Mary's Beer Bread

My mom's good friend, Mary, brought a loaf of warm bread to dinner while we were in Oklahoma during the holidays. It was mouthwateringly delicious. When she told me there were 4 ingredients, I was shocked! I got the recipe and finally pulled it out a couple weeks ago to eat with pasta. Since then I have made this recipe at least 10 times. I've gifted 5 loaves of this bread in the last week alone. It is seriously simple, super quick to pull together, and only uses 4 ingredients we always have. I hope you run to try this recipe and love it as much as we do. My almost 4-year-old daughter deemed me the "very best bread maker in the whole wide world" because of this recipe. =)

Mary's Beer Bread

(adapted by me to lessen the butter)

3 cups self-rising flour (or 3 cups of all-purpose flour plus 3 3/4 tsp baking powder and 3/4 tsp salt)

1/3 cup sugar

1 can of beer - any kind

1/2 stick butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350. Spray a loaf pan with oil. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour and sugar. Pour in the beer, and stir just until it all comes together. The dough will be very stiff and dense. Dump it into the loaf pan, and spread to fill. Bake for 45 minutes, then pour the butter over the top, and bake for another 15 minutes. Serve warm.

In the bread pictured above, I sprinkled the top with parsley, basil, oregano, and garlic powder. It was heavenly, but it is equally heavenly just plain with butter. Yum!

Chevron Love

In February I finished probably the most special labor of love I've made yet. My little sister is due with her first baby in May, and I started this blanket within weeks of finding out she was pregnant. Certain that she was having a boy, I ran out and chose the yarn with that in mind. As a pile of skeins, the yarn looked a LOT more gender-neutral than the blanket turned out. I held it on the needles just after the darker blue row knowing I'd need to add some pink should the baby not, in fact, be the boy I was so sure she was having. As often goes, I was dead wrong! =) And I couldn't be happier about it. I adore this blanket, and it was an absolute joy to knit. Knitting projects are so perfect because they're portable, can be worked on when you have time, and give you plenty of time to think about and pray for the recipient. I can't wait to see pictures of my sister's little bundle of joy wrapped in this sweet blanket.

For those of you interested, I doubled the width as the finished blanket in the pattern was really, really tiny. I used this pattern and this yarn (purchased from Hobby Lobby but also sold at JoAnns) and this tutorial for winding the yarn. After buying the yarn and knitting most of the blanket, I read some terrible reviews. But I used 9 skeins in almost every color available in the entire line, and I absolutely loved it. I never had any of the problems people complained of.

Boredom Busters

We are caught in the doldrums of everyday life these days. We've been busy with lots of household projects and seem to have a lot going on lately. Because of this, on the days home, we are stuck in a rut of the same toys, the same routine, the same TV shows, and the same snacks. The kids and I are super bored - especially when it's rainy and cold and we can't go outside or to the park to break the monotony. When we get bored, the kids get antsy and bicker constantly. As a teacher, I always had a few tricks up my sleeve for those times, and they came back to me the other day. I broke out a couple of the ideas, and they completely turned our day around. I wanted to take a minute to jot down a list of things to do in those times. I hope you find them useful too. First a disclaimer: Make sure to only pull these things out when boredom strikes and to only do these activities once every few months. Repeating them often will make them lose their appeal.

1) Storytelling: Bind a handful of plain white paper together into a book by either stapling, 3-hole-punching, taping, or tying. Pretend to read a story off the plain white pages describing in detail the pictures and encouraging the kids to play along. Then give the "book" to them to create their own imaginary storybook to read aloud.

2) Paper Sorting: Hole punch a stack of colorful paper. Put the paper circles in a bowl, and hand it to your child along with an ice cube tray. Have them sort the circles into like colors into the sections in the ice cube tray.

3) Steam Art: Create a steam room in the bathroom by turning the shower on hot for 10 minutes or so and closing the door. Sit the kids on the bathroom counter, and allow them to draw with their fingers, q-tips, or even foam paintbrushes on the steamy bathroom mirror.

4) Dry Erase Mirror: Lay a large mirror (we use one of the inexpensive tall wall mirrors) on the floor, and allow the kids to draw on it with dry erase markers. You can lead them to trace the images of things they see in the mirror.

5) Cup Stacking: Grab a package of plastic disposable cups, and show your kids how to stack them in a pyramid. See who can build the tallest one.

6) Sticker Starters: Place a sticker on a piece of plain white paper, and have the kids draw a picture that incorporates that sticker. For example, if you place a dinosaur sticker in the middle of the page, the kids can draw it standing on a mountain, pretend it's jumping in the air, or have it stepping on a truck. Encourage them to think outside the box.

7) Cardboard Town: Gather a supply of cardboard boxes of varying sizes (shoe boxes, cereal boxes, cracker boxes, jewelry boxes, etc.), and wrap them with butcher paper or colorful wrapping paper. Allow the kids to draw on them to create buildings to set up a play town. They can use plastic people, animals, and cars and trucks to play in their town.

8) Tape Roads: Grab a roll of blue painter's tape, and tape a pattern onto the floor. Encourage the kids to pretend the tape is a road for their Matchbox-sized cars.

9) Construction zone: Gather construction vehicles from your kids' play toys. Using an under-the-bed storage container, a box lid, a jelly roll pan, or any other shallow container, fill it with wadded paper for the kids to push around with the vehicles as dirt. They can fill up dump trucks, push with the machines, and build.

10) Candy houses: Create gingerbread-style houses using graham crackers and peanut butter as glue. Give the kids a variety of healthy treats (cereals, raisins, dried cranberries, fruit slices, and even a few chocolate chips) to decorate their houses with.

11) Snack necklaces: Give the kids an assortment of snack foods that have holes in them (cereals, pretzels, fruit and veggie straws, bagel chips, apple chips, etc.) to lace onto a string to create a snack necklace.

Lemon Blueberry Yogurt Loaf - Pinterest Deal or Dud

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A month or so ago I tried this delicious bread that I found via Pinterest. It is absolutely fabulous - just as good as it looks. I wanted to write about it right away, but I ended up doubling the recipe and freezing a loaf. I thought I'd wait until we thawed the loaf so I could report about its freeze-ability. It turned out perfectly. I'd highly recommend it if you're looking for a delicious bread.

I followed the recipe exactly using frozen blueberries. They were blueberries that I purchased fresh, spread on a cookie sheet, then froze. I then placed them in a large freezer bag to store so I can measure out what I need to thaw. I've heard from commenters that store-bought frozen blueberries are too watery for the bread. So I would either use fresh blueberries or fresh frozen blueberries like I used. Also, the loaf that I froze I skipped the glaze. I thought I'd add it after it was thawed, but it turns out the bread is perfectly moist and delicious (and sweet!) without it. I think from now on I'll leave the glaze off altogether.

Hope you enjoy! Recipe can be found here.

Stockings

I absolutely love the challenge of a new project. Two sweet friends had me make their families' stockings for this past Christmas. Both projects were very different from one another, and it was a really fun to dream and create.

Pinterest Deal or Dud?

I absolutely love Pinterest. But one thing I get frustrated with is that most people I've found just repin without changing the caption. So I have 10 people I'm following all posting a recipe that says that they've made it 10 times in the last month and everyone has kept requesting it. So I never know who actually made it 10 times and whether or not their recipes are tried and true. I have tried at least half of the things I've pinned, but I don't actually have a way of reviewing them on Pinterest, so I thought I'd do that here.

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So the first pin I absolutely love is this. Did you know that, once you chop the green stems off green onions, you can simply put the whites/roots into a glass of water, and the greens will grow back?! I've done this since Thanksgiving, and it's worked every time perfectly. I even had 2 onions that I kept, used, and grew and re-grew for over 2 months. They don't have to be in the light, the temperature can vary greatly, it doesn't matter if they're in a draft. The original pin said they'll grow about an inch per day, but mine grow at least 2 inches per day. It's amazing and so convenient. Try it!