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This is what I want for Christmas please!

Whenever I mention to people that I am making bread, they say “oh! you have a bread machine!”

NO I do NOT have a bread machine. You do not need a bread machine to make bread for pete sakes! You just mix the dough and then you knead it for about 10 minutes. It is an enjoyable thing to do, although it can be a little hard on the hands, especially if you have arthritis in them like I do. But for now, it isn’t bothering me and I am teaching Caitlin how to do it too.

I learned how to knead dough way back in the 70′s when I first learned how to bake bread. I didn’t bake bread for a good number of years, but now that I work from home I have time and the inclination to bake bread again, among other things I have started doing from scratch again. It isn’t difficult to knead, but here is a good video that explains why kneading is important, and how to do it:

How To Knead Bread Dough

4 cups hot water mixed with
2 teaspoons borax
1 teaspoon washing soda
4 tablespoons vinegar
1 teaspoon Murphy’s Oil Soap

The water has to be hot in order to dissolve the borax and washing soda

I used this recipe on our walls, with a little Murphy’s Oil Soap added, and it did an excellent job of cleaning off the yellow smoke gunk. Wipe it on and let it set a minute or two, then I used some rinse water (although if you don’t smoke, you don’t really need to rinse) for best results!

1 gallon water, mixed with
1 cup ammonia
1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup baking soda

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup sugar
4 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Blend cocoa powder and sugar in a bowl. In saucepan, bring milk to scalding, stirring frequently. Mix 1/3 cup hot milk into cocoa-sugar mix and pour that into the saucepan. Stir and add vanilla.

If you have a small amount of fruit that you think is going to go bad before it gets eaten, make a jar of jam! It took me awhile to find a recipe for only one jar.

1 cup of prepared fruit (peeled, pitted, cut up)
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

Let mix stand for 2 hours, then boil for 25 minutes. Skim off foam. Then cool and keep in a jar in the refrigerator.

Quiche is very versatile and you can put all sorts of things in it. Here is a basic recipe to start you out.

1 1/2 cups half and half
4 beaten eggs
1/8 teaspoon salt, dash of pepper
2 cups shredded cheese
2 tablespoons flour
8 slices broken up cooked bacon, or some chopped ham
1 cup chopped broccoli (or whatever vegetable you like) – if frozen, thaw first
One 9″ unbaked pie shell

Directions:
1. In a bowl, combine the half and half with eggs and seasonings.
2. In separate bowl, toss cheese with flour and then put in pie shell.
3. Top with meats and vegetables.
4. Carefully pour egg mixture over meat and cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees 40 to 50 minutes until top is golden brown.

4 cups milk, plus 1/2 cup non-fat powdered milk
2 tablespoons plain store bought yogurt

Directions:
Let the store bought yogurt sit at room temperature while -
warm the milk to 180 degrees and let cool to 110 degrees. Stir frequently while warming so it doesn’t scorch.
Stir a little of the 110 degree milk into the store bought yogurt, and then add that mix to the rest of the milk.
Set in a bowl, cover with a towel, and place in a warm spot undisturbed for 12 hours. Chill.

This recipe will make 1 quart of yogurt, I keep it in an old large yogurt container, it fits perfect.

Notes:
I like to make my yogurt at 8pm, set it in the gas oven and take it out at 8am.

You can make yogurt with all non-fat powdered milk, but it may be thin. You can do this to thicken it up a bit:
Pour yogurt into a plain, clean, flour sack type towel and strain it for awhile over a large bowl. This will take out the excess moisture. Also, if you let it strain for a longer time, you have yogurt cheese, which is like cream cheese.

The yogurt you have made is plain, unsweetened yogurt. You can keep 2 tablespoons aside (frozen) for your next batch, but everything I read said to get some fresh store bought every few recipes. You can add some sweetening and vanilla to it if you like. Add fruits and/or granola and enjoy!

5 – 6 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 package dry yeast (or 2 1/4 teaspoons)
1 cup water
1 1/3 cup buttermilk

Directions:
1. Add buttermilk and water to a saucepan and heat over medium heat until lukewarm (110 degrees).
2. In a large bowl add 2 cups flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and yeast. Add the lukewarm buttermilk.
Stir with a wooden spoon for 2 minutes. Add another cup of flour. Pour dough onto floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. Add the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time while kneading.
3. Place dough into lightly oiled bowl and cover top of dough with some oil. Cover with cloth and place in warm spot until dough has doubled in size.
4. Punch down dough then divide into 2 equal sections. Place into greased bread pans. Cover and let rise until doubled (about 45 minutes)
5. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove and place on wire rack to cool.

Note: The original recipe said to brush dough with a mixture of egg and water before baking, but I didn’t do that.
When I made this bread, it turned out tasty, but a little dry, so I suggest kneading in as little flour as possible and be sure not to over bake. Otherwise, it was very good!

We like this bread for our everyday bread.  We add chopped walnuts to it for our own version of OatNut bread that usually cost $3 and more a loaf at the store.

3 cups boiling water

1 1/2 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup honey or molasses (or a combination of)

3 tablespoons butter

3 teaspoons salt

3 1/3 teaspoons yeast (I use the yeast in a jar, so it would be 1 1/2 packages)

3/4 cup warm (110 degrees) water

4 cups flour – I use white whole wheat flour, or whole wheat flour, maybe plain white flour, or whatever combination I feel like.

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine boiling water, oats, honey, butter and salt.  Let stand for 1 hour.

2. Put warm water in a small bowl and sprinkle the yeast over it.  Let sit about 10 minutes.  Don’t try to stir it or you will end up with a sticky mess on your spoon.  Once the yeast has dissolved, you can stir it.

3. Pour the yeast mix into the oat mix.  Add 2 cups flour and mix well.  Stir in the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition.  Try to add as little as possible flour.

4.  When the dough has pulled together, dump it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 20 minutes.  Sprinkle flour over the dough and surface and hands to keep from sticking to everything as you knead.

5.  Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil.  Rub oil on hands and rub top of dough.  You want a light coat of oil on the top so that the dough doesn’t get tough while it rises.  Cover bowl with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size – about one hour, but it will depend on how warm the area is.  I like to sit mine in the gas oven (turned off!).

6. Deflate the dough by punching it down with a fist.  Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.  Divide the dough into 2 equal sized pieces.  Knead each piece a bit to get rid of air bubbles.  Form dough into loaves and place into 2 greased loaf pans.  Cover with damp cloth and let rise again until doubled in size, about 40 minutes.

7. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

8.  Bake loaves at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.  Remove loaves from pans immediately and sit on wire rack to cool.  Brush tops of loaves while hot with butter to keep the crust soft.

Note:  My new pans are larger than I expected at 9 1/2 by 5 1/2, so after baking a few loaves of this recipe I increased the ingredients so that we would have “normal” sized loaves!  If you have older pans that are smaller, you might want to decrease the recipe by one third.  (If you need math help, I can send you the original recipe)