Homemade sandwich rolls

Being short on bread products forces one to get creative. I had made a loaf of whole wheat bread last night but wanted to try my hand at making sandwich rolls/hamburger buns for lunch today. I recently bought The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook but was disappointed to find that nearly all the recipes called for extra gluten or other ingredients I don't keep on hand. So I went scouring the internet and found a recipe I could adapt to my liking.

Ingredients:
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup and 2 Tbsp oil (I used a combination of canola and olive because that's what I had)
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 cups white bread flour
- 1 cup whole wheat bread flour
- 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 egg
- 1 Tbsp water

Directions:
- Add all but the last two (egg and water) ingredients to the bread pan in the order listed (don't forget to put your kneading paddle in first!).
- Select "dough" setting on machine and start.
- When cycle is complete, remove dough from machine and place on a lightly floured surface.
- Divide dough into thirds, and then each piece half, and then each of those pieces in half again (giving you 12 pieces of dough).
- Press ball flat between hands and place on greased or parchment covered cookie sheet, pressing to about a 3 inch circle. (Use two cookie sheets.)
- Let rise in a warm place 30 minutes or so until double in volume.
- Combine beaten egg with water and brush over rolls.
- Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes or until lightly brown.

Results:

Delicious homemade sandwich rolls!

Additional tips:
- The recipe originally called for all white flour but I substituted a cup of whole wheat to make it slightly healthier. I'm sure if you used all white they would come out even fluffier.
- I always have bad luck getting my dough to rise just left on the kitchen counter. So I usually preheat my oven to the lowest setting, let it cool down until it's just slightly warm (probably between 100-110 degrees), and then let the rolls rise in there. Otherwise my rise time is always several hours long.
- Freeze whatever rolls you don't use in the first two days...homemade bread goes bad so much faster than store-bought!

Kids and such...

It seems like every time I try to catch an afternoon nap, Ronnie decides to cut his short. Yesterday I didn't even try for a nap; Ronnie slept two hours. Today he slept 30 minutes. And now I have a monster headache and a grumpy baby. Ugh.

I did figure out a possible reason behind his grumpiness, extra nursing sessions, and nighttime fits: my cycle started today after being absent for nearly three years. That was a bit of a surprise. They say that affects your milk supply, right? Maybe Ronnie's not getting the quantity or quality that he wants.

Despite the Sunday blues, I did have a pretty productive day yesterday. Got a few loads of laundry done, swept and mopped the floors, and did some yard work. Unfortunately the floors don't really look any better because I had to rush when the kids popped awake from their naps. And when we were outside they decided to start dumping buckets of sand onto the grass when I wasn't looking, so we had to cut our outside time short.

Speaking of the kids, I've decided to tackle the fighting problem by immediately taking away whatever they are fighting over. It'll create more tears to deal with but I'm hoping it'll discourage the fighting better than my spanking/scolding has been.

My neighbor just offered to watch the kids while I rest. Hmm...while that's tempting, I think I might just do some de-cluttering and cleaning instead. Being kid-free while doing chores will probably help the headache just as much as resting, I think. On the agenda: finishing the laundry, sweeping and mopping the kitchen, cleaning off the computer desk, and dusting. I'll try to vacuum the bedrooms too since the kids will be gone but I just did that last week so they're not too dirty.

My husband surprised me by mentioning that he has tomorrow off. He had told me that last week and I completely forgot. But then he offered to work an extra shift Thursday to cover for an officer's funeral. So it'll be a normal two-day weekend after all. Still, I'm excited that it starts tomorrow instead of Wednesday.

Lists and Schedules

I've started journaling on a regular basis so I have a hard time wanting to repeat myself in a blog. In my journal I can be as open and honest as I want because no one is reading it (at least until I'm dead and my kids/grandkids are curious) but here I always have to censor myself to a point.

Anyway, things are really wonderful around here. I've settled into my three-kids groove and have most everything under control. (Which, I hate to admit, I love...I'm such a control freak. ) The house stays basically clean (aside from a few piles here and there), the kids are happy and well-fed, and my husband is content. <-- THAT is what I call being a successful homemaker. For a while I was struggling to find a good way to keep track of everything that needed to get done...I was writing notes on the fridge to myself, but I was having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, every day and that was getting annoying. Then Life As Mom (Google her blog, I'm too lazy to link it) released her home organization e-book and I spent the $9 to download it. It's not a perfect fit for me, but it's pretty darn close. She has all sorts of different charts and calendars and lists you can pick between and figure out what works best for you. I'm kind of playing with a few of them right now but I love that I didn't have to format a document myself and I can just print out as many as I need. Totally worth the $9. I'm not one of those people that does well on a schedule (9am, breakfast; 10am, dishes; etc.) but I do really well with lists...just an overall plan for my day. And so far it's been going really well. I still forget things ocassionally, but that's usually when I think of something and then tell myself I'll write it down later (when we all know that thoughts like that fly out of our minds almost immediately).

My oldest is turning three on Friday. It's really crazy how fast time flies. I've been working with her on some basic preschool concepts recently...just colors, shapes, numbers, and letters. She does all right, but I still need to work on my patience. The other day I was trying to get her to differentiate between a triangle, circle, and a square. She could get two out of the three every time but she could never remember the third. Even repeating myself fifteen times in a row could not get that third shape into her head. She's smart; I think she just has a hard time focusing.

Speaking of Shiphrah, she's having her "rest time" on the couch next to me right now and she looks sleepy enough to actually doze off so I'd better stop typing and see if she will.