  Friends are so special, but friends of like mind and understanding are that much more special! A friend of that sort, Mrs. B., gave me the nicest suprise this past weekend. You know how you just go about your day in the normal way, thinking normal thoughts and doing normal stuff when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, God uses a person to just overwhelm you with gratitude and humility? Well, He used my friend in that way and I’m still in awe. On Saturday, I got a call to meet Mrs. B at Bass Pro Shop in OKC because she had some things for me. When Mr. Fix-It and I arrived, she and her daughter opened their truck bed cover to reveal boxes and bags of canning jars, buckets of wheat, bags of flax and powdered milk, a ZojiRushi Bread Machine and wonder of wonders, a brand new Bosch Universal Plus Heavy-Duty Mixer. She informed me, because we are “Sisters of the Order of Home Baked Bread” that the mixer was mine!! Oh my gosh. Talk about a dough kneading machine, this thing is the king – queen? And she was giving it to me!! Mr. Fix-It loaded the mixer into our vehicle and the ZojiRushi that Mrs. B was giving to a wonderful woman who has taken in 6 foster children and has mucho mouths to feed. (I get to deliver this surprise to this precious lady with some of the grain, and watch her face!). My friend then gave us the buckets of wheat, some powdered milk, canning jars and flax seed and said, “Have fun!” Fun? It was Christmas in March!  But the “fun” had only started. I got to spread the blessing on the way home by dropping off some of my gifted grain and powdered milk to another large family of many tummies, as well as some canning jars, and will be taking powdered milk to another.  When I got home and unpackaged the mixer, I decided that it was the strangest looking thing I ever saw. If it had beeped, “R2D2” I would not have been surprised. I actually DID read the manual before trying it out, which only goes to prove I am not a man, and decided to try a couple of loaves of bread. Using my sandwich bread recipe, I decided to make one loaf of sandwich and another loaf of cinnamon/cranberry bread. And I used all whole wheat flour that I ground and then sifted and sifted and sifted, instead of half whole wheat and half all-purpose.  For the cinnamon bread, I removed half of the dough from the mixer and then added 1/2 cup sweetened Craisins and 1/4 cup sunflower seeds. You can actually let your dough rise in the bowl of the mixer, but because I had to divide it, I let each batch rise in two separate bowls, covered with damp towels and placed in the oven that had been heated to 150º and turned off. After the first rising, I formed the sandwich bread loaf and then I rolled the dough with the Craisins and sunflower seeds out about 1″ thick. I sprinkled the surface liberally with cinnamon. Then I formed it into a loaf like I demonstrate in the instructions for the sandwich bread. I put the loaves into greased and floured loaf pans, let them rise a second time and then baked at 350º for 20 minutes.  Yes, it was yummy!!! So thank you so much, to Mrs. B for generosity deluxe and for the opportunity to get to participate in spreading the blessing! And you KNOW I’ll be trying out new bread recipes, using my new Bosch Mixer, and putting them on the blog!! |
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Great post! Your bread looks yummy!!!
Thanks for entering the farmgirl friday blog hop this week!
Hope you enjoyed the other entries as well.
See you again!
Deb
(Insert church organ music here…..)
To God be the glory, great things He hath done….
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord oh my soul….
Amen….and you left out the music notes! ♪ ♪ ♪
Thanks Debbie. Yep. will be back there next week and reading more! 🙂
Isn’t the LORD wonderful!!! A huge humble thank you goes out to “Mrs.B” and the glory goes to the LORD! 🙂 I was blessed as well with 3 buckets of wheat! I haven’t been so blessed in a long time! I just love to see the LORD at work in our lives!
Mrs. Lacey, you are so right!! Glad that you got to share in the blessing too! 🙂
Mrs. B. has a generous heart!