it's a good thing...

Today is a windy day, it's lovely really. It seems to be howling through our house quite nicely, it's a sound that is comforting to me in a weird way, and it is a sound that makes me crave hot tea and fresh baked bread. This bread is crazy good. Like, if I were stranded on a desert Island and could have one food, this would be it. We scarfed this down for lunch with nothing but butter and my homemade blackberry jam and I must say, "forget you Francis all I want is bread and jam."

bread rising

Here it is all warm and baked and lovely, I would show you more after pictures, but all that was left were purple, sticky, happy faces.

Tonight we're going to my husband's bosses house for a barbeque. The men have welded their own smoker and have been smoking ribs since last night. I can't wait to dive into a mess of ribs. Ribs are like an old friend, whenever you get together you catch right up and right back to where you were and all you have is fond memories of them. I love you ribs, and I always will. My sweetie pie called me and asked me a "pretty please and if you by any chance have some extra time" favor. Would I make a barbeque sauce to rival Maurices BBQ sauce from South Carolina. Google South Carolina and Maurices will pop up. I did find a good recipe and added a little extra molasses and some onion powder, but otherwise, Wow!!!! It's spicy, but that didn't stop the girls and I from licking the pan clean!

Here are the ingredients: sugar, a whole bunch of mustard, garlic, tomato paste, worchestire, apple cider vinegar, cayenne, black pepper. 

The finished product, ready to be eaten with ribs!

Here is the Shepherds Bread recipe:

7 c. flour (I think I used a little less)

1 T. salt

1/4 c. sugar

2 pkg dry yeast

1 c. milk

1 1/2 c. warm water

1/4 c. butter

Mix 2 1/2 c. of the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast in a bowl. Combine milk, butter and water in a sauce pan and heat on low until melted and liquids are warm. Gradually add the liquids to the dry ingredients and whip on high for two minutes, switch to the dough hook, add the rest of the flour little bit by little bit and knead until a soft dough. Let rise in a buttered bowl for an hour, then punch down, divide in half and let rise again. Bake at 400 degrees for 25-28 minutes. 

fresh batch of baby onesies!

As I promised, here are the other projects I've finished. Can't wait to see these on Isabella!

 strawberry onesie..

 I is for Isabella...

Some groovy bibs for my groovy baby

 beautiful butterfly

 Birds of a feather

 I had fun with this one, there's a butterfly on the front

and one to pat!

pregnant and pickles

I made these "bread and butter dill pickles" today. It's my first attempt at making pickles and I must say..Yum! They actually taste like pickles! I know that is weird to say, but as I'm making these and canning them I'm hoping that they don't taste like vinegary cucumbers. Next time, I won't have them in the water bath quite as long as I lost a bit of their crispness, but Eddrick, who is my pickle eater is still happy over these! Here is the other project I've been working on...

 

I made Isabella some very tiny and personalized onesies. This is her "peacock" onesie and I really loved how it turned out. I used the "soft" fabric paint so it wouldn't scratch her newborn skin either. I'll post pics of the other onesies another time. Right now I'm 22 weeks pregnant, my weekly email says she's the size of a spaghetti squash right now. Talk about a growth spurt!