Soft Yeast Dinner Rolls (first foodie Friday)

I LOVE bread. I mean really really love bread. Soft chewy bread, crusty sour bread, sweet challah bread, beer bread, yeah you get the point. 

There isn't much better than a fresh baked batch of bread. I have searched high and low for the perfect dinner roll recipe. You know the rolls I am talking about. The super soft sweet ones from "Insert chain restaurant here". They are buttery, and golden on the outside, then soft and airy on the inside. Not only I have a mastered the perfect recipe, I have also made it whole wheat!

Whole wheat yeast rolls

 Makes 1 dozen

 2tsp. active dry yeast

1/4 c. warm water

1 c. milk, scalded and cooled to lukewarm

1 1/2 tablespoons of melted butter, slightly cooled

1/4 c. honey

3 1/2-4 Cups whole wheat flour 

4 teaspoons vital wheat gluten

1 whole egg

1 tsp. salt

Dissolve yeast in warm water with a teaspoon of sugar; let stand until frothy. 

 Combine yeast mixture, milk, 1/2 cup sugar and enough flour plus wheat gluten to make a medium batter (about the consistency of pancake batter).

 Beat thoroughly.  Add melted butter, eggs and salt.  Beat well.  Add enough flour to form a soft dough.  

 Knead dough with dough hook until smooth and satiny (about 4-5minutes) and put in greased bowl; turn over to grease top. You can also kneed by hand if you don't have a hook attachment, just makes sure to flour your working surface.  

Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk (about an hour).

Punch down.  Turn out onto a floured board.  Divide into portions for shaping; let rest 10 minutes.  Shape dough into desired forms.  Place on greased baking sheets.  Let rise until doubled (about 30 minutes)

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.  Baste immediately with butter (or honey butter if your heart desires!)

I hope you enjoy!

<3

Rare Disease Day (CAH education)

 Today February 28th is known as Rare Disease day. A day to bring attention to the thousands of rare diseases that effect the children, and adults of our world. CAH is just one of them, but it has had a HUGE impact on my life. Emma Paige was born on August 5th, 2008 and was diagnosed just 7 days later. She had so many symptoms of being a very sick little girl. We were bound to the hospital for 10 days.
 
We were released from the hospital on August 15th.  Sent home that evening to relax and try to have a normal life. I was given very specific instructions on her medications. Hydrocortisone compound, sodium solution and florenif. I was sent to a local small town pharmacy where they could make the compound to fit Emma’s needs. Meds every 6, 8 and 12 hours.  It started out easy. I kept a chart and matched her meds to her feedings. We had a wonderful rhythm. Our second day home we went to meet Emma’s pediatrician. He drew more blood work. I was really starting to wonder if they would manage to drain her dry! Two short days after that we went to meet our first Endocrinologist at Children’s Medical Center Dallas. Dr. Dickson. He was AMAZING. We had a 3 hour one on one class where I was taught EVERYTHING about CAH.

I leaned that Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia breaks down to: Congenital, born with it; Adrenal, adrenal glands; and Hyperplasia, enlargement. So basically in lame terms Emma was born with enlarged adrenal glands. Sounds simple right?? WRONG.

A healthy persons adrenal glands make several hormones: cortisol, aldosterone and androgens. They are all VERY important in the daily functionality of a body. Cortisol is a steroid hormone. It helps to regulate our energy supply, and blood sugar levels is also helps our body deal with both physical and emotional stress. Without cortical in our bodies during a time of physical stress the body can not respond normally, it will start to shut down. Aldosterone helps our bodies retain and get rid of excess potassium. Without enough salt in our bodies we would dehydrate, and too much potassium can cause heart problems. Last but not least androgens which are masculine steroids. Too many androgens in a body can cause some masculine effects in women, such as extra hair growth or deepening of voice and in baby girls.  Androgens also send signals to the pituitary gland. It tells your body how much to grow and how quickly. With too many androgens your body will grow too quickly then the bone plates can close too soon an you would end up much shorter than you should have been as an adult even though you would appear as an extra tall child.

How many of you have I royally confused?  I hope not too many and I hope I got all the details right!

Dr. Dickson informed me  Emma very specifically has a form of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia know as 21-hydroxylase deficiency. She is a salt waster that produces almost no cortisol, or aldosterone and produces way too many androgens. He also told me that when they drew her blood at birth her 17-ohp level (another level they check to see how her body is working)  was at 6,789. A normal 17-ohp is between 3-100. Go big or go home right?   He took his time to draw diagrams on the tables, “tested me” and make sure I knew what I was doing, I was even given time to practice the injection on a piece of fake skin.  He told me that in the case of illnesses Emma would need a stress does or extra meds to keep her body going, and in the event of an emergency (like a broken bone, head trauma or serve vomiting in which she can’t hold down her meds) she would need a solu-cortef injection to potentially save her life. What he didn’t explain is that this medicine is not carried on ambulances and paramedics are not allowed to administer it. Without that injection during a time she would need it she could go into a coma or even die.  He also explained that this disease is genetic. My husband and I had a 1 in 4 chance of having  another child with CAH, a 1 in 8 chance of having another girl with CAH. How can we carry a disease we have never even heard of? How does that make sense? I was 20 not even married a year and now I learned that any more children we decided to have could be as sick as Emma.

There is no cure for CAH. Just treatments. Those 3 medications saved my daughters life when she was born, and keep her healthy every day. Strange how simple they are but how much of a role they play in our not so simple life. So much information. So much confusion.

I left Dr. Dicksons office after scheduling another appointment for a month out, hands full of packets, newsletters, phone number and websites.  I was still confused. Why did this happen to my little girl? But I was confident. I knew I could take care of her. I had a new found sense of relief learning that she would live a normal life and do just about anything she imagined.

Emma is now a 4 1/2 year old wonderfully smart and curious little girl! She loves to ask questions, learn, practice reading and writing. Looking back on my story, on what we learned about CAH, I never would have expected to be where I am today!

We have 3 girls, one affected, one an unaffected carrier and one with no CAH genes at all.We joke about having a 4th to see how close we can hit it on statistics. LOL

If you have any furter questions on CAH or on Emma, feel free to email me or check out The Cares Foundation.

<3

Birthday!

Today I turned 25! Quarter of a century! I got up with the girls and we made homemade donuts! Which they had a blast helping with. Them some awesome friends came over to celebrate with cake, snacks, and play date. For dinner we checked out the new 5 guys on  base! It lived up to its reputation. Very good burgers. Then hubs surprised me with another cake. Gotta say, all in all it was a wonderful day! Also Check out a fellow bloggers page for some birthday freebies! Kelly Mae is a good friend of mine and has lots of great info on her blog, so stop by and say hi, let her know I set you! Also thank you to everyone who took time to say happy birthday! It is great to feel so loved!

<3

Granola

Its a been a while since I have posted. I have let the blog get away from me while enjoying the days with friends, and family. So this post will be short and sweet. How sweet you wonder? Homemade granola sweet!

This recipe is a combonation of many recipes I have read, and tried. It was a hard search for the perfect granola, but I was determined, because frankly this stuff is pricey! 

My favorite thing about this recipe is is the whole grains, and that it is free of refined sugar. 

Homemade Granola:

This could not be any easier and it is so easy to be creative!

Preheat oven to 250

Start with

3 cups old fashoined rolled oats

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon grated or ground nutmeg


Then add 4 cups of your favorite mix ins (nuts, cereals, grains, etc but save the dried fruits and chocolate chips for after baking)!

I like to add

2 cups crispy brown rice cereal

1 cup walnut pieces

1 cup whole flax seeds.

 Mix everything together in a large bowl.

Then in a small sauce pan heat:

1/2 cup honey

6 Tablespoons butter, until melted.

Mix in 2 teaspoons vanilla extract and a pinch of salt.
 
Pour the hot liquids over the dry mix, and stir to coat evenly.

Spread granola on a baking sheet and bake for 75 minutes. Let cool then break apart and enjoy! If desired you can mix in dried fruit, freeze dried fruit or chocolate chips. It can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks!

I absolutely love that this recipe is so simple and easy to change up. We never get board. The girls like it on their plain greek yogurt with frozen blueberries. The will also enjoy a bowl with milk!

Also starting this week I am going to begin Foodie Fridays and I will share some of my favorite recipes from both pinterest and self created :)

House cleaning

I hate cleaning. I mean I really hate cleaning. I could be a hoarder easily. But no seriously I hate cleaning.

Did I make my point?

So how do I manage? I have a handy dandy cleaning schedule.

Monday: living room. Put away everything, vacuum, dust and wipe down walls.

Tuesdays: bathrooms. Toilets, tubs, floors, and counters. Restock extra toilet paper as needed.

Wednesday: kitchen and dining room. Floors, counters, declutter the bar.

Thursday: upstairs. Clean landing, bedrooms, vacuum.

Friday: laundry day! Wash, dry, fold, put away! Also straighten up laundry room.

Saturday: extra projects like the garage and patio as needed.

Sunday: baking day.

This seriously keeps my house from being too disastrous and it helps keep a bit of my sanity! Best part, other than laundry each task only takes me about an hour from start to finish, well as long as I stay on top of it each week :)

The girls also help out a lot too. Even at 2 and 4 they help put away laundry, they put away their dishes from the table and clean up their toys and everyday before dad gets home they clean the living room up.

It took me about a month of moving days around to find a rhythm. I love having laundry day on Friday. It is my way to make sure the kids have clean cute outfits for church on Sunday and any weekend outings.

Also daily of course I load the dishwasher a couple of times, and pick up loose items here and there. But I do not make cleaning my main focus!

To all those wives who love cleaning I envy you! I wish I could enjoy it!

To all those who don't I hope I have left you with some inspiration :)

Our eating habits are evolving

As a child I grew up in a home where we ate out a lot, and ate a lot of process food. I don't want that for my kids. Inadvertently that is a path we have  been on for a long time. About a year and a half ago hubs and I sat down and watched a few documentaries on food. Food Inc, Fast Food Nation, and King Corn. We were initially inspired by Jamie Oliver's show Food Revolution. The state of what our kids were eating in schools sickened me. Later we followed up with Forks over Knives. Wow, the information was overwhelming and scary. The way they treat the animals that become nourishment for our bodies, the way they even treat our fruits and vegetables. It was heart wrenching. The amount of potentially toxic chemicals that go into our boxed foods is terrifying. I know some will say, "Well if you believe everything they say, you would never eat anything." After watching these documentaries, that isn't the truth. I will still eat. I will even still eat the stuff that isn't so good for me. But I will think about it more and I will make a better point to avoid it. I will be more apt to purchase free range, organic, and grass fed over conventional meats and produce.

I decided I wanted to do more research. I wanted our family to eat better. I was determined to stop all processed food, and no fast food. Cold turkey. Can you guess why that didn't work? LOL We failed miserably. So, I started more research. I started following blogs like Fooducate, Super Healthy Kids, and Spoonfed. I loved the ideas they had. The plethora of information readily available. But I found at a few points I felt guilty about everything. By far Super Healthy Kids is my favorite. Its a good middle ground, for me. She has inspired me to make yogurt, and even try bread. Both of which have worked out amazingly. More recently I have discovered 100 Days of Real Food. But still her challenge intimidates me. Its crazy to think, I am afraid how I will survive without white flour and refined sugar.

With my trusty kitchen aid artisan mixer I have ventured into bread making. Usually I stick with 1/2 wheat, 1/2 white. BUT this week I bought vital wheat gluten. This will allow me to make a (hopefully) fabulous whole wheat bread! I currently make 90% of our breads. Everything from dinner rolls, sandwich breads, artisan bread, garlic bread sticks, English muffins and even naan and bagels. I make about 25% of our yogurt (mama needs a larger yogurt maker so I can keep up with demand), and I make most of our snack foods. Occasionally I cave, more lately than before. But when I do buy packaged snacks I try and stick to lara bars, rice cakes, mr, wheat, or freeze dried fruits and fruit leathers. Lara bars are by far the new family favorite. They make TONS of flavors but unfortunately our commissary only carries 6 of them.

Over the next few months I am going to work hard on remodeling our eating lifestyle. I have 4 major goals:

1. criticaly reduce our refined sugar consumption (white sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar...)
2. reduce our refined grain consumption (white flour)
3. banish artificial sugars and sweeteners (HFCS, aspartame)
4. reduce our consumption of artificial food color
5. a major reduction in fast food

Basicially if I need a science lab to make it, we aren't going to eat it. I hope with being held accountable on a blog we can stick to it step by step. I will be posting recipes that work for us, and stuff I create!


<3

Crockpot Italian sausage and peppers

This is a recipe I have always wanted to try and make! I have seen a few on Pinterest but today I decided to experiment. This is easy and super tasty! Even my anti meat 2 year old ate a whole sausage!!

Crockpot Italian sausage:

2 packs (about 10 total) of Italian sausage links, any variety.

1 of each red, green, and yellow bell pepper, sliced

1 whole onion, sliced (yellow or red work great)

1 jar of your favorite marinara sauce ( I like Newman's own organic)

1 14oz can fire roasted tomatoes

In a crockpot add sausage, marinara sauce and tomatoes. Cook on low for 4 hours. Then at the 4 hour make dump in peppers and onions and cook another 4 hours.

I like waiting to the halfway mark before adding the peppers and onions so they don't get too mushy! But if you wanted to throw them in before heading out for the day I am sure they would be fine.

Tonight we decided to serve these on buns. I took a French roll, added provolone and mozzarella and toasted in the oven on 450 until the cheese was melted before topping with the meat and peppers!

Dinner was a success!

Emma's half birthday!

Today my oldest is 4 1/2! I can not believe this little ray of sunshine is already 4 1/2!

My shortie is FINALLY wearing 3t paints with the waist band let completely out! But she can wear 4t shirts!

She is wonderful and caring girl and always smiling and showing off those i iconic dimples! She loves to help around the house, help her sisters, and learn to cook! Boy does this girl love to cook! If I am in the kitchen she is right behind me asking to help!

She also had a palate for wonderful foods. Her most requested meals are homemade pancakes, ribs, BBQ meatloaf, and shrimp! She also loves Brie, and goat cheese.

Homeschooling is going well and is learning to read sight words!

She is not a girl of numbers and that is where we butt head during homeschooling! But she is so independent and loves to work on her own.

This girl inspires me everyday with her strength. She gets her blood drawn with only a flinch, and loves to tell everyone about her CAH. Maybe one day she will be an activist, spreading the cause and educating the public!

For a mini celebration we will be making cupcakes!

For the Love of Fluff Cloth Diaper review

Second post today! Say what?! LOL

I LOVE to cloth diaper. The money it saves is wonderful. It's easy, and I am head over heels for the awesome WAHM diapers. Lucky for me (but not my husband's wallet) I have a WAHM diaper maker who lives across the street!

For the Love of Fluff is a Marine wife who loves to make diapers. And man does she do a good job! This past year she had a post Thanksgiving sale! Today I am going to review my favorite one of the 3 I ordered.

I dropped one of hubs cammie shirts. Honestly, I was nervous. What If I didn't like the diaper? What if she messed up the shirt and didn't get it made? I worried for no reason at all. 

This diaper is perfect!

It was exactly as I expected and so well crafted!

Her Christmas turn around time was about 3 weeks. Very good for a custom diaper during the holiday season. I love the craftsmanship on this diaper as well. All of her materials are wonderful quality. 

I only had one small "beef" with this diaper. It was a bit big in the legs of my skinny girl when I got it. Tristyn was only 5 months and in the 13th % for weight, but long. So we had some leg gaps which caused  leaks. In short it was a little to big even on the smallest settings.

But now at 6 1/2 months this diaper fits like a charm! She wore it today with no leaks, so she will definitely be in it way more now! It is just too cute to resist! This is a nice large diaper that will surely grow with her well into her toddler phase and that excites me beyond belief since this diaper is very special to us.  

Here you can see the wonderfully soft inside with the white PUL she added, and of course hot pink snaps!

I also love this little skirted ruffle she did for me. We had to have a girly twist on this cammie diaper!

Just a little posing for mommy! 

 

 Running away in her diaper!

For the Love of Fluff has wonderful prices, and they are made with excellent quality. She will go above and beyond to make you happy, and great customer service is very important!
She also makes some very cute applique diaper, microfiber inserts an unpaper towels! Go check out her Facebook page and tell her I sent you!

Tasty whole wheat waffles?!?!

My kids and I have an obsession with all things breakfast. No matter the time of day when I ask, "what do you want to eat?" 9 out of 10 times the answer is pancakes and bacon! I love French toast. Especially with homemade bread! But our latest go to breakfast item has been waffles. I found a whole wheat waffle recipe on king Arthur's website and fell in love! We even swapped out the refined sugar for maple, and wow they hit the spot!

Adapted from King Arthur.

Whole wheat waffles.

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup or honey
1/3 cup melted butter
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I make my own).
1 1/2 cups milk
1 egg
1/2 to 1 teaspoon cinnamon (or you can leave it out all together).

Directions:
1) Preheat your iron while you make the waffle batter.

2) Whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

3) In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, vanilla, honey/maple syrup, and butter.

4) Mix together the wet and dry ingredients, stirring just until combined. The batter will be a bit lumpy; that's OK.

5) Cook the waffles as directed in the instructions that came with your waffle iron.

Yield: 3 1/2 round Belgian-style (deep-pocket) 7" waffles.

Feel free to get creative! I make these in our waffle stick maker they are the prefect size for the kids and baby! Sometimes we mix in a cup of mini semi sweet chocolate chips, blueberries, strawberries or even applesauce!