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Country White Bread

Happy New Years! I can't believe it's 2013! To start the new year off one of my favorite recipes, Country White Bread. My mom found it on allrecipes.com several years ago, but when I went to find it the other day, it wasn't on there. Thankfully my mom printed it out, so I was able to make it.

Country White Bread
2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast               1 tablespoon salt
2 cups warm water                                            2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sugar                                                     1/4 cup vegetable oil
                                                                        6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:
1. In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in water.

2. Add sugar, salt, eggs, and 3 cups of flour, beat until smooth

3. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough (it might be a little sticky, but that's ok)

3. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6 to 8 minutes (I know, seems like a long time to knead it, but it's really not that bad)
4.Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about and hour (I turned my oven onto warm for just a minute then turned it off and put the bowl in, you don't want it to bake, just stay warm)

5. Punch dough down. Divide in half and shape into loaves. Place in two greased 9x5x5inch loaf pans. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about an hour.
6. Bake at 375 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to cool on wire racks. While it's still hot, rub a stick of butter on the tops.

Merry Christmas! I'm still here, we have been a little busy getting ready for Christmas. Here in Arkansas we don't get that much snow, at least in our area, but it actually snowed today. We finally had a white Christmas, and it's supposed to continue snowing tonight and tomorrow.

Every Christmas we make something for several of our neighbors, so I made mini pumpkin bread loaves. I love pumpkin bread, and it's easier to give to people when they are smaller.

• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water
• 3 cups white sugar
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Original Recipe

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I did, my mom worked all day on dinner and it was delicious. Here is what we had. I will have recipes for at least some of these dishes in the next couple weeks.

                                    I made pumpkin coffee cake for breakfast

Rolls, one of my favorites (I love bread)

                   Stuffing, Mashed potatos and gravy, and creamed corn casserole

Sweet potato casserole (my absolute favorite), twice baked sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole.

                                                              Maccaroni salad

                        Cinnamon applesauce jello salad (not sure what it’s really called)

                                                    and for dessert Pumpkin Pie

Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Treats

You could eat these if you wanted to, but they are probably kind of bitter. Our dogs love them, they wouldn't stop following me after I gave them some.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 large eggs
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
3 tbs. peanut butter

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Put all ingredients in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer, with paddle attachment.

3. Mix on medium for about 1 minute or until dough looks like this. If you pinch a piece and it crumble, add a little water, if it's sticky add a little more flour.

4. Form dough into a ball (I divided it into 2 balls, because it was easier to work with). Roll the dough out on a slightly floured surface (use the whole wheat flour) to about 1/4 inch thickness.

5. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or with a knife (doesn't have to be sharp, I used a butter knife) until you've used up all the dough. I didn't have any smaller cookie cutters, so I just cut them into little squares.

6. Place on a baking sheet, they can be pretty close together, because they don't really expand much.

Dixie waiting for treats

7. Bake 15-20 minutes for softer treats or 30 minutes for hard treats. Let cool completely before giving them to your dog.

Dixie

Molly, waiting for me to say ok so she can have the treat

Can I have more?

Molly protecting the treats from Dixie, she started growling when ever Dixie came closer.

Coffee Cake Muffins

I've been busy the past several days, and probably will be all this month, but I was able to make these Coffee Cake Muffins last night. They didn't take very long and were pretty easy to make.

Enjoy!


Ingredients:
Batter:                                                 Topping:
2 cups all-purpose flour                         3 tbs. butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar                                       1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder                            1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt                                          3 tbs. all purpose flour
5 tbs. butter, melted                             1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup milk

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Topping
1. Mash together ingredients in a small bowl until it is in small crumbs. Set aside for later.

Batter
1. Mix together dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Mix together wet ingredients in a small bowl.
3. Stir together wet and dry mixtures. The batter should be thick, but not dry. If it is too dry add a little more milk.
4. Grease 10 muffin tins or use paper muffin cups. Fill each on 1/3-1/2 full.
5. Pack a spoonful of topping onto each muffin
6. Top with the rest of the batter, then add the rest of the topping. They don't expand much while baking, so it's ok if they are overflowing a little.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
8. Let muffins cool for 5 minutes then take them out of the tin.

Pumpkin Bread

I love bread, and one of my favorites is pumpkin bread! I found this recipe on pinterest, it was really good and pretty moist.

This recipe makes 2 loaves. You bake them together for the most part, but if after 45-50 minutes it's still not done in the middle, bake them separately for an extra 5 minutes.

Ingredients:
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree                  3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
4 eggs                                                        2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup vegetable oil                                   1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter, melted                                 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2/3 cup water                                             1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 cup brown sugar                                      1/2 tsp. ground cloves
2 cups white sugar                                      1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. vanilla extract                                    1/4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 9x5 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, butter, water, both sugars, and vanilla.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, an pumpkin pie spice.
4. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended
5. Pour into prepared pans, Bake 45-50 minutes or until tooth pick comes out clean.

Original Recipe