Make your kitchen the Best Test Kitchen Ever!
Your Kitchen
Happy places start in your kitchen. Memories are made there with your family,children and friends. Crazy girls nights and football,super bowl days!
So it is true that we are not intimidated by our cooking disasters because we are in our own domain. Go ahead! This is where recipes are born. Too much spice here, not enough garlic there, it's all good for the way we teach our kids how to cook even back to your moms kitchen where her coveted recipes started that become family traditions and treasured memories and tastes.
Homemaking 101
Granted, some kids are not taking Homemaking in school as much as they were. Now you have more of the Culinary school classes where they learn the art of cooking as appose the regular just plain cooking for your family. Nonetheless, family cooking and knowing your way around the kitchen and helpful little tips along the way is still valuable information for the novice trying to feed a family with home cooking.
So Onward and Upward!
Things just are not like they were back in the day. Well, they still can be but we have to slow down and enjoy making just food! Learning how to start out with just the basics. For instance learning how to make bread from scratch is a good place to start. It opens up a whole new realm of recipes that you do not realize existed or at least anymore. I learned my basis of cooking by learning how to make basic yeast bread.
You can absolutely have the best times discovering tastes, textures and smells. Its just makes ideas come alive. You will think of so many ways to make one thing all from just making bread. For example, after you get the hang of making bread,which ,by the way, is not as hard as everyone makes it out to be and it is fun! You can also make raisin bread,so delishous, especially when it's homemade! Oh the recipes and ideas are endless.
White Yeast Bread
This recipe came from my Granny's old "Betty Crocker" Cookbook New and Revised Edition. This has been in my family for over 30 years. This is the way I learned how to have fun and experiment. But by experimenting, I mean with caution. Always read a recipe right and follow it to the letter for your recipes to work properly.
Go Ahead, Don't be Afraid!
- 2 packages active dry yeast, Flieshmans is a good brand to start with.
- 3/4 cup warm water, 105 to 115
- 2 cups lukewarm milk, scalded then cooled
- 3 tablespoons sugar, granulated
- 3 tablespoons shortening, not lard
- 1 tablespoon salt, iodized
- 7 to 8 cups all purpose flour
- Margerine or butter, softened
Instructions
- Dissolve yeast in warm water in large bowl. Stir in milk,sugar,shortening,salt and 4 cups of the flour. Beat until smooth. Mix in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle.
- Turn dough onto lightly floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up. Cover; let rise in warm place until double; about 1 hour. ( dough is ready if indentation remains when touched)
- Punch down dough; divide into halves. Roll each half into rectangle, 18x9 inches.. Fold 9-inch sides crosswise into thirds, overlapping ends. Roll up tightly, beginning at narrow end. Pinch edge of dough into roll to seal well; press in ends of roll. Press each end with side of hand to seal; fold ends under.
- Place loaves seam side down in two greased loaf pans, 9x5x3 or 8 1/2x4 1/2x 2 1/2 inches. Brush lightly with margerine. Let rise until double about an hour.
- Heat oven to 425 degrees. Place loaves on low rack so that tops of pans are in center of oven. Pans should not touch each other or sides of oven. Bake until loaves are deep golden brown and sound hollow when tapped, 25 to 30 minutes. Immediately remove from pans. Brush tops of loaves with margerine, cool on wire racks. Makes 2 loaves.
In this video they use oil.
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© 2017 Pamela K Conoly
