No Knead Bread

My aunt Dee taught me how to make this when she visited in 2011.

5 - cups hot water (hotter than bathwater, but not scalding)

4 - tablespoons of yeast

1 - cup oil

6 - tablespoons sugar

2 - tablespoons salt ( optional)

8-10 - cups of flour 

mix all ingredients together. should be sticky. stir down from the outer part of the bowl inward every 10 minutes for 1 hour. should be covered.

put oil in bread pans. put dough in bread pans, cover & let rise for 1/2 hour. makes 4-5 loaves

bake at 375 for 30-35 minutes.

can also be used to make : cinnamon rolls, biscuits

So, I don't know about you, but reading this, I would be LOST :)  Luckily, my Aunt came down and showed us how to make it.  So, here it is in picture form:

Add 5 cups hot water to a huge bowl :)

Sprinkle 4 TBSP yeast into water

Add 1 Cup oil

add 6 TBSP sugar to activate the yeast

It'll start doing this bubbly thing

add 2 TBSP salt, if you want (I like it better with the salt)

Start with 6 cups of flour.  Add up to 10 (usually it takes between 9-10).  After the original 6, add 1 cup at a time, until you are up to 9 cups, then add 1/2 a cup at a time.

 Stir until well mixed, forming a sticky ball

Cover and wait 10 minutes

After it's risen for 10 minutes, stir around the bowl once.

Stir from the outside of the bowl, piling onto the inside.  Cover, and wait 10 minutes.  Repeat 6 times.

After you've stirred 6 times (10 minutes between each one) oil your hands (yep! Pour vegetable oil right on your hands).  Then take about 1/5 of the dough (sorry, I don't have pictures of this part... but my hands were covered in oil and dough!) and mold into a loaf shape.  Do this by using both hands, and folding the dough over on itself until it's smooth on top, and long :)

Place in well oiled pan (I used oil for some, and then when they didn't come out very easily I switched to pam for baking, and then oil.  The oil gives them a buttery taste, the pam lets it slide out of the pan easily!)  Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.  (I spray pam the bottom of the towel, it makes the bread not stick to it).

Bake for 30-35 minutes at 375.

There is a proper way to let the bread cool.  Did you know that?  I didn't!  I figured it out the hard way.
If you don't let it cool properly, it'll end up looking like this:

So, to let it rest in the loaf pans for at least 5 minutes after removing from the oven. Then, tilt the pans on their side to let the bread cool for at least 10 more minutes.

They'll slide out easily.   To allow for easier cutting, let cool completely. I never have been able to do that!  They taste WAY to yummy fresh out of the oven! 

Eat and Enjoy!  (I love it with Peach Freezer Jam!)

Decorating on a Dime!

Christmas is Expensive! And as you may know, my honey and I downsized so I could be a stay-at-home momma. This brought a dilemma about a week ago when I started thinking about how to decorate our place for Christmas. We don't have room for a Christmas village, or a tree, or really anything that's not already in our place!

However, the Bee (our daughter) is almost 2 now, so we wanted it to be really special for her. Last year, she was only 9 months old, and we moved right after Christmas, so we never decorated.

My goal this year was to decorate for less than $10! :) I spent less than $2!

Wrapping Pictures:

It quickly gives your already decorated walls a Christmas theme! Plus, it's really easy to un-decorate! It takes us less than 5 minutes to get it all down, even less if you have kids who are good at unwrapping! This is great not only for Christmas, but for birthdays and other events as well!

I choose color coordinating wrapping paper, or wrap them all in the same paper. You can get it cheap at Walgreens, or use leftover wrapping paper, from last year. This is stuff I purchased last year on a Buy 1 for $1.99 Get 2 free sale at Walgreens ($.66 a roll!). Wrapping all the pictures in the house, I used less than 1/4 of a roll of each paper, (spending about $.66!)

 

I did purchase some green ribbon at Target today for (they are regularly priced at $1), to jazz up the bows, and for the actual bows, I purchased some last year after Christmas ($.50 for 50 bows at Walmart! I love after Christmas clearance!).

We then hung some Christmas lights up (we bought them several years ago).


It's not a lot (but we don't really have room for a lot!), and my daughter is in awe over all the changes, and I love how just a couple of cheap touches make SUCH a huge difference, without costing much or being a danger to have around for our little Bee. :)

We also go (closer to Christmas) to our local Christmas tree stand, and ask for the cut off branches. They give them to us for free, and it makes the house smell incredible (one more year until we risk a tree!). Throw a few ornaments on arranged branches and you have a super easy centerpiece!