Guest Blogger Linda shares her wonderful recipes!

Linda, who is a retired elementary school teacher and is currently a quilt pattern designer living in Texas, shares her treasured recipes here on RocknRecipes with us!  Both Mother and I are feeling very lucky right now - thank you kindly, Linda!  


By the way, Linda will also be our first guest blogger on our sister blog, www.rocknquilts.blogspot.com and has graciously provided three of her personally designed patterns for us to give away!  The drawing will be held on Monday, May 16th, 2011 - we hope you'll come and sign up and sneak a peek at Linda's patterns on her website at 
www.b-bumble.com .

#1) Bread Machine Bread

Grandma’s Oatmeal Bread

(good for toast)

 

1 1/2 cups water (I often add 1 tablespoon barley malt syrup to the water, but this is optional)

2 tablespoons oil (I use light olive oil)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 1\2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cup oatmeal (uncooked)

3 cups bread flour

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

Optional: 1/4 cup malted milk powder, 1/2 to 1 cup chopped walnuts

Place all ingredients in bread pan in order listed. (If you add barley malt syrup, dissolve this in the water.) Insert pan into machine. Select 2 lb. white bread. Press start.

After about 5 minutes of kneading, check dough consistency by opening the lid and touching the dough. By this time, dough should be in a soft, tacky ball. If it is dry and stiff, add water, 1 tablespoon at a time. If too wet and sticky, add 1 tablespoon flour at a time.

After baking is completed, remove bread to a wire rack to cool.

 

Note: I’ve been using this recipe since January of 2002, because that is marked on my recipe. I was given the bread machine the Christmas before that. I had worn out my previous bread machine, which made only a 1 lb. loaf, by baking a loaf every single weeknight so that we had fresh bread when we woke up in the morning. I was teaching school at the time and didn’t have time to make bread the old fashioned way.

#2) Traditional Bread

Here is my Roadside Potato Bread recipe. I’ve been making this since the late 70’s.  This makes 3 loaves. It is the one I make when I want to take bread to someone. It is also a toasting bread.

 

Roadside Potato Bread

 

Prepare 3 loaf pans by greasing and then coating with cornmeal

In large bowl, mix:

3 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup melted butter

2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup instant mashed potato flakes

This mixture should be lukewarm before adding yeast.

Dissolve yeast in water:

2 pkg. instant dry yeast (4 1/2 teaspoons)

1/2 cup warm water (to dissolve yeast in)

Have ready:

10 to 11 cups flour

Mix liquid with yeast. Add 4 cups of the flour and beat with a mixer or by hand for 2 minutes. Mix in just enough remaining flour, a little at a time, first with spoon and then with hands to make a dough that leaves the sides of the bowl.

Turn onto a lightly floured board, cover and let rest 15 minutes. Knead until smooth, about 10 minutes. Place in greased bowl, turn so top is greased. Cover and let rise in warm place until doubled, about 45 minutes.

Turn onto board and divide into 3 equal portions. Shape into loaves and place in pans. Let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes or until loaves are rich brown and have a hollow sound when tapped. Remove from pans and cool on wire racks.

#3) Linda's Mother's Gardening Secrets

Here's a tip from Linda's Mother about how her garden gets so big and beautiful:

Her gardening tip is to do what she calls “Lasagne Mulching”. She layers newspapers (about 4 thick) and then leaves that she has put through the chipper. She makes as many layers of this as she wants and just adds to it the next season. This is the way she keeps the rows between her garden crops clear of weeds. (When you live where things can grow year round, that is important!) She also composts everything that is not meat. She keeps a compost bucket and empties it daily in a compost pile at the back of her garden (which is huge!)Even the paper from the shredder goes in the compost along with coffee filters, egg shells, any vegetable peelings, etc. She puts a little decomposed compost in every hole she digs when she plants.  My mother plants every seed that she comes across  and keeps a planting tray with potting soil that she mixes herself. She also takes cuttings and plants those. (She grew up on a farm and it is “in her blood”. ) She has zinnias that have self sewn and grow all along the edges of her garden, unless my daddy gets after them with the hoe! He likes the garden really clean and she likes the flowers. They’re funny!

Soon we'll be sharing Linda's 100 year old secret family chocolate cake recipe, too, so please check back!

Thank you!