The Easiest Homemade Bread Ever

Once a month a group of us girls get together for Book Club. We each take a turn hosting a dinner at our house - the hostess chooses the book for the month and the main dish or theme for the dinner. We all read the book (or not), bring an item for dinner (appetizer, side dish, dessert, wine, etc), and then discuss the book (or not) while enjoying delicious food and each other's company. Last night our hostess made a wonderful spaghetti with homemade sauce. It was fabulous! To go along with the dinner, I made bread from scratch. A friend of mine gave me this recipe - it is so easy!! - I thought I would share it with you so you can use it too (and impress your friends).

No-Knead Bread

3 cups bread flour

1-1/2 teaspoons instant yeast (1 envelope)

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

1-1/2 cups warm, but not hot water (95-110 degrees F)

In a large bowl, combine the flour, yeast and salt. Add the 1-1/2 cups warm water and stir until blended. The dough will be shaggy and sticky.

Leaving the dough in the same bowl in which you have mixed it, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let is rest in a warm place for 4-6 hours. You can preheat your oven to 150 degrees, turn off the heat, turn on the oven light and leave the dough undisturbed in the oven for this resting time. Or, if you live in Texas and it's between May and September, you can just leave the bowl on the back porch (that's what I did). This is what it looks like after the 4-6 hours:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place a 6-8 quart heavy covered pot in the oven as it heats. You can use cast iron, enamel, pyrex or ceramic. When I first started using this recipe, I used my Le Creuset pot.

This makes a rounded loaf and I wanted a more traditionally shaped elongated loaf, so Santa Claus brought me a stoneware bread cloche for Christmas. I love it!!

While the oven is heating, lightly oil a work surface and place the dough on it; fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosly with plastic wrap (I lightly oil the plastic wrap too so it does not stick to the shaggy dough). Let the dough rest for 30 minutes more.

After the 30 minute rest period, slide the dough into the pot. Caution: the pot is VERY hot. Shake the pot once or twice to distribute the dough more evenly.

Cover with the lid and bake 30 minutes. Then remove the lid and bake another 15-20 minutes, until the loaf is browned (note: with a stoneware cloche you do not need to remove the lid to brown the top). Cool on a rack.

Yield: 1 large loaf

Note: this recipe is most forgiving, so don't become concerned if you let the dough rest more time than suggested.

Source: Mark Bittman. "The Minimalist" NYT. 8 October 2008, D6.

Another Day, Another Park

This morning we went to Abbott Park, one of James' favorites. Charlotte also loves this park because it has quite a few bouncy rides and she really enjoys making them bounce. James is such sweet little boy who loves playing with his baby sister... Hopefully that will never change! If it does, I will show him this picture and remind him of all the times they had fun playing together at the park.

Today's Schedule

Wednesdays are usually pretty busy, but today I am volunteering at Madeleine's school Book Fair in addition to our usual activities.  She has picked out 7 books that she would like to buy: two are about horses, two are about cats, two are about ballerinas, and one is about dinosaurs. Her reading skills are improving quickly with all the practice she is getting. Every day she comes home with two books in her backpack - one for us to read to her and one for her to read to us. 

Today Madeleine also has a soccer game - her third one of the season.  This is her first time to play on a soccer team and she seems to really be enjoying it. She is not the fastest runner or dribbler on the team, but she is showing promise as a great defensive player (just like her mom and dad used to be). 

Well, we are off to get this day going! 

First Cantaloupe

The kids helped us pick this big 'ol thing from the garden this weekend. We will be having it for dinner along with a fresh cucumber salad (from the garden as well) and some homemade BBQ pulled pork and potato salad.

Sunday Afternoon Drive

The good news is that our Sunday afternoon drive has put all three kids to sleep. The bad news: I've got to carry 100 pounds of kids up the stairs now. The younger two should stay asleep, but the oldest one will most likely not. It is SO tempting to just roll down the windows and let her sleep in the garage... But I won't.

Beautiful Morning for a Walk

Photo Session with the Kids

Our dear friend Anne has posted a few of her pictures of the family on her blog - please click on the link below to check them out. She did a fabulous job (as always) of capturing the personalities and bringing out the smiles. James does not like early morning photo sessions (or photo sessions in general, I think), but we finally did get a few smiles out of him. I can't wait to get a chance to view all 80 proofs (yikes!) - it will be hard to decide which ones to print!

rosselli photography: oh, to be one!: Miss C has it all - a thousand smiles, giggles galore, sweetness...happy birthday! We met up on a warm summer morning to take a "few" photo...

Mornings at the Park

Every weekday morning we have about 30 minutes between dropping Madeleine off at kindergarten and when James has to be at his preschool, so each day we have been going to a different park. We are slowly learning the names of all the parks, but right now James identifies them by some unique characteristic he can remember. Caruth Park has the big slide, Abbott Park has the hippo, Smith Park has the "thing that goes round and round," Franklin Park is the "new park," Williams Park has the baby rock climbing wall and Curtis Park is the one with the ducks. This morning we went to feed the ducks at Curtis Park.

Usually we play some type of good guys vs bad guys game - James is generally Batman, I am Batgirl and Charlotte is Super Baby. We fight various bad guys for about 20 minutes and then spend about 10 minutes on the swings. Kids love their routines! And at 7:45am, the weather is actually nice and not unbearably hot. I have no idea what we will do when the weather gets cold. I figure if it's raining, we can always go to a donut shop for a before school treat. Did you know that the Krispy Kreme on Greenvile has a drive-thru? Genius! We won't even have to get out in the rain.

Sweet Pea Baby Girl

Ok, I know I'm biased, but she is sooo cute! We are so very blessed to have such a sweet, calm, even tempered baby girl. She just goes with the flow and rarely fusses at anything. Her eyes light up with joy when she sees her big brother and sister and she loves to snuggle with her mommy. It has been a delight to see her personality start to develop in the past few months. She loves to laugh and even at 13 months is showing her sense of humor. Her favorite words right now are: shoes, ball, kitty (the name of James' lovey is Kitty Kitty), and sit (she hears "sit! sit! a lot). If you leave your shoes within reach, Charlotte will find them, put them on her hands, and crawl around with them or hold them up to show you her shoes. She can go up and down the stairs by herself and loves you to chase her as she crawls away. She can walk while holding on to something and I'm sure she will be taking her first unassisted steps soon. And every night before she goes to bed she will bring you a book to read to her. And with a face like that, who could say no?

We love our Sweet Pea Baby Girl!!

Dallas Catholic Pro-Life Committee Dinner

Last month Dad invited us to attend a dinner hosted by the Dallas Catholic Pro-Life Committee. We met several very interesting people (including a couple who lives just down the street from us with their SIX kids) and dined on food donated by iFratelli's. Several people from the DCPLC spoke about the committee's successes (due in no small part to their donors' generous gifts of time and money) and how much more still needs to be done for the pro-life movement here in Dallas. And as we hoped, Brannon, head of the Student Relations and Scholarships Committee of the University of Dallas' National Alumni Board, got to chat with Bishop Kevin Farrell about the University of Dallas. Here are a couple of pictures from that evening.

Summer Vegetable Garden

After our first attempt at gardening this past spring, Brannon decided to rework the beds and get them a little more organized. We had great success with our lettuce, arugula, purple potato and red onion plantings in the spring, but the lack of division amongst the plants made it harder to identify and harvest what had been planted. After doing a little research on "square-foot gardening" Brannon built several narrow planters and divided them into one foot sections with wire.

Here is what the garden looked like on July 11th:

The entire length of the garden is about 20 feet long from fence to fence. The depth is about five feet from the driveway to the back fence. Brannon put in a walkway between the back and front planters to help with accessing the plants for harvesting. The planters are about 1 foot high and have been filled with a mix of dirt and fresh composted dirt from our two compost bins.

We planted squash, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins, okra, corn, green beans, bell peppers, and several other things I cannot remember now... After a two months of sun and watering, the garden looks like this now:

The cantaloupe, cucumbers, squash and watermelon have almost completely taken over the garden. A few stalks of corn have grown along the back fence, but they have not produced any corn yet. I also cannot find any pumpkins amongst the plants. And the bell peppers are also now where to be seen. My guess is that the cantaloupe, squash and cucumber plants have blocked all the light to the other sections of the garden and hence those seeds did not sprout. And as you can see, the walkway is completely covered as well.

One of the cantaloupes growing in the garden.

This is one of the little watermelons. We aren't quite sure when we should pick these...

If anyone has a good recipe for okra, please send them to me! I have yet to find an okra recipe I like (Brannon likes okra, hence the okra plants).

The kids have loved watching the garden come to life and it has provided a great learning opportunity for them. They have learned about what plants need in order to grow and about pollination by bees. It is also amazing what they will try at dinner when you tell them "this came from our garden!"