Monday, March 28, 2011

An Old Fashioned Day

The weekend is over. I did a lot of sleeping and napping. For some reason I felt quite tired. It was probably a combination of things: raining weather again, a full few days of cleaning the previous week, chronic illnesses. Some old pains in my stomach resurfaced after a long period of dormancy and when that happens I can only sleep it off. Nonetheless I am so grateful that I made a good start at Spring cleaning and today I am more mobile again.

Today I made some hamburger soup with macaroni and vegetables in a tomato base.
 
This is my go to "comfort soup".
The soup tastes extra good in my blue bowl on Blue Monday ;-)

I also made some easy oatmeal bread to go with it and I thought I would share the recipe. I have shared a recipe for oatmeal bread before but that one was for making in a bread machine. If you like, you can read it here. Today the bread I made required me to knead and let it rise, in the old fashioned way.

I've finished kneading the dough. I'm now going to cover it and let it rise for about 30 minutes.
Ingredients
------------
2 cups water
1 cup quick cooking oats
3 tbsp. butter or oil
1 pkg yeast (2 1/4 tsp. bulk yeast)
1/3 cup warm water
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp. white sugar
1tsp salt
5 1/4 cup flour (I used roughly half and half white flour and whole wheat flour)

Heat 2 cups of water to almost boiling. Add oats, butter, brown sugar and salt. Let cool.
Meanwhile, add 1/3 cup warm water to a small dish with yeast, along with 1 tbsp. of white sugar to proof. Once the yeast has proofed (foamed), add it to the oat mixture.

Next, combine the oat mixture with 4 cups flour and knead for 8 to 10 minutes. Add more flour until the dough is smooth and elastic. Place in a greased bowl. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled.  This takes about 30 minutes but will vary depending on your elevation and the warmth of your home.

Punch down. Let it rest about 10 minutes.  Shape into rolls or loaves and place on a greased pan. Let rise again. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes.

I think it turned out well. I cooked it a little bit longer than I planned.


After all this cooking and baking it was time to wash all the dishes I dirtied plus last night's dishes and the dishes from breakfast and lunch today.

I normally wash my dishes in a dishwasher but today I felt like doing them by hand.  They had a fair bit of crustiness on them from last night's dinner. Since I always run my dishwasher on a short wash cycle to save water, I just decided washing by hand would be a faster way to get everything clean today.

After all this talk of food and cleaning, I wanted to give you something pretty and natural to look at. Here is a photo of the evidence of Spring.

If you click on this photo to enlarge it you will see the pretty red coloured blooms coming out on the trees.

Please join Smiling Sally and all the gang for Blue Monday. Click on the badge to visit Sally and all her friends.

28 comments:

Sally said...

You FELT like hand washing dishes? Wow, I cannot relate! LOL Thanks for sharing your blues.

Happy Blue Monday, Joy.

KT said...

One of these days I need to put the bread machine aside and make a real recipe!

Joyful said...

Thanks KT for your visit. I used to only make bread by bread machine. After awhile though I wanted to make "my own" bread and that is largely what I do now. I've found the key is some good yeast. I tend to have things kicking around awhile and it doesn't work with old baking powder or yeast. Give it a try!

Joyful said...

Yes, Sally. I actually FELT like handwashing dishes, lol! Sometimes it just seems a whole lot faster. I really dislike loading and unloading the dishwasher and the pots/pans always need separate washing anyway. Happy Blue Monday!

genny said...

yummy blue monday entry. thanks for the details on how to prepare it. happy BM!:-)

Joyful said...

You're welcome, Genny. Thanks for your visit!

chubskulit said...

I am getting hungry looking at the foods!

My blue, have a good night!

middlepaw said...

In a strange way I can relate to what you mean about wanting to wash the dishes by hand. I find it offers your mind time to think, without letting your body get lazy.

That soup looks so good on this autumn day I find myself in. Fresh handmade bread is always welcome!

Xinex said...

Your soup and bread look really good. They are making me hungry...Christine

lina@happy family said...

Thanks for the new recipe.
I have no dishwasher here...
Hope your stomach pain won't come again!

Thanks for dropping by...

Kat said...

oh the soup and bread look so yummy...Thanks for the BM comment.

Joyful said...

Thanks for your kind comment. I did enjoy doing the dishes and I wanted my roommate to keep the kitcken nice and clean after all that work. The soup was just the thing I needed on our overcast day. The bread was quite nice too.

Joyful said...

Thank you Xinex. Everything went down just right ;-)

Dhemz said...

oh mother of pearl...that is delicious...yum yum yum! thanks for dropping by my BM...great to be here!

Joyful said...

Thank you, Kat. And, you're welcome too!

Joyful said...

That's a very enthusiastic comment Dhemz. Thanks so much for your visit. Lovely to have you on this BM.

Vinay Baliga said...

Looks like you had quite an eventful week, hope the springs bring in good health and smile to your face.

Thanks for dropping by on my blog

Joyful said...

Vinay, thank you for your visit. It was a fairly busy and productive week. It is good to have those kind of weeks now and then. Thank you for your warm wishes. I hope all is well with you at your home too ;-)

wanda metcalf said...

I have a lot of pain and spend a lot of time needing comfort like this too. Boy do I wish I could have spent the day with you having a bowl of that soup it looks just like some that my grandma used to make that I can't figure out how it was done.

Thanks for coming by my blog. I am a little late making my rounds =0)

Joyful said...

Hi Wanda, aw dear, I wish I could have sent you some soup via the computer screen ;-) If you wish I can send you the soup instructions by email. Just let me know.

eden said...

Warm soup and a freshly baked bread perfect for a cold day. Yummy.

Thank you for the visit.

vicki said...

Love the soup! I am headed to my kitchen to make some veggie soup right now myself. The beautiful spring photo is awsome!
vicki

Lesa said...

I made soup yesterday too! It is spring but Old Man Winter decided to linger this week! Thanks for the recipe-- can't beat homemade bread!

Thanks for the visit!

Joyful said...

You're welcome Eden. Yes baked bread and soup are perfect on a cold day and we've had a lot of those this year!

Joyful said...

Enjoy the veggie soup! It is supposed to rain all week and if it does I'll probably make some spinach soup or some squash soup.

Joyful said...

Enjoy your homemade soup. If Old Man Winter sticks around you might need to make some more. Blessings!

Regina said...

Hi Penny..this looks so delicious! I'm sorry your feeling down.. (me too). Last week we picked up some bug- so we thought, but no real typical cold symptoms? Just run down basically. Anyhow, glad you post your recipes- I'm sure it would do the trick. I think your photo is really pretty enlarged! The blossoms on your previous post are lovely as well!
Well, enjoy your evening my dear:)

Joyful said...

Thank you, Regina for your visit and your compliments ;-) The soup was quite delicious and we ate it all up and wanted more, lol. I'm very sorry to hear you are under the weather too. I hope you feel better soon. It is amazing what enlarging that photo will do, isn't it? Hey, I wanted to say the other comment you left didn't come through on the blog. I don't know why except I've switched to Disqus and so some comments have gotten "lost" in transition.

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