Tasty Tuesday: Amish White Bread/ Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Loaf

Regular Loaf

I have made this recipe lots, both plain and in cinnamon rolls. Recently though I made this bread into cinnamon rolls loafs. It is so yummy. 



Amish White Bread ( originally from All Recipes.com)

COOK TIME: 30 Min READY IN: 2 Hrs 30 Min RECIPE YIELD: 2 - 9x5 inch loaves
INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups warm water (45 degrees C) 
• 2/3 cup white sugar 
• 1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast 
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil 
• 5-6 cups bread flour 

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm water, and then stir in yeast. Allow to proof until yeast resembles a creamy foam. 
2. Mix salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Place in a well oiled bowl, and turn dough to coat. Cover with a damp warm cloth). Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. 
***(Make sure the kitchen is fairly warm.. If need be turn the oven on to a low temperature, wait a few minutes and then open the door.If your kitchen is still a little chilly, put saran wrap onto of the bowl, then put on the damp warm cloth.)
3. Punch dough down. Knead for a few minutes, and divide in half. Shape into loaves, and place into two well oiled 9x5 inch loaf pans. Allow to rise for 30 minutes, or until dough has risen 1 inch above pans. 
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes. 


Yummy Variation#1: Rather than making it into loaves, roll out the dough, put butter, cinnamon and sugar on it. Roll it into a roll, cut into 1.5 inch chunks and put into a square pan. Let it then rise to 1 inch about the pans and cook as above. (The bread does get bigger in the oven as well) It makes big cinnamon rolls that are great to have first thing in the morning. 
Yummy variation #2: Roll out the dough, put butter, cinnamon and sugar on it. Roll it all up into a loaf and put this into the pan to rise. Depending on the amount of sugar used this makes a very sweet, decadent cinnamon roll. Eat it fresh out of the oven or save it till later. It is very good (and quite fattening) with butter melted onto it. If it is cold, put the butter on it and put it into the microwave for 30-45 seconds.

Wordless Wednesday 9-21-11

My sister and I

Tasty Tuesday: Easy Pie Crust

This is a really easy recipe Pie crust recipe
1 lb of Lard ( Tenderflake) or Crisco--comes in a box
6 cups of flour
1 can of clear pop not diet( Sprite, Gingerale, 7up etc)

Yummy Apple Pies I made

Cut the lard up into the six cups of flour using two knives until it resembles a crumbly mixture. Then pour the can of pop into it and mix together. It makes a really good pie crust with enough crust for roughly 6 pies( depending on the size)

Managing Money: Having a Budget

Since money does not grow on trees, being able to manage the money that you do have is important.  When you are on maternity leave and receiving a reduced amount of money it is even more important.

While I am very grateful that I live in Canada where I have a year of maternity leave and am able to receive maternity benefits, the money I receive is not the full amount of my regular paycheck.  As a teacher, I make a decent amount of money and have that drop is not always easy to get used to.  On the other hand, when I got back to work, I will have child care costs so actually getting used to having a lower amount of money to work with is a good thing.

Budgeting has become our friend.  It is amazing how a good budget actually gives us more money to spend as  certain amounts are set aside for each thing.  The Chief went online and was able to find a Personal Monthly Budget Spreadsheet from 123Spreadsheets.  These spreadsheets are free to get.

 This budget sheet contains lots of different areas for you to organize where you money is going.  We are able to budget out for different things, but then being able to adjust what we actual spent in the month.  Budgeting your money is only one part of it, but being able to see if you are staying within your budget is very important as well.

Some things that we have budgeted for include gas, groceries, insurance, hair cuts, home and car repair/ service.  We do not need to do home or car repair/ service every month.  We have it budgeted for, but if it is not used it just remains in our account for next month.  Essentially it is providing a cushion for other months where we may need to service the car.

We also set up different accounts at the bank.  We each have personal checking accounts that we put our spending money into.  We also have personal savings accounts.  We have a main account where all of money is deposited and where bills are paid.  We set up a joint savings account for travel.

What is great about giving ourselves allowances is that we know with that money it is ours to do with as we please.  We do not need to check with the other person if it is okay or if there is enough money to do so.  It is our own personal money.  Although it is somewhat difficult, we made an agreement that it doesn't matter if it is a great deal or not, we are not allowed to go over that money.  Even Benjy has an account for spending money for him.

Although we started doing this method of budgeting only a little while ago, the level of stress that we feel about our finances has diminished as we are easily able to see where our money is going and if we are sticking to our budgeted numbers.

What has been on my TV lately?

Jes's guest post about TV last week is similar to the what I am doing right now.  While I am not restricting TV from anyone in the house, I definitely don't watch it as much as I used to.  We used to have satellite, but we are trying to cut costs so I did a 2 month trial run of going without traditional TV and only using Netflix.  At the end of the 2 months I cancelled my satellite.

 Although I will miss some of the newer shows that come out, I find Netflix suites my current lifestyle better.  I used to keep the TV on all day, but not really watch it.  Now I watch TV mostly in the evenings.  I don't watch it every  night.  Because I can watch it when I want and not when the network decides to play it, I don't feel drawn to tune in all the time.

Another thing that I enjoy is the ability to pause and rewind.  Often times Benjy is nursing or sleeping when I watch, but at times he is fussy.  I don't own a DVR so pausing live TV was never an option for me.  With Netflix, I am easily able to pass the program to deal with Benjy and calm him down and turn it back on later.
I am not saying that I will never get satellite again as I do enjoy lots of shows on TLC and the major networks, for the time being Netflix is much more convenient and cost effective for how much I watch.

Wordless Wednesday 9-14-11

My new niece Gabrielle born on Sunday night.

Tasty Tuesday: Lemon Pillow Cake

Lemon Pillow Cake

Prepare a box of white cake mix. Pour into a greased 9X13 pan. Take Lemon pudding ( either from a can or some that you have prepared) and put blobs on top of the cake. As the cake bakes, the cake will bake over the pudding. Bake the cake as directed on box.

Once the cake cools top it with this:
1 container of lemon or vanilla frosting (add lemon juice to vanilla) mixed with 1/2 to 2/3 a container of cool whip
Mix frosting and cool whip to together.

This makes a really yummy summer dessert.

It must be refrigerated if there happen to be any leftovers.

Meg's Note:
A cool variation although I haven't tried it would be to use a chocolate pudding with white cake and vanilla icing or for even a more death by chocolate combination, chocolate pudding with chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

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