Amish Friendship Bread

Brooke has gotten me hooked on Amish Friendship bread! She gave me the starter a few weeks ago and I have made two batches so far. 

The first round I made it into pumpkin chocolate chip bread. I made it low fat by using canned pumpkin to substitute most of the oil. I made this round with apples and applesauce to reduce the oil again and it turned out great! Haws was saying it is the best low-fat bread he has tasted. It is pretty easy too! I can't wait to try out more variations. I think I am going to try to make either zucchini  or carrot next time.

In case you want to jump on the band wagon... here is what you do for the regular bread

Amish Friendship Bread Recipe

Day 1 - receive the starter (the recipe for the starter is below)

Day 2 - stir

Day 3 - stir

Day 4 - stir

Day 5 - Add 1 cup each flour, sugar and milk.

Day 6 - stir

Day 7 - stir

Day 8 - stir

Day 9 - stir

Day 10 - Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Divide into 4 containers, with 1 cup each for three of your friends and 1 cup for your own loaves. Give friends the instructions for Day 1 through Day 10 and the following recipe for baking the bread.

After removing the 3 cups of batter, combine the remaining cup of Amish Friendship Bread starter with the following ingredients in a large bowl:

1 cup oil
3 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 to 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 large package vanilla pudding

Grease two loaf pans

Bake at 325 degrees F for 50 minutes to 1 hour (individual oven temperatures vary). Cool 10 minutes, remove from pans. Makes two loaves of Amish Friendship Bread.

If you want to make the starter

Amish Friendship Bread Starter

This is the Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe that you’ll need to make the Amish Friendship Bread (above). It is very important to use plastic or wooden utensils and plastic or glass containers when making this. Do not use metal at all!

Ingredients:

1 pkg. active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (110°F)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 cup warm milk (110°F)

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in warm water for about 10 minutes. Stir well.

2. In a 2 quart glass or plastic container, combine 1 cup sifted flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly or the flour will get lumpy when you add the milk.

3. Slowly stir in warm milk and dissolved yeast mixture. Loosely cover the mixture with a lid or plastic wrap. The mixture will get bubbly. Consider this Day 1 of the cycle, or the day you receive the starter.

For the next 10 days handle starter according to the instructions above for Amish Friendship Bread.

Here is what I did for the last two variations:

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip:

substitute oil with 3/4 c pumpkin and 1/4 c oil

use chocolate pudding instead of vanilla

add 1 c chocolate chips **

Apple Cinnamon:

substitute oil with 3/4 c applesauce and 1/4 c oil

increase cinnamon to 2 tsp

add 2 apples finely chopped **

** for both bread I had to cook longer, about 1 hour and 5-10 min.

This is the apple bread. Didn't take a picture of the pumpkin.

Baby Brain

I am losing my mind! I thought my baby brain was bad when I was pregnant, but nothing can compare to what I am experiencing now. I have always been the type of person who is on top of things. I am a planner and Haws calls me his walking calendar. But lately I can't even remember my last thought!

Just a few examples from the last week:

I was helping throw a shower and as I pulled up to the hostesses home, I realized I had everything except for the paper goods! I had to drive back home so people would have something to eat on. Luckily, I had actually gotten there early so it wasn't too much of a problem.

The next day, Halloween, we drove out to John and Brooke's for a little family party. Right when we got to the house I realized I had forgotten James' costume!!! What is it with the realizations right when I get to the destination? I started to cry... another hormonal symptom, and my wonderful husband drove all the way back home to get it for me. 

I have made numerous phone calls only to realize that once I get the person on the phone, I have forgotten why I called. 

I went to run some errands with James and forgot the stroller. Not having the use of both hands makes shopping a lot harder.

And this is just this past week! I am going to have to write little notes to myself everywhere in order to get things straight. So if I have forgotten your birthday or to call you back, please forgive me. I am not quite myself these days.

Halloween Weekend

We had a fun filled Halloween weekend. James was a penguin. Luke was one a few years ago, so we just borrowed it from John and Brooke. It is nice having cousins we can borrow things from so we dont always have to buy them :) He was adorable. We went to our wards trunk or treat on Sat night which was a lot of fun. Grandmama and pops came over before hand to see James all dressed up. 

Sunday we had a Halloween party over at Brooke and John's house. The Bendheims and my mom really went all out with the costumes. I was trying to be an eskimo, but had a hard time finding something that wasn't "sexy". So a snow-coat with fur had to do it. Haws was a hockey player. I am just going to post lots of pics.

4 months

Our baby is 4 months and I feel like he is getting so big!

I knew he had a growth spurt this last month and is now measuring almost 27 inches and weighing in at 14 lbs and 8 oz. He is now in the 90th percentile for height and 50th percentile for weight. He grew and slimmed out a little although he still looks like a chunk in these pics. His body is actually pretty long and lean. He looks like he may have mommy's long torso and shorted legs. He wears a smaller size pants than tops. But he is pretty proportional. In fact... we might just say he is perfect :)

This months highlights:

• SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT! This is a big one for all of us! He still sometimes wakes at night, but that is more of a rare thing like when he rolls onto his tummy. He hates being there for too long because he hasn't mastered rolling right back over.
• He laughs all the time
• James is a big talker and now he has learned to squeal. It is loud, but a very happy sound. He probably gets that from me too... loud and happy :)
• We still are not sure about the hair color. There is sometimes a red look to it, but I think he will be a darker strawberry blonde. That is just my guess.
• He is finally taking a pacifier. He still doesn't love it and usually takes it just to sleep. He would much rather have his mouth free to talk and put things in it.
• He grabs my hair now. It could be a combo of me growing it out and him grabbing everything... but this one is kind of a pain.
• Still spits up a ton
• Talks in different tones and is starting to make sounds like ba and ga
• Loves to roll onto his side and sleep that way too
• Brooke got us the best toy that straps across the car seat so he has something to entertain him while we are driving. This has made car rides much more pleasurable.

That's all I can think of right now. Since my baby brain has totally set in, I am impressed I can remember this much! We love our little Baby James.

outings

We went to the Huntington Library in Pasadena today with my friends Kelly and her twins Miles and Cash, and Jessica and her little Lily.

The Gardens are amazing! Too bad we only made it to a few of them. With 4 babies it is hard to get too far in a few hours. We found a great place to sit on the lawn and take pictures, feed and change the babes. We will have to go back and see more of the place soon!

We took lots of pictures :)

Kelly and Miles (Cash is in the blue)

 James in the mush pot!

 Craziness

 Mommies and their babes

 Kelly took this with her cool iPhone App

 Jess and Lily

Cash was obsessed with my leg. It give me a little bit of self esteem boost :)

A few Halloween Recipes

I was in charge of hosting this months bunco, so I decided to go with the Halloween Theme. 

I found some fun recipes and thought I would share since they were a hit with the bunco girls!

These were from Real Simple magazine and were delicious! I made mine with light cream cheese and the cookies are surprisingly low fat.

And these little ghost were a hit! Fun and easy to make. All you need are nutter butter cookies, white chocolate and mini "morsels". I got the recipe from Taste of Home.

I know I do too many of these...

But I can't get enough of these little laughs!!!! I had to share :)