Homemade French Bread

I have to start out by showing off the newest addition to the family, my Kitchen Aid mixer.  It was a gift from my wonderful Mom!!!  

Hubby was surprised that I didn't pick an orange one, since I love orange.  I didn't think orange would work well with my kitchen so I went with my other favorite color, grey.  

I love this mixer.  Honestly, I use it almost every day.  One of my favorite things to use it for is to make bread.  Being from New Orleans, I love french bread, and I have a really good and easy recipe that I make quite often.

I start off by dissolving the yeast in warm water.  Make sure the water is not too hot or you will kill the yeast.  Add the sugar and stir to dissolve.  Once the yeast has all dissolved and looks frothy like it is starting to look in the above picture (see the sides of the bowl) add the salt, and the flour.  I use the bread hook on the mixer and mix until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl.  

(Sorry I didn't  get a chance to take a picture)

After about 3-4 minutes the dough has pulled away from the sides and is ready to go into the greased bowl to rise (I spray the bowl with Pam).  If you were to knead the dough by hand, the kneading process would take about 8-10 minutes so the shorter knead time is a great reason to use a stand mixer.  

Next cover the bowl with a cloth or plastic wrap and let rise.  I put the dough in my oven with only the light on to help it rise, this takes about 1-2 hours depending on where you let it rise.   

Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down, divide it in half, roll it out on a floured surface and form into rectangles.  Recover the dough and let rise to the size you like.    

After the final rise, place dough in the oven and let bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.  

Here is the bread right out of the oven.  My house smells so good when I bake bread, we all love it.  

After taking the bread out of the oven, I rub the butter on top to give it a little buttery flavor.  I've also eaten it without the butter, either way this is a wonderful french bread recipe.  

I've been trying to get my mom to bake bread, but she insists that it is much easier for her to drive to Gendusa's bakery and pick up a couple of fresh loaves.  Well, if I still lived in New Orleans maybe I would too, but since I don't I will have to make my own and I will say this recipe is pretty darn good. 

Renee

French Bread

  
Makes 2 loaves

Ingredients:

2 & 1⁄2 cups of warm water

1 tbsp. of rapid rising dry yeast

1⁄2 cup of sugar

2 tsp. of salt 

About 6 cups of all purpose flour

Directions:

Mix the warm water, yeast, and sugar together in a large mixing bowl, until dissolved

Mix in the salt and then 5 of the 6 cups of flour

If the dough is still sticky, add the remaining cup of flour. If it is still too sticky, add another 1⁄2 cup of

flour.

Mix until it forms a ball, and then cover with a cloth or plastic wrap

Let the dough ball rise in the bowl until it doubles in size (1-2 hours)

Divide the dough in half

Roll out each ball into a large rectangle (the length of your baking sheet)

Starting at a long edge, roll each rectangle, until your dough is shaped like a jelly roll

Place both loaves on the baking sheet, with spacing on each side

Cover and let rise until the loaves become as large as you prefer

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, until it just starts to turn golden brown

Immediately rub the top of the bread with butter, to give it a shine

Summer square foot garden update

Today's post is an update on my square foot garden.  I enjoyed working in the garden most of the summer, but this Texas heat kept me indoors a lot.  Fortunately we have a sprinkler system which kept the garden watered and growing throughout the summer.

I learned a lot about gardening this summer.  First thing is that I should have listened to Mel Bartholomew, the Square Foot Garden guru, when he stated that you need to use more than one type of compost in your garden.  I took the cheap route and used only one type of compost which resulted in smaller veggies.

Even though the tomatoes were not as large as I hoped they would be, they were sweet and we enjoyed eating them.  

I also had lots green peppers.  They had the same growth problem as the tomatoes, but quite a few of them grew also.

One thing that did grow large was the mint.  We had so much mint I gave some away.
Second lesson:  NEVER put mint in the garden again.  It took over the entire garden, the roots were growing everywhere.  I will definitely grow mint in pots next time.

We have recently had some aerial spraying for the West Nile virus so I decided to clean out the garden in order to prevent the pesticide from getting on the veggies and to prepare it for fall planting.
I dug up all the mint and kept some and put it into a pot.  Currently, all that remains are 2 tomato and 1 bell pepper plant.

For my first attempt at gardening I think I did pretty good.  I am going to purchase 3 different types of compost to amend the soil with before I put in the seeds for the fall.  Wish me luck, I will keep you posted.

Renee

NOLA Girl's Summer Update

I am sorry that I have been away all summer, but with the kiddos being on vacation I have been pretty busy.  We had a great summer.  We spent lots of time with family and friends and were able to sneak in a small 'Staycation'.  

Our summer started with a visit from my parents and my brother for Memorial day and we had a party to celebrate.  My mom and brother stayed with us for 3 weeks.  During that time we did lots of shopping and I had a blast.  At the end of their 3 weeks, the kiddos and I drove with them back to New Orleans where we spent 3 weeks.  I was able to see the rest of my extended family and play tourist in my hometown of New Orleans.  

I am a huge history buff, so one thing I was excited to do was visit the cemeteries and see the graves of my ancestors and famous New Orleanians.  One of the cemeteries we visited was St. Louis No. 1, this is where the voodoo queen Marie Laveau is buried.  It was very interesting to see her grave with all of the markings people leave when they visit.  

Marie Laveau's grave 

We took the boys to one of my favorite snoball stands, Hansen's Sno-Bliz.  Hansen's has been around since 1939, and in my opinion they have the best snoballs in New Orleans.  If you ever make it to NOLA during the summer, you should definitely check them out.  

We also took the boys to the lake, they had so much fun skipping rocks and looking for 'dinosaur bones' :-)

Of course we ate lots of local food.  In addition to the great meals my mom made us, we went to the Parkway Bakery and Tavern.  Their shrimp po-boys are great and so is the atmosphere.  We also went to one of my favorite places in New Orleans, Domilise's.  They have been in business forever and their roast beef po-boy is to die for.  

Our 'staycation' actually began when we got back to Texas and my Hubby was able to take a week off. We took the boys to the movies, out to eat, shopping and ended the week with a trip to the Great Wolf Lodge.  We all had so much fun.  Great Wolf Lodge is a great place for families, I can't wait to go back.  

We had a very nice summer vacation and I hope you all had a great summer too. 

Now that things have slowed down a bit I am happy to get back to sharing all of the events of my life with you again.    

Renee

Wild Kratts Birthday Party

This year for RJ's birthday we went with a Wild Kratts theme.  Both of my boys are in love with this show and being all about animals I figured it would be pretty easy to pull off.  

There really aren't a lot of Wild Kratts things on the internet so I created his invitation using Picture Collage Maker on my Mac.

I also used the Picture Collage Maker to make water bottle labels.  I thought they were so cute, especially with the nutritional information and the bar code.

I made each child a creature power suit to wear during the party.  They were easy and inexpensive to make.  I purchased black t-shirts (approx $3.50 each) from Hobby Lobby and cut off the sleeves.  I also made cut outs from blue and green felt (4 sheets for $1) that I also purchased at Hobby Lobby.  I attached the cut outs to the shirts with a hot glue gun.  I wasn't sure if they would stay on, but they did, even after washing them.  

The kids had 4 games to play during the party in order to get their creature power disks.  I was able to find a jpg of power disks on the web.  I laminated them and gave a pack to each child after the party was over.  I also gave the kids a gift bag filled with pencils, whistles, and other animal give-aways I found at Target and the Dollar Tree.   Each child also received a book about animals that I found in the dollar section of Target.   

The first game was a fishing game.  The kids really enjoyed it.  I filled a tote with water and rubber fish with a paper clip attached.  I also made fishing poles with string and a magnet.

We also earned our kangaroo patch by jumping in the trampoline filled with balloons.

The final two games were Cheetah Chase and Bug Hunt.  For the Cheetah Chase, each child had a cheetah tail and they all chased each other pulling the tail off their friend.  We hid lots of bugs all over the yard and let the kids find them.

I went the simple route with the cake.  I made devil's food cupcakes and covered them in blue and green icing.

I also tried to put out lots of decorations for the kiddos to enjoy.

The kids all had a great time.  This was an easy theme to pull off.  RJ really had a great time.   Both he and MJ still wear their power suits around the house!!

Renee

Patriotic Wreath

I saw a beautiful patriotic wreath on the Naptime Crafts blog and I had to make one of my own.  

It did take a few hours to wrap the yarn, but the result was well worth it.  

I went with the same look from the Naptime Crafts blog, but I added silver glitter to the stars for a little extra pop.

I am so in love with this wreath, it will be my Memorial Day and 4th of July wreath.  I put it outside and it looks great.  What do you guys think??

Renee