I love to make bread.  To take a handful of ingredients, give them a good spa treatment – massage, rest, and sauna – and voila: warm bread.  Over the last ten years I have thoroughly enjoyed the therapy of making bread: pouring my energy into the dough and watching that work come to a rather immediate fruition.  I find the whole process is extremely gratifying.

Recently, I’ve begun to expand my knowledge base in the area of bread making.  From the types of flours and their properties and importance to bake-ware and baking methods.  So, beginning next Monday, I will be guiding the Bread Journey, exploring all of these things and more.

Make sure to check back for tips and tricks to making a great loaf of bread. Subscribe to our RSS Feed by clicking here or become a fan of ThrivingMama on Facebook to see our updates in your feed.

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Last Saturday was a beautiful day.  The sun was shining, a bird was waking up from winter and singing a song.  The winter chill gave way to a bit of spring-like warmth.  I opened my mailbox and the colorful images of my seed catalog met my eyes.  Mind you, this is the third one I’ve gotten.  The other two were skimmed and sent to the recycle bin.  But this one was opened, perused, dreamed over – the sunshine made me do it!  Then the catalog was ripped up- first as I pulled the pages out that held the vegetables that I dream of growing in the garden this summer, then as GBaby explored the remaining pages filled with bright colors.

We use the Square Foot Gardeningmethod in our 9 raised beds and have gotten quite a haul of produce the last two years.  I am hoping and praying that we will do as well this year. Last year we were plagued by some forest creature that devoured my green beans.  I am scheming ways to keep the varmint out of my garden this year.  As always with a relatively small space, I’m always scheming how to get the most of our favorite veggies in the space we have.

So, a good 6 weeks before I can even think of putting a seed in the ground, my garden is all planned out – well almost.  Stay tuned – as our garden season approaches I will be putting up regular updates.

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I have fond childhood memories of making  fresh granola and homemade yogurt with my mom.  Since apples rarely fall far from the tree, this is a practice that is now a regular activity in my kitchen.  I make a batch of granola that will usually last us the month and make fresh yogurt a quart at a time as the Yogurt Jar empties.

Here is my Base Granola Recipe, with lots of room for personalization.  As you can see, in the pictured batch I used dehydrated blueberries from last summer and slivered almonds – so good!  Enjoy!

Base Granola Recipe

6 cups Rolled Oats

1/2 cup Wheat Germ

1/2 cup Flax Seeds

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

3/4 cup Vegetable Oil or Melted Butter

3/4 cup Honey

Up to 4 cups of Add-Ins in any combination (your imagination is the limit here – anything you like will work!):

Before Baking: pecans, walnuts, slivered almonds, sunflower seeds, coconut

After Baking: dried fruits (dried cranberries, dried blueberries, raisins)

Directions:

1. Thoroughly combine all ingredients (except “After Baking” Add Ins).

2.  Spread mixture out on a jelly-roll pan (cookie sheet with sides), or a broiler pan.  It shouldn’t be more than about 1/2 deep and you may need to bake it in multiple batches.

3. Bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes and remove from oven and carefully stir the mix.  Bake for an additional 10 minutes at a time and then 5 minutes at a time as it gets closer to your preference of toastedness.  Make sure to stir thoroughly in between baking times and monitor closely as it begins to toast as it can go from golden brown to burnt in a matter of minutes.

Let cool and enjoy!  Store in an airtight container for best freshness.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

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Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week.

Returning from travels often brings a flurry of chaos as one tries to regain their footing on the path to a normal routine.  This week was no different.  However, among the chaos, there were moments of joy and brightness that make me remember how blessed I am.

Spring is slowly creeping up the East coast. Snow is melting as the sunshine warms the air.  I even saw the first signs of fuzzy buds on my magnolia tree this morning!  It brings the anticipation of the full bloom that will come within a few weeks.

GBaby continues to work on her walking, although the terrain here at home is a bit rougher and the air a bit cooler than last weeks walks, she still loves to be outside.

I am thankful for library networks and bread books. For audio books and websites.  I am thankful for generous grants and bills paid. I am thankful for study times with friends.  I am thankful for full nights of sleep.

May you find a moment to think of the things that have brightened your week.

“Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

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As I mentioned earlier this week, Freezer Fridays  will have a different look this month as I post up what we are eating out of the freezer and link back to the recipes.  Here are some of the meals that have graced our counter this week.

Chili Potato Bake- I had a bunch of red potatoes that needed to be used up so I chopped up about 6 cups of potatoes, added 3 cups of Three Bean Chili and baked it at 375 for about an hour.  I added about 2 cups of shredded cheddar to melt on the top for the last ten minutes.  We served it up with sour cream and it was a hearty lunch on a wintry day!

Spinach/Chicken/Rice Bake- I took one of the bags of mixed chicken from my Chicken Cooking Day and added frozen spinach and 8 cups of cooked rice.   I tossed everything together with a cheese sauce and had a great casserole.  It made 4- 8×8 pans so three of them went to the freezer.  It seems I can’t help myself from batch cooking!

Spanish Rice Bake – I pulled Spanish Rice Bake from the freezer, paired it with a side of Pinto Beans (also from the freezer).  I added a tossed salad and we enjoyed a fairly balanced dinner.

Soup, Bread & Salad- Tomorrow night we’ll have Butternut Squash Cream Soup, leftover salad and fresh bread.

This week completely got away from me – here’s hoping for more blogging time for next week .

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Just as I sat down to put some recipes together to post, GBaby woke up from her nap. So that will have to wait. For now though, I want to share a great link for menu planning tools. Money Saving Mom has put up a set of eleven different menu planning templates.  They look great and I’m excited to give them a try!

Click Here to check them out.

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As I wrapped up February with a family vacation I took a little bit of time to go back to my 2010 Goals and found that I’m actually doing quite well!  I did well with my February Kitchen Goals as well. Watch for an upcoming blog on how to incorporate whole grain flours in your every day baking!

Now by some warp-speed of my calendar, it is March already!  How did that happen?  This month things are going to be very goal focused for me.  Here’s what will be going on in my house this month:

De-cluttering through my the Forty Bags in Forty Days project.  We started this on February 17th and so far 12 bags have left our house.   Since we were gone last week we have a little bit of catching up to do this week.

In the kitchen this month, we are working on a freezer challenge to try to empty down our chest freezer before spring and summer bring a new wave of fresh produce.  Most of our main dishes will be meals that are already prepared and in the freezer, or from ingredients that are in the freezer.   My Freezer Friday posts this month will not be what went into the freezer, but link-backs to recipes that have gone into the freezer over the previous months.

I will also be working diligently on baby food to keep GBaby in a healthy balanced diet that is full of iron (as we were informed of a deficiency last month).  I also plan to do a bit of baking and experimenting with a new technique of bread-making.

From the time that I’m not spending cooking this month, I will be sewing – stay tuned for updates from the sewing table too!

There is a lot in store for March – make sure to subscribe to ThrivingMama for your favorite blog reader or follow us on FaceBook so you don’t miss out!

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Practicing Contentment by remembering the graces in the week and practicing gratitude by giving.

This morning, while I am going to miss my after church quiet time at home, taking a moment this morning to write while rain pitter-patters outside and I can listen to HandyMan play with a happy GBaby – it’s just as good!

This week we took a break from our normal and spent a week with family in Arizona.  This first taste of spring warmth will hopefully pull us through the last weeks of winter back home.  It was such fun watching GBaby grow closer to her grandparents, aunt and uncles.  She has explored the outdoors on her two little feet barefoot and now with sneakers and is getting the walking thing down pat! She continues to hold her record as a great traveler as she played happily throughout all our flights on Monday.

One of the biggest bright spots of last week came on Monday when we were traveling.  We placed the “amen” at the end of a a prayer for smooth travels and an on-time or miraculous early arrival.  It was almost like God was sitting up in heaven, scratching his beard saying, “yeah, ok”.  Not 2 minutes later, my cell phone rang with an alert that our first flight was delayed by 2 hours.  A quick schedule review in my head told me that we would miss our connection which was the last flight of the day to our destination.

So I sent HandyMan and GBaby to drop the dog off with friends and I went inside to call the airline.  After navigating the goofy voice prompt system, I finally got a helpful reservations agent on the line.  I quickly explained the situation and no sooner did I finish explaining than he offered to re-route us on another airline which would have us arriving at our destination an hour earlier than scheduled.  He put me on hold to finalize the plan with the other airline.  Holding…holding…holding…holding.  Finally he came back, gave me a confirmation number and we were ready to go.  We made our connections with plenty of time and arrived an hour earlier than originally planned.  Direct answers to the small prayers are great!

It has been a good week, full of brightness and family.  May your week be blessed!

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As I was preparing for a recent family vacation, I was lamenting the absence of a computer sleeve for my netbook.  I went searching online, but kept asking myself if I really needed to spend the money on it.  The more I thought about it, the answer was “no”.  I remembered batting that I had leftover from the Memory Quilt with Photos.  I also knew that I had a yard of lightweight denim in my fabric stash as well as some striped fabric leftover from some curtains I had made.

I didn’t have a pattern to work from – so this is a “freestyle” project.  I knew I wanted it to have the main pocket for the netbook, a pocket that would fall inside the front flap to hold accessories and a pocket on the back side, outside the flap to hold my calendar, notebook for shopping lists, etc.

When I made the Mommy Bag I had worked with a bag pattern that had a pocket that ran around the outside of the bag so I used the same theory here.

I cut a large rectangle of the denim, batting and striped fabric that was a bit wider than the width of the netbook, and long enough to make the main pocket of the sleeve and the flap.  Then I cut a smaller rectangle of the three materials that was 3 inches wider than the first rectangle and about 15″ long so that it would make the two outside pockets of the sleeve.

I sewed one ends of the rectangles and  turned them.  Then I folded in the edges of the flap and sewed it with top stitching.  Finally I pinned the two rectangles together and sewed the side seams together.  If you want a totally finished product, you could put bias tape over these seams.  I just stitched and trimmed.  Here’s the finished sleeve:

I had some buttons around, so I attached them as closures for the flap.  With about two hours of work and materials I had on hand, I had a computer sleeve that was ready to go.

This is part of the Sewing Show and Tell week.  Check the main post to link up your favorite sewing project or to get more ideas!

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There are many different ways to make t-shirt dresses for your toddling little girl.  One way is to take a shirt that fits the little one add a skirt of matching fabric and voila!  Easy dress.  This is what I had in mind when I went surfing through cyber-space and found so many other creative ideas.  Like this super cute ruffles and roses dress. I also found these directions for taking an adult t-shirt and making a toddler dress.

In this picture GBaby is sporting the finished dress with a white long sleeve onesie and her gray T-shirt pants – we’ll have directions for that easy project tomorrow!

For this project I invested in a Twin Needle and it was SO worth it.  It took some tweaking of my bobbin tension (little screw on my bobbin case) to get it right, but it made sewing this together so much easier!

The other trick I used for transforming T-shirts into other clothing pieces was to use as many of the edges that were already finished as possible.  It saved the hemming of the jersey knit which can be kind of a pain.

What You Need: Adult T-shirt, thread, T-shirt that fit’s Little One for sizing.

This is the adult shirt I started with:

Here’s how I did it:

1.  Cut out Pieces: Lay the toddler shirt over the large shirt and cut through both front and back of the adult shirt to get the front and back for the bodice piece.

Then line up the toddler sleeves with the sleeves of the adult shirt to cut out the sleeves.

Remove the neck from the adult shirt to use as the neck for the dress – either cut as close as you can to the stitching or use a seam ripper.  Then, measure up from the bottom finished edge of the adult shirt the length you want the skirt of the dress to be, and cut across.  You should have a front, back, two sleeves, neck pieces and skirt.

2. Sewing

Pin and sew the stretchy neck material to the neck lines of the dress. You may want to trim the front neck line of the dress a bit to better replicate the neckline of the toddler shirt that is your sizing pattern.

Sew the shoulder seams

Attach sleeves to the bodice

Sew seam along bottom of sleeves and the side of the bodice below the sleeve.

Turn right side out and admire your handiwork, you’re almost done!

Hand baste the “skirt” piece and gather it so that it will attach to the bottom of the bodice.  Pin the skirt to the bodice, making sure right sides together and sew:

Here is the finished dress:

Do you have a good way to re-use extra t-shirts?  Link your sewing project up on the  Sewing Show and Tell main page.

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