Saying Goodbye to Winter Break

Today is the last official day of the girls' winter break. We had a great Christmas spent with family and a good New Year which by the way I ended up sleeping through lol until I was awaken by the phone ringing (Raven was spending the night with a friend and called to wish us a Happy New Year). *smile* We even took a little mini vacation after Christmas to the Amish area to visit Lehman's. The girls had so much fun and I was happy to pick up a new canning rack, a butter bell, some blackberry jelly and peanutbutter whip (which sadly is already gone...*pout*) and of course I had to make a quick trip to Troyers Bakery to pick up a couple of loaves of fresh baked bread before heading home....mmmmm.


The girls outside of Lehmans



My dream stove at Lehmans :)


I can't believe how fast time flies....blink and Christmas break is already over....sigh. Raven is super happy about getting to go back to school, Gwen of course is not lol, and I have mixed feelings. I love getting to spend so much family time together, it's been great but of course there is such thing as too much of a good thing lol, so I will also be looking forward to a little peace and quiet during the day while they are at school even I will not be looking forward to starting my day at 6:10 a.m. again. Ick. :P

To celebrate our last day of break I made a giant pot of homemade vegetable, lentil, and black bean soup and 2 loaves of fresh homemade herb bread. I was out of a couple of the herbs listed in the recipe so I had to substitute a couple things and also added in some ground flax seed and wheat germ but it's a very versatile bread and it turned out fabulous. Our house smelled heavenly all evening. *smile* The herbed bread recipe was given to me by Rebecca. It was SO yummy! I will definitely be making it again. Everyone loved it so much I only have 2 tiny pieces leftover for tomorrow.



Garden Herb Bread

1 1/4 c. warm water
2 T melted butter
3 c. bread flour (or 1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour)
2 T nonfat powdered dry milk
2 T sugar
2 tsp rapid rise yeast or 3 T active dry yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp chives (if chives are unavailable then substitute w/1 part cumin 3 parts onion powder)
1 1/2 tsp. marjoram
1 1/2 tsp. thyme
1 tsp basil

Combine water & butter in bowl. Mix remaining ingredients in a sperate bowl & then add to liquid mixture. Mix thouroughly; let dough rest for 15 minutes. Knead dough until soft & elastic (this is a soft dough). Place dough in a greased pan & allow it to double in size. Bake at 375 degrees 30-45 minutes.


Hope everyone has a great year in 2009! :)