braids & breadsticks {CRAIGO'S RECIPE!!!}

SATURDAY NIGHT:

sean left for his meeting for the men.

linsey plus 2 came over.

i made tuna melts.

linsey braided my hair.

then max's.

then i passed out ice cream sandwiches.

chase ate mine.

the entire thing.

everyone played in the yard.

plus about 10 neighborhood kids that rode by on their bikes.

then my kids got cold.

b/c of course they were in their underwear.

todd came to pick up linsey and their monkeys.

i corralled my brood upstairs for teeth brushing.

sean opened the garage.

and chase started projectile vomiting.

at which point i yelled down the hall "EMERGENCY!!! run to your room guys!"

and then thought that letting him eat the entire ice cream sandwich was maybe not the best idea.

but he was just so cute biting off each piece.

and so happy about it.

gave chase a bath,

sean cleaned up puke,

brennan and max put themselves to bed.

ground breaking.

then chase puked on my two more times.

at which point i decided i'd better just stop trying to feed him pedialyte pops and apple juice and just put the man to bed.

sean and nurse nat agreed.

then i did laundry until midnight.

3 pairs of baby man jammies,

2 pairs of my pants, 2 shirts, 2 pairs of underwear,

and a partridge and a pair tree.

and made a batch of raspberry butter.

read my book and went to bed.

chase woke up a new man sunday morning.

puke free.

lesson learned: the baby man has no "off" button.

noted. 

SUNDAY MORNING:

the kids wake up asking for hot chocolate and whipping cream in their mouths.

chase got blueberries and milk.

i was scared to even give him that.

then i spoiled him and gave him two graham crackers.

we called that a win.

made scones.

watch church on tv all day.

mostly just wrangled our three kids.

some of the quotes i loved...

1. "what e'er thou art, act well thy part." -sis. dalton

2. "spiritual light rarely comes to those who merely sit in the darkness 

waiting for someone to flick on the switch." -pres. uchtdorf

3. "imperfect people are all god has ever had to work with. that must be

TERRIBLY frustrating to Him, but He deals with it." -jeffrey r. holland

{recipe for scones & raspberry butter here. thank you liz smailes.}

chase didn't get any scones.

max didn't want any scones.

brennan only wanted honey on his scone.

sean and i like honey AND raspberry butter on our scones.

and for me, 

the honey is almost more important than the scone.

by the end of the day everyone was crying or whining,

and brennan actually shouted hooray when he found out it was over.

"phew, im so glad that's over. good thing!"

i told him one day he will love it.

he didn't believe me.

and then i put the activity bin away.

SUNDAY NIGHT:

i decided we needed rolls.

to go with our soup.

then i decided we needed breadsticks.

and then i was all,

"sean!!! i should make CRAIGO'S breadsticks!!!"

and if you've ever lived in rexburg, idaho 

you know that i'm talking about the best bread of any stick

ON 

THE 

ENTIRE 

PLANET.

i give you the recipe with some pretty pictures to help you along...

{and A LOT of instruction and direction for those of you that don't know much about baking bread.}

-{OLD} CRAIGO'S BREADSTICK RECIPE-

{b/c if you REALLY know, you KNOW the new just isn't as good.}

ingredients:

5 cups flour
{i usually add in another full cup of flour while it's mixing}

2 tbls sugar

2 tbls salt
2 tbls yeast
2 tsp sugar
to get your yeast to rise with the
3 cups warm water

garlic salt

1-2 cups shredded mozarella cheese

freshly grated parmesian OR shredded colby jack

1 stick of butter, room temp

directions:

1. put 3 cups warm water, 1 tsp sugar, and yeast into bowl.

stir around, will be chunky.

let sit in microwave about 10 min, don't cook, 

just let sit with microwave oven door closed.

{warms your yeast right up}

2. put 5 cups flour into your kitchen aid mixer or bowl with salt and 2 tbls sugar.

3. add water mixture to flour once water mixture has puffy yeast 

starting to balloon up/makes bubbles on top of water.

4. mix with dough hook for 10 min or knead by hand on your counter for 10 min.

5. here is THE KEY to getting your BREAD RIGHT:

are you ready?

listening ears on?

here we go:

MOISTURE.

add more flour if it is too runny.
more water if it is too dry.

EM'S TIPS
FOR GETTING YOUR DOUGH RIGHT:
always give it at least a few minutes of mixing 
to see if it needs more of anything.
add water and/or flour in 1/4 cup measurements 
a little bit at a time to get it right.
see pictures below for what the dough will look like
as it is mixing with the correct amounts of MOISTURE:) 

as the dough hook is going or as you are kneading your dough on the counter {10 min for both}, you want the dough to be elastic and make "spiderwebs" on the sides 
of your kitchen aid mixing bowl.

if you are kneading on your counter-top, 
think rubber-band, but softer.
as you are getting the right MOISTURE mix with your dough,
THINK GAK from when we were kids, {if you know what that is}
that you have just thrown up onto the ceiling of your bedroom
{even though your mom told you absolutely DO NOT throw that up stuff onto the ceiling of your bedroom},
and you are standing there watching it slowly stretch itself off of the ceiling and down onto your floor. or head.
whichever.
and then your mom walks in right as it falls off 
and it leaves a big huge blue mark on your ceiling.
memories:)

different climates can do different things, 

so this is why you want to look for the "spiderwebs" to form 

on the sides of the bowl to see the elastic appearance.
do you see my web-slinging dough down there?
spider-man done right.

 {see elastic "spiderwebs" shown above picture and the below left hand picture}

6. when the 10 min of kneading is up you'll want to take a spatula and scoop around the sides and bottoms really well, to really absorb all of the flour. i do this once or twice during the kneading process too. the dough will form around the dough hook as it mixes {as shown on the picture on the right above}.

7. PAM spray your bowl {i should have used a bigger bowl},

plop your dough down into it,

cover and let rise in your microwave for about 1 & 1/2 hours.

OR if you're a procrastinator like me,

heat your oven to 200* and turn OFF.

boil a pot of water and put on bottom shelf.

put bowl of dough on top shelf.
with pot of water and oven turned OFF.

then shut door with everything inside.
{don't forget to turn your oven OFF.}

watch it rise faster than a NY minute.

works like a charm every time. 

{pictured below: rising your down in a closed space, like your microwave, 

the old fashioned way for about an 1 and 1/2.}

{above: after 1 & 1/2 hours of rising, doubled in size, ready to go}

{pictured below: rising your dough the speed method, with steam and a preheated oven.}
--i had to scoop dough off of the shelves after i took this 

b/c a ton dropped down. yep, should have used a bigger bowl.--

8. once your dough has doubled in size {see picture above}, punch down right into the middle of it.

BAM! just like that. then pull the dough away from the sides and plop it down onto a well floured counter.

9. roll it out into the best rectangle you can muster. 

mine looked more like a bad circle.

10. cut 7 strips or however many your rectangle will allow. 

my pizza cutter was a GEM for this part!

11. and then about halfway through i decided to cut those strips in half horizontally 

to make one set of  rows on top, and one set of rows on the bottom.

{see picture below}

12. i cut each strip in half vertically too 

b/c the full length ones were getting out of control.

{shown above and below}

13. then i braided two pieces together.

over under.

over under.

over under.

and so forth.

i pinched the tops together,

and i pinched the bottoms together.

{don't worry about being neat, tidy, or perfect--i promise it won't matter.}

{at the end of each braid mine got really thin and looked GHETTO.}

14. then i had to carefully smoosh each long braided strip to fit into my two hands without ripping them, 

while i moved them onto the PAM SPRAYED cookie sheet. 

like ducks in a row.

15. then i left them on my counter for 20 minutes to rise some more.

the recipe said to let them rise for 45 min, but i didn't have 45 min.

{say it with me: "PRO-CRAS-TI-NAY-TOR"!}

{good job}

20 min was fine.

you just want them to start looking puffier.

more squished.

like this:

16. then i buttered and seasoned with the salts.

i used almost an entire stick of butter.

heavy on the garlic salt, easy on the lawry's.
{or no lawry's at all if you want less salty}

17. bake @ 400* for 12 min., 

then sprinkle shredded mozarella & cheddar cheese over the tops 

{the recipe said to use Parmesan, but i was out--

only used about 1/4c cheddar just for the darker colors i knew would bake on,
i will be using Parmesan in the future b/c i usually have it anyway},

 18. bake for 8 more minutes.

aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnddddddddddd.......

{pause for effect}

BEHOLD!!!

basically,

i could die today and feel like i had experienced everything great there was to experience in the world.

all in a breadstick.

overstatement?

you'll have to see for yourself.

make sure you eat one piping hot.

or 5.

whichever.

if you can stop at 1 you deserve some kind of self restraint medal.

you now have a reason to make your monday a happy one.

you're welcome in advance.

:):):)

the missionaries in our ward are gonna be SOOOOO happy 

we are on their dinner schedule for saturday night.

they just don't know it yet!

THE END.

.....

P.S.

when i originally posted this,

i included a 1/2 cup whey in the ingredients b/c my friend said that when she worked at Craigo's way back when 

byu-idaho used to be good ol' Rick's, they put it in.

i did NOT use the whey b/c it was expensive, and i just didn't have it laying around my house the sunday i made it,

but man people got themselves all riled up over the fact that i listed it as an ingredient.

throw it in,

don't throw it in,

i don't think it makes a difference.

it's bread.

it tastes amazing.

eat it.

and be happy:)