Spaghetti bread!!

Ok, so I've had several requests. So here is the spaghetti bread I made the other night.
I used to make "baked sandwiches". It had been a long time though. I'm not sure why I stopped boredom I suppose. But a few months ago I was cruising "pinterest" and saw a pin called spaghetti bread. I. Love. Spaghetti. My mom cooks us what ever we want for dinner for our birthdays, and has for as long as I can remember. And for as long as I can remember I get spaghetti. So I pinned it and then clicked through to check out the recipe thinking maybe it was similar to a pizza bread I do for the kids. Nope. It is a baked sandwich with spaghetti in it. Crazy. Thinking who would eat spaghetti in bread... Then remembered my hubby likes it (oops sorry hon;) )I scrolled down an was unimpressed that is was made of frozen dough ( just not my thing. If its yours great!) then noticed that is was a frozen dough website. (I will put the site here when I am not on my phone..)
But I totally live the braid so anyways enough of the babble and on with the how to!!

The bread part!!

I used a white bread recipe out I the book that came with my mixer. I don't like white bread so I used while wheat flour. Really use what ever bread recipe you want. This makes two loaves of bread. I uses just under half to make this and them made a loaf of plain bread with the rest. If you want thicker bread on the outside of you loaf, use more and don't roll it so thin.

• 1/2 C Low fat milk. (I should note that I use milk made from skim milk powder. We live frugalish)
• 3 T sugar
• 2t salt
• 3T butter 
• 4 1/2 t active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 5 to 6 C flour (If you use whole wheat you won't use s much.)

Place your yeast in a warm bowl with your warm water. (If you are going to use a mixer, do this right in the mixer bowl) While that is dissolving, heat milk, salt, butter, and sugar over low heat in a sauce pan (duh) cool to luke warm. After it has come down to temp add to the yeast mixture hanging out in the bowl. Add 4 1/2 cups of your flour. If you are using a mixer and dough hook you will want to mix it on a low setting for just a few mins. If you are a hands on kinda person then start kneading away. Slowly add more of your flour until it becomes a smooth dough ball that no longer sticks to your hands or counter (Or bowl) Place in a greased bowl and cover. set aside to rise for an hour or until double in bulk.

Turn your dough out and divide into two. (I do one slightly smaller then the other for spaghetti bread.)

While your dough is rising you need to cook yourself up some pasta. and then mix it in with your fav sauce... OK now set is aside.

Get out your rolling pin and roll out your dough. I rolled mine to about a 1/2cm thick. I like thin sandwich bread though. so you kinda have to figure out what you like here. I rolled mine straight onto my stoneware sheet that I was going to put into the oven. you may have to roll it on the counter and then transfer if your sheet has an edge. (I didn't take photos) will next time Promise!!) lay your pasta right up the middle 1/3 of your dough. I also added cheese and extra garlic to the middle of mine. To do the braid make slits in 4-5cm increments up the edges of the dough sticking out and fold them over one side then the other. (check out the link to the other web site above until I get my photos.) I stretched mine a bit while I did it. Let it sit and rise for about an hour (Then I rubbed olive oil and sprinkled garlic powder and parsley to the top of mine.) I baked it along side my other half of the dough that I just popped into my stoneware bread loaf pan and let rise With it, for about 40 mins at 375(F)

You can do tons of stuff with this idea. CJ used to love individual sandwiches with ham and cheese baked in. It will go as far as our imagination. 

STRETCH.....

I do suppose its time to shake off the cobwebs...

Little princess MJ was born December 20th 2011. Much to the excitement of her 3 older brothers. Really CJ has wanted a sister since I became pregnant with JT, My second little angel. In fact, he was asking for one before that. I suppose we will see if they are still that excited to have a sister in a few years.. lol.
M.J. came a full 36 days early, so we spent the first 7 days in the special care nursery. so yes, Christmas kinda sucked. But on the plus side, our experience in special care was way better then last time. Seems as though they may have taken my letter to heart after my last stay.
We went grocery shopping Late Tuesday morning. I was feeling completely like crap. tired and sick. just totally drained. while we were walking (OK i was waddling far behind.) every so often I had to stop and catch my breath. some where in the back of my mind I was thinking to myself "Please don't be in labour, Please" I knew from having AJ that at 36 weeks I would be in for a hospital stay if the babe decided to make an appearance. and I really wanted to make it until after christmas to Know for sure that It would be a healthy birth. We were funny enough also using this grocery shopping trip to purchase all out birthing snacks and refreshments. Nice thing about having a midwife this time is I knew I wouldn't be starved during labour! By the time we were loading the groceries in the van I was pretty sure a call to my wonderful midwife would have to be placed. (I was told by her that if I even suspected I was in labour to call since I have a habit of being quick. The day before she had giving T a run Down on how to deliver the baby Should things progress really quick. I know they do it for everyone, but seemed a little more important considering. lol.)  I did however keep it to myself. I didn't want to freak Todd out before we got home,  I thought it would be best to not worry the kids, and lets face it, Denial. Being in labour was not in my plans for the day and, don't tell my dad I admitted this, I'm a bit of a control freak, but that's just between you and me eh? We get home and I leave Todd to empty the groceries out of the van and go lay down. I had been timing on the way home (Pretty sure he caught on to that) and after laying and staring at the clock for 30 mins, decided it was time to break down and call. as I was on the phone with my midwife my membrane ruptured and it was decided that to the hospital we would go. It was 3:00pm at this time. After being hooked up to a monitor to see what was what It turned out that my membrane had ruptured and I was having regular contractions, but they really weren't strong enough to do anything, but i wasn't going to get sent home either. It was decided that I would stay and be left in labour, But if things didn't progress on there own I was getting a drip in the morning. well that was not in the plan at all. Around 4:30, after having a discussion with my midwife she decided she would maybe go home and come back when things were progressing along. We talked about how the baby had to come in the next 12 hours as my waters had ruptured and she helped me come to terms with the fact that this baby was coming early whether I liked it or not. I discussed my concern from my last experience with the Special care nursery and she assured me that they would be there to advocate for me. So around this time I decided to see what I could do to gentle help it along. after several trips to empty my bladder and standing around my tiny assessment area it was decided to move us to a birthing suite. My midwife stayed on. This was around 5:00pm. My progress was also being monitored by an OB/GYN because there was concern that I would need meds to get it going the next day.  Labour SLOWLY progressed. By 7:00pm or so I was only 4 CM. In the past I would have had the baby by then. But she was still high up and not engaged. so labour on I did. The contractions were only 3 -4 mins apart, but they weren't really doing a lot. Todd and I were left alone a lot of the time which was nice. at about 8:30 After having a nice visit with a friend who works i the lab at the hospital, I decided I wasn't going to be in labour all night soI started to grab ahold of the IV stand and leaned over and started rocking. Thankfully, this did it's job and my contractions became more intense. By 9:30 the second midwife was called in. I had also gotten up on the bed on my knees and hung over the back for support. (Highly recommended by the way!!) In my past labours I was always been forced to labour on my back for the convenience of the drs's and nurses, so I was thrilled that not only midwife allowed me to labour how I needed, but the nurse that was helping for the OB/YN was helping me and had great suggestions for keeping me up. Mj was born at 11:31PM that night (Finally!) and had low blood sugar and had a low temp. But her breathing was fantastic. (in fact I almost didn't have to leave her in special care.) She was there for 7 days however. she developed Sleep Apnea type symptoms on the third day of the stay. I came home for 4 hours to see my boys open their Christmas gifts Christmas day and then went back to my care by parent room. Santa visited the babies in the nursery and they all got gifts and beautiful hand knit hats and boots. MJ was finally discharged on the 27th of december with a clean bill of health.