Thoughts

So this post is going to consist of alot of things: recipes, our weekend adventures (or lack of ), and my growing restlessness...

First, let's start off with some recipes:


3 Cheese Bread:

My aunt gave me this recipe, and oh is it delicious. As I type, I'm eating an enormous slice. Now I've never made a yeast bread without a bread machine, so I was a little intimidated, but really- I shouldn't have been:

2 packages active dry yeast
8.5 tsps sugar
2 tsps salt
4 cups of all-purpose flour, sifter
1.5 cups lowfat milk (I used whole though and it was fine)
1 tblsp unsalted butter
.5 cup shredded cheddar
.5 cup shredded swiss
.5 cup grated parmesan

In large bowl, mix yeast, sugar, salf and 2 cups of flour. Heat milk and butter to 125 degrees. Slowly beat this into dry ingredients. Blend well and continue beating for a couple of min. (don't overbeat). Slowly stir in 3 cheese and other 2 cups of flour until batter is stiff. Cover bowl, put in warm place (I placed it in my yogurt maker, but you could place it onto of an electric heating pad or a dryer if you have one running)- allow it to rise until doubled in size (about an hour). Using large spoon, punch down batter and put into well-greased 9-inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 45 min. Lay a piece of foil on top (do not seal) and bake another 15 min. Bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped with knife. Take bread out of pan IMMEDIATELY. Enjoy

After mine was cool, I sliced it, and stuck half in the freezer. (Killian isn't much of a bread-eater, and I can't eat a whole loaf before it goes bad). I like the bread best when it's toasted and smeared with butter. :)

Here's another recipe, but it's for those with a yogurt maker (If you're interested in purchasing one, I bought this one and love it. However, you can probably find one at the local thrift store/good will.
Anyways:

For yogurt (a whole batch for my yogurt maker):

Let 4 cups of milk sit until at room temperature (normally an hour)
Mix in 2 Tblsp of plain (organic) yogurt. ** After you make your first batch, you can use your yogurt for this, but only for about 3-4 times, then the cultures start to get too weak**
Pour into the containers of yogurt maker and let sit for about 8 hrs.

While waiting, or before or after, make a sugar syrup by boiling either 2 parts water and one part sugar, or one part water and one part sugar (depending on how thick you want it). Once it's been brought to a boil, lower your stove to low setting and stir until the sugar is dissolved. That's it, you can store it in an air-tight container in your fridge.

I mix the sugar syrup in  with my yogurt along with vanilla extract and any fruit. It's such a delicious snack, and I know everything that's in it. :)

My final recipe for the day is not a food recipe, but a playdough recipe. :)

Salt Playdough:

Bring 1 cup salt, 1 cup water, and 1/2 cup of flour to a boil on the stove, stirring occasionally. Lower temp. to medium, and allow the mixture the thicken (stirring occasionally). Take off the stove when it's become thick and goopy.

After it's cooled, mix in more flour until it's workable. You can add some spices to make it smell nice. You could add Cinnamon etc, but I added cocoa powder. :) Yummy.

So, now that I'm done with my recipes, let's talk about our weekend. On friday, I took Killian to story time at our local library. He really enjoyed it. He's normally a pretty shy child, but boy was he a social butterfly. The first thing he did there was walk into the middle of the circle and start dancing in front of everyone. :) He is my angel. I'm planning on picking him up between my classes every friday and taking him to story time. I think it'd be good for him to interact with kids in another setting. :) After nap on Friday, Killian went to my mom's while I ran a few errands in Oshkosh (one of which was to pick up a tent/tunnel for killian ). In the evening, Killian stayed at my mom's to help out in the barn (and apparently loved it, even though he was freezing), and my little sister and I went to my dad's for dinner. Then my sister and I went to see Avatar. I really enjoyed it- probably because I have an imagination like the movie, so anyone else who can imagine different worlds like that interest me.

We got home late, and I didn't sleep well, because we were at my mom's house. Sat. morning, Killian and I stayed at my mom's for a few hours while he played and enjoyed his grandma's love. Then.. we basically spent the rest of the weekend at home. I'd like to go somewhere for killian to play this afternoon, but something seems to be holding me back today. I can't believe that school starts tomorrow. UGH! This is the first semester since I came back to school (4th semester now) that I'm not happy to be going back.

I think the main reason is that the longer I embrace my love of being a mother and what some people may call homemaker things like crafts, cooking, cleaning, gardening, etc. the more I want to do these things 24/7- and the harder it is for me to focus my time and attention on school. Don't get me wrong, I want to graduate and become a teacher- it's just that school takes up SOO much of my time that I can't do all the things I want to do.. and this has led me to resent it. I'm really hoping the this is just my winter blues talking.. because I have about 5.5 months of non-stop school ahead of me.

Stay tuned this weekend for some possible life-changing things (hopefully not, but it's out of my control).