A Day Of Excesses

       Today was really a bad day for me to have taken on so much. The fibromyalgia has been acting up for the past 4 days. I have been feeling exhausted most of the day. On top of that I havent been sleeping again. Last night I got about 4 hours. This morning started out fair. I did some cleaning, had my kitchen cleaned and scrubbed in the bathrooms some. Then I decided I wanted to do some baking. I have been jotting down some recipes from allrecipes.com/ . I love this place. You get reviews, and can adjust your recipes according to servings.I started out this morning with making ten 8 oz jars of Strawberry & White Peach Jam. My first jam in a long time. It was going to be just strawberry, then I thought, "What the Heck!, I have some white peaches I just bought, so I will add a couple of them". Aside from a few screw ups in steps, everything was going pretty well. That is until my daughter called wanting me to make a phone call for her while the strawberries were boiling. Let me tell you, It doesnt take long for this stuff (in a too full pot) to violently boil over. All over my nice clean electric stove. Plus the burner is hot , and it gets cooked on, actually burnt on in some spots. The SMOKE is a flying! One thing in my favor, is that it is a smooth top. Took me OVER an hour to get that nonsense scrubbed, and scraped off with a blade. Aside from that, the jam turned out wonderful!

  When I am feeling so fatigued, I dont think clearly, and frequently screw things up. get sidetracked etc...you know the drill. I should have quit there, I knew better, but I wanted a nice supper for my husband. I then burnt the green beans I had picked from the garden.....again. Then   I decided to concoct and make a couple of loaves of white bread. I read that by reducing the sugar, you can get a lighter, fluffier bread. So I put together a recipe that should have been fantastic. YEAAA, I said "should have been". It raised beautifully. Dough felt fantastic. But I baked it too long. Crust got a little too brown, and too thick. It still tasted great tho, especially with that fresh jam :)

        Then I decided to make a meatloaf to go with the bread.....Wait a minute...Didnt I just say "I should have stopped" a little ways back? I guess I missed that. here we go again, back to allrecipes.com. Did a little research on favorite recipes, and came up with THIS one. But I changed several things, and came up with my own recipe which I will post below. This was hands down, the  MOST best tasting meatloaf I have ever had, including Cracker Barrel's.

Well, maybe my luck was turning. After all, this  worked out well. Then i fixed Mashed Potatoes. Another well made dish. Kind of hard to screw up mashed potatoes. But believe me I have done it. I burn a LOT of things by forgetting they are on the stove cooking, or falling asleep on the couch.
By this time, I was too tired to make the salad I had planned. I had even picked the lettuce from the garden too. So I just sliced up my first Early Girl to eat plain. What a SPECIAL treat that was!

While I was working on these things, my daughter and her daughter decided to make cookies. They made sugar cookies, and chocolate chip.

Now my nice clean kitchen is destroyed! More work to do..........

Meatloaf

Loaf:

3/4 cup Packed Brown Sugar

1 TB Worcestershire sauce

3/4 cup ketchup

2.25 Ib Hamburger

1/2 cup of milk

3 eggs

2 and 1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 medium onion chopped fine

1/2 green pepper chopped fine

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1 and 3/4 cup cracker crumbs

Sauce:

1 cup ketchup

1 TB vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

1 TB mustard

1/2 cup brown sugar ( my husband liked it this sweet, but I think I would have preffered a little less)

Combine loaf ingredients in a bowl. Dont overwork. Place into loaf pan or other dish and form into a loaf.
Combine your sauce ingredients and pour over loaf. Bake at 350° for about an hour and 10 minutes.Depending on your oven, you might want to check it in an hour.

                                                                White Bread
1 cup of warm water
1/3 cup of sugar
2 packs of yeast
1 and 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup of warm milk
1/3 cup butter or vegetable oil
1 egg lightly beaten
6 cups flour ( I used unbleached King Arthur)

Mix together first 4 ingredients and set aside to allow yeast to activate. Then add the rest of the liquid ingredients. Measure in the flour, reserving the last cup to add in increments . Knead by hand for about 10 minutes, or about 5 minutes by electric mixer with dough hook, then finish by hand. (just my preference). Could be all done on machine. Pour small amount of oil in bowl, and grease bowl, then turn dough into bowl, greasing all of dough. Cover with towel, and let rise in warm area for about an hour or until doubled. then pan out into 2 loaves and allow to raise again till doubled. About 45 minutes. bake at 350° for about 25 minutes or until sounds hollow when tapped.

                                          Strawberry & White Peach Jam
4 cups mashed strawberries ( also put mine thru a blender so there were no large chunks)
1 cup mashed white peaches (blended with strawberries)
4 TB lemon juice
1 box sure jell pectin
7 cups of sugar
I just followed the directions that come in your Sure Jell box for cooking. Pour into jars, and seal by hot water bath.