Meal Prep - Bread Baking Day - Honey Wheat Bread...

This is the best Honey Wheat bread that I have ever eaten. I have been eating pre-heated rolls for breakfast for the last couple mornings. They re-heat perfectly.  Even after days it is still fresh like it was just baked. I wrapped up the extra rolls and a loaf of bread and put them in the freezer to use later.

Honey Wheat Bread

3 Tbs Yeast
1 C Warm water
1 Tsp Sugar
2 C Hot water
1/2 C Honey
1/2 C Brown sugar
4 Tsp Salt
4 Tbs Shortening
2 1/2 C Cool water
5 C Whole wheat flour
10 C White flour 

Melted butter, optional

Dissolve yeast in warm water with1Tsp sugar. Heat up 2 cups of hot water and dissolve the honey, brown sugar, salt and shortening in it. Do not boil. Add the cool water and the yeast water to the hot water in that order. Add the whole wheat flour one cup at a time while mixing and 2 cups of the white flour; beat thoroughly with a beater or mixer for 10 minutes. Add the rest of flour; knead well. Let rise until doubled in bulk; punch down and knead again. Let dough rise for a second time. Punch down and shape the dough into loaves, rolls or buns; put in bread pans and let rise. Brush rolls with butter if making rolls. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 325 degrees for approximately 30 minutes. After bread has been baked, remove from pans and brush with melted butter. Yields 9 (1-pound) loaves. 

Notes: 

If baking larger sized loaves, adjust baking time. 

This is a lot and I mean a lot of dough. I made 2 larger loaves of bread (almost 2-lbs each), a large pan of rolls and 6 large buns instead of nine 1-pound loaves (I do not have nine bread pans). Next time, I will cut the recipe in half. Half a recipe is better suited for our needs. Although, it is nice to have extra baked breads in the freezer.

I brushed melted butter on the tops of the buns and loaves after baking and I brushed melted butter on the rolls before and after baking. 

We ate two plain buns right out of the oven. I didn't even get a picture. Then we had fish stick sandwiches for our Sabbath dinner with baked waffle fries and coleslaw. It was delicious!

Things To Be Happy About:

Hot rolls right out of the oven

The smell of bread baking 

The sound of my old dog's toenails clicking on the wood floors

A place to call home

Tracking animals in the snow while out on a walk

Watching great movies time and time again without growing weary

The Great Sand Dunes

Enjoy!

Mrs. Smith

Meal Prep - Pickling Day - Pickled Mexican Carrots - Recipe - And More!

Ingredients 

(This recipe fills 4 pints or 2-quart jars)
• 2 lbs. fresh 1/4 inch diagonally sliced carrots
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced jalapeños
• 1 thinly sliced medium-sized onion
• 5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups white vinegar
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil (omit if canning)
• 6 bay leaves
• 10 black peppercorns
• 2 tsp dried oregano 
• 1 tsp salt

Instructions

• Peel and slice carrots and onion into 1/4-inch-thick pieces. Cut the stems off jalapeños and thinly slice. Set aside.
• In a large stock pot add the garlic, vinegar, water, oil (omit if canning), bay leaves, peppercorns, oregano, salt. Bring to a boil and add the carrots, onion and jalapeños. Lower heat to medium-low and cook for 15 minutes, uncovered. If more liquid is needed to cover carrot mixture add equal parts water and white vinegar.
• Allow to cool completely, if you are not canning the carrots. Store the carrots along with the seasoned cooking brine in canning jars with lids in the refrigerator.
• Let sit in the refrigerator for 3 days before serving.

Preserving:

• If canning, omit the oil.
• Wash jars, lids and bands in hot soapy water. Rinse well. Dry bands and set aside. Heat jars and lids in the hot water bath(180°F). DO NOT BOIL LIDS. Allow jars and lids to remain in hot water until ready for use.
• Hot pack the sterile jars with carrot mixture, leave 1/2-inch headspace. Remove any air bubbles. Wipe the rim of the jars before putting lids and bands on.
• Water bath pints for 15 minutes and adjust for altitude. Add 5 minutes to water bath time for every 1,000 feet in altitude. (I had to process my pints for 55 minutes.)
• Remove from the canner, place hot jars on a towel and let cool for 24 hours. Check to make sure the jars have sealed, remove bands, label and store in cool dark place.
• Store in the refrigerator after opening for up to 1 month.

I gave the carrot peelings to the chickens.

Everything is ready to go into the vinegar brine.

Cook for 15 minutes.

I had to make extra brine to cover the vegetable mix.

Readying my jars, lids and bands.

Hot water bath for the filled jars.

Cooling the jars.

I also made a sweet pickling brine to pickle a few other treats.

Cabbage mixture and beef sausages.

The sweet brine is cooling.

I added the sweet brine to the cabbage mixture then I added a 1/4 cup of hot sauce to the beef sausages along with the brine. I used my new pickling weights. They are very handy!

I put these jars in the fridge for three days before serving.

I had enough brine left for one more quart, so I did a pepper cabbage blend.

I must say that the colors are very vibrant. 

For the sweet pickle brine recipe follow this link: Pickling Brines

Things To Be Happy About:

The way a full moon lights up the night sky

The beautiful patterns on ceramic knives

Sticky tape

Bootstraps

Cool calendars 

Chinois strainer

A carpet of Periwinkle flowers in the woods

Enjoy,

Mrs. Smith

Meal Prep - Freezer Meals - Day 4 - Side Dishes and Tying Up Loose Ends - Last Day!

This is our last day of meal prepping and our last post in this series. We only had a few more things to do today including tying up some loose ends and making some staple side dishes to go with the meals that we prepared.

I must tell you that I am glad that we are finished with this endeavor and grateful that we have a freezer full of healthy prepared meals. I tried to calculate how many servings, but I did not keep up with the numbers. 

I bagged up two very full quart baggies of Carne Guisada. 

I measured out the rice and picked out the smallest potatoes to cook in the pressure cooker. It wasn't hard picking out the potatoes, because we haven't had decent potato harvest for a couple of years now, but the prices keep going up and the quality keeps going down. 

I also peeled some potatoes to make hashbrowns.

Ready to go.

We needed another salad too.

The chickens eat the scraps, but they cannot eat raw potato skins, they are toxic to chickens.

I made a big pot of Taco soup. neither one of us care for chili, so I made up this recipe years ago. It is a favorite of ours. it's a great way to add beans to your diet. 

I bagged up the rice after it cooled off, and I left some in the fridge.

Number One sliced the chicken.

We had freshly cooked Taco soup and grilled cheese sandwiches from the freezer for lunch.

I bagged up the sliced chicken. I froze one and left one out.

 Taco soup is also good served over hot rice. We had it for a light easy dinner Thursday evening.

The recipe for Carne Guisada is coming soon. I hope that you enjoyed this meal prep series. Feel free to share a good recipe in the comment section. We could all use a little inspiration these days. 

Things To Be Happy about:

The beginning and the ending and everything in the middle

Tap lights

Fig Newton's

The feeling you feel when you go into a store and come out with nothing because you have everything you need.

Tying up loose ends

The saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

@

Dust covers on books

A welcoming lived-in home

Refrigerator glassware

The finish line

Mrs. Smith

Gather Up The Fragments... Meal Prep

We did not have very many fragments left in the fridge this week. Two fragments to be exact, so we did some meal prep for next week's long anticipated Fall like weather. Meal prepping saves time, money and helps us eat healthier. 

I had some romaine lettuce that needed some attention.
I prepared a large bowl for this weekend and
    I washed and stored the rest to use next week. 

I had some homemade chicken and pasta soup that
I had leftover from Thursday's Lunch. I made it from a chicken carcass I had frozen from a previous gathering up the fragments week.
I re-heated it and we had it for lunch on Friday with crackers. 

We have had ice on the chicken water in the mornings for a week now, but it was still in the eighties during the day. This is full blown extreme Summer weather that we have been experiencing during the day. It has been way too hot use the oven, so I have been putting off  baking bread and other things that require the oven. I did make some soup last week, because I am so ready for cooler weather and all the good food that goes with it. 

I pressed out 16 hamburger patties from a
10 pound chub I had thawed out.

Number One is the "Grill Master".

The background colors are changing to dull greens and browns

Creole grilled chicken halves from a few weeks ago.

16 Grilled burgers

Just showing off Number One's grilling skills. Creole grilled chicken halves, grilled smoked
beef sausage and grilled beef hotdogs from a couple weeks ago.

I froze 12 out of the 16 burgers. 

I browned about 2 pounds of the ground beef..

I froze the browned meat to use in other meals at a later date. 

I chopped up cabbage and onions to cook with the rest of the ground beef to make Bierocks (German Burgers) next week when the weather cools off.

Ground beef, chopped cabbage, onions, minced garlic, salt and pepper in a skillet.

Taking a peek...

All done. I put it in a bowl and put it in the fridge for next week.

While all the other food was cooking I used my electric pressure cooker to make this healthy side dish. 

Just add water and a little butter.

12 Minutes at 9,000 feet in altitude.  

I froze two quart bags and put a bowl in the fridge for us to eat this weekend.

One day, some months ago, while I was gathering fragments I made some twice baked potatoes out of some baking potatoes that needed to be used up. I made a large batch and froze them in gallon freezer bags. I froze them on a baking sheet first, so they would not loose their shape or toppings when I bagged them up. 

I added a salad and a grilled burger to make our Sabbath dinner. I cooked the potato while I was heating up the burger in the same pan with a lid. It turned out just as good without using the oven. 

Number One requested turkey bacon and...

green onions on the next ones, so...

I gave the green onions in the window a haircut and...

Wait for it...

made his request happen for breakfast...

I know, I know it's a strange breakfast or an early lunch. It was almost 11 am before we ate breakfast. I am not a breakfast fan and neither of us care too much for traditional breakfast fare. 

Have a blessed week,

Mrs. Smith