Friday, July 29, 2011

Day 7

TREEHOUSE MUSEUM!

Coolest place ever. Been there 3 times now, and I find something new every time!
Rodeo girl!

Cattle rancher.

Dairy farmers.

"Dr. Iz" and going back to pioneer days!

Funnest day EVER.

Sad to see my mom and sister Savanna go, but it was a lovely visit. It was so awesome to have them here!!!

Day 6

Teju is the best most awesome bestest-est.

She had my sisters, mom and I over for lunch today for an authentic Indian cuisine, and boy was it divine! Lentil soup and Shahi Paneer with rice and homemade wheat tortillas. This girl knows how to COOK!


During Bella's nap, my mom decided to go into overhaul, and re-organize my entire downstairs. She bought me some beautiful paintings and home decor and went crazy. We stopped at a few antique shops and thrift stores and scored some sweet deals to fill in a few blanks in my house. Thanks mom for getting my house in order and for making it feel all fung shui in here. I don't even know how to use that word. haha.

And tonight for the baby shower I helped host...

My buns.
They were off the charts good. Can I brag just this once?

Best. Batch. Ever.


For bread and rolls, I always use Camille's mom's recipe - Grandma Collett

Each time I make it, I try to make it a different way...different flour, sugar, etc.

And I think I've finally mastered it to my liking...Or maybe I just got lucky. Bread making is a lot like dealing with a hormonal, pubescent pre-teen...you never know what mood you'll catch 'em in. So maybe I really haven't mastered it. We'll see.

I usually use whole wheat flour, since it's healthier than all-purpose flour, but this time I added some spelt, rye and buckwheat to my usual WW! I had never used these flours before, so I thought I'd give it a try. You should, too! I got these flours at the Good Earth store in the bulk section, so if you're thinking of branching out of your usual tastes, try somewhere like that.

Grandma Collett's Bread, with a twist of Emily

2.5 cups warm water (i use the hot hot water that comes out of sink)

1.5 T yeast (I use SAF yeast from Winco. No "proofing" stage.)

1 T salt

.5 cup oil/shortening (i use vegetable oil)

.5 cup sugar or honey (I used half brown sugar and half white sugar. Honey is yummy tho!)

6 cups flour (I used 2 cups wheat, 1 cup rye, 1 cup spelt, .5 cup buckwheat and 1.5 cups white flour roughly)


I have used this recipe over and over, changing the sugar type and flour type each time. This most recent attempt with the above amounts of flour was definitely my absolute best batch ever.

For the flour amount, I think I actually end up using about 5 or 5.5 cups of flour. I want moist bread, so I only do about 5 cups, then add slowly after that until it's just barely not sticky. A bread scraper thingy works great for this part.
I have found that after kneading by hand for the first round, for maybe 10-12 minutes, turns out the best.(my wrists were tired!) I use the finger-poke test to see that the dough bounces back up where I poked my finger in. If it's pretty springy, it's ready to sit and rise. I just leave it on the (clean) counter for an hour, or until it doubles in size, with a hot rag on top to retain moisture and encourage rising.

After it's risen, I knead it gently until most air has compressed out, then form golf ball size dough-balls and place on a greased cookie sheet or in a 9x13 pan. Sizes will vary - I put the smaller ones in the middle to give the bigger ones room to grow inward. This batch will yield about 24-28 rolls, depending on size chosen. Bake 350 for 20 mins and viola! Beautiful rolls! For bread, bake 30 mins, depending on pan size.

And a little soup to go along with them buns...Zuppa Toscana heaven...

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Day 5

Surprise. Didn't take any pics today! Crazy, I know.

And sadly, I can't remember what I did.

Oh, it's coming back to me...yes, Pizza Factory goodness, some merry-go-rounds for Bella, and maybe some shopping at Deseret Book? Yeah that sounds close enough.

I think there was a bike ride in there...maybe even a really late night of doing nothing.

Oh! We watched the Netflicks documentary called "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead". Super cool health/nutrition story that follows a guy who decided it was time to change his lifestyle of poor eating by going on a "juice fast". Drinking his meals every day for 60 days, consisting of only fruits and veggies. Pretty amazing results, especially concerning his autoimmune disorder that he cured! We all want to do a one week juice fast now, just to see how we feel...and to "Reboot" our systems. Kind of a detox to a better road.

If you watch it, let me know what you think! Let's do it together!!!

So yeah. That was today.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Day 4

Oh I love to see the temple.

We met up with our dear Florida friend Marilyn Oveson at the Jordon River Temple and had a wonderful time together there.


Thanks to Savanna and Isabelle for helping Ty with Bella while we went!!
The evening concluded with leftovers and pizza. Mmm.

Lovely day.


Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Day 3

A parade to celebrate pioneer day!


What better way than to have the missionaries serving in Ogden leading along in song!


Savanna practiced her band skills with the passing high school bands.




Keepin' cool some orange popsicle lovin'

I think I had just tripped, and mom thought it was funny.

After parading, we hit up the mall for some shopping and lunch. We must have spent 2 hours in The Quilted Bear shopping around. Too many cute things in that store!!!
Bella havin' some lunch.

And since we love to eat, we enjoyed some Bella's mexican food for dinner. Wow, we eat out a lot.
Chips....diiiip.

To finish off the day, we visited with Mykel, Camille and family. Original plans included boating, but the weather had us roasting mallows and blowing up fireworks in the backyard instead. We were happy to do whatever, and we had a blast doing whatever!

Cute Cole and Bry with their cute mama Camille.

Look at those springy bouncy girls and all that hair!

Kickin' back.

Iphone bumping. I'm not in the Iphone club, so I don't even know.

Dis be my sista from another life.

Jasper is the most chill dog you'll ever meet, with a pretty chill owner, too.

Seriously, this is not a toy frog. It jumped on Cole's face and had us all dying.

Savanna the dog whisperer.

Grandma Judy protected Bella from the scary fireworks. Curious, then scared, curious, then frightened back inside. Poor girl.

What a fun, exhausting day! Mom and I were up until 1am just having girl time, so we're ready for bed.

Feeling fat and happy.