Christmas Eve Dinner

I decided to try a new tradition this year for Christmas Eve. We tried to have a meal that would have been similar to what Jesus would have eaten. After doing some research I came up with the following menu:

Dried dates and apricots
cheese
Dried meat (beef jerky)
olives
apples, grapes, pomegranate
rustic bread
Pita bread
olive spread

It sounded kind of funny, but it was amazing how well all the flavors went together. The kids really enjoyed trying some new foods, too. And since it was an easy meal to prepare, that helped us think about the Savior, I think I will make it again next year.

Gingerbread House

We finally got around to making a gingerbread house. And by finally, I mean finally. Just so you know, gingerbread house pieces can successfully be frozen for a year.



I had attended a gingerbread workshop given by this wonderfully creative person. We had a great time decorating a house there and I learned a new couple of tricks, like how to make glass looking windows out of candy and put a string of lights inside to make it look lit up. Loving Architectural history, I decided I wanted to create a classically styled house. Believe it or not, Bob Villa has a few different home style gingerbread house plans posted on the web. I swear, you can find anything on the internet! So, I made all the pieces for a classic colonial last year, only to not have the time to put it together. So, after a year in the freezer, I thawed out the pieces and we made it this year.


Notice Cyrus using chopsticks to help hold up the walls.



The kids had a great time, even Marv joined in at the end.




Unfortunately, our decorative pay load on the roof was too much, and shortly after finding a home out of Cyrus reach for our finished creation, the roof caved in. We were able to patch it all back together, but I think it would have been better if the house assembly had occurred at least a day before the decorating part began. Just writing that here so that so I will remember the next time we make one, in about 10 years.

I never got a picture of it with the lights on. It made a nice cozy glow, especially when all the lights in the room came from it, the tree and the fireplace. And the best part was the gingerbread smell it made!

Running

We like to take the whole family to the XC meets. I think its good to have siblings support each other in their activities when they can. Plus, I am hoping they all want to follow each others examples and become runners. So far, it is working, with Emily doing XC after Marvin did. Maddy loves to run the races, too. Even though she has to stay behind the last person, and often the ATV who follows the last runner. Elsie seems to be expressing interest already, too:



In fact, I got inspired and decided I wanted to try running, too. Actually, I had already tried it once, back in 9th grade I ran the mile on the track team. But, after admiring so many of my friends who are runners, I decided I would try it again as an adult. I started a Couch to 5k program and got several weeks into it before cold weather and crazy busyness undermined my efforts. I actually got to the point of running 20 minutes at a time. Impressive, I know. Ha ha! I have to be honest, though, I didn't like it. Running just wasn't fun. I half suspect that it could be, sometimes, if I put enough into it so that I actually was fit enough to be doing it. Not sure I am willing to do that, though.


(By the way, that is me in the middle of the picture. Click on the picture and you can catch a glimpse of my very amateur running form.)

While running itself basically sucked, doing it outside where I could enjoy nature was actually quite nice. I found a gorgeous trail to run near my home, around this open field area, bordered by woods. It's the same place where we took our fall family portraits. I wasn't able to get there for all my runs, but if I could have and the weather had stayed nice, I might still be running. I'm thinking that I might start again when things thaw out a bit. Staying fit for the warm portion of the year is better than not ever being fit, right? Still, I'd probably much rather be sitting on a rock, sketching sights like these, rather than catching quick glimpses as I whiz wheeze past.




And just for fun:

The Changing Bloggy World

I was blog browsing tonight and discovered more blogs by people that I know in real life. It is amazing to me how blogging as a hobby has suddenly surged in popularity. And the blogs are different than when I first started. Everyone seems to post their full names now. They are family blogs, with full disclosure of where they live and what they are up to.

I remember when I discovered the fun of blogging over 2 years ago and mentioned it to a couple of in real life friends. They looked like I was speaking a foreign language, so I stopped mentioning it. My readers and the blogs I read were all either family or friends I had met through their blogs. And name and city mentioning? No way. Too dangerous putting private information like that on the internet. Nobody did that! I guess blogs are now so common, that its no different than having your name in the phone book. And do people make friends through blogs now? When you know no one who blogs, you naturally reach out to those who do, even if they are strangers. Now that there are so many blogs, perhaps that need no longer exists.

My blogging has changed, too. I don't post as frequently, nor do I feel the need to post memes or fillers. I care much less about writing for a specific audience and just write about what I am excited about or thinking about. Maybe, because my potential audience was far more varied than I had expected. Maybe because I worry less about what other people think about me and my blog. I wanted my blog to be special in the eyes of my readers, and now I just want it to be special to me. I've even had a couple of bloggy awards that I haven't posted yet, not that I don't appreciate the nominations (thanks guys!), but I just don't worry about that stuff anymore.

I don't visit blogs as much, either. I have been a bad bloggy friend! My time seems to be full of other things now. For good or bad. I keep a monthly to do list on my computer, just in a basic word document. As I worked on planning November, I went back and read my to do list from Nov 2006. I was amazed at how much more I was expecting to get done now than I did then. Maybe I expected a lot more back then than actually happened. Maybe life is just getting busier with another child, and kids that are getting older and having more intense activities and homework.

But, change is good. It shows we are growing, progressing. Just hopefully in the right direction! It will be interesting to see how both my blogging, and blogging in general progress in the next couple years. Which will fly by much faster than I am ready for!

(And in case you were wondering, I'm not going to full disclosure on my blog. Call me paranoid, but I feel like I have pretty valid reasoning not to.)

It's Here!

Guess what arrived...


Thank you everyone for your suggestions! I've owned a hand crank mill for several years now. Even though I have had almost no wheat stored. That one would be great if we ever were to be without electricity. But, I think this one will be perfect for my everyday use! It is much bigger than I expected it to be, but it still fits where I planned on storing it. Is it weird to be excited about grinding flour? I just need my wheat shipment to arrive!

Ghosts in the Yard!

Dh was fooling around again with low light photography one night and came up with this:



Cool, huh?

The Bread Quest: Or I Changed My Header

There is a panic in the air. Food prices are up. Food shortages have lead to rationing at church food storage centers and at food warehouses like Costco. Grain mill purchases are up and on back order. And now the economy seems to be bottoming out. Of course, I am no authority on all this. I don't know how much of it is hype or how much of it is self perpetuating panic. I do know that its finally been time to build up our food storage and learn to bake my own bread. If only because it was one of my new year's resolutions and the year is speeding by.

Not just bread, but whole wheat (or mostly whole wheat) bread. The kind you make from flour you grind yourself. We've never stored wheat, because I didn't want to buy something and not know how to use it or not be using it to rotate through it. But, now I think I am ready. It's not that I haven't made bread before. I have. It's just not great stuff that we want to have as our mainstay for toast and sandwich making. I've put it off, wanting the perfect recipe. One that is light, quick and easy to execute, using just a few inexpensive ingredients. So many wheat recipes have extra "stuff". Vital wheat gluten, Vitamin C tablets, Lecithin. Stuff I would need to store in addition in order to be able to make bread out of all that wheat. Ideally, I'd like a recipe that required no yeast even. One based on a reusable starter like the pioneer women would have used.

There is a recipe for just that in the Deseret Recipes cookbook published by the church. It is called Everlasting Yeast. I tried it for our Pioneer Days bread using the wheat bread recipe in the same book. I even did the kneading by hand. A friend, Nadine, makes wonderful bread from that recipe, and it turned out pretty good using the starter, although not as good as hers. I like knowing I have this way of bread baking should I ever need to bake bread with a limited or diminishing yeast supply. But, maintaining a starter doesn't fit my current lifestyle, so I decided to pass on using it as my main bread recipe.

I also tried a recipe demonstrated at simplylivingsmart.com. Because it is FAST. As in bread ready to bake in 45 minutes, including wheat grinding time. I didn't have the highly promoted equipment described, but it still turned out pretty good. And was fast. But, it seemed to lack something to me.

I've also learned a lot from and tried the recipes of two friends. But, still hadn't found the recipe that fit me. I finally found "the one". The Light Wheat recipe from this book:



Because Peter Reinhart is a bread making master and knows what he is talking about. I got this book for my dh for Christmas and he has had a lot of fun learning the art of artisan bread making from it. The french bread, raisin bread, pugliese and sticky bun recipes have all been amazing. Even though the light wheat recipe does not follow the slow ferment method that is the focus of the book, it turned out exactly the way that I wanted. Not heavy, good flavor, tender crust, soft and not crumbly. Perfect for sandwiches. I love that it uses room temperature water, as getting the temp right to not kill yeast has been a challenge in my past. And I used all purpose flour instead of bread flour without any problem. No gluten flour, vitamin c tablets or heating stuff on the stove. Nice and simple. I double it and make 3 loaves instead of 2. I did find that using the exact ingredients made a dough too dry. So now I hold out putting in all the flour at the first and add just enough at the end. I aim to have the dough just slightly sticky in the bottom of the bowl, remembering that it gets drier with kneading. Then I knead it till it gets all stretchy, about 6-8 minutes in my kitchen aid. Our favorite sandwhich bread recipe in the book is anadama bread. It has a wonderful flavor from cornmeal and molasses. But, it is an overnighter and slow riser, so I'm sticking to the light wheat as our main bread.

I worried that I wouldn't have time to be making all of our bread. But, despite our crazy fall schedule I haven't had to buy bread since before school started! So, I just placed our first big order for wheat: 450 lbs. Its all red wheat, but I'm hoping to get the remainder of our wheat as white wheat after the harvest next summer. Now, I just need to order a wheat grinder! Any suggestions?