5 Min. Bread, Lotion and an Apron Swap

Today I made some 5 Minute Artisan Bread.  It was really simple and very tasty!  Basically you make up a wet dough and store it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.  When you take it out of the fridge it looks something like surface of the moon, full of nooks and crannies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You take out a hunk of dough and shape it into a ball.  This took me two minutes to get it shaped and on the pizza peel ready to rise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You let it rise, then put it into a hot oven on a pizza stone with some hot water in a tray underneath and bake.  What you get is a yummy, crusty loaf of bread like you would get at the fanciest of bakeries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Needless to say, this loaf did not even make it until dinner time.  Guess I will have to wait until later in the day if I want a loaf for dinner.

 

I also made some homemade lotion today.  I noticed that my feet were looking a little dry and rough so I decided to whip up some of my favorite lotion for extra dry skin. 

The Recipe:

1 cup olive oil

2-3 ounces beeswax (depends on how thick you like it)

1 tsp. vitamin E

40 drops essential oil ( I use 20 drops peppermint, 10 drops lavender and 10 drops eucalyptus oil)

Melt beeswax over low heat, add olive oil and heat until completely melted.  Stir in vitamin E and essentail oils.  Pour into jar and cool.  The more beeswax you use the thicker the lotion will be.  I like my lotion on the thick side for slathering on my rough feet and then covering them with socks overnight.

 

I also finished up my apron for the sassy apron swap. It turned out pretty well.  We also had to make a pot holder and include a pie recipe. Here is my finished project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both of my pie recipes are also freezer friendly, so you can make them ahead, and serve whenever you need them.  Gotta love freezer cooking!

Pecan Tarts

 

1/2 C. butter

3 oz. cream cheese

1 C. flour

 

1 egg

3/4 C. brown sugar, packed

1 T. butter, melted

1 tsp. vanilla

1 C. chopped pecans

 

Combine butter, cream cheese and flour.  Chill for a slightly easier to work with dough (opt.).  Make walnut sized balls and press into mini muffin pan, forming tart shells.  Mix egg, brown sugar, melted butter and vanilla and pecans.  Fill tart shells with pecan mixture.  Bake at 375 degrees for 15 to 18 min. or until filling is set and crust is lightly browned.

Notes: These freeze well, so  you can make ahead and pull out as needed.  Reheat in oven for warm tarts or serve at room temperature.

 

Ice Cream Shop Pie w/ variations

 

1 1/2 C. milk

4 oz. box instant pudding

3 C. cool whip

1 graham cracker crust

*Ice cream shop toppings

 

Combine milk and pudding mix in large bowl.  Beat with whisk until well blended.  Let stand 5 min. until slightly thick.  Fold in cool whip and ice cream shop toppings.  Spoon into crust.  Cover and freeze 6 hours.

To serve: remove from freeezer.  Let stand 10 min.  Store leftovers in freezer.

 

Toffee Bar Crunch:  use french vanilla pudding, Spread 1/3 C. butterscotch sauce in bottom of crust.  Add 1 C. chopped toffee bars to filling.  Drizzle with chocolate and butterscotch sauce.

 

Strawberry Banana Split:  Use french vanilla pudding.  Line crust w. sliced bananas.  Add 1 C. sliced strawberries to filling.  Drizzle w/ chocolate sauce.  Top w/ maraschino cherries and chopped nuts.

 

Rocky Road: Use chocolate pudding and chocolate crumb crust.  Fold in 1/2 C each of chocolate chips, mini marshmallows and chopped nuts.  Drizzle w/ chocolate sauce

Update

We are finally into the swing of school and I am finding that it takes up a good portion of my day right now.  We are still dealing with the quirks of our curriculum.  You cannot misspell a word by even one letter or it marks it wrong, so I have to go in and manually check everything to see whether the error is a spelling or comprehension error.  Other than that the kids seem to like the curriculum and get up and get started on school without a lot of prodding from mom.

I have been working on a few projects, I whipped up a couple more of the colored pencil holders.  I made a beach tent for the beach on Friday, but I cannot take pictures of it until then, I have nowhere to set it up.  I have also been working on cutting warp for the loom.  I finally have it all cut and now I am working on getting it on the loom.  I would take a picture but there really isn’t anything exciting about a jumbled mass of yarn draped all over the place.

I must admit I have been staying up way too late watching the Olympics!  But really, it is so exciting to watch things like Michael Phelps and the other guys on the relay team beat the French!!!  Now if all of these exciting events happened before Midnight it might be better, but it is only a couple of weeks.  Maybe I will have to up my coffee quotient in the mornings to keep me going.

Michael Phelps of the U.S.
Reuters – Aug 11, 10:38 pm EDT

The weather here has been cool and rainy for several days and it doesn’t look like today is going to be to much different.  I think it is going to be a lazy day.  Dan was up early this morning to catch a flight for Houston, so I am operating on about 5 hours sleep (definitely not enough for me).  The kids should be finishing up school soon, and then I just might curl up and take a movie nap or something.  I have plenty I need to do, but just can’t find my motivation today.  Hannah made some pancakes for lunch and I just ate a couple with blueberry syrup–yum!

Well, I need to go help with some spelling words and get the kitchen cleaned up in case I decide to get ambitious later and get some bread baked.