Quick tip #1

This oatmeal is something that I decided to try, instead of buying those packets of oatmeal.  It saves us money and it is also healthier.  Those packets of oatmeal are so sweet.  This is what we came up with.

Put about 1/2 cup oatmeal in a bowl.  Then add about 1/4 cup dried apples.  I usually break them apart to make them smaller.  Then I sprinkle some cinnamon and sugar in with a tiny bit of nutmeg.

Oatmeal and apples

Then put about 3/4 cup of water. Microwave for about 2 minutes. Then I add milk and it is ready to eat.

Oatmeal ready to eat

Here is how I make strawberry oatmeal.  I just add as much oatmeal as I want, then I add about a tablespoon (give or take) of strawberry jam, add water and microwave.

Strawberry oatmeal

We really enjoy this oatmeal. Hopefully you can enjoy it too.

Award winning whole wheat bread recipe

I am sharing a bread recipe that my mother-in-law makes that is delicious.  And it uses 100% whole wheat flour.  She actually entered it in the county fair a couple of years ago and it won best in show.  So, here goes!

First, dissolve 3 Tbsp. Instant yeast and 1 tsp. sugar in one cup of water.  With the mixer going, add

• 3/4 cup honey (I use sugar and it works great)
• 3/4 cup oil
• 2 Tbsp. salt
• 5 Tbsp. lemon juice (I use vinegar)
• 4 3/4 cups warm water
• 7 cups whole wheat flour

Mix this for 7-10 minutes on 2 on the Bosch mixer, which is it’s mid-range speed.

I then pour some oil on a clean counter and spread the oil out with my hands.  Then I take the dough out of the bowl and put it on the oiled counter top.  I make it into a nice rounded shape and then cut it in half.

Dough cut in half

Then I form each half into loaves and put them in large long loaf pans.

Formed loaves

I let them rise for 30-45 minutes or until doubled.

Bread after it has risen

Then I put the loaves in a 350 degree oven for 48 minutes.  I then take them out and let them cool on a wire rack.  And I butter the tops when they just come out of the oven.

Fresh from the oven

I then cut the bread and bag it in Food and Bread bags that we buy at the store.  Usually, one of these loafs is divided into two bags.  This recipe is great and it stays very moist.  When I make bread, I make 2-3 batches at a time and I keep out 2 bags and freeze the rest.  We also grind our wheat fresh.  We use hard white wheat and that helps to make it a bit softer and we like the taste better than hard red wheat.  Enjoy!

Patching boys jeans

I saw these pair of jeans that my son has, and realized that I need to fix them.  I knew that I needed to patch them, but I wanted to do something a little bit more creative that the plain patch job.  I decided that I would sew patches on the outside of them, in the shape of dump trucks.  Here is what I did.   Please understand that I seem to want to do things in the most difficult way possible.  I don’t know why, I just have that gift.  At the end, you can read what I would have done that could have simplified things.

Finished Product: Patched Boy

After many drawings from my head, I finally got one of my boys dump trucks and tried to draw a sketch from the truck.  Here is what I came up with:

Drawing of dump truck

I then took this drawing and traced it on some knee patches that we got at a garage sale who knows when.  You can also use pieces of old jeans.  I was able to draw two dump trucks on one patch.

Dump trucks on one knee patch

Then I cut them out.  In order to sew these on the jeans, I needed to take out the seam so that I could open up the jeans to have a flat surface to work.  I started going just half way up, but when I went to sew, it wasn’t quite enough.  I ended up taking it all out.

Taking out seams on jeans

Then I sewed the patches over the holes.  After I sewed the outline of the dump trucks, I then sewed the basic lines of the trucks.

Truck sewn over the hole

It didn’t end up looking perfect, but I do like the idea.  I then pinned the pants back together and was able to sew a bit back up with the sewing machine.  I did, however, end up sewing most of it back together by hand.  It sucked. Don’t be a victim of useless handwork you can do faster with a machine.

Here is what I should have done that would have made it a much easier, faster project.  If I just wanted to sew it on with the sewing machine, I should have opened up the outside seam, then I could have just turned the jeans inside out and sewn them back up with the sewing machine very easily. I could have also just sewn the details onto the truck and then ironed the patch on and called it good enough, although the patches tend to do best if sewn on.

Experience is the best teacher, with the drawback of giving the test first, and the instruction afterword. Hopefully it will go faster for you than it did for me.

Delicious Homemade yogurt

My husband and I have been making yogurt homemade for about a year and a half, and our family loves it.  Before we started making our own yogurt, we would buy the quart sized plain yogurt, and then add our own fruit and sugar.  We just thought that the already sweetened yogurts were just too sweet.  Then we decided that we wanted to try making our own.  We looked on the internet, and saw the basic process on a few websites (I have no idea what they are now).  We first tried it with 1 gallon of milk, and it turned out great.  Here is how we do it now.

1.  Heat 2 gallons of milk in a big pot.  I just put them in in the morning and turn it on medium low.  Usually around noon, it has been heating long enough.  I check it with a themometer.  When it is over 190 degrees, it is warm enough.  Then I put the pot in a sink full of cold water to cool it off.  It needs to cool off to 110 degrees and then it is safe to put the yogurt culture in.

Check Temperature

2.  When it is cooling, I take 5 cups of powdered milk and blend it in the blender with some of the milk.  It’s not a problem to put the powdered milk in the milk that is over 110 degrees.  I usually do about 1 1/2 cups of the powdered milk at a time.  I put the powdered milk in first, then the warm milk after.  It makes more of a mess if you do it the other way around.

Blending powdered milk with milk

3.  After the powdered milk is blended in with the regular milk, I check the temperature.  If it has cooled to 110 degrees or below, then I blend up an 8 oz container of plain yogurt with some milk.

4.  After I am done blending the powdered milk and yogurt in with the milk and have given it a quick stir, I pour the milk mixture in quart jars.  I use a 4 cup measuring cup and it works great.  Also, I like using wide mouth jars, because it makes scooping out the yogurt much easier.  This makes 9 full quart jars.

Fill quart jars with yogurt

5.  I then fill a cooler with water that is about 110 degrees and place the jars in the water.  The water should come up about half way on the jars.  As you can tell, my children love helping with this part!

Setting jars in cooler with warm water

6.  Let the jars sit in the water for 5-8 hours.  There have been many times when I’ve let it sit longer, and it has turned out fine.  You can tell when it is done because it will have thickened to the consistency of (surprise) yogurt.  I then just take them out, dry them off, then put them in the fridge.

7.  After they have cooled, you can take a quart of yogurt and add some fruit (I try to just cover the bottom of our bowl with fruit) and sugar to taste (we use 1/4 cup).

Strawberry yogurt - Yummy!

We love making our own yogurt!  It is creamy and has that yogurt tang to it.  We love it!  Good luck!