In honor of bread.....and my Grandma................

Good morning everyone! Hope your day is going well for you.

Ahhhhhhh........The sun is shining bright over Harrisburg today after a foggy, chilly morning. Welcome to fall in Oregon. It's one of my favorite times of the year. It sparks thoughts of my favorite sweater, snuggling up in front of the fire with some tea or cocoa, comfort foods and the smell of fresh baked bread warm from the oven. It's days like today that get me reminiscing about my growing up years.
Some of my fondest memories are of the times I spent in the kitchen with my mother and grandmother learning the secrets to perfectly flaky pie crust, homemade jams and preserves and my all-time favorite....fresh homemade bread. Mmmmmm...there is nothing quite as good as the smell of fresh baked bread straight from the oven....well, except for maybe eating it straight from the oven with lots of real butter!

My grandmother taught me how to make bread when I was probably about 8 years old and I've been perfecting the process ever since. After graduating high school, I moved from Montana to Oregon to live with her for a year and being the recipe collector that I am, I took some time to peruse her cookbook selection. That's when I discovered a jewel of a cookbook hidden in the stack.

Feasting Naturally by Mary Ann Pickard is a wonderful little book full to the brim with natural recipes. I fell in love with some of the recipes I made for my grandma and me to try and when it was time for me to move back to Montana, she gave me her copy (with a handwritten inscription by the author to my grandma). I've made several of the bread recipes as well as some of the others and can attest to their yumminess.

Grandma also gave me her copy of Feasting Naturally From Your Own Recipes, which was the follow up book by the author. This book contains my all-time favorite recipe for whole wheat bread and I am going to share it with you today!
Are you ready to make some delicious, simple, wonderful bread? {I know you are.} Here we go....

Easiest Yet Whole Wheat Bread

• 7-8 cups whole wheat flour
• 3 Tbsp. yeast
• 4 tsp. salt
• 2 cups milk
• 3/4 cups water
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/3 cup honey

1. Place 2 cups whole wheat flour, the yeast and the salt in a mixing bowl.
2. Heat milk, water, butter and honey until very warm {about 110* on a candy thermometer} and pour into yeast mixture. Mix with mixer on low speed for 2 minutes.
3. Add 2 cups flour and mix until blended, then beat on high speed for 2 minutes.
4. Stir in enough additional flour to form a stiff dough, then turn out onto floured surface and knead until smooth {8-10 minutes}, kneading in remaining flour as needed.
5. Cover and let rest 20 minutes.
6. Uncover dough and shape to fit 2 well greased 9x5 inch loaf pans. Brush tops of loaves with oil, cover and refridgerate 2-24 hours.**
7. When ready to bake, remove plastic wrap and allow to stand at room temperature 10 minutes while oven pre-heats to 400*.
8. Bake 40-45 minutes, remove and cool on wire racks.

makes 2 loaves


**I often skip this step and just let the loaves sit on the stove top for another short rise time while oven is pre-heating. I cook them for 20-30 minutes in this case {or just watch them till they are done}. You can tell they are done when they sound hollow if you tap them in the center of the top. I also rub the tops with butter when the loaves come out of the oven so the crust stays softer.

I know you're going to love this bread. I literally can't keep it in stock at our house. The kids LOVE it and even prefer it to store-bought bread which makes me very happy.

Now for another treat! I have managed to aquire an extra copy of Feasting Naturally, and I would absolutely LOVE to give it away to one of YOU!!! I'm even feeling extra crazy today and I'm giving you 6 (yes that's right 6!!!) different ways to enter to win!

*The first one is mandatory....the rest are just bonus chances :)

Remember to come back HERE to this post and confirm with another comment for each entry.

Here is how you can enter the giveaway to win this wonderful book and start feasting naturally in your home:

• Leave a comment on this post about your favorite memory of your Grandmother.*
• Share your favorite bread recipe with me using the "Submit a recipe" page at the top left of my blog. (leave me a comment about it below)
• Become a follower.......that's right! Click that little follow button at the bottom of my blog.
• share about this giveaway in a post of your own on YOUR blog. I would love to read all of your blogs! (Make sure to include a link to this post somewhere in there and come back here to leave a link to your post in a new comment.)
• Tweet about this giveaway on Twitter (tell me in a comment below)
• Share about this giveaway on Facebook (and let me know below....you get the idea by now, I'm sure :] )

The winner will be chosen by 9am on October 15th using random.org and I will be in contact with them for shipping details. Best of luck to all of you!

Now get in the kitchen and whip up some of the Easiest Yet Whole Wheat Bread! You won't regret it.

A Chicken Update...and other news

Well, hello there everyone! It's been a while since I posted an update about the chickens so I thought it was time.

from left: Twilight, Tang, Zip, Pedro and Lorelei in the front

and Reepicheep (the roo) and Lady Wellington in the back. Missing one? Where's Pippin???

As most of you know, the girls recently got a mini coop makeover when we opened the nest boxes for business a few weeks ago. Well, I have to tell you that they took to them like they were pros. Our little bantam hen has been busy every day laying like crazy. She is now, over the course of two weeks, being joined daily by most of the other ladies as well, though Pippin (the bantam hen) has appointed herself egg-sitter for most of them. She loves the nest boxes and has established herself in a specific box. Aunt Kathi wasn't kidding when she told us that Banties will sit anything! For the last few days, Pippen has felt rather broody and despite the fact that we faithfully collected all the eggs each morning, we still find her sitting the golf ball we put in the nest as "inspiration" :)  I recently removed all the golf balls with the hope that she would not feel the need to inhabit the nest box ALL day long and would maybe join her fellow sister-hens in the pen for a while, but as of this morning she seems resigned to hatch SOMETHING!

Oh there she is! This is where we find her most of the time.

For those of you who are shocked at the lack of proper nesting materials in this box, let me reassure you it is not a lack of provision on our part! For whatever reason, all the chickens have repeatedly scratched all the nesting materials out of the nest boxes preferring to sit on the little amount you see here despite our attempts at refilling them. We have given up and forfeited to the chickens' preferences. They seem to enjoy the boxes and are giving us the reward of healthy and plentiful eggs so I guess that is how I will leave it.

We are averaging about 4-5 eggs a day from them and several have been double yolkers! I haven't had to buy eggs in a few weeks and I'm so excited! Yesterday was a banner day and we got 6 eggs. Aren't they gorgeous? Yum yum!
In other news.....

I was on facebook recently and read a post my neighbor had posted asking about once a month cooking. Having been interested in that topic for several years, I piped in on the conversation and before long I found my self suggesting the idea of a cooking swap. I remembered reading about the idea and had to go hunt down the article as a reference (because that's just how I am). You can read it HERE if you're interested.

In case you have never heard of a cooking swap, there are several different ways of doing it (which you can read about in the above article). I will focus on the the one I find most appealing. Basically, you gather some of your friends, family, coworkers....anyone really and talk about your family's food likes and dislikes and any allergies there may be and pick a meeting/exchanging date and location. Then each family picks a recipe that is a family favorite and instead of making it once like you usually would for your own family, you make enough to serve each of the other families involved, separate it into the right portions and freeze it in freezer bags or containers. When the time comes to exchange your ready-made dinners, you pack them up in a cooler and swap with the others in your group. You should come home with a cooler full of a variety of ready-made meals to pop into your freezer and pull out as you need without all the work.

I have a total of 5 families (including my own) in our group. That means I could potentially have at least one night off from cooking dinner each week of the month. Sounds wonderful to me. We are just now in the beginning organizational part of the idea, so I will have to let you know how it goes after we get it up and running. I am excited about it. I think it will be a wonderful blessing to all of us.

On a personal note.......

I have been meeting every Thursday evening with a group of ladies from church who all struggle with weight loss in one way or another. There are probably 7-10 of us in all. I have to confess that when the opportunity came up to join this group I was hesitant and, infact, had resolved NOT to go to the first meeting up until about 10 minutes before it began using the excuse that my husband was not home from work yet (never you mind that I have a 14 yr old and a 13 yr old well capable of keeping an eye on their siblings while I go to the store). I am not comfortable with new or large groups of people. It is something WAY outside my comfort zone and when I can I will completely avoid them or evade them all together. BUT, my husband arrived just in the nick of time and convinced me to give it a try. That was back in July. Over the course of the last two months, I have formed a bond with these women, my "LiveStrong Ladies", and I have faithfully attended every meeting I could. I look forward to my time with them. They make me laugh, cry and share the deepest parts of me every week.

We are currently working our way through the book Captivating by John and Stacy Eldridge and it has been wonderful. I would highly recommend that book to any woman anywhere. It should be mandatory reading (and likely will be for my girls once they reach an appropriate age) for all women.

Well, I think that's all I have to share for now. I have another post brewing, but I'll save it for another day. I hope you all have a wonderful evening. If anyone has any experience with Cooking Swaps I would LOVE to hear from you. Please leave a comment and share what you did or learned from.

Take care,