of stick matches. (I wonder if a kid could get away with doing that today?) Then they had to sit out by the back step and light every match and let it burn down to their fingers. I remember watching them, wishing I could do that too, because it looked so fun.

Pull out some random memory & lets hear what you remember from long ago...

Falcon Crest

This morning I'm feeling like Falcon Crest. Most of my grapes are of the 'Concord' variety, but I do have a couple of 'Interlaken' grape vines, (green grape variety). The Interlaken grapes ripen earlier than the Concords, and by the time I get out in the fall to harvest the Concords, the Interlaken grapes are much too ripe and most of them have already fallen to the ground. This past week I decided I was going to get out and get the Interlaken grapes picked and get them made into juice. I was out first thing this morning, and got a big box full of them picked. My stove top is on the fritz, the canning element has a short in it and hasn't worked well for several years. So I had Terrell set up the camp stove out back, and I so far it is working out very well!


plus...

plus...

equals...

White grape juice!!! It's the BEST!

How Do I Stay Sane?

One of the most frequent comments I hear regarding my current occupation is: "I don't know how you do it!" Well, I don't know either, I just do it. It does help that I really like little kids... they make me laugh... (they've taught me patience) and I DO have a lot of fun with them. I like talking to them, I love to hear them tell me they love me and they like my house. They comment when I put on a different necklace or have a new shirt on. One day last week I had on a headband part of the morning, because I hadn't gotten around to combing my hair after I had washed my face. This little girl Jayden (age 4) told me I looked pretty. That afternoon, after I had taken time to wash & dry my hair, she again told me how she liked my hair the fancy way it was that morning.


This is Jayden, last February on her birthday

Well anyway, I do have one fun thing that I started doing about a year ago. The local Macey's grocery store just up the road has cooking classes held at their "Little Theatre" several times a week at 7:00 pm. That has become a fun outlet for me. A lady by the name of Nancy Judd is in charge of the Little Theatre classes. She introduces the guest and does a running commentary throughout the entire class. She is such a hoot. I would go just to listen to her. She is in her early 60's now, but she taught Home Economics for many years when she lived in Texas and is a fabulous cook herself. Did I mention how much fun she is? I laugh & laugh at the things that come out of her mouth.

I have been to many fun classes this past year, and I have learned some really great things. After I took a bread making class last fall, I started to make my own bread. I've got a recipe that you mix, raise & cook the bread all within a hour. Even I have time to make bread this way. I haven't bought a loaf of bread at the store since last November!

Last week I went to a class that taught how to make food you would get at the fair: soft pretzels, fresh squeezed lemonade, funnel cakes, Navajo taco's and fried Oreo's. I was most skeptical about the fried Oreo's because one time when I was in Vegas with my sisters (& Andria) we had a fried Twinkie at a place down on Fremont Street. I thought it was pretty disgusting. But... the fried Oreo's were wonderful. Since we always have a stash of Oreo's at our house, this is something I could do without having to go to the store to buy Oreo's first. But it is also something I will do when there are lots of people at my house, because I don't think Terrell, Kimball and I could eat them all, and they are not good cold.

The recipe she gave us is from Emeril Lagasse. I have seen others on the internet, but they use pancake mix. I like this one, because you mix up the batter from scratch.


(I didn't take this picture - just got it off the internet - so of course my fried Oreo's would look Fabuluous!)

Fried Oreo's (From Emeril Lagasse)
1 1/4 cup flour
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder
1 large egg, lightly beaten
20-25 Oreo cookies
Powdered sugar for dusting
oil for frying
Heat oil in fryer to 360 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, and vanilla. Combine the milk mixture with the flour mixture stirring just until well blended. Dip cookies in batter and carefully place in hot oil. Fry until batter is golden brown. Turn cookies and fry other side. Remove from oil and drain on a paper towel. Dust with powdered sugar and serve immediately.
Makes 20-25 cookies