Monday, January 30, 2012

Baked

This weekend I decided to attempt Delia's Best Bread EVER recipe. Since the weather was nice I decided to half the recipe into buns and bake the other half into a nice load of bread.  

Makes 2 large loaves, 3 medium loaves, or 1 large loaf and 8 hamburger buns

1. Whisk together in your mixer bowl 

2 1/2 cups HOT water
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup sugar/honey {I fill my cup with oil first, empty it, and then fill it with honey so it doesn't stick to the cup}
1 TBSP salt

2. Add:

3/4 cup flour and whisk for 30 seconds
then 1 1/2 TBSP yeast and whisk for 30 seconds

3. Add 6 of flour and mix together. After dough is combined, switch to knead hook and let the mixer knead the dough for about 5 minutes.

The dough should be soft but not sticky

4. Let rise in a clean, greased, covered bowl for about 30 minutes. You can let it rise on the counter, but it will rise nicely in the oven. Set your oven for 450 degrees for a minute or less then turn it off before placing the oven safe bowl inside.

5. When dough has risen, remove from oven and heat oven to 175 degrees.

6. Grease your bread pans and the counter with spray oil. Divide the dough.

7. Roll the dough into a long oblong shape. Pushing air bubbles out is very good, so roll away until they are gone.
 
8. Roll a tight cylinder, tuck the ends under or squish them and place it in a greased bread pan. Repeat with remaining dough. Or choose to split the rolled out shape into 8 pieces, roll these pieces into balls and set on a parchment lined baking sheet to rise similar to bread.

 
Half recipe for buns- already baked but gives you idea of final look.

9. Place loaves in warm oven {175 degrees} for about 1/2 hour or until the dough has risen to fill the pan.

10. Turn the oven up to 350 degrees and cook for about 30 minutes.

11. Turn out on a wire rack and let cool completely before cutting. Smother the top of the loaves with butter if you desire.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

The big cheese

You ate the whole... wheel of cheese? How'd you do that? Heck, I'm not even mad; that's amazing

Wear sunscreen!

This week I finally had my long awaited Moh's surgery to remove the basal cell carcinoma (aka skin cancer) that had so nicely grown on my face.  I will save the gory photos for my own personal collection to remember this event by but will include the great photo of my nice big bandaid and black eye for all to enjoy. If you see me on the street please stop staring-- it's not that my husband beats me but just that the sun hates me. 
Skin cancer sucks!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

29th Birthday

 The best part of birthday's is quickly becoming all the free food. No I don't just mean meals bought by others, but the free birthday coupons that stores send out.  So far I have already enjoyed a free coffee,

cold stone treat

and this current post is fueled by salmon from Houlihan's. YUMMY!!!


 I also can't forget the $10 Victoria Secrets sent me. I managed to pick up a couple pairs of panties combing my coupon with the Semi Annual Sale. : )


Thursday, January 5, 2012

What I got free in the mail today

new (or possibly referb) 8g iPod nano
Thanks Apple!

Early December I received an email letting me know that I was possibly eligible for a new iPod as a replacement for my old 1st generation nano that had battery issues. Mind you this 1st gen hasn't been used for many years as it did have problems-- just not battery ones as far as I could tell. I had since bought a 3rd gen nano that too crapped out, and now moved on to a shuffle that is used strictly for running. Luckily I still kept all these old products (I suck at throwing anything of value away) and now am the owner of this fine new apple product. I have learned my lesson that iPods are not to be worn while running but will still get great use out of this new gadget. : ) 

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Brown Sugar Ranch--- SOLD!

Well that went fast we just accepted an offer and closed on Brown Sugar Ranch in 24 hours! We listed our 20 acres located just down the road from Lake of the Ozarks for sale early this fall, not really needing to sell it but willing to sell if we found a buyer.  Fast forward to NYEE (aka- New Year's Eve Eve) and off we were driving to Warsaw to close.  It feels good to be done with the sale, we definitely didn't spend as much time as we expected at the property, and look forward to buying something else down the road that fits our needs better then this place. 

We did have some good times at the Brown Sugar Ranch.