Just Another Week In February

Monday was cold but cold doesn't slow down this girl and her horse.

Sarah shared these beauties with me. They were taken on Schmidgall Road.

Thanks Sarah

And, thanks Sandi for sharing this picture. The kids have spent many hours on this rink and we are so grateful for friends who share it with our kids. Good exercise, good friends, and good memories. And only one chipped tooth😑...

l-r. Hannah, Jewel, Sarah, Kinsey, Ruby, Alexander with Scarlet, Silas, Nathan, Justus, Josh

Kids skate, Dad catches up on the news, and I puzzle or blog - or work on my winter project. It's coming along nicely.

Got up to 44 on Tuesday, so I finally abandoned my elliptical and walked outside. Was beautiful. Hope I won't be back on the elliptical but time will tell. 

Always enjoy having these three cutests.

Another skate that turned into a boot  - or in one case, a sock - bc the ice was too soft - or something -

Good times.

  Thanks Sarah for the px

On Wednesday, Echo & Lucy & Charity brought their chilluns for lunch; I got no px. Sarah & Jewel each got one. And ain't they cute?

Abram also came Wednesday to stay for a few days; this was Thursday when he and Josh were doing chores. 

Yesterday (Friday) morning 😆😄

Jewel babysat these two sweethearts yesterday morning. Fun to have them again.

Then another crowd at the rink. 

Choretime of course,

horse time next,

and then, after supper, the latest greatest game: Snuffleuffagus.

And that's a wrap for another week in February.

Parmesan Potato Rounds

 Well I see this draft was initiated in September. Which means that sometime back then we had these somewhere. And I don't remember where we had them, but I think I came home and made them then. I don't know. At any rate, here's another delicious potato recipe. Actually it's not much different than Golden Potato Wedges. Same ingredients, different cut. And all equally delicious.

From the illustrious Steiner Cookbook. Specifically, from A. Velma, here's

Parmesan Potato Rounds

1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted (butter of course)

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

6 medium potatoes, each sliced into 4 rounds.

salt and pepper to taste

seasoning of choice (I used garlic powder)

Pour butter into a jelly roll baking pan. In a plastic bag, combine flour, cheese, salt, and pepper. Shake a few potato slices at a time in the bag to coat with the flour mixture. Place potatoes in a single layer over the butter. Bake at 375* for 30 minutes. Turn slices, and sprinkle with seasoning. Bake 30 minutes more or until tender. Yield: 6 servings.

More On Caramel Rolls

 To review a little, I copied and pasted this from the Cinnabraid post awhile back. Nothing new with it, except for this post I'm adding a few pictures for those who haven't seen this done and who can't quite visualize what it means to flip the pan upside down...twice. Hopefully this clarifies it a little...

Mix thoroughly: 1/2 cup melted butter

              1 cup brown sugar

              1 cup corn syrup

Pour into two greased 9x13 pans. Place cut cinnamon rolls on mixture. Let rise 20-30 minutes. Bake 15-20 minutes. After baking, place cookie sheet upside down over rolls and flip the entire pan of rolls with its cookie sheet lid, inverting rolls so caramel oozes over rolls.

First note - you can add cinnamon to the caramel. I usually do. Not sure why this recipe didn't have cinnamon in it. Maybe bc when you're eating the deliciously rich gooey caramel, who can taste the cinnamon anyway? For this amount, I'd add 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.

This is what it looks like before micro-cooking (pretty sure this is a tripled recipe).

Cook 1 minute at a time, stirring well when butter starts to soften up. You'll have to mix quick and hard to get the butter to blend with the other ingredients. 

The pieces of butter that were left melted as I stirred; I didn't need to cook it again after the video. It's important not to overcook the caramel, as it will thicken and caramelize (or something)(not sure what the right word is). The caramel will get really thick and chewy.

It's a runny sauce and thickens up some as it sits and bakes. Idk why. 

Use about 1 1/3 cups per 9x13.

Place rolls directly on/into caramel.

For ease of transporting and/or freezing, line a jelly roll pan with aluminum foil, leaving ends long to wrap finished rolls in.

Tuck ends under pan, and grease well. I use oil spray, but lard would work as well.

Rolls, nicely baked. For my oven, outsides must be a little dark to ensure the middle is baked through.

First, flip jelly roll pan onto 9x13...

...then, flip both pans over together.

Remove 9x13 with a fork, being careful not to get a steam burn as you raise the 9x13.

Done.

Let cool; then spray rolls with a thin layer of oil spray, or lightly grease the foil, before wrapping rolls. Otherwise they don't unwrap quite as nicely.

Or skip the wrapping and just do some eating 

😋😋😋😋

And that's it!

Easy peasey and oh so delicious!

Caramel Brownies

 I've been trying to not keep sweets around bc most of us here don't need them, and some of us (ahem, me) have little self-control when they're sitting on the counter calling my name. But if I do need to take sweets to an event, or have a crowd coming over, these caramel brownies are over-the-top delicious and easy. 

Ingredients:

 12 oz package caramels

2/3 cup evaporated milk

1 box German chocolate cake mix

3/4 cup melted butter

6 oz package chocolate chips

Directions:

Melt caramels with 1/3 cup evaporated milk. Combine cake mix, 1/3 cup evaporated milk, and butter. Press half of dough mixture into a greased and floured 9x13 pan. Bake for 6 minutes at 350*. Sprinkle chocolate chips over crust, spread caramel mixture over chips. Crumble rest of dough mixture on top and bake 15-18 minutes. Let cool before cutting.

Irresistibly delicious.

which is why I don't make them often 😁

Grandma Kaiser's Cinnamon Rolls

 aka Cinnabraid.

This family here is tired of Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls. Can you even believe that? Yes. It's true. That's how spoiled they are. So when I make a batch to give away or take somewhere, those ppl that are here will have some fresh from the oven; but they won't touch them the next day. For sure spoiled, that's all there is to it. 

So instead of PW Rolls, the troops have been requesting Grandma Kaiser's Cinnamon Rolls which are an entirely different texture than the PW Rolls, and since I enjoy baking, I've been making GK Rolls lately. I've streamlined the recipe a bit so wanted to update it and add a few pictures for details. 

Updated recipe:

Scald 1 quart milk, 1 cup canola oil, and 1 cup sugar; cool for an hour.

*If that seems familiar, it's bc that's exactly how PW Rolls start out. I doubled the GK Roll recipe, figuring if I'm going to make the mess I'd rather get double the product for the mess, you know?*

Pour cooled mixture into mixer, and add 4 eggs, 1/2 cup warm water, 2 tablespoons yeast (no need to double the yeast. I mean, it's yeast! It adequately doubles itself.), and 2 teaspoons salt. Mix well, then add 7 cups flour. Mix again, and add 5-7 more cups flour, depending on texture and feel of the dough. This isn't an exact art - just add flour until dough cleans the side of the bowl and it's just a very little bit sticky when touched. Set mixer to knead for about five minutes. Let dough rise until double, about an hour.

To form crescent rolls, try this hack shared by a friend (wish I could remember who)(I think it was Charity maybe...??)

 - use a pizza cutter to cut rolls after they're rolled out

 ...IF you have a stone countertop...clearly this is a new-fangled hack; with the older laminate countertops this would destroy the top.

Finished crescent rolls with a couple more piles waiting to be shaped.

Roll dough to about this shape for the cinnamon rolls.

Spread with softened butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar; roll into a log and seal edge. To slice the log, wiggle a portion of sewing thread (mine is purple) under the log, as shown,

cross the thread on top of the log, and pull; the thread will cleanly slice the log into neat pieces. 

I've also made these dinner rolls with the GK Rolls recipe. These are amazing. They're like biting into a sweet cloud; with butter they've been described as "candy." I concur.

After dough is shaped into crescents, cinnamon rolls, cinnabraid, or dinner rolls, let rise again until double, about 45m - an hour (depending on air temperature, humidity, etc.). Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes or so.

Cool. 

Frost with Best Frosting Ever and enjoy right away or freeze. 

*Dinner and crescent rolls are best fresh. No need to cool these babies. Just slice them in half, slather with butter, and splurge*

I find it interesting how different these cinnamon rolls are than the PW Rolls. All delicious, all the same sugar and butter and milk and salt and yeast; but with the eggs added, the texture is so much lighter and fluffier. They're not nearly as rich and heavy as the PW Rolls. Ha, probably bc the hot PW Rolls absorb the frosting, but Idk for sure!

One more note: lately I've been baking the cinnamon rolls on cookie sheets so they don't touch; then when I frost them and freeze them individually, kids can pull them out for an individual quick breakfast.

Or snack...