Once inside, and placed in the corner, I strung lights around it. This year they wanted colored lights because we have decorated with white lights for the last couple of years. So colored lights, and some blinking lights, wrap the tree. Once I moved out of the way, they decorated the tree with ornaments from their boxes (I buy them an ornament every year, a tradition that my aunt started for her nieces and nephews – thank you Aunt Shirley, I love and miss you!)
End result – beautiful. Just BEAUTIFUL.
It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!
Saturday, Olivia made sugar cookies. Little snowmen, stars and trees. She decorated them yesterday. They turned out fabulous and so very tasty.
John hunted Saturday morning and it was a cold (brrr) one. I am glad I am not a hunter. I would have to bundle up to stay warm. I’d look like a camouflaged stay-puff marshmallow man. I definitely would not attempt climbing up a ladder to sit in a tree stand. I planned a nice dinner for him as he worked on the window sills and trim all afternoon. They are looking very nice. He stains them to match the cabinets and then applies a finish to them so it is a time-consuming project. No we won’t have the three windows trimmed before the family Christmas gathering, but we might have one completely trimmed. In the meantime, I am in love with the sill above the sink. It is beautiful.
So dinner was parmesan chicken, roasted potatoes, corn and bread. I tried a new recipe – triple cheese bread. It was delicious. I know that because we all ate two slices.
Triple Cheese Bread
¾ cup water
2 tsp. yeast
3 cups King Arthur all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 ½ tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. butter, soft
½ cup cheddar, shredded
½ cup cottage cheese
3 Tbsp. grated Parmesan
Dissolve the yeast in ¼ cup of the lukewarm water. Add the remaining ingredients and mix and knead by hand, in your mixer or in your bread machine on the dough cycle to make a soft dough.
Turn onto a floured board and knead for 8 to 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic. Place on a greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.
Punch down the dough, form it into a 9-inch log and place it in a greased 9”x5” loaf pan. Cover loosely with greased plastic and let rise until the bread domes an inch above the rim of the pan. Bake the risen dough in a preheated 350˚F oven for 30-35 minutes.
If making dinner rolls, divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and shape into rolls. Place the rolls on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover loosely with greased plastic and let rise until almost doubled, about 30 minutes. Bake the risen dough in a preheated 350˚F oven for 20-25 minutes for rolls.
Remove from the oven, and serve rolls warm; or let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes before tipping out of the pan to cool on a rack before slicing.
Yield: 12 rolls or 1 loaf. (This recipe was clipped from the side of a King Arthur flour bag.) This recipe is a keeper!
I tried another recipe Sunday morning. I found it on Pinterest while browsing that site. Cinnamon Roll Cake. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Just measure, mix, pour, top, bake then drizzle. Well, it smelled good and baked nicely. I drizzled it after baking and Olivia and I tried it. We were…disappointed. I’m not sure what I really expected. Can you really have a quick recipe when the traditional recipe is dough not cake? It cooled and I covered the pan. John tried it when he came up from working. He ate two pieces and said it was really good. Same cake? So Olivia and I tried a bite of the now cool cake. Yes, it was better. Apparently this is a cake you need to eat once it is cool (although peoples comments about the delicious hot cake were posted). Cinnamon buns you eat warm from the oven. I like to unroll them as I eat as the center part has the most cinnamon-sugar. But that’s just me! Elliott has not tried this cake yet so I’ll wait to see what his thoughts are about it before I poll for votes.
If you’d like to try it yourself, here’s the recipe for Cinnamon Roll Cake:
Cake:
3 c. flour
1/4 tsp.salt
1 c. sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 c. milk
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. butter, melted
Topping:
1 c. butter, softened
1 c. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
Mix everything together except for the butter. Slowly stir in the melted butter and pour into a greased 9x13 pan. For the topping, mix all the ingredients together until well combined. Drop evenly over the batter and swirl with a knife. Bake at 350 for 28-32 minutes.
Glaze:
2 c. powdered sugar
5 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
While warm, drizzle the glaze over the cake.
Other weekend activities - painting new bird feeders
Decorating trees for the bay window
Elliott's tree:
Olivia's tree:
Notice my new curtains also. We love them!
Relaxing in front of the television
Busy, busy, busy!