Bread Adventure

I decided to try making bread for the first time ever in my life on Sunday using my Bosch that Corey got me for Christmas. This lead to learning a whole slue of new things first of which would be how to test yeast to make sure it's still alive.

To test yeast you combine: 1/2 cup warm water (110-115 degrees roughly), 1 tsp of sugar and 2 1/4 tsp of yeast (this is equivalent to one packet). Mix it up and let it sit for 10 minutes. If it looks like this...

Then you've got active, live yeast!!! You may now proceed with the bread baking.

I followed the instructions (limited as they were) and discovered that I knew nothing about kneading bread outside of a mixer and that after kneading, letting it rise, and what not; I have no idea how to break this sticky giant blob of dough apart and get it into the pans. This became an interesting experiment (which much of my life seems to be somedays). I tried flour on my hands, that didn't work so well, I tried PAM, that seemed to work great. I then used a knife to cut the dough into sections that looked like they would fit my oddly shaped pans (3 big & 1 smaller) rolled the dough around a bit trying to make it look "loaf shaped"and popped them in the oven to rise again. This turned out interesting because I didn't know how much they were supposed to raise before I actually turned the oven on to bake them. Corey says I let them get too big, but hey what do I know about making bread anyways, at least they didn't fill my oven to max capacity. ( I swear "I Love Lucy" moments every time I try a recipe I've never done before, ask me sometime you'll get a big kick out of it I'm sure.)
SO...after about 20 minutes of baking in my 350 degree oven this is what I got...

 Pretty, Aren't they? No, Corey is not picking at the tops, I let him have the honors of buttering the tops of them so that they would be all shiny. They tasted great, a little doughy for my tastes but I'm sure I'll do it better next time. Enjoy the adventure.

Rexburg!!!

This is so how Rexburg has felt for the past 2 days, yeah it's only 8 degrees here (my sister kindly informed me that Twin was 24) I am so wishing for Spring already.

Addition: I just got back from driving Corey to school this morning and it was -6 outside. You know it's bad when there's frost on the INSIDE of your car windshield!!!

I Gotta Blog

I'm sorry I can't take it any more! I told myself that I couldn't blog until the whole apartment was clean but we're going on like day 5 now and I just had to post a little something.

So, Corey and I moved up to Rexburg on New Year's Day only to find that our apartment was a BIG FAT MESS!!!! The people who lived here before us were clearly disgusting and didn't bother cleaning anything before they left. I'm not even sure they OWNED a vacuum! Let me just quickly describe a few things and you'll get the photos in a later post:

The oven was grimmey, the inside was covered in some mess they didn't bother to clean, the burners were coated in grease, and the drip pans were encrusted with anything and everything they had EVER dripped on them!

The toilet was brown!!! and it's a WHITE TOILET!!! There was so much hard water build up that it took nearly half a pumice stone to get it off, the rim the inside, under the lip, you name it.

The blinds (my current project) all have a half inch layer of dirt, food, etc. on them and I'm currently working to get it off of them.

The carpet has a wonderful vomit smell that my wonderful husband and father-in-law will be working to get rid of this weekend; because though the carpet cleaners said they cleaned it, if I can pull a whole canister of dirt out of it with my Dyson, YA DIDN'T CLEAN IT!!!

On the positive side I think I'm almost done cleaning but I'm deathly afraid that it's become an obsession. I took the oven door apart the other day so I could clean the handle and the little vent slats that are behind it, I even used a toothbrush. Sad I know but I just can't stop myself.

Oh the Road, AGAIN!!??!?!?!

We're moving, again! Back to Rexburg we go to the Frozen Tundra. We'll be loading up the trailer later this evening and the computer will of course be the last thing to go, but incase you don't here from us for a day or two that's why. We're driving up to Rexburg tomorrow morning (Happy New Year!!!) and will hopefully be unloading things that afternoon (for any of you in the area we'd love the help.) Until we have the internet again... tootles.

Baby Shower!!!

Hi people who read our blog (i.e. firends, family and other people we love). I am using this post to let you know that my awesome friend Laura is throwing me a baby shower on January 16th and you are invited. It's going to be at my mother's house in Twin Falls and I'm working on addresses. If you believe that I don't have your address, or you want a more personal invitation (which I strongly believe in, the mail is just so much more personal over facebook or blogs) please let me know what your address is so I can make sure that you get an invite. Love ya all tons!!! ~JJ