Posts Tagged ‘make it do’

Several years ago my mom spent a week in Pennsylvania visiting an Amish family.  They had no art or decorations on their walls save one thing: A family tree.

Decorating your home with your family history is an amazing way to connect your family with the past.  I love the idea of connecting my children to their roots.

Like all families, we have a few skeletons in the closet… and we have some wonderful ancestors, who live admirable lives.

I have a few pictures of our ancestors in our home:

This photograph is of my great grandmother and her family.  She is the older girl in the picture.  I look at the pictures and can see family resemblances.

These photographs are of my ancestors, Louisa Kent Booth and her daughter Hannah Booth Morgan.  Louisa was born in Calcutta, India in 1836.  Her father was a British officer and her mother was Bengali.  I loved to hear stories about her when I was young.  She was quite an amazing woman.  She immigrated to the United States and left behind a life of servants and luxury for a life of hard work on the Utah frontier.

I want to have a framed family tree for our home, and have been looking for the right one.  I found a free template at Martha Stewart.com which could be printed and then copied onto a large sheet of paper.

I also found a wonderful website which sells family trees called Grill Your Granny.

I love the Celtic Rose tree, but they have many wonderful options ranging from 3 to 8 generations.

Surrounding my family with pieces of our history is a great way to remind us all that the lives we live now really do matter.

I haven’t been feeling well, and I really wanted some comfort food for dinner last night.

Homemade bread sticks and easy tomato soup were just what the doctor ordered.

These bread sticks are so quick and easy, you only need a fork to mix them.  And Lily, who is 7, loved to help me roll them out last night.  This is the perfect recipe to get the kids involved in the kitchen.  My kids have “helped” roll out bread sticks since they were toddlers and now at seven and nine, they are downright good at it.

Here’s the recipe:

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbsp. dry active yeast
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• lemon pepper (or seasoning of choice)

Mix together warm water, sugar, salt and yeast.  Allow yeast to activate (about 10 minutes).  Add flour and stir in with a fork until dough holds together.  Turn out onto floured board.  Knead lightly into a ball.  Divide into 32 equal portions. On floured board, roll out into bread sticks.  Dip into melted butter and then into Parmesan cheese.  Place onto greased cookie sheet (16 per bakers half sheet.)  Sprinkle with lemon pepper.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  This gives the bread sticks about 10 minutes to begin to rise.  Cook at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

May be made in the morning and kept in the refrigerator unbaked.  Remove from the refrigerator about 30 – 45 minutes (depending on how warm your house is) before baking.

They can also be heated on a cookie sheet then next day at 400 degrees for about 5 minutes.

Mix together warm water, sugar, and salt.  Add the yeast.

Give the yeast a gentle stir and set aside to activate (about ten minutes).

Yeast is active when it’s nice and bubbly.

I always start my yeast in my measuring cup.  Once active, I transfer to the mixing bowl.  Add the flour.

This is a low tech recipe.  All you need is a fork.

Stir together until the dough pulls together into ball.  It’s not going to be pretty.  Don’t panic, it’s perfect.

Turn onto a floured board.  Knead it lightly into a ball.  It still will be a little imperfect. You’re right on track.

Cut into half, then quarters.  Cut each quarter into eight pieces by halving, and then again and again.

That way your pieces are roughly equal.  An you will have 32 little pieces of dough.

Roll each piece out into a bread stick roughly 8-9 inches.

Dip each bread stick into melted butter.  If you want garlic bread sticks, you can add 1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt to the butter and mix it well.  We love the bread sticks with lemon pepper which will be sprinkled on later.

Dip into grated Parmesan cheese.  If you want to save on cheese, you can also sprinkle it on.

Line them up on a greased cookie sheet (2 pans/ 16 bread sticks per pan).  And sprinkle with lemon pepper.  (Or seasoning of your choice.  Salad Supreme is popular, or you can use herbs… for garlic, it’s best to add garlic salt to the melted butter.)  We love lemon pepper because of it’s peppery spiciness.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Set the bread sticks and allow to rise for about 10 minutes, while the oven preheats.  Don’t let them over rise.  If you want to make your bread sticks ahead, make them in the morning and refrigerate until ready.  Remove from the refrigerator 30 – 45 minutes ahead of time to take the chill off and begin to rise slightly.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, until golden brown.

They are rustic and delicious.  Don’t aim for perfection.  It is their imperfection that lets you know they are homemade and wonderful.  I love the ones my kids make… they are sometimes long and skinny or fat in the middle.  It’s all good.

Served with a bowl of soup, chili or even pasta… these bread sticks are easy peasy and addictingly good.