And so began a morning last week…

I snagged the “vase” from our rummage sale stuff at church and the flowers from our Easter Sunday leftovers.

The Well-Planned Day is my planner for next year’s homeschooling adventure! Hopefully that will describe the majority of my days.

And, I actually did get all of my Thank You notes written – success!

Now, for my recipe-followers…
Bread Recipe:
Ingredients: 5-6 C of flour, 3 TB of sugar, 2ts of salt, 4 1/2 ts of yeast, 2 C warm water, 1/4 C of oil
Prep: Stir 2 C of flour (sometimes I use 2 C of wheat flour and the rest white), sugar, salt, and yeast in large bowl until mixed well. Combine water and oil; pour into flour mix. Mix by hand or with mixer; add flour until dough pulls away from sides/dough isn’t sticky but before it’s breaking apart!
Place dough on floured surface and knead until it’s smooth (this varies in time…you’ll knead more if you mixed by hand) and form into medium sized “ball”; place in greased bowl – giving room for the dough to double in size. Cover and set in room-temp area until it doubles in size (anywhere from 1-2 hours depending).
After it’s risen, with floured fist, punch down dough. Place it on floured surface again, split in half, make into “loaf” shapes and place into greased bread pans; let rise until it comes over edges of pans about an inch, give or take.
Preheat to 375; bake 35 minutes. Butter the top when you take it out of the oven and cover with towel; let sit for about 30 minutes before cutting.

Cinnamon Rolls: Use bread recipe and prep, but instead of putting two loaves in pans, make two batches of cinn. rolls. So, still separate the dough, then one at a time…
Roll out dough, on floured surface, into a rectangle (about 10×18 inches), spread country crock on the entire rectangle, spread about 3/4 C of brown sugar all over, shake cinnamon all over, and roll it up from right to left. Cut each roll at about an inch (you will get 12-18 depending on how big it rolled out), place in 9×13 greased pans, cover for about 45 minutes. (Repeat for the other half of dough)
Preheat 375, bake 20-25 minutes.
Icing: Use a cereal-size bowl. Melt half a stick of butter per/ 9×13 pan and pour powdered sugar in until full, pour milk in a Tb at a time (start with one, stir, then add more milk/p. sugar until consistency is thick or to your liking), stir with spatula…when it’s ready, spread over rolls. Enjoy!
Let me know how your granola and bread/cinn rolls works out, and by all means share your yummy recipes AND how you get prepared for homeschooling, if you do it!

So, ‘thank you Lindy Gregg!’, here is the recipe for Oat and Almond Breakfast Bars

Ingredients:
1/2 C vegetable oil, 1/2 C honey, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 large egg, 2 C old-fashioned oats, 3/4 C flour, 1/2 C light brown sugar, 1/2 C sliced almonds (can toast if you want; don’t need to), 1/2 C wheat germ, 1/2 C raisins/craisins (I also may try chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, blueberries, or anything else that sounds yummy!), and 3/4 tsp salt

Preheat to 350 degrees; line 9×13 pan with foil and grease

Preparation:
In 2 C measuring cup or medium size bowl, stir oil first, then honey, vanilla, and egg until mixed well. In large bowl, with fork, mix oats, flour, sugar, wheat germ, raisins, and salt. With rubber spatula, stir honey mix into oat mix. Scrape into pan and pat down with wet hand.
Bake for 30 – 35 minutes; let cool for 1 hour, cut as desired

Let me know what you think!