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I have recently had some extra time to try out new recipes. It helps to have the girls home over the summer! I made this recipe because I was busy cleaning and I did not want to shower, get all done up, and then drive to the next town to buy buns. That would take too much time out of my day.

I was going to make some Italian Beef Sandwiches for dinner but I forgot to get buns. I knew I had plenty of flour and yeast so I asked myself, "Why couldn't I make them myself?". Homemade bread is one of my downfalls. I love the smell of homemade bread. I am however lazy in the kitchen so my family gets to eat very tasty but ugly foods.



These are my very ugly but yummy homemade buns.

YOU WILL NEED

• 2 envelopes active dry yeast
• 3 cups warm water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 Tablespoon salt
• 8 cups all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS

1. In a bowl, dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup warm water. Add 1 tablespoon sugar; let stand for 5 minutes.
2. Add remaining warm water and sugar. Mix in oil, salt and 4 cups flour until smooth. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to form a soft dough.
   
3. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes.
4. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 45 minutes. (I find that the perfect place is my above the stove microwave with the light under it turned on. It warms the microwave up perfectly)
5. Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide into equal pieces.
   
6. Shape each into an oval. Place 2" apart on greased baking sheets. (Mine are ugly because my lazy method was to flatten the dough and just cut into pieces with a pizza cutter)
7. With a knife, cut a 1/4" deep slash across the top of each. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 20 minutes.
   
8. Bake at 400F for 13-18 minutes or until golden brown.

Kids love playing with dough so this would be a great one to get the kids involved with. The kids can help knead the dough and shape the buns.

I love when my friends have babies. I get to go baby shopping again. Babies are just so adorable and I miss having babies around sometimes. Do not get me wrong. I have no interest in getting pregnant myself! I would however accept a baby if it was dropped at my doorstep.

Look at this adorable stuffed animal by Jellycat. It is a baby book and stuffed animal in one. I love adorable stuffed animals. Which is why our girls rooms are full of them.

It is so fun buying baby things for other people's kids. You find yourself buying little designer baby clothes that you would seldom get for your own kids. I love the little monkey logo on the Appaman shirts.

I also like the old traditional gifts like baby blankets. Pretty baby blankets like the pink bunny blanket by Barefoot Dreams. I always had a ton of pretty baby blankets and I do not think I ever bought even one. They were all gifts.

Lately we have had problems with one of our digital cable boxes. From time to time the picture screws up. It is usually the low number channels and it is usually when the DVR is recording something. We go back to watch a recording and find that we can not even watch it. It will have weird pixels or a message that says, "Channel will be available shortly".

I have called the cable company just to get a very long interactive troubleshooting message. That woman on the recording makes me want to wring her neck. It is like 30 minutes of "Please unplug your cable box and say continue when you are finished. If you do not understand what I am saying say help." A lot of the messages are much longer and if any noise is made while she talks she will then say, "I am sorry, maybe you did not understand. I will start again." She will then repeat the whole thing.

I have gone through that. I have gone through talking to two idiots, I mean techs. Everyone has the same answer. "I will attempt to connect to your cable box and see if there is a problem." Then the next response is always, "I have sent a message to your cable box to rest it but it will take sometimes more than an hour to finish so give it time before you call back." I am assuming that in moron, I mean tech terms this really means, "I have no idea what is wrong and I can not fix it. Please do not call back during my shift. Let someone else deal with it."

I figure that the digital cable box is bad and I will have to get a new one. This means that I will have to drive into Madison and swap it. I do not drive in downtown Madison. I also have around 20 movies on the DVR waiting to be watched so I just deal with a bad picture for a few days when it happens.

James looked into Direct TV Service since it is much cheaper than what we are paying. He checked out prices and what deals Direct TV had. He even got as far as picking a package and starting the sign up process.

He asked me to get my bank card and I started to get excited. They have some great deals and great channels. A lot of times the equipment is free as long as you contract to stay with them for awhile.

That is where the problem came in. As you all know we move a lot because of James work. This is the first time in years that we have lived somewhere more than a year. This means that if we want a Direct TV System we have to buy it ourselves. We would have to pay like $350 up front for the equipment and then get back $5 a month that we stayed with them.

So unless some company wants to give us the equipment for free to review and write about we will be sticking to our ever failing cable company.

Okay all of you stalkers out there. I just got a email announcing that all of the Corelle Dinnerware is 20% off at Cooking.com. As I looked through the email I found my set pictured. So I thought I would give you another look into my life.


James bought these dishes for me awhile ago. We had a plain cheap set for years. We never really had a theme to our kitchen so it did not matter that the plates were not very exciting.

Now my kitchen has a Coca Cola theme so it has lots of red and black. When he saw this dinnerware set he right away bought it. He really does have a good sense of style sometimes. I guess that is a big plus since he loves to shop. At least he buys nice looking things.

I love the red and black color of the dinnerware and the fact that they go against the norm and are square. When my parents came to visit from Arizona recently my mom actually asked if she was supposed to use these dishes.

My mom is still a "saver" as I like to call it. She saves everything pretty and special for "special" occasions. I find that special occasions just do not happen often enough and I like to use my nice things. What is the point in having things if you just keep them stored away?

Well these plates are not really expensive but they look and feel like they are. They are strong heavy duty stoneware. I was shocked the first time I picked one of the plates up. They really have some weight to them.

Long story short.... all Corelle Dinnerware including this one is on sale right now for 20% off.

Corelle Spice Alley Square Dinnerware Set - Save 20% at Cooking.com! (Just $94.99)


Corelle Spice Alley Square Dinnerware Set - New from Corelle, the Hearthstone dinnerware line is a collection inspired by the spice markets of distant lands. In exotic colors like Chili Red, these dinnerware pieces are oversized and heavier than the traditional Corelle - contemporary shapes in softened hues that exude character and warmth.

The winners have been picked for the Pillbury Doughboy and recipe book giveaway.
The two winners were...

Reeni from Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice
Stephanie from :: steph chows ::

Congrats to you both!

Life has been crazy this last week. My parents came for their once a year trip from Arizona. When they leave it really gets me missing living in Arizona by them. It does make for an extra crazy week though. As soon as they left the girls wanted to just sit and relax. So I made them their favorite goofy food... Fried Worm Sandwiches.

We have been making these for years. They can always get a giggle out of my girls and they are simple to make.

All you need to do is cut hot dogs into strips lengthwise and them cook them. Cooking them can be as simple as throwing them in the microwave or you can cook them in a frying pan. Either way the strips start to plump up and curl as they cook. This makes them into the silly looking worms.

I like to serve them in a big pile on a plate so the kids can pick up the "worms" themselves and make their own Fried Worm Sandwiches. This also makes a great fun and cheap meal for kids parties.

Who would not want this cute Pillsbury Doughboy and the collector's edition Pillsbury Bake Off prize winning recipes? Even Bridget could not wait! I think she liked that the Doughboy even giggles. Well, two of my lucky readers will win these great gifts too. You can also enter The Erickson Looney Bin giveaway on our other blog.


For sixty years Pillsbury has held the Bake Off but this is the first year that readers can help the judging by voting on the recipes. Every two weeks, from now until October 1st, there will be two recipes that will compete for votes. There have been some pretty interesting recipes so far. Some look very tasty and some make me curious. The one with crumbled bacon in a cookie made me very curious.



Now is your chance for more fun. Not only can you vote for the winners of the bake off, but thanks to MyBlogSpark you can win these great prizes too. I was excited to receive these in the mail and I am just as excited to give two prize packages away. The recipe book has some great recipes. I can not wait to try some of them. The Chocolate Chip Oats'n Caramel Cookie Squares on the front cover will be the first one I try.

To enter you have to have a U.S. mailing address because of shipping. I am sorry but I am not mailing them out myself.

The winner will be a randomly chosen number that will correspond with a comment number. For this reason each entry you make must be a separate comment or you will not get all the entries you deserve.

If you comment using the URL option I can contact you through your website to let you know if you win. If you do not have a website for me to contact you at you can leave your email address in your comment.


**HOW YOU CAN ENTER**

Your main entry will be to comment on this post about why you would like to win.

EXTRA ENTRIES

*Blog about the Bake Off and Giveaway and include a link back to this post. Make a new comment here with the URL to your post.

*Follow this blog - It is on the left sidebar. If you are already a follower it still counts. Make a new comment here that includes your follower name.

*Subscribe to the RSS Feed (left side bar) and make a new comment.

*Add the Your Fun Family Blog to your blogroll. Make a new comment and be sure to use your URL when you post it.

*Fav the Your Fun Family Blog on Technorati and make a new comment.

*Share this giveaway post on Kirtsy, Digg, Twitter, Stumble, or anything else you can think of. Each one counts for one entry so each should have a separate comment. It must include the link where it can be found to count.


I will be deleting comments that do not follow the rules so others get a fair chance. Remember that two winners will be chosen so the odds are better. If the second random comment chosen is of the same person as the first another number will be chosen. The winners will have 48 hours to email me with their mailing address. If they fail to contact me a new winner will be chosen.

Goodluck!