Story Stretchers: Blue Bowl Down

This is a sweet story about what probably used to be a very routine part of food preparations in the home. It reads like a nursery rhyme and Will is very drawn to the illustrations. Mother and "baby" prepare the bread dough in the evening before bed and leave it to rise overnight beside the cook stove. Baby gets jammies on and goes to bed up in this sweet little loft where the smells of fresh baking bread waft upwards and wake him in the morning. Then baby dresses and the two of them take their bread out to the porch to eat for breakfast. The back of the book gives a little more detail about how the author remembers hearing of how this ritual was done every other day or so in his family and then they'd have their bread prepared for the next two days. I wish I knew if the words followed a tune because they don't read very smoothly. But I love the illustrations and I love the ritual that is presented.

So Will and I baked some bread last weekend to go along with the insane amount of chicken noodle soup I had prepared. He did most of the prep work independently before nap time and then I let it rise and bake while he slept. I've been wanting to try this super simple whole wheat yeast bread recipe that's on the back of our flour bag for some time now. It's called No-Knead 100% Whole Wheat Bread. :)
A couple catchy ingredients include orange juice and either molasses or maple syrup (I used molasses). And it's a much easier way to prepare a traditional yeast dough. The dough only rises once (it's a quick rise yeast) and that takes place IN the loaf pan before baking. We just mixed everything up with the dough hook attachment of my stand mixer so it was essentially just dumping things in and then transferring the glop of dough into the pan.

Here's the front of our flour bag. I buy King Arthur brand and love it.

Here's the loaf after it's 90 minute rise time. I let it rise, covered, in the microwave with a glass of hot water beside it to create a warm, moist, draft free environment.

It turned out pretty good! The molasses is a noticeable flavor (in my opinion) and I do think I prefer my other honey wheat bread flavor to this one. But this is just so easy and it's pretty good too. I think in the future I may try to just substitute honey for the molasses and see how that turns out.

Okay, so the bread making had nothing to do with a blue bowl, as in the book. But! I did try out another new recipe for... homemade play dough! I've been meaning to do this for awhile now because so many people seem to think it is super easy and far superior to the store bought stuff. It IS truly easy and I just feel a little safer letting Sophie play with the homemade version.

So! I made it green for St. Patty's Day and placed it in a blue bowl for will to see the similarity there. I also added peppermint extract to make it slightly scented. ;)

Here's the recipe I found:

1 cup flour

1 cup warm water

1/4 cup salt

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp oil

food color (optional)

*Stir over medium heat until mixture starts to form a ball of dough. Knead on counter until smooth and food color is completely worked in. Store in plastic or container for a long time.

They love the Melissa & Doug play dough toys that St. Nicholas brought them.

Will still loves making animal tracks in his play dough. :)

And then he carefully washes all the animals' feet in a sink full of sudsy water in the bathroom when we're done.

We've played with the play dough a couple times this week and it's a big hit. I think I'll make some more colors soon.

So those were our extensions with dough this week!