Little House In the RedWoods- Baking Bread

Straight up White Sandwich Bread- no added healthy ingredients

UPDATE-
** So I wrote this post about 2 years ago, but never got around to publishing to my blog...  back to bread making simply due to recent circumstances...  I buy yeast by the pound, so we have lots of it.  I considered this time a great opportunity to teach my daughter (who will be 7 next week) how to make & bake bread, in hopes that she could do the whole process from beginning to end, on her own.  I started by measuring all the dry ingredients out for her and placing in a tupperware the day before.  Then her job was to add the wet ingredients and remember the steps and process and do lots of kneading and rising.  After that she got all the dry ingredients out to measure into the tupperware and get ready for the next bread making day.  Doing it this way, helps make the process go more quickly since we want to get our bread risen and baked by lunch time.  We pre-measure all our dry ingredients today, so that when we get at it tomorrow, all we have to do is add water, honey and oil... and then knead.  Once that step is done, we can take our time getting our dry ingredients ready for the next time we make bread.  Plus it breaks the process down into 2 parts, of less steps.  
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Last month I stopped buying sandwich bread from the grocery store.  This was huge, considering we go through 3 loaves a week.  After finding a recipe that worked for me, I decided that eating fresh, homemade bread each day was worth the effort.  Because I stay home with my children, and enjoy homemaking- it is actually quite fun.  And it makes me feel a little more connected to the "Caroline Ingalls" within me.  

In the past few years I have found a few great recipes for Pizza dough & a rustic loaf of Italian bread. In my hunt for a good recipe for sandwich bread, I found that all 3 recipes were quite similar for ingredients.  I used to be quite intimidated by yeast and bread making.  The recipes were overly complicated and it felt like nothing I tried to make, ever turned out.  Some recipes call you to put the yeast in the warm water for 5 minutes, until it froths.  Other's tell you just throw it all into the bowl and mix together.  

Basically it goes like this:

3 cups of flour (any kind of flour- it does not have to be bread flour)

1 1/4 cups warm water (I now use the whey left over from making goat cheese + mixed with water)

1 Tbs. instant yeast (I buy yeast buy the pound)

1 Tbs. sugar or honey (Maple Syrup works too)

a couple shakes of salt

a drizzle of olive oil

I throw it all in my kitchen Aide mixer and mix until it is no longer sticky.  I end up adding more flour as needed.  Recently I made Challah Bread for Purim, which called for a lot more flour, 2 eggs, & a lot more honey..... and it turned out amazing!  And with double the flour, it still only called for 1 Tbs. of yeast.  So that made me realize it's not about having more yeast / flour ratio.  With that Challah success I sometimes throw in a couple eggs to my bread for added protein factor.  And the bread generally turns out... every single time. ** I now add wheat germ (added protein) and flax seed (omega3) and oats. Once your dough is ready, drizzle olive oil in a bowl and place dough ball in bowl.  Then cover with a wet towel and place in a warm spot.  I put ours in front of our wood stove.  **I have learned to quick rise my bread by pre-heating the over till it's warm.  Then I pot my covered bread in the over to rise more quickly than at room temperature.  

The most important factor I have found is that you must kneed the bread for a good amount of time.  The longer the better. And then of course allowing adequate time for the bread to rise.  I allow it to rise until it's doubled in size.  Then I pat it down and allow it to rise a 2nd time.  The double rise is key.  I also feel like using whey in place of water makes my bread dough have a smoother & lighter consistency.  So whenever I have whey left over from making goat cheese, I use it.

I also found a recipe that called for placing an empty pan in the over while it pre-heated.  Once it's ready for the bread, you dump a bowl full of ice into the heated pan (on the lower rack- below the bread).  The steam from the ice, makes the outside of the bread nice and crusty.  *I have found that simply having a pan of water (not necessarily ice) also works to give the bread a nice crisp crust.

So basically, this recipe makes my pizza dough, sandwich bread & italian bread.  I make a few variations to each recipe, like adding oregano/ basil to the pizza dough.  Oiling the top of the Italian bread, and sprinkling Adobo & sea salt.  

In the past month, we have only purchased 1 loaf of bread (per the Laird's suggestion because he's afraid of me getting burned out making bread).  It takes me about 15 minutes to get the ingredients all mixed together and the dough kneaded and ready to rise.  The more often I make bread, the faster I am able to throw it all together.  My kids and husband love having fresh bread.  And I get to add what I want to it.  I generally throw in a shake of Wheat germ & Flax seed- to add some omega-3 and other vitamins.  Once the bread is finished baking, it will sound like a hollow door when you knock on it.  Allow it too cool a little while before slicing into it.

Italian Bread- bake @ 350 deg. F  for 30 min.

Sandwich Bread- bake @ 430 deg. F for 30 min.  
*I have recently been baking @ 375 deg. F for 40min

Thin Crust Pizza- bake @ 425 deg. F for 12 min.

Happy Bread Making!  Homemade bread generally doesn't last long in our house because we eat it up by the next day.  However if that isn't the case for you, it only stays fresh for a couple days.  So eating it up the first day is definitely worth it.  

Debt Free Journey Story- Mortgage Free

A Fall view of our home

If you know me at all, you know that I am quite passionate about Debt Freedom.  Even before I ever got married, I had the goal of paying off my first house.  That goal has followed me around over the years and houses.  My mom introduced me to Dave Ramsey back in 2004 when I had recently graduated college and had some college debt to my name.  I read the "Total Money Makeover" and started applying the baby step principles to paying off my college debt.  And by December of 2005, within 18 months of graduating college, I had my $21,000 student loans paid in full.  It was amazing to accomplish such a task, especially considering I only worked part time during some of journey.  I didn't follow the steps perfectly, considering the following December I bought my first house.  I didn't have a large downpayment, but still bought the house.  But other than the mortgage debt, I stayed debt free.  I payed cash for my 2nd car.  

I married the Laird in 2010, who was even more financially wise and frugal than myself.  So that was a good combination for money matters within our marriage.  We've both been on the same page when it comes to spending for the whole of our time together.  When we got married and joined our incomes, we made the best decision ever.  We knew that once we started a family, we would move to a one income situation, so that I could stay home and raise our children and eventually homeschool.  So from the time we got married and had 2 incomes, we purposefully decided to live as if we only had my husband's income.  My income went directly into savings and was never considered available for spending.  This was the greatest decision ever and would be my best money advice to newlyweds.

You can check out my other debt free posts Here

So we bought our home in October of 2013.  We had a 6 month old baby.  This 1890's poor farmhouse needed work.  The stairs were too steep, and the 2nd floor ceilings were too short.  We paid to have contractors put in L-configured stairs and vault the ceilings for the master bedroom, hallway and bathroom (we left the kids bedrooms with low ceilings).  We paid cash for that work, thanks to my saved income for those couple of years of being married-no children.  Over the years we have continued to work on our house and do many projects.  

Over the course of the past 7 years, we have taken different approaches to paying on our mortgage.  In the beginning, we didn't pay anything extra towards the principal simply because we had spent so much on the renovations and down payment.  But after a couple years we started paying about $100 extra towards the principal each month.  In 2015, after our 2nd child was born, the interest rates were very low, so we decided to refinance the mortgage down to a lower interest rate and a 15 year loan from 30 years.  I think we got 2.75% down from 4.6% or more (I cannot remember).  And at that point we were only 2 years into our 30 year mortgage.  So it seemed worth it to do, since we didn't plan to pay the mortgage off anytime in the near future.  The amazing part about our refinance, was that our monthly payment only went up about $100/month.  We continued to plug away and chip that mortgage down.  Then in 2017, our savings had built up, so it seemed wise to pay down some more of our principal in a chunk.  That felt really good, so we upped our monthly extra principal payment to $500. Watching the principal go down more quickly was very cool, but we still had a long way to go.  In 2018, we decided to pull back our extra contributions completely.  We had some plans for the following year, and decided we needed to save the money to have cash available for those plans.  In December of 2018, I found out I was pregnant, not planned!~  Very exciting, however that threw a wrench in our 2019 plans.  Our plans and lives got flipped upside down for a bit, and we had to re-evaluate.  We decided that our 2019 plans needed to be deferred year.  The Laird wondered if we buckled down, would it be possible to pay off our mortgage completely within the next year (2019).  I did the math.  It was going to be very tight, and we would have to utilize much of the money we'd saved up the previous year, but we could probably do it in about 15 months (March of 2020).  So we ventured into this gazelle intense debt paydown of about $75k-$80k left on our mortgage in that next 15 months.  

AND WE DID IT!  In December of 2019, we were on track for payoff in March 2020.  We had money saved up in other areas.  So I got a little pay crazy and ended up borrowing some money from our emergency and car funds (with intentions of paying the newly freed up money from no mortgage back to those funds), and paid the mortgage off on December 21, 2019!!!

So now we have been mortgage free for 4 months and it's pretty amazing.  Our money comes in and goes directly into savings funds, while our monthly expenses have been decreased dramatically.  We now have to save money each month in order to cover our property/school taxes twice a year.  So much of what was used to pay our mortgage now goes into a fund to pay property taxes and fund improvements and repairs.

So that's our short/long story of becoming Debt Free/ Mortgage Free.  We do still have a 3 family rental property that we have owned for 9 years, which still has a mortgage.  But other than that, we don't owe anyone any money.  It's time to follow the age old tradition of getting a new front door and painting it red.

Accomplishing this huge goal, opens up so many doors for future endeavors.  We are free of being slave to the lender any longer!  Doesn't that sound amazing?  If this inspires you at all, I encourage you to check Dave Ramsey out.  Work the 7 Baby Steps- they are so straightforward.   It may take some retraining and building new habits.  It may be hard.  But doing hard things is worth it.  Because when you live like no one else today, you get to live like no one else tomorrow!  

Blueberry Patch Enclosure

Two things happened this past week that have been hopes and on the table for discussion for some time.  

1.  We planted blueberry bushes 6 years ago when we first moved into our house.  The enclosures started out as individual for each plant.  But then they grew out of them each year.  So some of the enclosures got bigger.  Last year, I convinced the Laird to move some of the plants into the mostly formed 2 rows and build a row enclosure.  And while it looked a bit better to have 2 long row enclosures, it did not help the "pleasure of picking berries" factor.  We would have to reach over or under the fence and get all tangled up in netting.  And the kids really couldn't do either of those things.  So while the formed enclosures prevented the kids and every other creature from eating all the berries... it made for very difficult picking.  For a few years I have suggested making a fenced blueberry patch- to keep the deer and birds out, but allow for people to go inside to pick berries.  The hesitation has always been having a large structure in the middle of the yard, blocking the view... and the amount of mulch it would take to cover the entire area... and worry that it would become a weed patch (like our garden).  And up until last week, that stance has stood quite firm.  But I think he just got tired of making and fixing the enclosures.every.single.spring!  And we figured out that we could leave the grass path down the middle, and if we made a gate wide enough, we could just ride the mower down the center and keep things tidy.

2.  A couple years ago, I got the itch to have a green house.  One of those beautiful ones built out of an eclectic collection of old windows.  You know what I am talking about... think pinterest.  The Laird suggested that we could pick up a kit from Lowes for much cheaper.  I responded that cheap isn't aesthetically appealing, and if it's going to be in our yard, we might as well put some effort and creativity into it.  Like we did for our chicken coop- something we are quite proud of.  So I found a seller on craigslist, and we went and picked up about 8 or 9 windows.  At some point, we abandoned our initial idea of building the green house against the house.   And those said windows have been sitting in our garage for at least 2 years now.  And the discussion turned towards whether or not it was really worth the time and money, and the fact that we no longer liked the initial plan... that if we were to build a free standing green house, we were going to need to find a bunch more windows, for cheap.  Well it turned out that some friends had all the windows replaced and were willing to give us the windows.  We checked them out and were interested.  But with other projects and goals, we never acted upon them.  The greenhouse goal did not seem as important- it just felt like a whole lot of work and money.  Up until last week.

                                                                                   Well last week, the tides changed.  Somehow the Laird came around to both ideas- he picked up the windows,  and got materials for the blueberry enclosure.  And here we are.  This weekend we got that blueberry enclosure started and finished!!  It feels amazing to start and finish a project.  And I spent a good amount of time working out a plan for the walls of our proposed green house, and laying out some ideas.  The Laird started siting the location and figuring out what we needed to do to get the location ready.  But that is a much larger project and we have a few other smaller and more pressing tasks to accomplish before we dive into this green house.  But the hope is that we can start and finish by the end of the summer, so that this time next year we will be starting our seeds in our green house.

It's really amazing to work together on projects we are both excited about.  I am not sure how or why the Laird finally came around, because I had become content with not doing either.  Less work for sure.  But I am excited to see some of these hopes being realized.  

  

GEN FOLKSONGS- Lean On Me

GEN FOLKSONGS- Lean On Me

Though Lean On Me isn't technically a folk song... we wanted to share a song of encouragement for all those out there in the world who are affected by Covid-19.  From all the doctors/ nurses/ hospital staff... to all the essential workers.  From our family to yours.... We say THANK YOU.  We are SO GRATEFUL!!

Check out our You Tube channel: GEN FOLKSONGS

This weeks song: LEAN ON ME

Our HAPPY CAMPER- 1968 Winnebago Re-Build

Something to SMILE about...

Dinner with our camper on the night we brought her home

With the pandemic in full force across the globe, we all need reminders of reasons to smile, each day as we go forward.  And for me, this lil' camper makes me smile.  I love painting because it instantly gives the object a fresh, and different look.  I love change.  I have never been one for decorations.  I used to strive to be minimal in my material belongings.  

With my first house, I would often re-paint walls in my house in order to decorate.  I never really worried about going bold and painting my living room bright orange or my kitchen a sunflower yellow, because paint could always be easily changed if I didn't love the color.  And color makes me smile.  But 3 children later, and much less free time of my own.... time for repainting if the color isn't right, is not time I really can afford.  So after much deliberation, I landed on a color combination that I thought would be classy and cute.  As much as I wanted go bright and bold, I trusted the color combinations I was naturally drawn to of photos I found online.  

So I found Whippy Cake Blog, which guided me through the process of prepping and painting our vintage camper.  And thankfully, it turned out amazing!  It always feels great when something you put your sweat and heart into, turns into something you love.  

Within the first 2 weekends of owning it, we re-painted the exterior and tore out the existing bed set up.  The previous couple had torn out the original dinette and raised the bed, so that their 2 great danes could sleep down below.  Obviously our family of 5 needed something with a bit more sleeping room- squished into a 10 foot camper.  

BEFORE-

 RENOVATIONS-

Rebuilt and insulated the back wall

New framing & insulation

Involving the kids with the work 

Lower cabinets painted navy

New walls & paint

Dual benches for dinette 

Benches pull out to make a King Size bed 

Upper and lower cabinets painted/ Doors, drawers and hardware re-installed

Full size upper kids bunk (rebuilt to original design)

We are scheduled to depart on our Road Trip in about 3 months- pending whenever the Covid-19 Pandemic resolves, life returns to something more normal, and the National Parks re-open.  We are pretty much done with the major work to be done on the camper. The lower bed cushions are complete, and the curtains are finished and hung (photos to come). We have intentions to install a lovely backsplash in the kitchenette.  Then it will be time to fashion some sweet storage maximizing solutions.  

We LOVE this little camper.  It makes us smile.  And we are looking forward to many beautiful memories that our family will make traveling with it.  This road trip has been an idea for a few years.  Waiting.  Dreaming.  Postponing. Pushing through to pay off our mortgage!  Looking forward.  And now we are mere months away from setting sail.  In our minds, it seems like a lovely adventure.  And this, it will be at times.  But at other times, I am sure we will be asking ourselves why we thought this would be any fun at all.   All of us packed into a 10 ft. by 6 ft box.  And at those times, we will need to step back and look at that sweet paint job.  And smile.  Because at least we won't be tent camping, with three kids, across the country.  This has to be better than that!  

Find your something to SMILE about.  Through the sweat and work of life, it's the trouble you've gone through that makes life even more beautiful and worth that SMILE.  I am confident that this lil' camper wouldn't bring me as genuine a smile, had we simply bought it in perfect condition and ready to go.  We needed to work for this.  Our creativity needed to bubble over.  It had to get messy before it became beautiful.  And it did.  It was worth it, even if there was no road trip to go on.  It was the process.  The learning. The BEAUTY of memories made and working together.  Dreaming together.  Having our vision become realized.  

Smile.

HOMESCHOOLING- Folk Songs

   Wow it's been some time since I posted to this BLOG... and we've entered new seasons and learned many new things since then.  We have been homeschooling for a few years now, and our oldest is almost 7, in year one.  We absolutely love the Ambleside Online the curriculum we have been using.  It is based upon the Charlotte Mason method- google it if you have never heard of it.  Once I discovered the method, I knew it was for us.  After discovering the method, I found Ambleside Online and was so grateful because of the amazing guide it was for helping me to know what exactly to teach my children.  Beyond the reading, writing, math and essentials, we have discovered a love for the Enrichments like Nature Study, Picture Study, Composer Study, Hymn study, and Folk Songs!  There is a schedule for each, that ambleside uses, and you are free to follow of select your own.  We are picking our own hymns each month, simply to learn and know the hymns that we sing in our fellowship and are familiar to us.  As we need to, we will start following some of the selected hymns to learn some new ones.  We generally follow the Composer & Artist study selections for each term because they choose 2 people who are from the same time in history, however this term I branched off chose Ansel Adams (picture study) in preparation for our Road Trip this summer.  We will be visiting many of the US National Parks on our adventure.  I have loved photography since high school, and am absolutely loving learning about Ansel Adams and becoming familiar with his photos of some of the parks we will visit.  

And finally, folk songs.  I had no idea what a hit and joy these would be for our family!  Folk songs are AWESOME people!!  They are the kind of songs you can sing anytime, anywhere.  We find ourselves whistling together the songs that we've learning, while doing other things.  of instrumentsBy simply having a folk song for each month, and incorporating it into random parts of our day, we have grown to love and sing many of these songs we now love.  

And now that the world is in the throws of these strange times because of the Coronavirus/Covid-19... dad is home more than ever before.  He's been a great addition to our homeschooling rhythm and we are able to take action on an idea we have had for some time.  We have started a You Tube channel to share some of our favorite folk songs that we have learned.  Kids love watching other kids- so sharing this first song with the Ambleside Online facebook group- featuring this months song, "Health to the Company" has been a hit.  

Check it out @  GEN FOLKSONGS
Health to the Company

HOW we implement and learn each folk song.  We start out by watching a few you tube videos that we find for the song.  We listen/watch during our Tea Time in the afternoons.  We also read over the lyrics and get a feeling for what the song is about.  After our initial introduction, we will play it in the background when we're needing some music in our day, while we do other activities- lunch, art, play...  At some point, the Laird (a.k.a. Daddy) will get out his guitar and learn the song together.  Our Friday nights will often be guitar and singing nights- so we add the newest folk song to our growing collection of songs we like to sing together.

Little House in the RedWoods- Braided Rugs

Making a Braided Rug.  I cannot recall how the idea came to me.  But something led me down the path of looking up how to make braided rugs on the internet.  They are so beautiful.  Primitive.  Resourceful.  And though time consuming,  are not very difficult to make.  

Trial run of making a braided rug out of my
box of fabric remnants

I wanted to make a rug for my dining room, to go under our table. And we have a trap door down to the basement that could use a rug as well.  I decided I would test out the braided rug process with fabric remnants that I already had, in order to decide if this was a project I really wanted to do.  I hate abandoning projects and leaving them unfinished.  I enjoyed the process of making this first rug, however it turned out quite small.  It fits nicely at my kitchen sink.

After making this rug, I discovered a few quirks.  The edges curl and there are areas that bubble up.  Hand sewing this rug just about killed the nerves in my fingertips as well.  So I decided to problem solve and see if there were solutions to the problems I found with my first rug.  

I found a woman with a series of wonderful YouTube videos, who details the correct process of making a braided rug out of t-shirts. You can find her at Prairie Adventures Braided Rug tutorials.  I wish I would have found her videos before I made my first rug. From her videos I learned how to make a turning braid, to avoid the bubbling spots.  I also learned a better way to sewing the rug together- lacing rather than sewing through the fabric. With these few improvements, I decided I was going to investigate the cost of used sheets at our local Salvation Army.  The first time I went in, I discovered they sold individual sheets (any size) for $1.99.  I felt like I had hit a jackpot!  Amazing- so much fabric for such a low price.  I found 5 sheets to buy that day.  And that began my weekly visits to find more sheets.  Based on the sheets I found, my color scheme ranges from navy blue, to grey, light sage greens, white, golden yellow, and 2 fabrics with prints.  

Each evening, over the course of a week, I cut 2 inch strips down the length of each sheet.  First I cut off the seems.  I wrapped them around my hand into little rolls.  Once that was completed, I decided on the order I wanted the colors to be in the braids.  And then I got to start braiding.  

This felt like a lot of fabric while the sheets were still whole.
Now it doesn't look like a lot.

I found somewhere that in order to determine your center braid length, you should figure out the dimensions of the final rug.  You subtract the width from the length, and that is the length you should make your inner braid.  So I started with a 2 1/2' center braid.  Once I had 30" of braid, I worked a turning braid in.  (Prairie Adventures lady demonstrates how to do a turning braid, but you can learn by searching internet as well.) Then braided back to the beginning.  Once I got to the other end, I worked another turning braid.  From there, I decided to start lacing my braids together.  This helped to keep from having an enormous length of braid constantly following me around and making a mess.  It also removed the temptation for my kids to use their imaginations and make a giant knot of my braid- with all the games they came up with the first time around.   And it also helped me to see if I needed to add more turning braids at the corners.  

Here's the current status of my newest braided rug

So far it seems as though the turning braids have greatly diminished the amount of bubbling- though there are still areas that bubble up a tiny bit.  And lacing the braids to the rugs as I go is working better than making the entire length of braid, before lacing it together.  Another difference this time around is that I am sewing the new fabric strips together as I braid.  The first rug I used a method of cutting slits into the ends of the fabric strips and then tying the pieces in.  It was an ok way of doing things, but I decided I wanted it to be a nicer rug- so I am taking the extra time to sew and have essentially a continuous length of fabric for my braid.  

I am quite excited about this new rug and it is turning out great so far.  I have decided that I probably won't use it under my dining room table, but will instead put it in front of our window seat.  It will be better appreciated out in the center of the room, rather than covered by a table and chairs.  Not to mention, this location will save it from getting ruined by spills that happen at a dining room table and wear and tear from the chairs.  But then again, it will be some time before the rug is complete, and I could change my mind once again.  Another location would be in the Laird's "Jungle Corner" of our dining room, where he has all his/ our cool travel souvenirs and decorations, and our "library" of books.  I have been searching for a wingback chair on craigslist for his corner and am off to check one out today.  I think the rug will coordinate with this chair quite nicely- so I am excited to see if we've found our wingback!

Other crafty happenings was inspired and prompted by finding this amazing sheet at Salvation Army when I was buying sheets up in armfuls for my rug.  This was such a sweet find, and it was a king sized sheet, with a darling ruffle already attached.  For $2.99! What a steal.  I am telling you- old sheets are becoming my new favorite fabric for making things. What do you think this sheet is becoming?  There's enough fabric that I have been working on a couple things with it....  Until next week to find out what and how this sheet has been transformed!  


Fun Fact:  You can spot Caroline "Ma" Ingalls working on her braided rug in various episodes of season 1 & 2 (we've just started Season 2).  I started making my first rug, as we had begun watching Little House Season 1, and lady Genevieve was the one who spotted what Ma was doing.  She recognized that Ma was making a rug, because she'd been watching me work on my braids of fabric.