Carbo-Loading!

So I've been making bread for a while now and have tried a bunch of recipies, but over the last year I have a few complaints about those attempts (that I'm sure are due to my lack of experience).

1) Making bread from scratch with a 2 yr old, while sounding fun, is VERY messy and results in a lot of "no, no, no" which doesn't make it so fun.

2) Bread machine making with a 2 yr old is very fun (and leads to said child "making a hole" in everything she cooks), but the bread drys out SO QUICKLY.

3) Putting in the right amount of flour is VERY IMPORTANT and not easy.

4) I have not found my favorite recipie yet.

5) I WILL keep trying

But last weekend I tried a new one, out of the EVER perfect Baking Illustrated (by Cooks Illustrated Magazine). It is BY FAR, my favorite sandwich/toasting bread I have tried...if there is a whole wheat version, we'll be set, but I haven't tried that yet, but E...you gotta make this one for Ryan-he will love it.

Also, in celebrating the fact I FINALLY finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this is a little American-food culture for you!

American Sandwich Bread (makes one 9 inch loaf)

-to promote a crisp crust, we found it best to place a pan filled with boiling water in the oven as the bread bakes

3 3/4 cups (18 3/4 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour (plus some for dusting)

2 teaspoons salt

1 cup warm whole milk ( I use whatever I have)-about 110 degrees

1/3 cup warm water (about 110 degrees)

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

3 tablespoons honey

1 envelope (about 2 1/4 teaspoons) instant yeast*

*If you don't have instant yeast on hand, try this slow-rise method: subsitute equal amt active dry yeast for instant. Let dough rise at room temp (instead of warm oven) until almost doubled (about 2 hrs first rise and 45-60 min second rise).

1. Adjust oven rack to the lowest position and heat the oven to 200. ONce the overn temp reaches 200, maintain heat for10 min then turn it off (don't need to do with active dry yeast)

2.Mix 3 1/2 cups flour, and the salt in thebowl of standing mixer fitted with dough hook.

3. Mix milk, water, butter, honey, and yeast in 4 cup liquid measuring cup.

4. Turn machine to low and slowly add liquid. When dough comes together, increase speed to medium and mix until smooth and satiny.-stopping a few times to scrap sides with spatula (about 10 min). After 5 min, if still sticking to side add up to 1/4 cup extra flour, one tablespoon at a time until dough is no longer sticky.

5. Turn dough out on lightly flouredsurface, knead to form smooth, round ball (about 15 sec)

6. Place dough in lightly oild bowl, turning to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap (I use shower caps), and place in warm oven until the dough doubles in size (40-50 min).

7. Gently press the dough into a rectangle 1 inch thick and no longer than 9 in. With long side facing you, roll the dough firmly into a cylonder, pressing with yout fingers to make sure the dough sticks to itself. Turn dough seam-side up and pinch together. Please seam-side down in greased 9x5 lof pan and press gently to touch all sides. cover with plastic wrap, set in warm spot to double in size (20-30 min).

8. Keep oven rack on lowest, place other in middle, heat to 350 degrees.

9. Place empty baking pan on bottme and loaf pan on middle shelf. Bake until thermometer reads 195 (40-50 min).

10. Removefrom pan to wire rack and cool

11. Slice and serve...OH yummy goodness...

Giving Thanks for Seasonal Changes...

As I look out at the greening of the backyard, the first notes of flowers breaking soil in the front yard, the street cleaners swiping up the winter in the streets and the snowy peaks still reminding us of a few more cool days, I feed my family the "Thanksgiving Casserole" (the real reason we make SO MUCH FOOD in November) with cheesy-garlic biscuits to warm our spring souls. I give thanks thinking back to the past year's trials and triumphs in a relocation and really can say how happy and rich we are (even if not monetarily). From good times spent in Whitefish with both old friends and new, I am just so thankful to be living in such a faboulously diverse and beautiful area that we can ski a bluebird day in Whitefish, drive lazily around Khuai-blue Flathead impressed with the enormity of the Misson and Swan Ranges and then float the meandering Bitteroot the next day. And doing this ALL WITH KIDS (even avoiding the 140$ day of babysitting!)! Also thankful for the wonderful group of women that trotted up into the Mountains with dark clouds looming to enjoy running in the woods, creating unique nature-boards all while enjoying cold Biga Pizza and 9 kids! I just have to say how greatful I am to have the life I am living right now, the family and community around me, and the support and love of a fabulous father to my healthy, (mostly) happy children!

Ok, I am also on a PMS high right now, but hormones are good, right?

One year is a big deal

Happy Birthday to Dylan. This is your tiny newborn foot the day you came home. So tiny. So precious. You're a little bigger now. Your big, happy, healthy, cheerful and have we mentioned happy? We love you lots. Sorry we aren't there to see you dive into your first cupcake. I'm sure you're having fun. You've done a great job your first year of life! Keep up the good work!

One of these things doesn't look like the other

I looked up from working the other day and realized I had cute baby socks sitting on my work. I figured I should capture it...as I'm sure the items scattered over my desk will change over the months and years.

Budgeting...toddler-style

As I've been tightening our belts one dollar at a time, my lovely 2 1/2 yr old added to our monthly budget in toiletries today...here's the tally as of 8:22pm

• bottle of "special" lotion to calm roseacea...$50
• bottle of Aspen cologne...no idea of price, I think it was Matt's from Junior High...not too upset about this one except the fact that the house smells like a boys junior high locker
• 1/2 bottle hand soap
• Entire bottle of my only "non-cheap" shampoo (I mention this because there was 3 other cheap bottles she could have chosen). The only way I knew she was dumping it out was the song of "bubbles, bubbles, I love bubbles" from the mid-day bath she was taking to wash her "ouchy"butt that had soaked in aformentioned liquids earlier while I was mopping more of aformentioned items off floor.
• 1/4 roll of toilet paper
• 2 razors (only after she "shaved my face like Daddy". Yes, there was blood. )
• 1/4 bottle of hand sanitizer
• 1/4 bottle lotion

Luckily she did not get into the other side of the medicine cabinet...so I guess our toddler proofing needs to increase it's height restriction.Hope you're having a happy Tuesday. This face cheered me up...

blue love

blue, originally uploaded by Erica and Ryan.

I had the greatest valentines day. We made english muffins and apple/carrot/lemon juice.
And this guy spent all day telling me he loved me and hugging me. Sweet Ryan.
I've been pretty stressed lately. I am super busy with work. So much that it feels like I won't be able to finish it all. It is actually affecting my sleep. Which is bad because us mommies need to capitalize on the moments we have to sleep. Then he insists that if I'm feeling stressed and can't sleep, I need to wake him up. I did, he rubs my back and bam...I'm asleep.
Today I feel very rested. So I think I should remind myself of somethings I love right now.
- Mali's little coos and sounds she's making...all the time. Oh, and her laughs and her smiles.
- The decaf coffee we brought back from Hawaii
- the faint chaco tan I have on my feet from 8 days spent in the sun
-sunny february days like today that remind me March is right around the corner. I love March.

Just a little overwhelmed...

As I sit here listening to our first African-American President, I am consumed with emotion…Yes I could still consider myself post-partum even with an 11 month-old, and I am moved by the sound of my husband and daughters “making tea” and chasing each other around the house as I make them dinner out of my first cast-iron Dutch oven given to me by my remarkable mother-in-law…but I am crying… and now to make things more inspired, my sister just called to inform me she got into Berkely’s School of Journalism…her dream school…
I am so damn proud of my little sister who thought she came from a family of mice, ran away from home with only her teddy bear weekly, and generally has been trying to save the world from an early age. And that my 62-yr-old mother is doing her first triathlon this year with myself and 4 other 30-something friends.
In this era of amazing change and compromise, and of course in my developmental I’m-30-and-have-kids-and-care-about-the-world decade, I am amazed by our complexities…and the simplicity of my 2 year old shoving Burt’s Bees in my face and asking “Shall we put on lipstick, Mommy?” Or how enthralled Logan, Matt and I were about how cool it looks when ice cracks under your feet on the Missoula Osprey’s baseball field as the pink sky reflected off Mount Jumbo and Sentinal reminding us what a beautiful place we live in. Or the pride and contentment I feel finding out that Logan got into the Preschool that we wanted to start in the Fall (and how amazed I am that my little suckling baby will turn 3 in 6 months)…Oh, how the life we live flys by and only a couple years from now I will look back with a much different perspective and of course 20/20 vision.