Chewy Italian Rolls {perfect with soup!}

I made these rolls last night to go with our Swedish meatballs & egg noodles.

So yummy!  And chewy!  And I think they would be even better with a hot bowl of soup.  So doing that next time.

You should make them this weekend for your hungry crew!

*The starter for this recipe needs to be made in advance!  I made mine right before I went to bed, easy-peasy.  It took all of about 3 minutes.

Here's the recipe!

Chewy Italian Rolls

Starter:
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole-wheat flour
1 cup water
1/8 tsp. instant yeast

Dough:
Starter (above)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup water
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. instant yeast

To make the starter:
In a bowl, mix all the starter ingredients.  Cover bowl and let rest at room temperature for 12-24 hours, until nice and bubbly.  (Think sourdough starter, just less work!)

To make the dough:
Mix together the starter and dough ingredients (I used my stand mixer w/ the dough hook).  Knead for 3-4 minutes until smooth and slightly sticky.  (You may need to add more flour or water, depending on your climate.  I had to add a tad more water.)

Put dough in greased bowl and cover.  Let rise for 1-2 hours, until very puffy.

Turn dough onto well-floured surface and shape into 6" x 12" rectangle.  Using a pizza cutter, cut 3" square(ish) rolls.  Place rolls, flour side up, on parchment paper.  Cover rolls and let rise until puffy in a warm place for about 45 minutes.

Place oven rack (and stone, if you have one) to upper third part of oven.  Heat to 450.

Bake rolls for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.  (I put my rolls w/ parchment paper directly onto my stone.)  It worked out beautifully!  But a baking sheet would work just fine too.

Makes 8 rolls.





ENJOY, my friends!!



(Another great recipe from King Arthur Flour.)

a day in the life of a perimenopausal woman

Here's what I did today:

(you'll want to stay tuned in to the end.)

I mastered baguettes.

My word.

I had resolved long ago that I would never be able to

make these gems in my home oven.

But I found a recipe/technique that worked 

oh-so-beautifully.

Most definitely worth the 20-or-so hours that it took to come to this delicious end.

Crusty and chewy.

Perfect with soup.

Thank you.

God is soooooo good.

Banana Nut Bread.

Need I say more?

(Packaging this up to sell at our church coffee bar.)

And another new recipe...

Cranberry-Oat-Walnut Bread.

Oh.MY.Gaush.

A lovely yeast bread...sweetened with maple syrup,

and loaded UP with cranberries, freshly rolled oats and walnuts.

Gasp.

Slathered with butter, this IS a winner.

And lastly,

and completely unrelated to all the above...

(or perhaps, completely related to all the above)

I ordered some progesterone cream,

at the urgent suggestion of a fellow-perimenopausal friend.

(Several of YOU have also suggested it...)

Though I would really prefer a valium and martini every 4-6 hours,

this will suffice, I suppose.

Lest I end up with a whole host of other issues.

I will keep you posted on the results as time goes on.

God help us all.

Over and out.

sold out

You know, as I was making my bread yesterday I prayed,
"Lord, help me to sell this bread."
Well, that was really only a half-hearted prayer because...
how was that going to happen?
I really didn't see how.
And I didn't give it a whole lot of thought after that.

Oh, ye of little faith!

All three loaves, SOLD.
In fact, I oversold.
I will now be baking on Saturday to take to my friend at church.


Oh, that God...He's pretty amazing at His job.




So this morning,
the littles and I are off to the new women's Bible study at church.


Oh, how I loves me some Beth Moore!
And fellowship with womens!

Have YOU done this study yet?



And then we're coming right back home to bake some bread.
Because I have none made (anymore) for my family.

That's a good problem to have, under the circumstances.





Happy Thursday, Everyone!!

GOD IS GOOD.


"She watches over the affairs of her household and does not
eat of the bread of idleness.
Proverbs 31:27

take that!

Somebody, come rescue me!!

I'm muddling through payroll tax reports, blah, blah, blah!
I can't tell you how inadequate I am in all things administrative.
It is maddening.
MADDENING!

I'd much rather be our peddling my delicious Ezekiel bread
that I just pulled out of the oven.



Please come to my house and buy some.
Cash only, please.
Take that, Johnny IRS.


Just kidding, of course.

Ahem.

coolest mom on the planet

Who's the coolest mom on the plant?

Go ahead, guess.

YES!

That's right...it's ME!
And that makes YOU the coolest guessers on the planet.


And I am especially cool today because guess what I did?
Guess!

YES!

That's right...I spent the day making bread.
THEN, I had to pick Macy up from school for piano lessons
and YES, I absolutely
DID bring a warm loaf of whole wheat cinnamon swirl, fresh out of the oven,

with me so she would have THE most delicious snack after
a long day of finals.

Yes, it's on a cutting board with a bread knife on the side.
I thought of everything except a kettle of hot tea.
Dang it.
Next time!
And half the loaf may or may not have been eaten
by the time we got home.

And it may have or have not have been just Macy and me in the car.


And I may or may not be eying the rest of the loaf
to eat after dinner.

That's how I roll.

And roll and roll and roll.

bread for sale!

Freshly milled grains,
made immediately into bread.


Behold the goodness.



"Once the kernel of wheat is broken open, however, as in milling, the protection of the bran is gone and many of these nutrients, now exposed to oxygen, are lost by oxidation. In fact, once milled, as much as 45% of the nutrients are oxidized, in the first day alone. In 3 days, just 72 hours later, 90% of the nutrients are lost, all to oxidation alone and none to the sifting of the bran and germ."
Source: "Bread Beckers" Go visit their site
to read the rest of the article.
It's fascinating!

The more research I do,
the more shocked I am by the nutritional goodness
in freshly-milled grains.
And how horribly depleted of nutrients white flour is.
Enriched? Hahaha...that's a joke since
only four of the 40+ nutrients are put back into it
after they are removed.


When I first bought my mill about six months ago,
I did it mostly for fun.
Little did I realize the health benefits of it.
There is so much vitamin E, that is lost after just a day,
when milled, that it is known to be the answer
for many skin problems.

In fact,
Macy's Psoriasis on her scalp has nearly cleared up completely
(and she isn't using her meds anymore)
since I started milling grains.
She LOVES my bread.
:)


Anyway,
my point here is:

I would love to make you some bread!

Only problem is,
it will be for my local friends only.
There's simply no way it would hold its goodness
for several days until it arrives in the mail
to you far-away folks.


So, to any of my peoples who live near me,
let me know if you'd like me to
bake for you!

The above loaf is my own version of Ezekiel Bread.
(The tag in the pic is wrong)

"Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt;
put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread
for yourself."
Ezekiel 4:9

My bread has ALL of that, and more.
All freshly milled and baked.
I also use raw honey and real butter.
It's all good.


If you'd like a loaf or two...
I'm selling them for $5.50 a loaf.
(As in, five dollars and fifty cents)
(It was brought to my attention that my decimal wasn't showing up!)
(As much as I'd like to be able to sell it for five hundred and fifty dollars, I don't think that would go over well!)



This would make a great Christmas gift!
(We just have to work out the delivery time to match
up with when you will be giving it away...time is of the essence!)

It also freezes beautifully so no worries if you can't
eat it right away!


Give me a call or shoot me an email!
loriatjoyunspeakable@yahoo.com

french bread and golf

Yes, I do believe I am nesting.
Now if I would just "nest" in other parts of
my messy house.

Here is the french bread recipe!!
It is sooo easy and yummy!

I was referred to this site by my friend Lacy.
Who is basically,
Wonder Woman.
(she grinds wheat to make her own flour!)
Now I've embarrassed her, I'm sure.
Sorry Lacy!

There are even videos for the bread recipes.

********************

Now I gotta go fry my daily eggs for my routine breakfast,
then jump in the shower.

Then it's off to the 2nd round of the Midwest Jr. PGA Championship
tournament. Nick is playing! He had a horrible day yesterday.
Oh it hurts my heart to see my baby so disappointed.
I'm partly to blame....
I got him there with only 25 minutes to spare before
tee-off.
I got the times mixed up and it really rattled him.
But I'm not sure we can blame all 18 holes
on that.
Anyway, he can redeem himself today.

It is sooo difficult for a Mama to see her son work SO HARD,
EVERY.DAY.
He even played on that particular course the other day....
taking notes about each hole in his little notebook.
And he still fizzled.

I think I'm going to cry all over again.

I don't care
what his score is....I just hate seeing him
so disappointed and upset with himself.

This was from one night that just Nick and I went to the
driving range.
I took a TON of pictures! The people around
us probably thought I was super weird.
Nick finally told me to stop....after about 60 pics!

Baking Bread...during a not-happening-blizzard

Yesterday I canceled all of our plans to leave the house since a "blizzard" was on its way. I won't lie, I was looking forward to being hunkered down in my little house on the prairie with my family, while the snow piled up outside. Well, as life outside my house continued... with NO SNOW in site, I baked bread.

Being inspired after my "introduction" to The Pioneer Woman by Stefanie, I thought that perhaps...just maybe....in some small (very small) way, I could photograph & beautifully display on my blog my own homemade creation. Sure.

I have a really nice camera that I paid a lot of money for (after being highly frustrated by not being able to capture my boys' great basketball moves) but I have no idea how to use any of the fancy shmancy settings. But I'm trying.

So here is my adventure in making the most incredible challah bread (a wonderful Jewish bread with lots of eggs and butter....so forget about it if you care about calories, which I do not).

Fresh eggs (of course)

Oh the magic of yeast...it just makes me happy.

Mixing well....

Ready for a toasty hot oven

Done! Not exactly Goodhousekeeping picturesque but let me tell ya, it is good!!

Ok, so I'm no Pioneer Woman but it was fun anyway and oh-so-yummy!

Here is the link to the recipe! Note that it says to use a loaf pan...when I just use one, it gets WAY TOO BIG and overflows. So I would advise you use two (unless you have a big loaf pan) or try another method.