Last night as we went to bed, I fell asleep to the news that our area might be getting some snow, might be included in a winter weather advisory, and just might even be included in a blizzard warning. But, we all know that the weather here in Nebraska can change on a dime and we really had no idea what might happen while we slept. Still, I was very hopeful that we could possibly have another snow day and get to stay home warm and cozy.
Good News
I awoke at 4:15AM for my daily workout (this is a new routine… will blog about it another time) and immediately peeked out the window to see that the ground was clear. No snow had fallen last night. My first thought was ‘bummer’ because I just love being home with my boys, and… let’s admit it… not going to work! Well, I got up and started my workout after getting some coffee going. Around 5:45 I get a text from my teacher friend that simply stated “yayayay!” I knew right away what that meant so I started perusing the web (DURING my workout; I was just too impatient) and confirmed her YAY. Our district had cancelled school. Soon, I received the notification that my kids’ two schools had also canceled (We are all in three different school districts… long story).
I was wide awake at this point, no going back to sleep for me.
As the day progressed, it was evident that the snow was not stopping. Good call schools! This is a short clip I captured of the blowing snow mid afternoon. It really isn’t piling up as a deep snow, but it surely is blowing something fierce!
So, I began planning my day. I worked for quite a while on my husband’s boss’ website. Then, started getting some recipes printed for some cooking and baking.
CREAM OF FRESH TOMATO SOUP From Ina Garten at the Food Network
We decided to make our FAVORITE homemade creamy tomato soup. We can’t claim the recipe as we got it here but we have made it SEVERAL times and it never disappoints. Prairie hubby and I braved the snow to run to the grocery store and get a few missing ingredients and then stopped at the barn to get a few of our fresh garden tomatoes that I had frozen during harvest. To use these for the recipe, I simply cut the frozen tomatoes into quarters and threw them into the soup pot.
The soup simmers for about an hour. Here is the ‘meaty’ soup before blending.
I scooped it into our awesome Ninja Professional Blender a little at a time. Do not overfill the blender or it will spray and it’s hot… so that’s not a good idea.
After blending it takes on more of a tomato soup appearance.
INSTANT POT WHOLE WHEAT CRUSTY BREAD from Marci at Tidbits Inspiration for Tasty Living
To go with the creamy tomato soup, we really MUST have some homemade grilled cheese. A few days ago my brother made some 9 grain bread in his bread machine that looked amazing. I decided to follow his lead and make some homemade grainy bread myself. I don’t have a bread machine but I DO have an Instant Pot. If you don’t have one of these, I highly recommend one. It has been one of THE BEST investments we have made. I decided to try this recipe for the bread. Her Instant Pot Whole Wheat Crusty Bread sounded amazing! I had never made this before… or any bread from scratch really, so wasn’t sure what to expect. A few things going against us: I had expired yeast and I was really worried it might affect the rising process. Also, we couldn’t find (at our small town grocery store) the vital wheat germ (I honestly have no idea what this is), and we were out of millet and again, the store did not carry it… so we used quinoa.
Making the Bread
First, you mix the dry ingredients together.
The next direction said to mix the water in WITH YOUR HANDS. Uh… I’m not sure if this is how it was SUPPOSED to work, but it didn’t quite seem right. My hands were CAKED with dough and I had to scrape it off with a spatula. Not sure why I couldn’t just mix it with a wooden spoon next time.
The dough is now mixed and ready for parchment paper and Instant Pot.
Hardly any dishes were harmed in this process. You literally take the dough ball from your big bowl and set it on some parchment paper before placing it in your Instant Pot! I love recipes with little cleanup!
The cool thing about this is you can make your dough rise quicker than it would normally take by using the Yogurt setting on the Instant Pot. Just put the lid on and seal it. You do have to make some adjustments for the right setting and timer by pressing ‘yogurt’ then ‘adjust’ until 24:00 LESS appears on the display. Once you see that, you can use the (-) to adjust the time to 4 hours. Then just let it set.
When the four hours was up, I took the parchment and dough out, formed a ball and put it back in the Instant Pot. In the meantime, the oven should be heating to 450 with the Dutch Oven heating up in the oven. After about 30 minutes you take that dough ball and place it in the hot dutch oven and bake for another 30 minutes or so. (remember, exact directions are on the site above).
We had fresh bread around 5:30PM. Just in time for a tomato soup and grilled cheese dinner!
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