My amazing sister in law and her boyfriend found a bread machine recipe book and gave it to me for my birthday. I made the most delicious grainy bread, and there will be many more loaves to come.
Learings from this loaf – I ‘sprung’ for bread flour, it is 100% worth it. I also used 1/3 less yeast due to our altitude, and the bread turned out a bit more dense and moist.
I used sunflower seeds, chia seeds, and sesame seeds for my grains.
Very happy with how it turned out.
I had such a great evening yesterday with my family celebrating my birthday.
My parents took us to a virtual reality game, we played all sorts of things as a family. My dad hilariously chose the nature walk program, while the rest of us skied and shot enemies and tried to golf. It was a treat!
My mum made a delish dinner followed by our traditional birthday cake. Two layer chocolate cake with 7 minute icing and rainbow ball sprinkles. It was just perfect.
I was spoiled rotten with gifts too. My brother and his girlfriend gave me a French press, some fancy coffee, and some fancy honey, yum! My parents spoilled me with more honey, and ski tickets, a dominion expansion, and a new skiing under layer. Dang.
My little Reg hog somehow got to Ikea and bought candles, that little sneak.
I’m super pumped about all the different honey I got. Wild flower, alfalfa, cinnamon, and huckleberry. It’s going to go so well with my home made bread and my French press coffee!
Speaking of bread, the grainy bread was really dense (according to my hunny, could sink a ship dense). It was a good contrast to the usual too crumbly and light bread. Somewhere in the middle would be good.
I did more research and because of the altitude in the city I live in, I should be using 1/3 less yeast than the recipes call for.
Bread just finished. I used this recipe – https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.thriftyfun.com/tf/249/46767-amp.html – the long bake version with a light crust setting. Hoping this less yeast recipe will be better!
I’ve been experimenting with the bread machine my in-laws handed down to us. It’s been a fun adventure, and certainly some bread has come out better than other bread.
Discoveries thus far:
The salt matters. I tried to do less salt but it messes up the yeast and the bread doesn’t turn out.
The flour quality matters. So far I’ve used Wal-Mart all propose flour and then upgraded to Rogers all propose flour, and the bread got much better. I’ve asked for fancy bread flour for my birthday which I think will be another good upgrade.
Adding an egg doesn’t make a better loaf. I suspected it might add something because with cake if you add more eggs you get denser cake. I also accidentally added an egg to a batch of buns and they turned out great (the recipes list ingredients in order of addition to the bread maker, but the butter told for some reason have an egg for an egg wash right in the middle of the recipe, so, in it went!). It did not work this way for bread.
I find the loaves are dry and crumbly, especially in the middle of the bread, so sandwiches can be tricky to eat. I’m going to keep experimenting to see how I might address this. Perhaps adding oil, or maybe less yeast? Only the next loaves will tell!
**Update** – do not make the below recipe – it was terrible! Much too dense, needed more water, less flour, less oats
I am trying a seed loaf right now. Recipe a bit made up as follows:
1 cup water
3 2/3 cup all propose flour
2/3 cup rolled oats
3 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1/4 cup chia and sesame seeds mixed together
1/3 cup sun flower seeds
I do not have a prediction as to hope it will turn out. I realized I missed putting in a sugar. I’m going to do that right now!
So the cinnamon buns turned out awesome!
Things I learned – you cannot rush the defrost in the microwave. Cream cheese icing is more than just confectioners sugar and cream cheese. If you bake them for too long they get really tough.
Baking notes from frozen – take out of freezer and put into buttered pan, leave overnight in the fridge. Turn on oven to 350, set timer for 20 mins, and put buns in while preheating.
Icing notes – 1 part cream cheese, 1 part butter, a bit of salt, a bit of vanilla, blend with confectioners sugar until desired sweetness achieved, add milk to desired consistency.
I tried my hand at cinnamon buns today!
Bread maker dough recipe here – https://happyhooligans.ca/bread-machine-cinnamon-rolls/
Filling recipe here – https://www.callmepmc.com/cinnamon-roll-filling/
I added 1 package of vanilla pudding to the filling. I have a recipe for monkey buns I got ages ago from a colleague, and it tastes like Cinnezeo cake. The secret is the vanilla pudding. I’m hoping it goes well in the buns!
I got 18 buns out of the combination of recipes above, I baked 3 of them and froze the rest. According to the one hundred dollars a month blog you can take them out to thaw in the fridge the night before you want to eat them and then bake the next morning for some amazingly easy yummy eats. Well I’m going to test this!
I posted a couple months back about going back to school. This was before I knew about my job change and started that adventure.
I am still registered for a course though and I have to finish it. Investment Management Techniques. I picked it do I could better manage my own investments, and my job paid for it to boot. I’ve decided to write the exams on Oct 22 and Oct 29. What the heck, time to get it done. I’ve only been registered since Feb 2017.
I need to study an average of 4 hours a day, I probably won’t be able to do that for a month, so plan is to concentrate on the most important parts.
Today is my first day studying. I’m going to get through section 1 and 2.
I am also doing some errands and things today – making another batch of spaghetti sauce from garden tomatoes and carrots, picking up winter tires for my new car, picking up a rain barrel for one of our rentals, and hanging out with my friends tonight.
One of our tenants also had run into some difficult times and has to move out, so I also need to find new tenants for November 1.
I found a distressed property as well that would be an interesting project, and am hoping to go look at it this week. It would be a property flip – a top to bottom renovation and then sell for hopefully profit. We have never sold a property before, so it would be an education on hope that works.
Today is the last day of my lovely vacation with my mother. We went on a 6 day road trip of sorts, driving to Fernie and then down to Whitefish Montana.
(Beaver lakes trail map)
We have enjoyed 3 hikes and are doing one more today, went to the spa (I get massages through my work benefits), and kayaking on Lake Whitefish. It has been so relaxing, a much needed break from work.
We hit the road Sunday afternoon, took a leisurely and uneventful drive to Fernie. We had considered golfing that evening but it was raining, so we made dinner (chicken and broccoli) and played board games. Monday morning we had a lovely omelette breakfast with avocados and big bang bagels, tried to find the Fernie amonite (no luck), and went to the spa – lovely.
(Sperry chalet trail)
The trip itself hasn’t been too expensive either – so far $44 on tip and tax for the massage, $124 on gas, and a couple dinners for two.
(Going to the sun road, just opened after forest fires)
We snagged lunches from the breakfast bar at the hotel – bagel sandwiches (cream cheese, ham or bacon if desired), hard boiled eggs, oranges, and cups of froot loops for an afternoon snack. Coincidently good (not perfect) hiking food for us. Our dinners out have been shared salad and shared entrees, which keeps the serving size reasonable – not wasting any food and also keeps the cost low.
Everyone here has been so helpful and welcoming. It really is a lovely place.
I’m making home made spaghetti sauce today, from the garden as much as I can. It’s something my dad does each year, and it’s so good, so I decided to try myself this year.
I picked all our ripe garden tomatoes, washed them, and of course took the stems off. Yummy garden tomatoes!
My dad adds garden carrots to his sauce to sweeten it instead of sugar. I had gotten carrots from last year still frozen, so I warmed them up in the microwave and blended them up to mush
I then added all my tomatoes and blended that together. It was very pink, not very red like regular tomato sauce.
I cooked my ground beef (from Safeway 😂) while I was blending. To my ground beef I added chives from the garden and garlic (I would like to learn how to grow garlic next year).
I then added my pink tomato blend to the beef and it is simmering away on the stove right now, thickening to delicious spaghetti sauce.
My sweetheart like a bit of spice so I added 2 tbsp of chili flakes and 2 tbsp of cayenne pepper powder. We can always make it spicier later.
My next step is to pop it into the slow cooker for 6-8 hours to really get the flavours mixed.
I will freeze the sauce in yogurt containers and we’ll use it through the winter for quick easy dinners.
We drove home from Fernie today and on the drive we stopped at the Bellevue Mine and went on a tour. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for several years, something we always drive by.
The tour was fantastic, it was so creepy in the mine. And cold. We talked about how so many men gave their lives to get this resource out of the ground. All that time and sacrifice for something that’s not a huge part of our lives any more.
We decided to give buns a try for our sandwiches this week. Also a good experiment for all the hamburgers we usually eat. It would be great to make burger buns – right now buns are the biggest source of food plastic in our house (we have eliminated shopping and produce bags and ate working on making homemade snacks).
I made the dough in the bread maker, following the butter rolls recipe that came with the machine. We divided the dough up into 10 adorable little buns!
They are in the oven right now. Can’t wait to see how they turned out!
While the bread maker was working hard kneeding, I decided to make 3 different kinds of cookie dough to freeze for later use.
1 batch of banana oatmeal chocolate chip, a double batch of ginger crinkles, and a double batch of chocolate mint chip. So many cookies. I’ll bake some for the week, and the rest will be frozen for future use (people over, bake sales, hostess gifts, etc). I’m happy with this amount of baking in one evening.
I want to start thinking about Christmas gifts for family soon, as I like to have a hand made element to them. I’ve been considering a few options – pj pants (need to learn how to sew), spice mixes (need to acquire some cool jars), something from my lathe (need ideas for round things made out of wood), or knitted dish cloths (need to find some appropriate wool).
I have been without a car for 4 months now, taking the bus, riding my bike, and bumming rides when possible. It has made me feel good about my environmental impact but has also had challenges.
I have struggled to see my friends on a regular basis because getting to them is hard (usually end up taking uber). Our grocery bill has crept up a bit because we are doing larger shops to go less frequently. I have found frequent grocery shopping much better as you get less junk and more fresh food.
I have been depending on my family for rides to get out hiking or to the cabin. It’s been working ok, but not perfectly.
We are also getting to the time of year I have to think about the weather. The mornings will get frosty and snowy, which will make biking a different challenge. I would also need winter biking gear and a plan for a much longer ride time.
I found a used SUV that works in our budget (including gas and insurance). I’m not super stoked about the SUV, and I have a list of excuses as to why I need one. The list – for our properties we sometimes need to move larger things and for trips out to the mountains with bikes or skis. I bought it and get it sometime this week. I’m sad I can’t claim to be car free anymore, but so excited to be able to get myself around town again.
My Little Life 