Domestic Queen Day

Today I woke up inspired to be a Domestic Queen for the day. I set my sights high, in hopes of dethroning Martha Stewart. Overall making this decision the night after I was up the entire night with a baby was a poor choice. So far my morning is:

7:30 - Up to change the babies diaper and find Princess Girly Girl twirling around in the office. She looked totally busted when she saw me but cracked a smile when I gave her a hug. She's such a nut.
8:00 - breakfast and tried to give a fussy, tired baby some cereal. no luck, she won't eat today.
8-9 am- no clue, I think I stared at the wall until I got the idea to make some coffee
9- Started the laundry using my homemade laundry detergent. (round one against Martha Stewart - I won!)
10- napped laying on the couch while the baby was asleep and the older girls sat on top of me watching a cartoon. ( I think Martha was victorious on that one. I'm sure she's not a napper)
11- watched The Pioneer Woman on the View, it made me hungry so I got up and got out her cookbook. Decided to make some homemade bread using a recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a day. It is seriously the easiest bread recipe I've ever seen in my life. I'm in love with it and it puts Martha to shame since it has easy simple ingredients and is quick. Any recipe from Martha Stewart has crazy expensive ingredients and will take you the entire day just to read the recipe. I once made her apple spice cake recipe and I think it cost me upwards of 40$ just for the ingredients. (win- me)
12- Princess Girly Girl washed the dishes in the sink for me while I prepared lunch. I'll have to rewash them when she's not around. Plus I tried using my own recipe to make soba noodles with an asian dressing. I undercooked the noodles and burned the dressing. No one ate it. (Martha wins again)
1- Now trying to calm a still fussing baby who really needs to go back to sleep. The only time she has been happy so far is when she was playing in the kitchen cabinets or stealing her sister's baby doll.

Hopefully the rest of the day continues to be productive. I will have to clean out two closets, fold laundry, clean and start dinner before His Royal Highness gets home. He might find me passed out underneath the pile of clothes.

Challah

I make homemade bread occasionally. It's usually  big all day kinda thing because that's what bread is.... time consuming. My bread weakness lies with Challah, which is egg bread. It's soooo good. Add any soft creamy cheese and it gets better. Last year I made this bread following a recipe from Smitten Kitchen and it took hours and hours and hours. Actually I started making it at a friends house and about 6 hours later I had to take the bread dough home to finish it. There is nothing quick about making bread.

Then the other day I was reading a post on Ivory Hut about bread she had made using the book, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day.  Seriously, I thought the writers must have been smoking some Ivory because bread in 5 minutes a day is ca-raaaazy. Then the other day Ivory Hut posted a Challah recipe from the same book. There's my weakness and I couldn't take it so today I tried the recipe.

It was so easy it's impossible. No joke. I mixed all the ingredients in my Kitchen Aid heavy duty mixer but it's a very moist dough so you could easily do it by hand if you don't have a mixer. Not only that but it did take only about five minutes to mix it all, no kneading required. Then you let it sit... on the counter.. or in the fridge, wherever.. .doesn't matter.. until you're ready to cook it. How hard is that?

One recipe makes 4 different 1 lb loaves. Let's just say that two adults and two small children ate two lbs. of bread tonight and could have gone for three if I hadn't wrapped it up and placed it in a safe place. Did I take a picture? of course not! We were too busy eating! We know our priorities. Food over cameras any day.

The recipe for challah can be found on Ivory Hut's blog here

The book's website can be found here

Now for you gluten free friends who just think that this whole entire blog entry is a cruel joke.... The writers of the book also have a new book out, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and guess what? It has gluten free recipes.  Because of the struggles I've seen my dad have in trying to live a life with Celiac's disease (gluten allergy) and because one of my friends that means the worlds to me is having to adapt to this lifestyle right now, any one that thinks of those with gluten intolerence, has my utmost respect. Yes, I know that sentence was a huge run on but I'm trying to hurry and get done because there is a screaming baby in the next room and a daddy callin' my name! I'm not proof reading or spell checking! I'm just running to feed her!