I Made Another Hat Donation

A couple weeks back I contacted one of my cousins who teaches preschool in a nearby town and asked her if she would like hats for her students.  My mom made almost all the hats for the local preschool that I donate to so have a stash of hats that I’ve made.  Hopefully I can stay ahead of them in case mom slows down on making hats.  Anyway, my cousin was super excited.  She should get her package of hats today. 

The blue velvety hat, middle row on the right, is for her. The teacher always needs a hat. 😊  I am looking forward to hearing from her when she gets the hats.  This donation is more exciting for me than my usual donation. 

Chicken Haul

 We bought a bulk box of chicken quarters. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I think we got our moneys worth. We didn’t know how they would be packed. Im glad they didn’t come prepackaged so i could package them up myself. There was a total of 25 leg/thigh quarters. I packaged then in zipper bags. I got 6 bags of 4 quarts and an extra quarter.

I put 1 bag in the refrigerator freezer and 5 bags in the big freezer.

The odd quarter I put in the crockpot . It will make some delicious homemade chicken noodle soup for next week.

First Time Making Bread in Forever

 So the other night I decided to make some homemade bread. It has been forever since I’ve made bread and longer forever since I have made a successful loaf of bread. I used to make homemade bread all the time when my boys were young, but thats been several years back.

I don’t like the idea of the time and energy involved is making bread completely by hand, so I got out my trusty bread machine. I don’t like bread baked in the bread machine, because I have a vertical loaf pan. I bought my current machine second hand about 5 years ago and it has just been sitting collecting dust. Anyway, I used my machine to make my dough. It does excellent mixing and rising it.

I found a bread recipe in an old bread cookbook that called for shortening instead of butter for oil. I was excited about that for sure. I did my best to half the recipe because I didn’t want 2 loaves.

I have had my yeast stored in the freezer for about as long as I have let my bread machine collect dust, so wasn’t sure if it was still good.

I think the yeast is just fine. 😊

I didn’t bother forming my loaf roll i just pulled the dough out of the machine and plopped it in my bread pan and into the oven. 40 minutes later and this was my results

Nice and soft and almost the perfect loaf of homemade bread. It needs a bit more salt and sweet and it would be perfect.

I’m looking forward to making bread again very soon. This loaf won’t last long that’s for sure.