Easy Whole Wheat Bread in a Bag

I've had my share of bad bread making experiences .. making bread from a popular bread book only to have the end result turn out so salty it was inedible; letting foccacia rise on parchment paper which did not allow it to slide onto the bread stone then deciding to flip it over only to get it all over the inside of the oven .. yikes! This recipe for bread is so easy, I've made it several times without any glitches. I'm still going to work on my artisan bread skills, but for now I'm enjoying making homemade wheat sandwich bread. Here we go!

Sorry for this crummy on-the-fly photo! You get the idea..

Whole Wheat Bread in a Bag
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 packet dry yeast (or little less than 1 tbsp)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp honey
1 cup warm water
1 cup white bread or all purpose flour

1. Add whole wheat flour, yeast, and salt to a 1-gallon zip close bag. Shake it.
2. Add vegetable oil, honey, and warm water to the bag. Shake, squeeze, pound, etc. for about 10 minutes.
3. Add white flour to the bag. Squish it up for another 10 minutes.
4. Let sit in a warm place covered with a towel  for 1 hour.
5. Spray a bread pan with cooking spray. Add the contents of the bag to the pan and smooth over the top. Cover with a towel and let sit another hour.
6. Preheat over to 350 degrees F. Bake for 35 minutes.

Summer Veggie Pizza

This pizza is perfect for using some of those vegetables at the farmers market .. and for getting in all your veggies for the day! I was a little skeptical when I first tried this recipe a couple weeks ago, but it ended up being so good, I'm craving it for dinner tonight.

Summer Veggie Pizza
Adapted from Cooking Light
Prep time: 35-45 minutes, Servings: 4-2 slice servings

1 package pizza dough mix or pre-made pizza crust
Cooking spray
2 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 cup sliced onion
1 red bell pepper, sliced
8 oz asparagus, cut into 2" pieces
2 ears of corn, kernels removed
1/2 cup cherry/grape tomatoes, quartered
3/4 cup shredded mozzarella (add more if desired)
Salt
Pepper
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

1. Preheat oven according to directions on dough packaging; prepare dough.
2. Heat a small skillet over medium heat. Add 4 teaspoons olive oil and the garlic. Cook 2 minutes then remove to small dish.
3. Add the remaining 2 teaspoons of oil to the skillet. Add onion and bell pepper. Cook 5 minutes then place in a separate bowl. Mix in the asparagus, corn, and tomatoes with the onion and bell pepper.
4. Roll out dough. Brush the dough with the garlic oil. Top with veggie mixture. Sprinkle on cheese, salt, and pepper. Bake according to dough instructions. After removing from oven, garnish with chopped basil and red pepper flakes.

My Sister's Birthday: Stenciled Tote Using Freezer Paper

I've been gone so long! I'm sorry, so much has been going on recently that I have not made it a priority to share. I'm actively studying for the GRE, which is very consuming both in terms of time and mental capacity :). Other things have been going on, too, that have made it difficult to write. Hopefully I'm back for good after my hiatus! I've still been working on things and documenting, so you should see a whole lot of catching up in the near future.

This project is so neat, I thought it was necessary to be shared with you. My sister's birthday was last weekend. We had a great day: went downtown to the farmer's market, to lunch then did some shopping before going to our mom's for dinner. I really wanted to make her something special because I feel like I've been lacking and last minute for everyone on the gift front this year. My sis has a totally adorable boxer who she loves very much, so I wanted to incorporate her dog into the gift. I've been looking at posts on using freezer paper for stenciling so I thought I'd give it a shot on a handmade tote bag for her gift! I know this technique has been around for ages but it was my first try and it worked perfectly. If you're going to try this, just don't believe anyone who says wax paper will have the same results. I did not have luck with the wax paper sticking to the fabric, so I had to retrace my stencil. See the results below! I hope to have the personalized tote and the patterned tote in my Etsy shop soon.

My inspiration.

One side of the finished tote.

The stencil.

The patterned side of the tote.

Pretty cool, huh? The tote is a soft linen lined with a fun cotton print, but didn't take a picture of that before I gave it to my sister. She loved it! Having her puppy on her tote is a good reminder of what's waiting for her when she gets home. She plans to use the bag to take her laptop to work. If you'd like to learn how to stencil with freezer paper, check out How About Orange's tutorial.

DIY - Thread Holder

Welcome back from a beautiful Fourth of July weekend! Hubby and I went to his aunt's lake house yesterday to spend time with family. It was fun .. Other than spending five hours on the backseat of a motorcycle! Talk about tough on your body.

Last week on one of the rainy days I made this thread holder. I went to the store looking for a basic holder to nail to the wall, but all I could find was a very nice, but very expensive, standing holder for almost $20. So I put some thought into it and ended up with a thread holder that cost only 59 cents! I apologize for not having step by step photos; with it being rainy and dark, I couldn't get anything worth posting. This tutorial makes a thread holder that holds 18 of the small Gutermann spools. If you have larger spools of thread, you can use the same methods, just make sure to give yourself enough space between the spools.

What You'll Need
One 3/16" x 36" dowel cut into 2" lengths
A scrap piece of wood, approx. 1 1/2" x 19"
Drill with 3/16" drill bit
Wood glue
Paint (if desired)

What You Need to Do
1. Measure and mark a center line down the long length of your wood piece
2. Measure and mark every one inch down the center line to give you where your posts should be positioned. If you are using a 19" piece of wood, there should be 18 marks.
3. Drill your holes where you marked. It's best if you drill about half way through.
4. Dip your dowel pieces into wood glue and place in the drilled holes. Wipe excess glue with a towel. Let sit to dry.
5. Paint if desired.
6. Hang it up!

Super simple and for 59 cents, worth the time I put into it. I think I'm going to make another because I have too much thread for just one!

Easy and Fun Planting: Green Onions

I had no idea how easy it is to plant green onions, so I'm guessing many of you reading didn't know either. I needed green onions for a recipe this week so I bought some (99 cents a bunch), but then what do you do with the white, rooty ends of the onions? Throw them away? WRONG! You can plant them and they'll grow more green onions. Pretty sweet, huh? I had no idea, I saw this idea on a blog somewhere and decided it was worth a try. I cut each green onion a couple inches above the white part and planted it by burying the white part of the onion. Most have new shoots growing already (the photo above was taken a couple days after planting) and all of the previous shoots have grown significantly. Now you know ..

And if you must have all things green onion, bacon, chicken and cream cheese, then for the love of all things wonderful and delicious, try this recipe. You won't regret it.

My version of Kayotic Kitchen's Katucky Chicken

A Backyard Update

I'm going to tell you right now that this is not going to be a pretty post. It ends in pretty but everything else is really, really dirty. And it's a lot of photos, so if you're a picture person, you're in luck. Over the last month, hubby and I (but let's be honest, mostly I) have been working on our yard to get it exactly the way I want it. I guess since I want it a certain way, I'm the one who has to do most of the work, and that's okay with me. Take a look at the pictures to see how far we've come. First I wanted to show you how I dug out a garden bed on a Saturday afternoon. I was sooo tempted to make raised beds, but I really wanted to see what I have to work with first, before I started building up. If this year isn't as successful, raised beds will come next year.

Remember this? Ew. My plan was to make this into a vegetable garden, but it wasn't nearly as big as I wanted. So I decided to cut out a second area.

This is the second part of the garden laid out with string. I wanted there to be a path between the two so I could walk between. The path opens up on the right side to the house.

I staked it out using leftover wood from my trellis tutorial.

My neighbors don't go out much..

I felt it was significant to document how long it took me to do this. This is one hour in.

Two hours in (I promised myself I wouldn't cheat and get that little piece of sod out before taking the two hour picture)

After mixing bags and bags of manure, peat, and top soil into the clay soil.

This is what it looks like today. I planted the new bed a few weeks ago. We cleared out the jelly bean (the other bed) of the lilies, daisies and yuccas and I just fenced it and planted it two days ago.

That's it! Everything seems to be doing really well, but I still might make some raised beds by using stone for next year.

We relocated the jelly bean plants to next to the carport. They actually survived and are all going to flower this year!

Tornado warnings - it's why you tie down your trellis

I'll finish up this post with one of my favorite photos of the year. These are the roses that are next to our house. It was a great surprise to see what they would look like.

Stuffed Strawberries

These strawberries are the best, and the perfect part about them is you don't need to stick to a recipe (I'll still give you mine, though!). You can make them with just the cream cheese filling or add a chocolate filling too, like I just did for the first time. It's completely up to you. And I won't judge if you eat the leftover filling right out of the bag, it's too good to waste!

Here's what you need, plus two plastic bags to pipe the filling into the strawberries and a teensy bit of milk.

Wash the strawberries and take a knife to the center, cutting out the stems and a little of the insides (be careful!)

Mix together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, strawberry dip, and vanilla. In a separate bowl (not pictured), mix together the chocolate chips and butter. Microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring between intervals until melted and blended. Add a splash of milk and mix well.

Fill a small baggie with the cream cheese mixture. Close the top of the bag, cut a corner of the bag off and squeeze onto one side of the inside of the strawberry as shown below.

Next, spoon chocolate mixture into a separate bag, close the top and cut a corner off.

Squeeze chocolate mixture on top of the cream cheese mixture to fill the rest of the strawberry.

That's it! Soo easy and definitely worth the little time it takes to make these. Here's the full recipe:

Stuffed Strawberries
2 quarts strawberries
1-8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup strawberry dip (you could also try cool whip or yogurt for this)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp milk

1. Wash and hollow out the strawberries. Lay them on their sides to fill.
2. Mix together cream cheese, strawberry dip (or substitute), sugar and vanilla until well blended. Spoon into a plastic bag, seal the bag, then cut a corner off of the bag. Pipe the cream cheese mixture into half of the strawberries.
3. Place chocolate chips and butter in a microwave safe dish. Heat in 30 second intervals, stirring between each interval, until melted. Mix in the milk until well blended.
4. Spoon chocolate mixture into a plastic bag, seal the bag and cut a corner off. Pipe the chocolate into the top half of the strawberry.