good morning y'all. it's another pretty dreary day here in my neck of the woods, but that's ok, because there's always stuff to be done inside. yesterday, my goal was to get at least 2 batches of bread done and I did!!! so, yay me!!! I got the 2 main batches done that require the use of the bread machine and that was my main intention. I didn't get the cornbread wedges made with my lodge wedge pan. it just didn't happen and that's ok. I aim high sometimes, but it's always good to have a goal. I could have gotten them done, but I have learned to put myself on my list too. so when I realized I was beat, I said the wedges can wait and I rested. yes I did and I'm not one bit ashamed to say that. I got a good nights rest last night, better than I've had in a while and I believe that's partly because I didn't put myself over the edge.
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I just now took another bag of dehydrated cranberries off of my dehydrator, and a container of cherry tomatoes. that's how easy it is to start building a stash of dehydrated goods. just adding to jars a little bit at a time will quickly add up. I have 3 more bags of cranberries to get dehydrated, so I'll probably work on getting those cut up today too. I'd really like to get them done and outta the way. we'll see what I get done.
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so yesterday was my bread baking day using my bread machine. I made a batch of my cornbread swirls and a batch of rolls/buns from a basic bread recipe. I always add whole wheat flour, wheat germ and a little vital wheat gluten to rolls/buns. we love bread, what can I say. I'll also make a batch cornbread wedges in lodge wedge pan. (this didn't happen, but who knows what today brings.) so I'll have a little bit of bread on hand for about a week. I store all my bread in the fridge and when we're ready for it, I'll pop it in the counter top oven and heat it while I'm fixing everything else and it's as good as fresh!!! storing it in the fridge, I never have any bread that goes bad.
I took pics as my breads got done. one of these days, I'll try to remember to take pics along each step of the way. but I just forgot to take pictures until after they were done.
these are so good with the corn chowder that I make, I make these on a weekly basis. I'm still tweaking my cornbread swirls recipe, trying to get it to perfection. these done better this time than they have in a long time, so I hope maybe I'm getting them to be a little more consistent. I'm almost thinking that the ap flour I've been using is not as good as some that I've used in the past. that's the only thing that changes and when I use a certain brand, they don't do as well. but these done better, so I'm hopeful. we just love them. I may have already shared my recipe on here somewhere. if I have, you should be able to find it with the labels that I use to tell what ever I have talked about in the blog posts at the end of the blog.
this is the second batch that I made in my bread machine. this a just a simple recipe for a loaf made in the bread pan of the machine. we liked the bread well enough that I just make rolls/buns from it and they turn out delicious. I recently got the red silicone pans that you see. there is only 1 in the picture, but I got 2 from amazon. each bun measures 4 inches across.
so I get the dough made up and take it from the bread pan and put it on my scales and weigh the dough in grams and then I portion it out in 16 to 18 equal size balls in grams. this particular batch made 12 buns and 4 rolls. I usually just make the dough balls round and then flatten them with the palm of my hand. but with these pans, I put a dough ball in and flattened it out as good as I could and then let them rise till they doubled in size and then baked them. as you can see, they are really uniform in circumference.
so after a little bit, I'll get in the kitchen and bring out those red pans again and start working on my "breakfast made easy" for my husband. my husband eats an egg, cheese and sausage on a homemade bun every morning. he loves it, so that's what he gets. so I plan on making both of these full with the eggs, cheese and sausage cooked together. I've already done an experiment and he had one yesterday morning and this morning and it's a 2 thumbs up from him. so I'll get several of the eggs, cheese and sausage patties made up and pop them in the freezer, 2 at a time and then it will be easy to pull 2 out. one for one breakfast and then one for the next morning. it will also be good to have them on hand for a quick lunch too.
anyway, that's what I've done and also what I hope to do. I'll try to remember to take pictures of the finished product and share.
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let's do a little bit of story time.
I just took a sack of garbage out to the dumpster behind out garage. when I came back up on the deck, I seen the inside door had eased itself shut. when that happens, if you just grab the stormdoor handle and open it, that will form a suction and shut the inside door. if one has regular doors with regular locks, that's ok. but it's not ok if you have set the regular lock set to actually lock when the door shuts. that's what I had happen previously on the incident I'm about to share with y'all. this happened about 13 or 14 years ago.
I had been cleaning house all day, at least ever since my husband had left for work that afternoon. it was in the summer and it was hot and I was sweaty and stinky and soooooo looking forward to getting in the shower and getting all the dust and grime and itchies showered off me and getting my head of hair washed too. understand this, I was a fright of a sight!!!!!! I was!!!!!!! I had put on the cruddiest clothes I had because I was gonna be doing a cruddie job, so I wasn't looking to win any best dressed prizes. my hair had not been combed or brushed since I started the job, just pushed up and clipped. on top of all of that, I smelled a little bit foul. hahaha work and sweat equals foul, and I had even used deodorant. hahaha
well, I was wrapping up the cleaning and I had said to myself, just take the garbage out and then a shower!!! I was 2 minutes away from a lovely, hot, awesome smelling shower. I picked up the bag of garbage and bounded down the steps and ran to garbage can just like someone anticipating a wonderful hot sweet smelling shower. dropped the garbage bag in the dumpster and ran back to the deck and I ran upon the deck like a 10 year old waiting for a present. I grabbed the storm door handle and pulled and at the same time, I heard this thud of the interior door pulling too!!!!!! it was previously set so that when it shuts, it automatically locks and to get in, you need a key. you know where my keys were, NOT in my pocket, but in my purse, inside. yup, that's right.
panic quickly set in. I didn't know what to do. finally I prayed about it and I got calm and I thought, well when I was inside just now, it was almost 6pm. by this time, it was a little past 6pm. so I sat down in the deck chair and just started thinking and looking around. I thought my husband gets off work at 11pm, he'll be home in 15 to 20 minutes, so I can set here for 4 and a half hours. I can do this.
I started focusing on the back yard and looking at all the trees and suddenly, there was 3 or 4 rabbits playing. ok, I can sit here and watch rabbits playing all night. I can do this. next thing I know, just like it would have been in the Garden of Eden, 2 little deer came out of the woods and was playing with rabbits. they was hopping and playing and I was smiling and thinking to myself, I can do this.
all of the sudden, something scared the deer and the rabbits and they scurried back into the woods and I was still thinking, I can do this, I got this. all of the sudden the evening and night time insects got really bad and I was swatting and knocking at them and I was still thinking, I can do this.
well, my area is noted for bats. not only was I swatting and knocking at insects, I was now ducking and dodging bats!!!! a bat swoops down from the left and then another one swoops down from the right, all within a foot and a half of my head!!!!! then 2 turns into 4 and quickly there was 8 or 10 and I thought to myself, oh heck no, I can't do this!!!! hahaha
what I haven't told you up until this time is that my neighbor was deaf. she could sign, and I could sign enough to ask for paper and pencil to write on. but........she couldn't hear someone knocking on the door and they didn't have anything that would let her know someone was at the door. she did have a dog and took it out frequently. so I had to start stalking her and when she took the dog out, then I got her attention without startling her too bad. I'm sure my appearance was more frightening than anything.
I asked if she had some paper and a pen and she got some. I told her I had locked myself out of the house and I couldn't get back in and the bats are swarming and wondered if I could come inside. she was very warm and welcoming and always was. she very kind and sweet. her sister worked at the local hospital. she said she would call her and have her take me to where my husband worked at the time and get the house key for me. so, her sister came and picked us both up and we went to where my husband worked. I told her sister that there was no way I could go in there looking and smelling like this and we all laughed. so the sister said she would go for me. so she went to the breakroom and told someone who she was looking for and asked if they could get him, that it was an emergency. so he came to the breakroom and she relayed to him what had happened and he gave her his house key and then we was on the way home.
I thanked them both profusely and she went back to work and I walked on over to my house and got in. it was about 7:30pm by now. I got in the shower and got all the stink and funk washed off me. it wasn't too long before the clock rolled around and my husband was home and he got his shower and we was off to bed after a good laugh at the events of the evening.
the very next morning we went to lowes and looked at locks. we got a new door handle with a keypad on it and it automatically locks by itself after about 10 or 15 seconds. but.........it's easy to open with the keypad. as long as my memory stays pretty good, I'll be ok, hopefully.
the worst thing about it, is that it has a deadbolt on it. we are in the habit of using the deadbolt. the problem comes in if one of us forgets that the other one is outside and we deadbolt the door. so we are always trying to make sure that one of us doesn't lock the other one out. hubby is the one that locked me out and I had to wait for him to get out of the shower to let me in. hahaha
so, now you know the story. just beware of doors and locks. oh yeah, and stash an extra key somewhere hahahaha
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well, I think I will call it a wrap for today. I hope you all have a wonderful day. don't forget to thank God for allowing you to be a part of His creation. also thank Him for the shed blood of His son, Jesus Christ which allows us to be in right relationship with Him if you know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. blessing, hugs and love to you all, patty
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