April Fools prank ideas

There's no cause for alarm -- if the mess isn't real. Mix 1/4 cup white glue and 2 tablespoons puff paint. Place an old mug on a parchment-lined cookie sheet; drizzle the "spill" in and around mug. When dry to the touch (about 4 days), peel away paper; let dry completely, about 1 more day. http://www.marthastewart.com/goodthings/spill-thrills?backto=true
Turn the kitchen sink into a blue lagoon with nontoxic dye pellets, designed to tint children's bathwater. Unscrew the cap on the faucet, and set a couple of the colored tabs inside before replacing it. When the water is turned on, the burst of color will be short-lived yet shocking. (Dye pellets are made by Crayola.)
Transform milk into an unpourable mass: Stir 1 packet of powdered gelatin into 2 tablespoons of water, and let stand for 5 minutes. Warm 2 cups of milk in the microwave. Stir the gelatin mixture into the milk. Transfer to a glass pitcher or bottle, and refrigerate until set, about 2 hours.http://www.marthastewart.com/goodthings/april-fools-trick-solid-milk?backto=true
A mashed-potatoes-and-gravy sundae is a good gag for the afternoon, when everyone thinks the jokes are over.

Philadelphia-style Pretzels

These old-fashioned "Philadelphia-style" pretzels are almost like bagels -- smooth and shiny on the outside, chewy within. This is a great recipe for baking with kids.

1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups room-temperature water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast or 2 teaspoons instant yeast
3 cups 100% White Whole Wheat Flour *
2 teaspoons non-diastatic malt powder or sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 1/2 to 3 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

* Hard white spring wheat, rather than traditional red wheat, makes lighter-colored, milder-tasting baked goods.

Mix the sugar, water and yeast; stir to dissolve. (If you're using instant yeast, skip this step, simply combining all of the ingredients at once.) Add the white wheat flour, malt, salt, and enough unbleached flour to make a soft (but not sticky) dough. Knead well, place in a bowl, and let rise till doubled.

Divide the dough into 16 pieces. Roll each piece into a log, and shape the logs into pretzels. In a large pot, boil together 6 cups of water and 2 tablespoons baking soda. Put 4 pretzels at a time into the boiling water, and cook for 1 minute. (The baking soda bath changes the PH of the dough, allowing it to develop the dark brown exterior without burning it. If you skip this step, the pretzels would be very light and unevenly browned.) Transfer the boiled pretzels to a lightly greased baking sheet.

When all the pretzels have been boiled, paint them with an egg glaze (1 egg mixed with 1 tablespoon water) and sprinkle with salt, then bake in a preheated 450°F oven for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the pretzels are well-browned. Yield: 16 soft, chewy pretzels.

Manti Temple Wheat Bread

I've been trying a different recipe just about every week. While my family really likes the one with white flour "Honey Whole Wheat", I think it has too much white flour. This one is awesome and has a higher wheat flour ratio. I have been grinding Red Wheat for this on a coarser setting.

I was told that if you use local honey it helps lessen the severity of allergies once spring rolls in. I hope that is true.

This recipe is from Cookin' with Home Storage by Peggy Layton. A great book that I highly recommend. It literally has a recipe for everything. I don't really want to make my own yeast. It's so much easier to get the big package from Costco. But there is a recipe to do it.

Bread Recipe:

12 cups whole wheat flour

4 cups white flour

8 cups warm water

1 c. melted shortening

1 c. powdered milk

1 1/2 T salt

6 T honey

5 tsp. yeast

These are the steps I personally follow:

Put warm water (the hottest your tap water will get) into mixer. Add powdered milk, yeast, honey and salt. Start mixing. Add white flour and melted shortening. Gradually add wheat flour. Let it mix about 10 minutes. This isn't a very stiff dough. Let it rise until doubled in size. Spray bread pans with non-stick cooking spray. I get 4 large loaves.

Put dough in pans. You will need extra flour to do this because it is sticky dough.

Let rise no longer than 15 minutes.

Bake at 350 for 50 minutes. I bake all of the loaves at the same time and it works out great.

Chicken Parmigiana with Spaghetti

Albertson's has $1.99 boneless, skinless chicken breasts at the butcher case. We made Melinda's Thai chicken Pizza on Saturday night. It was yummy! We found the recipe on this blog.

For Sunday dinner I made Chicken Parmigiana. This is how I did it:

Caleb rolled the rolling pin over a ziploc of corn flakes until they were finely crushed. I added 1/2 an envelope of Italian Dressing mix, shook it up and dumped it into a bowl. I then covered each chicken breast in the crumb mixture and cooked it in a skillet with olive oil until the coating was browned.

I transferred the chicken to a baking pan, topping each chicken breast with Classico Spaghetti sauce in the jar--the sweet basil tomato flavor-it's so delish! I topped the sauce with freshly chopped basil and a couple of slices of Precious fresh mozarella.

I let it bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

While it was baking, I boiled spaghetti noodles and in a skillet melted 1 Tbsp. butter and 2 Tbsp. Olive Oil. I added minced garlic and Meditteranean sea salt. Once the noodles were al dente, I transferred them to the skillet and tossed them in the garlic butter mixture. I then sprinkled chopped fresh basil and freshly grated parmesan cheese and tossed it.

I served the chicken parmesan alongside the spaghetti. It turned out really yummy and was easy and economical.

Here's the Albertson's deal pricing guide:
Chicken Breasts $1.99/lb.
Fresh Basil $1.99 package
Precious Mozarella $4.99/ package on sale from $6.99
Spaghetti 10 packages for $10
Extra Virgin Olive Oil Huge can for $12.99 normally $26.99 is on sale for $17.99 and has a $5.00 off coupon. It is a huge amount but doesn't expire for over a year.
Butter 2 boxes for $4

Honey Wheat

This recipe is the one Katie gave me that she now swears by. We had some for lunch and it is yummy!

HONEY WHEAT
3 3/8 C water
7 1/2 C white bread flour
1 1/2 C wheat flour
4 1/2 Tbs. dry milk
4 1/2 Tbs. honey
4 1/2 Tsp. salt
6 Tbs. butter

6 tsp fast rise yeast
-or-
9 tsp active dry yeast
Bake 350 for 40 minutes

The only altering I did here was up my wheat flour to 3 1/2 C wheat and 5 1/2 C white... Soooo good right out of the oven!

Wheat Bread

Annee- here is the wheat bread recipe I originally used from the wheat grinder recipe:
100% WHOLE WHEAT BREAD
5 C warm water
2/3 C oil
2/3 C honey
2 Tbs. salt
2 Tbs. tofu drink mix (optional)
2 Tbs. SAF instant yeast
2 Tbs. Vital Wheat Gluten
2 Tbs. Dough Enhancer
10-12 C freshly milled wheat flour

In your mixing bowl, put water, 5 cups of wheat flour, oil, honey, yeast, gluten, dough enhancer, and tofu. Mix on speed 1 until combined. Then add approximagely 5 more cups of flour and salt. Mix, and continue to add flour 1/4 cup at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Then knead for another 4-5 minutes. The dough should feel soft, not rainy. Form it into loaves and place in pans. Let rise until double in size. Bake at 350 for 30min or until the top is golden brown. (makes 6-8 1lb loaves)

*** due to lack of ingredients, I omitted th etofu, gluten and enhancer. because of this, I did 1/2 white, 1/2 wheat. The bread tasted great. Maybe it'd be even better following the directions:)

MELINDA- correct me if I'm wrong, but rumor has it you have said the gluten and dough enhancer is not necessary when using fresh wheat???