Busy Night Dinner!

Ok today I need a croc-pot meal because of my insane schedule. So this afternoon I picked up stuff for a stew. Took me 30 minutes to prep the ingreadents and get them in. But before I started I put in the beadmachine the makings for my soft wheat rolls. Hit dough cycle and walked away for 145 minuts! (I love that cycle!) Started flouting and browning 2.5 lbs of meat. Peeled potatos between fliping the meat. After dropping the meat into the crock, I chopped potatos and half a onion. Dumped the veggies & a bag of ruffled carrots in with 6 cups of water in the crock. Put the lid on and walked away.



Mean while I finished the bread by shaping rolls and completed 1 hour rise.



Now at the end of the night after running around crazy doing kids activities we ate fresh stew and bread! The best end for a long day!

- FKB Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A New Dress

I've been in a sewing kick the last week. The only thing that I have to show for it is my daughters dress, too bad it is two sizes to big. At the rate she is growing she will be in it next spring. I am ok at sewing. I just wish I could get sizes right. I've miss judged a skirt for me and now my daughters dress. The good thing is it's such a heavey material that it could go for winter with a long shirt under.



- FKB Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Cornbread? In What?

Ok been hard at work on programing which has left a void in crafts. Normaly I wouldn't complaine, but lately I'm craving cornbread and orange pound cake. So being a women of sound mind and little time, I'm trying my homemade cornbread recipe in my breadmachine. I have no idea how this will turn out, nor if I will overfill the pan. So far the mix cycle looks good.


During the rise period the bread will be resting, which I hope makes the corn meal more tender. The bake time is still the same. Overall if this works my family will be happy. I don't make cornbread enough for them. To go along with the southern theme I put a pork rost in the crock.


- FKB Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Experiment In Bread

Found this really cool recipe for artisan bread that you mix and store in the refrigerate for up to seven days. You just cut of a pieces as you need them. So being in the experimental mood I gave this a shot.

Step One: Gather up your ingredients, bowl, and utensils.

Step Two: Measure out 6 1/2 cups flower, 3 cups h20, 1 tbs salt, and 1 1/2 tbs yeast.

Step Three: Mix the dough by hand or with a mixer until it forms a sticky gooey clump. If you use a mixer don't mix longer then 60 seconds or you will cause the flower to have a elastic effect that ruins the breads texture.

Step Four: Gently shape into a ball in the bowl and cover. I used a little butter spray on the top and sides of the ball and bowl to help prevent sticking. Let sit in a dry place for 2 hrs.

Step Five: Punch down the dough and move the container to the refrigerate. Let set anther 2 hours at least. At this point if your container seals you can just set in the refrigerate for up to 7 days, but as it ages it turns into sourdough so be prepared for this.

Step Six: Divide the dough into a loaf or ball and let rise 45 minutes. Place remaining dough into refrigerator. After its risen bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes at 450*. If you want a chewy crust add a pain of h20 under the baking dish on the lowest shelf. The water will evaporate into steam and make a great crust. Another trick is to invert a metal baking dish over the bread to form a steam done.

Overall the recipe was fun and easy to make. I made a crock-pot of homemade stew to go along with the first bread loaf. I plan to try this recipe again after we use up all the dough I made.

Organizational Day Cooking

Have a event at my husbands job tomorrow which required a little baking. Being the ambitious through back that I am I looked on my handy dandy iPhone program iFood for two recipes that would be nice to take. Here is what I came up with.

Below in the photo on the left is three Blueberry cheesecake torts that I just put in the oven. After an hour of cooking at low heat they turned out nice and tasty lookinh, as shown in the right picture. All that is left is depaning and they are ready.

The other item I'm making is a simple chocolate cake. After it cools over night I frosted it in a nice orange cream cheese frosting. Because the orange was so strong I added a little melted simi-sweet chocolate to smooth out the overall flavor.

A New Start

Started a new 3D bead project last night. These little triangles can be shaped in to two shapes shown below.

A New Piece

Trying a new medium today I made this nice new necklace that is going into my jewelery box. This piece is eight glitter stones embedded with glass flowers. The metal chain and flower links are made of antic brass. Overall it is a nice affect for a casual piece. Though not a lot of people who have viewed it liked it. The lines were not as nice as they would have liked. Though the stones were well received.

- FKB Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Insanity at Store.

.... Sitting here at store to buy fabric to make a dress. Never ever take kids to a fabric store. That is my advice for the day.

Left is the dress pattern that I found that I liked. I'm planning to make the dress without straps or sleeves. I just hope the dress turns out nice for my husbands military ball. So I guess taking the kids wasn't a complete loss since I did find a good pattern in my size.

.... The silk in the photo looks brighter the it does in person, but has nice depth for use in a evening gown. I just hope I can pull of this shade of color. My original plan was to use the black chiffon to tone down the scarlet color, but my pattern look horrible on me when I practiced it in cotton. So with the new pattern and enough luck I will have a better dress to wear. Now I just have to cut it and sew it. I wish it wasn't two pieces though. That is the the only thing I hate about this pattern. If I was a truly good at this I'd fins a way to fix this.

.... The sad thing about formals is that topically you only get about one wear out of them. Maybe someone needs to start a second round swap formal wear shop on post. Just think if such a shop existed, all those wives swapping dress instead of purchasing new ones. It would definitely save on the pocket book. Plus there would always be a place to go looking when you need a dress.

~FKB Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

First Batch of Soap

OK so I tried to make a test batch of soap. I designed the recipe to smell and look like a Blood Orange. I wont know how it turns out till I unmold it tomorrow. But to celebrate the first batch I tool a few photos.

1. First I made lye. Because lye is so dangerous I have not taken any photos.

2. I measured out all my ingredients and melt them in a large crock pot. In the photo to the lest you see coconut oil melting down. Coconut oil is used in soap to help control oil skin and make great lather. If a bar of soap is made of pure coconut oil and nothing else then it will lather even in sea water, but it will severely dry out your skin.


3. After all the oils are mixed and heated I slowly pour in the lye. Again due to safety I have no photo of this step.

4. Next I use a hand blender to mix the lye and oils to light trace. It took me very little time due to the heat. Plus since it was my first batch I over did the blending. After the fact I discovered that the term light trace is when the soap just verily holds the shape of the bottom of the stick mixer when lifter away from the soap. I noticed I over did it when the spatula left patterns in the soap as I scraped the sides and bottoms.

5. Next I heated the soap, or better thought off as cooked it through a sold phase and back into a soft scope-able stage. After that I added FO of blood orange. Not a lot since the stuff was expensive and this was a test batch. Then I divided half the mixture into the mold box and colored the other half blood orange red. Scoping the last on top I used wax paper to press flat.

6. After a night of cooling in the mold, I removed the wax paper and cut small bars to test out. To be safe of the curing stage I let it sit on a shelf for a two week period. Just to be safe that the lye cured out and the bar harden just a little more.

Not Right For One, But Right For Another

In the spirit of crafting and friendship I worked on a nice simple piece of jewelry that someone asked me to make. I love practicing my wire work, so was excited to give the piece a try with subdued black painted material and sparkly glitter stone embedded with glass flowers. The black chain and wire is one of my harder mediums because the paint can chip off if I over do the pressure and the wire bending. So it is always a challenge to form perfect wire wraps that don't lose paint. After a few hours I managed to get five stones onto wire and connected to the chain. Which made a nice long larent. Only it turned out that the piece wasn't large and gaudy enough to fit my friends taste, or at least that's what she told me when she saw the piece. So like a good soul who hates to wast supplies I re-worked the chain and formed a multi strand piece. It was my son, Colin, who decided after seeing me take the completion photo that the piece looked like something Nana would like. So we took it over to her place to see if she wanted the piece. Colin was definitely right, the piece did suite Nana much better. I still haven't made a gaudy piece for the friend yet. Even though I have more of the stone left. I just cant get into massive gaudy pieces.