Making Lunches

Every Sunday I prep my husband and mine's lunches for the week as much as I can. I do all of our veggie/fruit packs, I make a thing of rice in our rice cooker, and he does the chicken for his salads. We pretty much eat lunches from home everyday at work. I used to try to do lunches every day, but that just ate up so much time in the evenings and now I just spend a few hours on Sunday and the majority is done. The only thing I can't do is throw the salad mix into multiple containers. We each have 1 salad container, so that's a daily thing. The veggie packs that I have been making this time of year are: celery (with peanut butter), bell peppers, carrots, and apples. 

First I wash all of my product! I will cut up my celery, peppers, and my baby carrots. Sometimes those carrots are way too thick, and we are more prone to eat them if they are thinly cut. So I throw all of my cut up produce in large containers for easy organizing/assembling.

Here is my assembly line of containers to make my lunch pack!

This is what it looks like when I am done. We don't have enough containers that hold an apple, so those just taken to work separately.

And then I make our salads:

So there is most of what our lunches look like. Jesse does his chicken on his own time. I don't really enjoy messing around with all that chicken, he gladly does it in exchange for all the other prep I do. :) #teamwork 

Jesse gets the chicken salads by his choice. I don't want that personally, so I do a salad with just dressing and no meat. He also takes a yogurt. I then add a side of rice, or rice and beans. I need that carb/warm food feeling in my tummy to make me feel full. Then for a kind of dessert I like to throw in a little container of unsweetened applesauce and dash it with cinnamon. So tasty! :)

Homemade Bread

I am sharing with you the recipe I use to make delicious homemade bread. There isn't much prep work involved. Usually I mix it up right before I go to bed and then I don't have to touch it again until I get home from work the next day. If you actually have some left I make french toast the following morning. Oh it's way too good!!

• In a large bowl combine flour, yeast, and salt.

• Add 1 1/2 cups of water, and stir until blended. I personally have found that I need to knead the bread with my hands to get it fully mixed together. 

• Once you get it all mixed, leave it in the bowl and add plastic wrap to cover it. I am going to find a way in the future to use something other than plastic wrap. My mom gave me this wonderful idea because we live in Washington and it's fairly cold most of the year. Place the bowl in the oven and just turn the oven light on. The light keeps the bread a little warmer than just placing it on the counter, and the dough just loves it. Let it sit here for 12 hours, preferably about 18 hours. I normally do 18 hours. I tried it at 12 hours and the dough was not as happy. :(

• Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles.

• Liberally flour a pastry mat (or parchment paper) and place the dough onto it. Sprinkle the dough with a little more flour & fold it over on itself 3 or 4 times. 

• Fold the two sides of the pastry mat over the dough and let it stand on the counter for another 2 hours to let it rise. I actually put it back in the bowl and put it in the oven with the light again.

• After the 2 hours of rising preheat the oven to 450. Make sure to take the bowl of dough out first!! I put the dough in the pampered chef deep covered baker, but if you have any kind of stone/cast iron dutch oven with a lid, or something similar it would work too. I haven't tried this as I have a deep covered baker that was given to me from my grandmother at my bridal shower. Before you put the dough in the baker, make sure you oil all of the edges. You could also put parchment paper in the baker so it doesn't stick. There isn't really any clean up using the oil, but this insures it. I just oil my stone walls and lid. 

• Bake for 30 minutes. Take the lid off and bake for another 8-15 minutes.The top of the bread should be golden brown. Cool on a rack.

• If you want until it cools, it's very easy to cut.

I have made french toast with this bread and it is absolutely the best. I basically want to make it every Saturday. The powdered sugar I sprinkled on it in the picture below is not necessary. I was just trying to make it fancy. 

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! My name is Ashley and this is my blog about making things in the home, crafts, diy, cooking & baking, and more! I am newly married and I am starting to live a lifestyle that is more domestic, although I do work full time. I already enjoy baking, but I am trying to learn how to sew, cook more things, make my own things for the house and more. 

Right now my husband and I live with his mom. We all rent out a house together to save money. We plan to save like crazy until December 2014 and then we are looking to buy a duplex and rent one side. Maybe in 5 years buy a nice home to start our family and then we can rent both sides of the duplex. My husband is very interested in getting rental income. We have big plans and so does his mother. She is also looking for a place to buy with her boyfriend. So for now, we all need to just think about all the money we are saving while we live in this house with one bathroom... ha ha. 

Just a quick introduction about myself. I have a B.S. in Accounting that I got a few years ago. I work in an office doing accounting stuff. My husband, Jesse, is an apprentice in the elevator union. We met because we worked together. We were both school bus drivers. It's only a part time job, but I was in college and he had another job that was close to full time. Anyways, we want to start having a family in about 5 years. We have our financial goals, and our plan is that I will be able to stay at home until the children are in elementary school. We both LOVE to travel! I love to read and I actually listen to books on tape aka iPhone on my commute to/from work! :)

Well, enough about my family and I, let's talk more about this blog! In the next few posts I will post an amazing easy homemade bread recipe and some sewing projects I am doing. I am very interested in learning how to make my own soap so I may try doing it in the next few weeks if I can get all of the supplies. Look out for my coming posts in the future!