Healthy Brownies- (Wheat Bread)

I just got a new Kitchen Aid mixer and have been trying to make wheat bread for about two weeks. Last night my husband told me we were out of bread and wanted to know if he should go to the store. Being the tight wad I am I told him, no I will just make some bread and it will save us money on gas and buying a loaf of bread. I have made bread three times before this, so in my head I am all ready the "BREAD QUEEN".
I went to get one of my cookbooks, but could not remember which recipe and cookbook I had been using to make the bread. I figured it was no big deal, so I put three cookbooks down on the table and randomly picked a book. I ended up picking the small book that came with my mixer. The recipe was nothing like I remembered. Two packages of yeast? Oh well that will work....I think.
I remembered (or maybe I dreamt) someone telling me to always heat the mixing bowl first before activating the yeast. That ended up being a great idea. When I have made bread in the past it was so hard that I have been able to use it for a door stop or a tool to keep trespassers off my property.But this bread was really soft and tasty.
I followed the recipe completely this time. Whew that is a relief. But only one problem I could find is that my bread was not very tall. Sure it is tasty and I didn't burn it, but why was it short? My pan was too wide! I have been using the wrong size of pan for baking my bread. It sure is tasty bread though, I just wish some one had told me not to use a Brownie sheet when making my bread. I guess I will have to suck up my pride and cheapness and go buy the right baking pan.

Basic Bread
1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons butter
2 packages of active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
5-6 cups flower
If you would like step by step on how to make this (using the proper baking pan) please let me know!

Cheaper by the dozen: Crescent Rolls

Yesterday, I told my mom about the soup I had made. She seemed very impressed about the soup, but then asked me if I was going to have crescent rolls with the soup. Crescent rolls!?!?! Doesn't she know how much those things cost? I was just thinking of using some crackers that might be a little stale.
I have been wanting to make crescent rolls from scratch, so this was a great opportunity to face my demons of baking. Unfortunately, I only found one of my cook books that had a receipt and it was a bit intense. I could not have imaged that a cook book would have two and half pages for just one little ol crescent roll. I decided to shove my cook book back into my over stuffed cabinet of cookbooks and search online for a recipe. I found one and I recommend this receipt.

Ingredients

• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees to 115 degrees)
• 1 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. In a mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar. Add eggs, salt and yeast mixture. Stir in enough flour until dough leaves the sides of bowl and is soft (do not knead). Cover and refrigerate overnight.
2. Punch dough down. Turn onto a floured surface; divide in half. Roll each portion into a 12-in. circle; cut each circle into 12 wedges. Roll up wedges from the wide end and place with pointed end down on greased baking sheets. Curve ends to form crescents. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1-1/2 hours. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-22 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks.

Warning! Do not make these if you have had more than two glasses of wine. May cause you to forget to put in the salt!

I just finished half of them in the oven they look and taste great. I decided that 24 rolls for two adults and one baby was a bit too much. I cut the dough in half and put half of it in the freezer. I have no idea if that was a good idea or not. So I called my mom and she said yes but just for a week or two. I will let you know how the frozen ones turn out in a week or two.

Being very cheap I figured that it only cost me about $2.00 to make 24 rolls, instead of spending over $12.00  on the ones at the store. No wonder the Pillsbury dough boy was always happy and laughing. He was happy that he was taking all our money on a product that we can make our self's and save a lot of money. All I have to say is ..Who's laughing now Dough Boy, who is laughing now!?!?!

Fried Chicken

So this is my first blog ever! I hope you can learn from my mistakes. Yesterday, I decided that since we had some chicken thighs in the freezer I was going to make some old fashion fried chicken. I prefer to use chicken thighs when I cook because I always seem to over cook chicken breast. Ok I will be honest, the main reason I use chicken thighs is because I am cheap! I can spend around 7 bucks on a big package of chicken thighs at Costco and it will last me a very long time.
I cook all the time, but some how have tried to avoid doing fried chicken. I guess I was afraid of the unknown of doing fried chicken. Some people may think that it is an easy process, but people do fried chicken so many different ways, it was a bit confusing to me. Finally, I sucked up my pride and ventured out into Youtube land to find a simple yet tasty recipe for fried chicken. I stumbled upon one that said KFC recipe. I thought, "ohh the secret recipe for the famous KFC chicken, this looks simple and tasty, I have to do this". So here is the recipe, please read all of this blog before trying!!!!!!!!!!
Marinate the chicken in
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
 garlic salt -PLEASE NOTE- the guy dumped soo much in there I could smell the garlic salt from the computer screen so I only used about 2 tablespoons of garlic salt
1 tablespoon of pepper
and a bunch of five spice seasoning-Big Mistake!
Marinate for about 4 hours or longer.
for dipping he wanted you to add the exact same stuff that you put in the marinate in the flower. Well I didn't do that and I am so grateful I didn't!
I just did a pan of flower with some pepper to dip the chicken thighs, then dipped it in a pan with a couple of eggs mixed in it, then dipped the chicken in another pan of panko bread crumbs.
I heated my oil in a cast iron skillet but put too much oil in the pan that it covered almost the whole chicken.Apparently, you want the oil to cover half of the chicken when cooking. I cooked on both sides for about 7 minutes.
I have to say the chicken came out great. It was golden brown, cooked all the way, and juicy. But then I tried it! The five spice seasoning came back to haunt me just like a bad first date! The seasoning left this overwhelming taste in my mouth. How could I just sit there and let my husband and child eat this horrible thing? The one and only thing that kept me from throwing the chicken out and taking my family to KFC for dinner was money. We all powered down the chicken and trying to imagine it actually tasted good.
What a waste of time and money on this KFC recipe, at least that is what I thought until a light bulb came on in my head today! Chicken Soup!
I used the left over fried chicken thighs to make one of the best soups I have ever made. I kept it simple, carrots, celery, chicken broth,potatoes,green beans, onions, and that dreadful chicken. I just tried my cheap leftover soup and I was surprised that it was THE best soup I have ever made. What made this soup so good? I have to admit it was horrible five spice seasoning that coated the chicken the day before.
I am going to take this as a learning experience and never use five spice for fried chicken, but always use it for my chicken soup!
One more thing, I just watched that Youtube video again and the kfc recipe actually was for Korean Fried Chicken, not the KFC chicken joint. My bad, that just teaches me to really listen to the video before trying it, but I am still glad I did.