Making bread

I love to cook. For years, it was all about desserts. And recently it has been German food. Unfortunately, my German potato salad never turned out as good as Siegfrieds. But soon I am going to make my own sauerkraut, which I have a real obsession with. But my new found love is bread. So I made Todd call his mother, Ingrid last night and get me her famous bread recipe. When I got home from church today, my nephews Spencer, Benson and I had a go at it.

Benson helped me add the ingredients

Spencer helped me knead it

Then we had to wait for it to bake...

Spencer watched while I took it out

and gave it a smell to see if it was done


Then we ate it! (P.S. That's my sis Becca if you don't know)

Everyone thought it tasted really good. Here's the recipe if you'd like to give it a try:

2 TBSP yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1/3 cup sugar

Let it sit until it gets foamy. Then add:

2 2/3 cup warm water
1 TBSP salt
3 TBSP wheat gluten
3 TBSP shortening
3 TBSP honey
5 cups of whole red wheat flour
2 cups of whole wheat flour

Stir, stir, stir

Spread, in increments, 1 cup of flour on a clean countertop and knead the dough until smooth. Put a little oil in the bowl and put the dough back in. Flip the bread over so it is all covered in a light layer of oil. Cover with a towel and let raise for up to one hour. Punch the dough down and divide it into two big loafs or 3 medium loafs. Butter pans and put the dough in. Let it rise again. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

So, here's what else is on my mind these days. Public, or as any free marketeer or libertarian would call it, government school. I hope politics interests anyone and everyone who reads my blogs. Cause I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on it. I am going to post my concerns/positions tomorrow maybe, but trying to figure out how to get the pictures on this post and make them look good enough, pretty much drained me and I have a paper to write.

Happy 1st birthday Xander Beck! I had a blast at your birthday party today.

Be gentle with me, this if my first time.

Everyone has been begging me to start a blog (and by everyone, I mean Becca; and by "begging" I mean, mentioned it) so I have finally given in. I was hesitant for one reason: I'm not sure my life is that interesting that anyone, including my own family, would read it. But I shall attempt to entertain you few people who will read it and hopefully one day be rich and famous, all thanks to this witty blog of mine.

My camera is in a box somewhere, as I am attempting to move from a hotel to a home. But I will start posting pictures as soon as I get it back. I don't actually have anything much to say at this moment. My life consists of school at the U of U and working a few hours a week with Reeb. But I always have an interesting story to tell. Or at least I think so.

For this post, in honor of the summertime, let's go down memory lane. I have worked for 7+ years with a beautiful little gal, Reeb, who has autism. Today, I took her to the pool and Katherine asked if I wanted to borrow a swimsuit so I could swim. "I actually hate going into the water" I replied. At which point she reminded me of a funny story from a number of years back...

It must have been 4 or 5 years ago when I took Reeb and the boys to my Grandma's house to go swimming in her pool. Reeb must have been 9ish years old. She is a fantastic swimmer now, but back then she required inflatable arm float... thingies. She really didn't want to put them on and I really wanted to put off getting in the pool as long as possible. I just hate being wet. Everything about it. So I told her she could go in the water as long as she stayed in the shallow end. She didn't listen. She had her hands on the side of the pool and was, hand over hand, making her way to the deep end. I was still fully clothed at this point, in hopes of avoiding the water the whole day. I told her if she was going to go into the deep end, she needed to keep her hands on the side of the pool since she didn't have her floaties on. She didn't listen. She gave me this cute, but evil look, as if to say, "Yep, I'm gonna do it." And then she pushed off the wall as hard as she could. I didn't have a second to think. I knew she'd sink like a rock, and she did. I jumped right in, and pulled her from the bottom of the pool. She was scared, I was soaking wet in my clothes, but the boys loved it! They thought it was amazing to see a rescue like that. I never really thought of it as a rescue. More, a necessary thing to do and a terrible, terrible day. Of course, now I think it's funny and a fun story to tell. Needless to say, from that day on, she were her floaties until she learned to swim on her own.