This is what I got to see this morning. I am in Chicago right now waiting for my flight to Des Moines. I am stupidly excited to be at O’hare and giggled when we flew over Lake Michigan. Home home home. I am a Midwesterner at heart. Okay home is Michigan but I’m so close I as might as well be.
I found a bread recipe that I love. Since switching to fresh ground wheat, it’s been a bit of a trial to get bread to turn out well. That was a bit discouraging because I was so used to making bread that we simple and quick and easy, then with the switch, I started making bricks. Bricks as in they went straight to the chickens. I got this recipe from the BreadBecker (out of Atlanta, our source for wheat berries). I haven’t really modified it, but my notes are listed in the directions.
Challah Bread and Rolls
1 ½ Cup hot water
1 cup cold milk
(The resulting temperature will be lukewarm so as not to kill the yeast)
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil (I use olive or coconut.)
1/3 cup honey
1 Tbsp salt
6 -7 ¼ cup freshly milled flour (when using regular all purpose)
4 ½ teaspoons instant yeast
Combine water, milk, egg, oil, honey, and salt. Add half the flour, mix thoroughly. Add yeast and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic, (about 10 minutes). Let rise until doubles. Shape into loaves and or rolls. (for rolls, roll out with a rolling pin until about ¼ inch thick. Use a cutter to make rolls the size of your liking, then place on a greased cookie sheet until doubled in size again.) For loaves, place in grease bread pan and let rise until double.  This recipe will make two loaves in a regular size loaf pan. I have a huge loaf pan, so I make one.Â
Bake at 350 for 25 – 30 minutes for loaves and 10-15 minutes for rolls. (or until they reach an internal temp of 190.)
Also, I use my stand mixer on this and knead for 8 minutes. I also leave the dough a bit softer (wetter) when I do it this way, it makes for a moister bread.Â
* I also have to tell you that I made these for when friends came over for dinner. We had Italian Beef Sandwiches and in the course of eating, it came up that I made the rolls. The husband of the couple looked a bit surprised and said they were really good. Â I admit, I blushed, and really it made me feel good.
* I also use the recipe to make cinnamon rolls as well.
I found this link with coloring pages of Our Lady! My girls are eating it up!
If you are on twitter, follow him! 🙂 He will be sending his first tweet tomorrow. (Well, today, if you are in Italy.)
My Uncle Mike did go in for surgery on the 21st of November, to have his lung removed. The doctor ended up not removing the lung, saying the my uncle’s heart would not have been able to handle the surgery. Â The good news is that the cancer has not spread at all, just in that one spot in his lung. They will begin a course of chemo and radiation soon.
On Saturday we celebrated the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. In our house, it seemed as though we partied all weekend. Caecilia’s Baptism Day was the 7th, then the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, then the Second Sunday in Advent. We ate cake and had Chinese take out all weekend. (Well okay, it was all leftovers from Friday night).
Our pastor made sure to let us all know last Sunday that Saturday was indeed a Holy Day of Obligation. He calls them “Holy Days of Privilege” as well, so there was no missing that we were supposed to be in the pews for Mass. There was the normal Friday evening Mass (which is offered every Friday night) and one additional one on Saturday.  We opted for the Friday Vigil Mass as it was also Caecilia’s Baptism Day and we wanted to make sure we went to Mass on that day as well.
On our way there, we decided to stop for Chinese food on the way home. This is rare for us (spur of the moment meal out decisions.) I had put fish in the fridge and made a salsa to put over top of them, but on the way to Mass we remembered our Chinese food tradition on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (started when we lived in Ohio, four years ago.)
Saturday night we went to Mass so that we could go to confession before hand. (Since our parish is a half hour away, it makes sense to stay for the Vigil if we there for confessions already.) Â The line for the confessional was long (and in the beginning confusing, we didn’t know/couldn’t tell that there were people waiting in line) and only Karol got in, before Mass started.
Sunday, as we did not need to get up and go anywhere, was quiet. We organized our room a bit, as it looked like clothes had exploded and had overnight cinnamon rolls for breakfast. (I used fresh ground wheat and let me tell you, that adds a big difference in the flavor and texture, they are most filling.) Joshua topped them with a praline topping with pecans from our yard. I folded more laundry as the day progressed, then finally made dinner using the fish I had pulled out on Friday evening. It was good stuff. Thanks Anne for the recipe.
Since we weren’t able to get to confession over the weekend, and I am getting on an airplane this week, we headed to a Penance service at a different parish last night. I love the sacrament of confession, love it. While it was kinda hard to prepare while wrangling the kids  I was happy to go (normally we split up, Joshua goes in while I stay in the van and vice versa, but this time we both went it, because of the lines.).
One of the things we’ve been doing as a family this Advent is the Jesse Tree and Vespers. The Jesse Tree ornaments are actually just hung on a string of yarn above the fire place. We do a reading with them each night, then we pray Vespers. It is a nice way to end the evening. I am also enjoying praying Vespers as a family. We also have scaled back on food and sweets. Not as severe as Lent would be, but no cookies or ice cream right now. Â How can we feast on Christmas if we’ve been feasting all of Advent?
The table set for dinner. We brined then grilled our turkey this year. I will brine every turkey from here on out! 🙂 It was great. We also grilled our bird last year and loved it, no better way to cook it.
Here is an up close of the bird. It looks a bit pale in the picture, but I promise it was nicely roasted.
We started grinding our own flour over the summer and some of the things I’ve made have been pretty miss, while some have been really good. Today I struck gold with this recipe for Challah bread/rolls. The rolls were soft and moist and well received at the table! Slathered with butter, Â yummy.
From my Aunt Deb:
My husbands surgeon called today and moved his surgery up to TOMORROW! Glad they didn’t push it back! All prayers welcomed and appreciated!!! Mercy hospital here we come!
Please pray for my Uncle Mike, tomorrow, if you are able. The surgery is at Noon, central time.
The past few weeks (basically with the time change) we’ve been really good about getting up with time for Joshua to enjoy breakfast with us and for him to get in a reading lesson with Margaret. It’s really nice, actually, because he usually does that in the evening, and it takes up a lot of evening time, which goes by quickly as it is.
This morning, still being in recovery mode, Joshua slept in late and we didn’t roll out of bed until 730. (Well, he did, I stayed in bed, playing with Benedict and Caecilia who came to snuggle). That put us behind a bit, so breakfast wasn’t done until 9:00 and school didn’t start until 930. Since I had a craft project for Caecilia and Benedict, things weren’t as “smooth” as they usually are, so schoolwork did not end until 1130.
On the bright side, Karol did a weeks worth of English, which is good, because he’s behind in the subject (anyone else have a kid who knows the work, but fights the doing of it?) I don’t want to have to do school work on Friday and want to have a break from the O Antiphons through Christmas.
In addition to a normal things I needed (and still need) to do around here, I also needed to go to the dry cleaners to drop off my winter coat (I get to use it this winter! I’m going somewhere cold in December.) and pick up a veggie for Thanksgiving Day, I managed to forget one! So, I loaded up the kids and headed to town. That sucks the life out of me. (Midday outings that is, I don’t know why but they do.)
Now I am resting a bit, with my feet up, then I will clean some more. I know this how was scoured yesterday, but laundry needs to be attended too. And my living room has a smell, and I can’t figure out what it is.
I have blogged about my Uncle Mike before, he has been fighting lung cancer for about 3 years now. He has a group of super awesome doctors who are doing their best to help him lick the darn cancer, but it keeps coming back. Â As it keeps coming back in the same are of the same lung, they have opted to remove his lung and will be doing this on Wednesday, the 21st. Â The 21st is also the Feast of The Presentation of Our Lady. I will be offer many Hail Mary’s up for him that day, will you join me?