Homemade Bread Recipe

My sister Kitty wanted the recipe for this sandwich bread I make. She says it looks light and fluffy but really it's a dense bread, not really heavy but dense which is good for sandwiches. The recipe came with the bread machine back in 99, man I need a new bread machine, mine really is falling apart but I just keep hoping it will keep kickin!

This makes a 2 pound loaf of bread

2 Tlbs Sugar or 2 Tlbs Honey instead
4 Cups Bread Flour
2 Tsp Salt
2 Tsp Yeast
1 ½ Cups Milk
2 Tbls Butter

My bread machine is falling apart and you can't put liquid in first because the seals are all rotted away so it leaks. So, I put in the flour and then sugar/honey and salt. I make a hole and put the yeast in that and cover it back up with flour. I put the milk in a glass measuring cup and cut the butter (which I use real butter) into small chunks into the milk and put that into the microwave on very low just to warm the milk and melt the butter. Then I pour this over the flour mixture and set the machine on dough and let it run till it's done.

Then transfer the dough into the bread pan. The size of my bread pan is 13" x 4" x 4". So, maybe because it's a bigger space then the bread machine the bread doesn't turn out so heavy? Not sure.

A couple of folks have told me that Amazon has this pan for a lot less then King Arthur Flour does. Also the bread slicer I use is a West Bend Bread Slicing Guide. I got it at Wal*Mart years ago. I have no idea if they still sell it or not. It folds in half and I'll miss it when it dies. I'm on my second one now. I see they have them on ebay. Here's a picture I got off ebay of it.

The electric knife was a gift from my Mother In Law Christmas of 99. I cut myself pretty bad with a bread knife the first time I made bread and she felt bad and got me the knife. I'm still using the same one and I use it all the time. I'm surprised that it still works! It's great for cutting the bread, it doesn't "Squish" the bread and miss-shape it.

Homemade Bread

I make all my own sandwich bread. Have for years. I do buy hamburger and hotdog buns but I always make my sandwich bread. About 8 years ago or so I bought the coolest bread pan! Here is how I make my bread.

First you do the dough in the bread machine.

I do it on the dough setting. When it's done I then put it in the bread pan. Then you put the lid on the pan.Then I put it in the oven to rise. I set the timer for 2 hours. This took me a while to get it down, because if it rises to much it comes out the end!! So, you check it by moving the lid, if it moves easliy then you need to let it rise more. You want to feel it pull a bit when you try to move the lid. Then you take it out of the oven, pre-heat the oven for 10 minutes and then bake it for 30 minutes. Then when it's done take the lid off and put the loaf of bread on a cooling rack.

I then let it cool down for a while and I trim the hard crust of the edges and then I use an electric knife to slice into slices.

I was making this bread for the party. I was to bring egg salad sandwhiches. Here is what the bread looks like cut up. Looks just like store bought bread! I LOVE this pan!!! It was expensive but worth it! I kind of wish I had 2! But I will live with one, LOL!


And here is all the sandwiches I made. I ended up bringing 2 home, so not bad!

Here is the link to the Bread Pan.

Gram's 90th Birthday!

Tonight we went to the nursing home for Gram's (Chuck's Dad's Mom) 90th birthday party. Here she is at 90 years old!

Thanksgiving

The boys and Chuck went hunting early in the morning so I was home by myself for the morning. I cleaned the house and played on the computer with Christmas music on. Very relaxing! Then around 12:30 we headed over to the in-laws for lunch. Brenda, Lou and the gang didn't come so we decided to go see them after lunch at Bonnie's.

I put all the pictures I could find of Chuck's side of the family on my digital picture frame and took it over there. They all really enjoyed that. Lunch was good, so we all had a good time. Around 3:30 we headed over to Brenda's to see the new baby (Zack)!

Here he is!! Joe is holding him.

He is oh so cute and small!! Mine where never that size, well, not outside of my tummy anyway! He was 7lbs 8oz and mine were 10lbs 5oz and 9lbs 12oz, LOL!!!

Here is Joe holding him.

Here is CJ holding him.

Odds and Ends

The phone company just called and said I had been over billed, I think over a course of time, and that I would be getting a check for $160 in the mail soon. COOL! Something about a double line? No clue, just glad they are actually giving it back. We hate our one and only phone company! I think I'll just use it to pay the phone bill, LOL!!

Met with the lawyer yesterday and he thinks that the APL will just settle for what I'm asking for, which is $350! LOL!! Brett said he is working Pro-Bono so I don't owe him anything. Maybe I'll have it by Christmas? That would be nice! People just can't believe I would sue warm fuzzy animals!! God forbid! LOL! The paper has been running "fluff" articles about the APL that has nothing to do with the case but they are trying to look good for donations since it's the holiday season.

The boys have school today but then they will be off till Tuesday. It will be nice to be able to sleep past 5:45am. They are going hunting in the morning tomorrow and then we are all off to the In-Laws for dinner at 1pm. Brenda had her 6th baby last week so she probably won't be there but I hope Lou and the kids will be. I haven't been over to see the baby yet, I really should get over there. She had him on Saturday night. His name is Zack.

I'm in a cookie exchange this year. I've never been in one before so I thought I'd try it out. I have to make 12 dozen peanut butter blossoms with the kisses in the middle of them. There are 13 of us in all doing the exchange. I'm doing them with the ladies I have lunch with every Tuesday. I hope I actually like the cookies I'll be getting, you never know! We do the exchange on Dec. 7th so I better get to the store and get everything I need and get cracking!

Joe's first concert with the Erie Jr. Phil is on Wed. Dec 3rd at 7:30pm on West 10th street in Erie. I have to get him clothes, black pants, white shirt, black shoes and a tie. Can be any kind of tie. I'll have to take the camcorder and tripod and tape it. The videos I take I can't seem to upload them to YouTube though I have been trying. SIGH!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Today was Thanksgiving Dinner for my side of the family. I had a really good time and I was sad when it was time to go. It went so fast! The meal was great and I love sitting down after the meal and talking with all the ladies. We watched a picture slide show that my Aunt Esther made and we talked about old times (My favorite!) and just had some good laughs. I was extremely stuffed and happy when I went home. Can't wait for Christmas to come and we can do it again at my sister Kitty's house!

Chuck and I both said how much we missed my dad. He's been gone for a year and a half. Chuck usually talks to him the whole time and he said talking with Uncle Terry just isn't the same. At these gatherings is when I usually see my Dad and I really miss him today!

Here are some pictures that I took with my phone. My sister Candy took some of all of us with her camera but she hasn't sent me any yet so that will have to wait.

Here is the left half of the table. I got a picture of everyone but it turned out so fuzzy you couldn't see anything. My phone doesn't take that great of pictures and my camera needs to be professionally cleaned because it has some serious black spots!

Here is Joe. He sat across from me so I got a picture of him. The computer behind him is where the slide show was going on.

This is Douglas the Snowman that is ontop of my nephew (Lynn's) car. It has been there for over 40 miles and hasn't gotten knocked off, LOL!! It was cute so I thought I'd catch a picture of it

I took this picture off my sisters blog since she hasn't emailed me any of those pictures yet here is everyone! (I just got them in my inbox, thanks!!)

CJ's Deer

On Saturday morning CJ got up early to go deer hunting. Before the sun was even out they headed out to the deer stands. It was youth weekend and if your 16 and under you can hunt Saturday and Sunday. CJ and Chuck came back around 9am frozen and no deer. I had to head out to Joe's swim meet but CJ and Chuck went back out around 2:30 and after being in the deer stand for about 45 minutes CJ got a button buck. Here is the picture:

Yet Another Snow Day!

Yup, woke up at 5:20 and I checked to see if the school was closed and it wasn't listed so I figured we were good to go. The alarm went off at 5:45 and I opened the front door and Holy Cow! There must have been about 2 feet of snow piled up by the front door and everywhere else! So, I checked the computer again and this time a ton of schools were listed. So, I went back to bed. I didn't get up till 8am.

Read Heather's Blog (Muddy Boots) and saw all the baking she was doing and thought I would do some too. I made coffee cake for breakfast. When it was done I hollered to CJ if he wanted a piece of cake for breakfast! LOL!! He said SURE and came running! It was good but I put it in a smaller cake dish then I should have and that made it VERY tall. Next time I will go with a 9 X 13 pan.

Then I baked up a loaf of bread since we finished off the bread with meatball subs for lunch. After lunch I made a batch of peanut butter cookies and a batch of peanut butter chocolate chips cookies. Joe doesn't like chocolate so I always make some without the chips.

Chuck didn't work today, too much snow, so he and the boys and the neighbor boy put together a couple deer stands, sited in the guns and are getting ready for youth season for deer that starts tomorrow. CJ is going out in the morning. Joe has a swim meet. Then on Sunday Joe might go in the morning but he has play practice at church at 10am and right after church we have Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt's so that shoots Sunday for hunting and it's only this weekend that just the kids go.

The boys aren't quiet into hunting the way my husband is. My husband is a die hard hunting fan, the boys, not so much. This bothers Chuck a lot cuz he wants them to love it as much as he does. Maybe some day they will. I think right now they are just lazy teenagers! They do like to hunt, but they don't like to do what it takes TO hunt! LOL! Like right now the neighbor boy is helping Chuck put the stands together while Joe is taking a nap and CJ i s on the couch watching! ARG!! Sometimes my kids are SO SO SO SO SO lazy!!!!

Letter to the Editor

Why is my life always spinning with drama? My lawyer called me to inform me that there was a letter to my story so I went out and got a copy. He is writing up a response. Of course this wasn't online so I had to type it all out! LOL!! Here is the letter in today's paper:

Lawsuit Hurts Volunteers

Re Rozalski's APL dog Sandy that had to be spayed after she adopted it:

I felt that Ms Rozalski is spitting in the faces of so many of us volunteers who have put in-literally-hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours at the APL for free. What has Ms Rozalski done for the community lately? She's suing it, that what! The Astabula APL is the only APL in the biggest and poorest county in Ohio and has operated on a shoe-string budget for ages. How's about we counter-sue her for the grief and annoyance she brings to so many volunteers with whom I've spoken about this frivolous case?

No one disagrees that the APL should reimburse her for her vet bill for spaying, which I'm sure they agreed to do. But to sue this desperately needed organization and vet who has done so many spays and neuters it'd make your head spin? I am confident that hundreds, if not thousands, of satisfied patrons would beg to differ with Ms Rozalski and her lawyer's charge that the APL may be intentionally defrauding the public. Absurd! And Pathetic.

Well, thanks for the great kick-off to the Holiday season, when the usually generous public helps out in a big way with donations, gifts that help carry the shelter through the next few months of budgeting.

Char Rao
Astabula

Nice huh? LOL!! She has no idea that the APL refused to speak with me, I called numbers of times and even went there and they just plain refused to see me! I even wrote a letter along with my vet bill asking for ONLY the $155 for the spay. NOTHING!!! ah well, what can you do! She assumes wrong if she thinks the APL was offering me my money for the spay. They offered me NOTHING! I wonder what Brett will write in return? Can't wait to see it!

Well, that's my drama for today. It seems to follow me! My life would be boring without it I guess!

My Radio

Ah, I must complain about my radio!! I have been listening to XM Radio Channel 17 for 4 years now and I have always LOVED it! It's country music from the 80's and 90's with NO commercials, NO real live people talking, with only station identification here and there but mostly just solid music. LOVE IT!! Then comes last Tuesday!! I FLIPPED OUT on the way to dropping the boys off at school.

There was a PERSON talking on my radio!!! They were saying what the songs were and making stupid jokes, I was mad!! I was going on and on about it all the way to school and I complained to the girls at the gym too. I found out that Sirius has merged with XM radio so my station is now Sirius 61/XM 17. Music is the same, there are still no commercials but there are people on there yapping and thinking they are funny!! I'm so upset!!!! ARG!!!!

I don't know if I'll ever get over it either! :( LOL!!! Just ask the boys, they will tell you all about my fit about the radio. My family has heard all about it all week long! LOL!!

On a good note, the Christmas Channels have started already! So, now I can listen to Christmas music 24/7!! Yeah for me!!!