For real the best french bread recipe ever

Alright, people.

This bread is my absolute favorite. This bread turns out with a thick, wonderful crusty crust. I love it.
I think it's the butter that makes it magical.
We all know butter just makes things better, right?
Betty Botter knows this.

I got this from a Sunbeam Bread machine manual years ago. The first several times I tried it, it turned out like a rock.
Many, many tries later, with some googling and chatrooming thrown in, I discovered that I just needed to add a bit more water. !!!
I have no idea why the recipe in the book calls for the wrong amount, or why it took me so long to figure out that if the dough didn't LOOK like good dough, I could use my common sense and tweak it.
Whatever.
Here's the corrected recipe.

That said, use your eyeballs to get a good dough. The amount of water could vary depending on altitude or weather.

Bread Machine French Bread

1.5 lb loaf            Ingredient               2 lb loaf
1 1/4 c                   water                    1 1/2 c
1 1/2 tbsp           soft butter                 2 tbsp            
3 1/4 c                    flour                       4 c
1 tbsp                    sugar                      5 tsp
1 1/2 tsp                 salt                      1 1/2 tsp
2 1/2 tsp                yeast*                     4 tsp                        
*I use regular yeast, that I get from Sam's for $4/lb, not fancy bread machine yeast.

Put your pan with blade in the machine.
Place ingredients in the pan, in the order listed. If you're setting the machine up for later, make an indention in the flour and put yeast in that, to be sure that it doesn't come in contact with the water before the machine starts.
Carefully insert pan into machine & close lid.
Choose French Bread option (if available).
Select desired crust color.
Select desired loaf size.
Press start.

Often, I've used the machine's dough setting, and shaped this to make baguettes. I'll even mix up this recipe sans machine when I don't feel like dragging out the machine.
In fact, it's rising on my stove right now.
I'll try to snap a pic of the deliciousness before it gets gobbled up.

Updated:
To just mix it up, I really just combine the yeast & water, then butter, then everything else.
Knead until nice & elastic (3-5 min), put in an oiled bowl in a warm place to rise for an hour or so.
Cut dough in half, roll out each half, but just barely. You want to keep the gas inside the dough, so try to roll gently. If that makes sense to you, congratulate yourself. Heh.
Roll up the dough, to make a baguette, with the seam down. I rub soft butter on the top of the dough, then slit dough diagonally just to be pretty.
I put them on a greased cookie sheet and let them rise again for about 30 minutes.
Bake @ 375 for 35(ish) minutes.
Ususally I knock on the crust to try to see if it's nice and hard, sound hollow inside.
*I have no idea if this actually does anything.

Enjoy! I reccommend smearing your slice(s) with butter. So so good.

Sneezy, Dopey, & Grumpy Live Here

And yes, I am all three of those dwarves at this moment.  Still Sneezy, feeling a bit Dopey from my cold meds, and, most definitively I am Grumpy.

Didn't sleep well last night at all. My cold meds are non drowsy so I stay far away from them after 6 p.m.  Theoretically this was so I could sleep better last night.  Unfortunately, the whole "not breathing" thing interfered with my trip to Never Never Land.

So after I put my kiddos on the bus this morning, I went back to bed!  Thinking a little rest, maybe a tiny nap.  Ha!  Around 11 a.m., I finally woke up enough to make myself get up and get a cup of coffee.  (Full disclosure, it's 2:23 p.m. and I'm working on Cup 2.)

Then in order to make myself feel better I baked off three pounds of thick cut bacon.  Mmm...Hormel Black Label Thick Cut Bacon. (I buy the 3 lb. package from Sam's Club.  And, yes, I'm totally buying into the bacon shortage of 2012-13, and have fully implemented a stockpiling plan.)  I line baking sheets with foil, and bake, bake, bake. Then pile it up into freezer bags and freeze!  It's so nice to have yummy "heat-and-eat" bacon at my fingertips.  Tonight's menu will most likely feature breakfast for dinner, too, in order to help use up the bacon.  (Hahaha!  Oh I kid, like anybody ever needs to "use up" bacon.)  I think some warm waffles and bacon sounds like a nice easy meal for a mom feeling under the weather.

Bonus:  Here's my favorite waffle recipe.

And just in case you are as obsessed with bacon as I am.  Here's my Pinterest Board "Bacontastic."

Yours In Kleenex,

Pam

Ten of My {Current} Favorite Pins

 
So I know I’m technically three days late for a Top Ten Tuesday post and even one day late for a Favorite Things entry but in the spirit of the new year I’m going to declare myself early for both of these! Yay me! (And of course I wrote this on Friday and am only now posting it on a Monday…boo!   But still early!)

{I’m amazed I’m even attempting a blog post, but I think I’m all hyped up on the unforeseen bliss of having a mostly clean and partly organized house. And even with all that its 2:16 p.m. on a Friday and I’m sitting in my basement, STILL in my PJs (if you want a visual, look at our blog header—yep, same ones) with a bright green bandana wrapped around my too-long hair. But enough about me, okay, actually I’m not done just yet. I’ve been a bit busy with school and home and life and teenager’s DRIVING and teenagers (yes, plural) with girlfriends. Sigh.}

Back to my favorite pins I’ve actually tried, made, used…
1. “Fair is where you get cotton candy.” I’ve pinned oodles of sayings, both humorous and inspirational, but this is the one that has seen the most mileage in my household. My kids finish my sentence, and they hate it. Bonus!

2. Nutella Crescent Rolls. Sweet mercy, these are spectacular! (And they’re real!) I used my old standby crescent roll dough recipe and skipped the nuts. I also made mine in the traditional crescent shape, probably won’t do that again. They were ten kinds of delicious but forty kinds of messy. I’ll roll ‘em up and put them in a muffin tin next time.

 
3. DIY Waterless Snow Globes. I am in the firm grip of a serious addiction to Mason jars at the moment. So these were the perfect thing to showcase my growing collection. So cute and so stinkin’ easy! I used them as my Christmas Eve breakfast centerpiece (we have a HUGE family—hubby is one of 8) and we’re crazy enough to invite them all over every year. Truly one of my favorite parts of the holiday, hands down.

4. “Go Away I’m Reading” Coffee Mug.” This gets a “most favorite pin” award because the BFF saw it, and designed a personalized mug for me with this on it!! (Little does she know—well she will soon, and yes, I sent her present WAY late—that I also bought her Christmas gift that was Pinterest inspired..heehee!)

5. Christmas Tree Ribbon Shirt. I took the inspiration of this pin and made my niece one for Christmas! Only, Jilly and I decided K would much rather have a black, white, and pink zebra stripe and polka dot one, so that’s what we did. Not too shabby for my first attempt. The fact my sweet niece wore it (IN PUBLIC) for the church Christmas social…well, I was extremely proud of myself.

6. Cleaning Baking Pans. This worked surprisingly well. Not absolutely fantastic. It could only get that kind of rating if I didn’t have to scrub. And I did.

7. Chocolate Oreo Cream Cake. Yup, just look at the picture. It’s twice as rich as it looks. So I served it with a large scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream, just to cut the sweetness.


8. Nutella Hot Chocolate. This has been made a couple of times. I make it full strength for my chocoholic Jill and then add a little more milk to mine.

9. Martha Stewart’s Tub Scrub. Possibly the most used pin. I use about 95% homemade cleaners (can’t give up the Murphy’s oil soap for my hardwoods, the plain vinegar was NOT doing it). So this has been a very welcome addition to my arsenal.

10. Sperry Top Sider Angelfish. Okay, so this is really stretching it since I did pin these myself. The older I get, the more I find I need to invest in being well shod. (Yes, I just compared myself to a horse.) And these little puppies have totally done the trick. I am in love. So thankful I have an enabling best friend who encourages me to spend too much money on shoes.
 

 
And honestly I just “completed” a new pin this morning (I am one seriously dedicated addict, people, serious!) that is just pure genius.  But I thought I had inflicted enough pain on you for the morning.
Wishing all the best to you and yours in 2012, and Happy Pinning!

Check out more Top Ten Tuesday posts over at Oh Amanda!

Pam
(aka Pam525 on Pinterest)

BFF Weekend (Told In Recipes)

I'm embarrassed to even look back to see how long it's been since my last post.  A long time, I'm sure.  But after a beautiful, long weekend filled with BFFness, I had to at least attempt to get back in the swing of things.  Jen's family came to visit for the weekend, and she and I were able to do a big bunch of nothing all day Saturday.  I'm guessing we put in a full 12 hours of nothingness. It was liberally sprinkled with baking, eating, {tv}watching, pinning (Pinterest, of course!), talking, and finally campfire sitting.  It was lovely.  Just lovely.  Labor Day weekend is also my church's annual Homecoming service. Not sure if Homecoming is a southern tradition or not, but basically it's regular church kicked up a notch and followed by a seriously scrumptious meal.  We ended the day with a baptismal service (where my baby girl was baptized...sniff).  And then today we iced the cake by having a cookout with my awesome and hilarious extended family.  But in between all that fun, I put in a lot of KP duty so I thought I'd recap by sharing all the recipes I used this weekend.

It started with the yummiest pizza recipe!  I was feeding my family, Jen and her kids, plus five of my nieces and nephews, so pizza was the natural (read: cheap and easy) choice for our late lunch!  I use this recipe from Annie's Eats. (I always double the recipe, making four pizzas for my family but for this crowd I quadrupled it!) I've tried a few others, but this is just absolutely fabulous.  It freezes perfectly and is just so very tasty.  It was in our family's weekly rotation, but I consistently overeat when I make it so I've had to slow it down.  And yes, I did eat way too much of it this weekend.  We stuck to the basics for the crowd, cheese/pepperoni/three meat.  Plus my favorite breadsticks, use ranch dressing as the base and then slather on mozzarella and cheddar cheese.


As a late afternoon snack, we devoured The Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls.  They are so delicious, they deserve to be capitalized as the proper noun they are!  I made four pans...mmmm.  I limited the children to one roll each so I could have a few leftover for breakfast on Sunday and two pans to take to church for dessert.  Yep, you read that correctly.  They are so good you can take them to a church potluck and pass them off as dessert.  I also made a pan of some of my standby rolls and added some ham for my main dish contribution.

For Monday's cookout, I was inspired by BooMama's Diptacular '11 to whip up something in the appetizer family.  I found this recipe for Beer Bread (I used root beer and it was a little sweeter than I would have liked, but we still ate every crumb).  I cubed up the bread and made my tried and true bacon cheese dip and a new pizza dip.  It's definitely a keeper (I made a few adjustments, D doesn't care for parmesan so I used mozzarella and a little bit of cheddar, also left off the toppings--still tasty!)
And because every good weekend ends with something sweet, I made these Coconut Lime Sugar Cookies.  Yep.  They are very tasty.  I think these would be an amazing cookie to use for ice cream sandwiches.  Some good vanilla in between these, maybe rolled in toasted coconut...oh yes, that sounds divine.   I wonder if I could do that and then dip them in white chocolate, like a Klondike bar...Okay I'll stop now.

And that's my weekend in recipes!  We enjoyed a delightful, entertaining, and memorable weekend!  Did Jen and I take a picture together this weekend?  Yes, but not with our own cameras so I've got nothing...well, lookie here!  I found something to use!  A picture of my sweet girl after her baptism.  So very proud of her!

Cluck, Cluck

I love me some chicken tenders. Breaded, deep-fried, crispy, yet juicy, little tidbits of THE white meat. Oh yes, I do. And I have the yummiest recipe for these little golden chunks of poultry. Wanna know it? Okay, good, cause I wanna share it with you!

This recipe has been in my file for over 10 years, and I use it sparingly. Sparingly, you ask? Why if its so great do I not use it more often? I will answer by pointing you to Sentence #2, just read the adjectives (i.e. not healthy and we can't stop eating them).

Other than the above-mentioned deliciousness of this chicken, the other part I love so very much is that my very picky kiddos snarf it down like wild dogs (and yes, I know it's basically chicken nuggets and not healthy and that's why they eat it....blah blah blah..I'm not listening!!!)


So without further ado, because really there's been enough of that already, don't you think? Here's my fabulous recipe, originally found in Taste of Home or Quick Cooking many moons ago:

Chicken Fingers

chicken tenders (or cut up some chicken breasts, whatever's on sale)

1 egg, beaten

1 c. buttermilk (never have this, I put a tbsp of lemon juice & then add enough milk to make a cup)

1 1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 c. AP flour

1 c. bread crumbs

2 tsp italian seasoning

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Oil for frying

Place chicken in bowl or resealable bag, combine egg, buttermilk, garlic powder, pour over chicken. Refrigerate for 2-4 hours. In another bag or bowl, combine flour, bread crumbs, seasoning, salt, and baking powder. Heat oil to 375. Drain chicken, place a few pieces at a time in the coating mixture. Fry chix in batches for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm. We served it up last night with baked potatoes, salad, corn, and my favorite crescent rolls. (I wish I could say I pulled them out of the freezer but my supply was lost during the Great Power Fail of 2010. Sigh. So I had to make more :)

I am linking this post to Tasty Tuesday and DIY Day and Recipe Swap Friday. And can I just say if you don't follow these carnivals, you really ought to re-examine your blog reading schedule.

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Freezing Homemade Rolls Works For Me!

Some families may feel a 'good meal' is not complete with a special dessert but my carb-loving carnivores think we must have a bread basket at our table. And since there are very few things in life that I adore more than hot, fresh, homemade bread slathered with butter I try to oblige them whenever possible. Okay, I really prefer margarine but it just doesn't have the same ring to it: bread and butter or bread and margarine. Sounds like that commercial 'would you like oil or cream'...oil please, a double helping. I know it's horrible but its true, but now back to my family's yeast fetish.

But what doesn't work for me is to spend 2-3 hours making fresh bread multiple nights a week. So what does work for me is anytime I make a batch of fresh rolls, I bake half and then freeze the rest!

Easy-peasy lemon squeezy! Just follow your favorite roll recipe, let them rise the first time, shape the rolls and then plop half of those little lovelies down onto a cookie sheet and pop it in the freezer just until they start to freeze. Then scoop 'em up and put them in a freezer bag and freeze until needed!

On the day you want to use them, you can just place them on a tray and let rise, then bake as normal. Or you could put them in the fridge in the morning and they'd be ready to bake when you get home! (You should definitely take them out and put them in a greased pan or you could possibly have a giant puffy dough explosion in your fridge. And yes, that was experience talking.)

Now here is where I should have quite a few lovely pics of my rolls post-flash freeze but blogger was possessed by a devil and wouldn't let me. So instead here is a picture of my 'invention' which SHOULD BE at the end of the post.....sigh...

But here is a successful shot of the soft, silky, little objects of my affection. Crescent Rolls, you will forever have my whole heart (and my thighs and waist line and arm flab).

This recipe is unbelievably good. I found it over at The Finer Things in Life, it's originally part of her homemade pigs-in-a-blanket recipe and it is some kind of yeasty yummy fabulosity. Seriously, try it. You will NOT regret it.

Oh and here's one more thing that 'works for me' - newly discovered today. I've been trying to find a place to keep my recipes up at eye level and away from all the splattering messy madness...so today I took a little binder clip and a little bread tie and clipped my recipes onto my upper cabinet handle...voila! It definitely worked for me!!! (again please see pic above....grrrr!!!!)

Head on over to We Are That Family--a blog I always make time for--to see what's working for everybody else.

One last thing...blogger took about a kajillion hours to upload these very few pics today and then when it finally added them..it deleted three-fourths of my post. And by some winter miracle I was patient and did not yell at the computer or threaten it with a screwdriver. I just walked away and came back later -- or as my hubby would say 'back up and punt' - and there's an additional works for me tip. AND I know this week was a themed WFMW so please don't comment and let me know I broke EVERYONE SINGLE Blogging Rule during this post..I already know I overuse ellipses and parenthesis and exclamation points and put unnecessary quotation marks...I "TOTALLY" heart doing it!!!!!

All the Busy Ladies, All the Busy Ladies

I had some wonderful witty ideas for a new post but I will postpone those until later to bring you these two exciting, life-changing updates.

Disclosure – The above sentence is LIES, all LIES! I really have nothing to blog about, my life is KA-RAZY busy right now with football practices/games, college class, writing papers, revising papers, church meetings, church services. Add the fact I have four human beings I’m trying to mold into some semblance of productive, moral, and kind citizens AND keep the home fires burning in the marriage. Oh my, I am busy. So why do I spend so much time on twitter and facebook?

And truly I have nothing earth-shattering, just a cool trick and a fabulous new recipe. Take it or leave it people, I am too busy to care.

My new favorite find is chalkboard contact paper. Here’s where I found mine. And so far, here’s the only thing I’ve used it for (other than covering the front of both girls notebooks). Later today, I hope to able to erase the sad message (which yesterday read: TOO LATE!) and replace it with ‘peanut butter chocolate chip’.

While Jen and I were having a marathon gab fest (actually she was just bragging, I mean sharing, about the U2 concert) on Friday, I created my most gorgeous loaves of baking genius to date. I made two loaves of braided challah. (Please say it correctly with all due reverence. Unlike myself, I prefer to say it like ‘hol-lah’ with some attitude.) I am in love. Truly, ask Jen, I repeated told the dough, the loaves, and the finished product, of my love for them. They made me so stinkin’ happy. I found this recipe at Tammy’s Recipes. She has really, really good from scratch recipes. D loves the Farmhouse Chicken and the Italian Bread is my go-to bread for spaghetti night (of course I sub ranch for the Italian cuz that’s how we roll).







Isn't she lovely? I giant puffy heart this recipe. And it was so simple!


And here's a pic of what I was privileged to deal with while D and BFF were at the U2 concert. My boys, Jen's boys, and two of my nephews battling it out on the trampoline with the football practice dummies.



Oh do you think I left out an important detail or two? Yes, D and his brother went to the concert and Jen and her hubs but they did all go together. Hee hee, I just couldn't resist the possible shock factor.


I am busier than ever and semi-adjusting to all the craziness of my life, the good news is I still love it! Life is good. Happy Fall!

Dippity-Doo!

I had honestly begun to wonder if anything could bring me out of my blogging funk.

I have made notes and snapped pics with which I still hope to formulate into amazing, thought-provoking, yet humorous blog entries. Alas, still nothing was dragging me back to the creative process.

But today as I was perusing some blogs I saw a phrase that made my heart go pitter patter and my blood pressure raise a couple notches. I’m also sure my cholesterol levels elevated just the tiniest bit in anticipation. Are you ready for this? BooMama’s Diptacular…





Is there anything more enjoyable than a huge buffet table full of appetizers? I don’t know why I even asked the question because that was just stupid. Of course there’s nothing better!
I consider myself to be quite the connoisseur of sour cream and/or cream cheese-laden dips. I am also pleased it only took me two tries to get that word close enough for spell check to give me the correct spelling.

So let’s get to the point, shall we? Here’s my recipe for my most favorite dip of all time. It has bacon, it has cheese, it has sour cream. I know the French have their version of the culinary Holy Trinity, but have mercy, them three right there are mine! (Actually homemade ranch dressing would be in my true trinity but I still consider this to be a very worthy food deity.) Bring it!

Without further ado, I present to you my Diptacular entry:


Warm Bacon Cheese Spread

The Stars of the Show:
1 round loaf (1 pound) sourdough bread
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1-1/2 cups (12 ounces) sour cream
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
1-1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
3/4 pound sliced bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 cup chopped green onions
Assorted crackers

Stage Directions:
Hollow out the loaf of bread (if you want to skip this step, this dip is also yummy baked in a small casserole dish). Mix together the softened cream cheese and sour cream, then add everything else. Shove it into the bread, wrap that puppy in foil and bake at 300 for one hour or more!

If you get impatient (not that this ever happens to me) and just can’t wait the hour, you can pop that sucker in the microwave for a couple of minutes—minus the foil of course! Or some combination of the two which is what usually does happen to me….

So hop on over to BooMama’s Diptacular and check them out…there are hundreds! I can’t wait to dig into some of this dips.

Pretzel Salad

Here's my Saturday recipe. This one is one of those that every time I make it, at least 5 people ask for the recipe. You may choose to smile coyly and say "I'm sorry, it's a secret." Or you can share this url. Shameless self-promotion, I know.

Pretzel Salad
1 stick butter (real butter)
1/2 C sugar
1 C crushed pretzels.

1 can crushed pineapple
1 block pkg cream cheese
1/2 C sugar
1 12oz. tub cool whip

Heat oven to 350. While oven is heating, melt the butter in oven in a shallow baking pan. A jelly roll pan is ideal.
I use 2 gallon zip bags and a rolling pin to crush pretzels. Doubling the bags keeps crumbs from escaping. Mostly.
Once butter is melted, add in 1/2 c sugar and stir around. Add pretzels and stir.
Bake 7 minutes.
Stir pretzels every few minutes to keep from clumping.

Drain pineapple well.
Cream together cream cheese and 1/2 c sugar. I use my food processor.
In LARGE bowl, mix cool whip and cream cheese mix. Stir in pineapple.
Once the pretzels are cool, they can be folded into the creamy mixture.

If not serving right away, store pretzels in air-tight container (zip bags are my preference). Otherwise the pretzels get soggy after a while.

Absolutely the Best Pancakes Ever

One of our family Valentine's traditions is pancakes. Heart shaped ones. My kids love the extra attention (since it is rare that I actually pull out the pan and cook breakfast). I found this recipe years ago in a Bisquick box and have never seen it since. I'm so happy I copied it.
I decided to share this in the recipe swap. http://grocerycartchallenge.blogspot.com/2009/02/grocery-cart-challenge-recipe-swap_13.html
They really are the best pancakes I've ever made if not had. They run very close with Cracker Barrell. Seriously.

2 c bisquick
1 1/3 c milk
1 egg
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp baking powder

Mix all ingredients. Heat skillet to 375, or med-high. Pour out batter and flip after bubbles break and holes remain on top.
I add pecans or blueberries once I have poured the batter onto the skillet.
These are even better with real maple syrup.
Happy pancake eating!!