Great Bag

 I have made a couple of these bags from this tutorial on Sew4home.com.  I Love this bag, nice and roomy, lots of pockets for keeping items in order, and the best part, a key hook to keep your keys in easy reach.  I know I'm not the only one who has dumped their bag out multiple times looking for the keys on the bottom of the bag.

Pub Bench

When we moved into this house we bought a great OLD table and 8 chairs to go with it. We are still a small family but we love to have people over so a big kitchen/dinning table and lots of chairs are a must.

The chairs were old, some of them have started falling apart, one broke when I sat down on. Gorilla Glue has been one of our best friends but when you have glued the same joint 10 times in a month you start to think about getting something a bit more sturdy. We have only lost two of the chairs but we were still finding ourselves short on chairs. My solution was to find a church pew or pub bench to put along one side of our table.

I searched and searched, do you know how much antique church pews sell for??? Lets just say a little more than I had to spend. Then one day I was stalking browsing a site for local second hand sales and there it was a pub bench for about the price I was willing to pay. Justin was out of town at the time and so I had to send him e-mails asking him what he though.

Side note, I like to rearrange things in my house, my husband likes things to stay where they are/where. A purchase of a major piece of furniture means I need to explain to him what I want, why I want it, and how I'm going to fit it in our house. The last because well we are running out of room in this house and have no storage space. When he is gone, even for a day of work I usually send him a photo of what I have done so he isn't surprised when he gets home.

Back to the bench. This piece is great, at 7 feet long it will seat a lot of people for gatherings. Someday it will go in a pub themed man cave but for now it works in our kitchen.

This is the before, the fabirc is very pub like, not very child friendly this needs to change a little.

Fun cooking themed cotton and a vinyl table cloth will help that.

Looking forward to lots of gatherings around our table with plenty of seating.

We still plan to fix up the wood on it.  It will probably wait until we have a home with a garage though, or if we just happen to find a weekend with no rain and no plans to be out.

Homemade Nutirgrain Type Ceral Bars

A few months ago while searching for a good granola recipe I stumbled upon a recipe for homemade cereal bars.  I tucked the recipe away and have been meaning to make it, this morning was the day, I had everything I needed and the kids were occupied with playing so I snuck into the kitchen and got to work.

Here is how I made these, I changed up the original just a bit.

You will need

1 cup of butter (soft)
1 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cup white flour
1 1/2 cup rolled oats
1 tsp almond extract
20 oz of fruit preserves

In a mixer, mix the butter and sugar until it is creamed.  Add all the rest of the ingredients and mix until a nice even crumbly consistency.  Put half of the mixture into a greased 9x13 pan and press it down firm.  Next put the preserves over the bottom layer ( I used blue berry jam and apple butter two make two different flavors of bars).  Then put the rest of the the crumbs and spread them over the top of the preserves.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

These turned out so good and are so very easy to make, I think this may become my go to recipe for breakfast and brunch pot lucks.

Story of a Headboard Part 2

Back in January I posted about my headboard dilemma.  I had settled that I would do a covered headboard and mount it on the wall.  The question then became how tall did I want it to be and how was I going to get a 4x8 sheet of plywood or MDF home.

While I was debating these choices in my head I started browsing Ebay for night stands.  I found some in a French Louis style that I remember being in catalogs as a child.  I have always loved this style so I put a bid on two of them.  I only won one, I'm still looking for a second.  I found that the headboards that match the set could be made to work with my large American king sized bed so I started watching auctions for headboards.  And eventually I won this:

Not gorgeous but nothing a little paint can't change

This is with the black paint put on it.

I want to do a monogram in the crest part.

I accented the mouldings with silver paint.

All painted.

We put heavy duty picture hangers on the back then hung it on screws.

I'm still thinking about the monogram.  I'm also checking out art work for above the head board.  The night stand STILL needs to be painted.  I'm also still stalking watching auctions on e-bay to collect a whole bedroom set, though how I would fit all the pieces into this bed room I'm not sure. 

Bedding is now my next big challenge.  Everything I have looked at and truly liked so far is white, or more white than a house with two small children, two small dogs, and a cat with a perpetually bleeding due claw should have.

Homemade Sandwich Bread

Who doesn't love fresh homemade bread?  All too often though those homemade loafs just do not make a good sandwich.  I found this recipe for sandwich bread years ago in my copy of "The Joy of Cooking".  My husband recently asked me to start making this bread again as he prefers this to any store bought bread.

As you can see this part of my cookbook is very well loved.

The directions are as follows

Combine in a large mixing bowl or in the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer and let stand until the yeast is dissolved, about 5 minutes:
  4 teaspoons active dry yeast
  1/4 cup warm (105-115 degrees F) Water

I always use my kitchen aid mixer

Warm to 105 to 115 degrees F:
  1 cup milk
Add to the milk and stir to dissolve the sugar:
  1 cup warm water
  2 tablespoons (1/4) stick butter or shortening, softened ( I love to use coconut oil for this)
  2 tablespoons sugar or honey
  1 tablespoon salt

This is what the yeast mixture will look like after 5 minutes

Stir the milk mixture into the yeast.

dough hook

Have ready 4.5 to 5 cups bread flour ( I use half white flour half whole wheat flour to make brown bread)

Add 3 cups o the flour to the yeast mixture and mix by hand or on low speed for 1 minute.  Gradually add the remaining flour until the dough is moist but not sticky.  Knead for about 10 minutes by hand or with the dough hook on low to medium speed until the dough is smooth and elastic.  Transfer to an oiled bowl and turn it over once to coat with oil.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place (75 to 80 degrees F) until doubled in volume, 1 to 1.5 hours. 

I usually let the bread rise in the mixer bowl

I tried to make a double batch on this baking, clearly my mixer can not hold raised dough for 4 loafs of bread :)

Knead the dough briefly, return it to the bowl, and let rise again until doubled, about 1 hour.  (you can skip this step if you are short on time but the bread is MUCH better when you rise it twice)

I did the second rise in two bowls much less mess potential

Grease two 8.5x4.5 inch (6cup) loaf pans.  Punch the dough down, divide it in half, and form into 2 loaves.  Place seam side down in the pans.  Cover loosely with oiled plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until the loaves crest above the pan, making a nice dome, about 1 hour.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Bake the loaves for 10 minutes.  Reduce the heat to 350 degrees F and bake until the bottom of the loaves sound hollow when tapped, about 30 minutes more.  Remove the loaves from the pans to a rack and let cool completely.

Slice and enjoy!