Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

And I'm back.  Although, it's sounding like perhaps more frequent guest posts from Scott are in order here!  Hahaha.  Now that the excitement of race day is fading away, though, we are back to our everyday grind.  For Scott, that means being the responsible breadwinner and jumping back into the rat race each day, and for me, it means soldiering on as the capable breadmaker of the family and churning out daily variations on a theme for my ever-captive audience.

Theme and variations #1?   Dinner time.  It comes around each and every night, and each and every night we seem to play out the same general story.  Different meals, with slight differences in the details, but the same overarching theme -- I can't always please everyone.  At least when it comes to dinner.  Although, if I really stop and think about it, I'm sure this life lesson could be applied to MANY aspects of our family life.  

Night after night, the kids continue to be outraged when I dish up something for dinner that happens to be something they hate.  Grace doesn't like anything with tomatoes IN it, she only likes tomatoes plain; Ethan HATES salad and will only choke it down smothered in ranch; Sophie can't eat most of what I try to make and thus needs her own separate menu most nights; Jane would probably live off of parmesan if we'd let her; and Alex doesn't really like eating his dinner each night so much as he likes climbing on my lap and eating MINE.  I could go on forever, baby!  Hahahaha.  The point is, it's a rare night when everyone likes what's on the menu and eats it without complaining. 

A couple of weeks ago I tried a new recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe that sounded promising -- Whole Wheat Pizza Pull-Apart Rolls.  And they were REALLY good!  And almost everyone liked them.  The hold-out?  Grace.  She hates pizza -- you know, the sauce has tomatoes in it -- and proclaimed that if she ate them they would make her throw up.  Nice.  And just what everyone wants to hear at the dinner table, right?  Haha.  Well, fast forward to last night and I decided to give them another go with a slight twist.  After rolling out the dough, I cut it into 3 sections this time.  One section for Sophie -- pizza sauce and pepperoni; one section for all the normal eaters -- pizza sauce, pepperoni, and cheese; and one section for GRACE -- pepperoni, cheese, and Mel's alfredo sauce.

{sections 2 and 3 pictured.}

Sophie's section ready to rise.

And the other sections ready to eat.

Now, I'll be honest, these are a bit tricky to get the hang of.  And obviously I haven't mastered making them look pretty yet, but they are REALLY good.  And the alfredo version???  O. M. WOWZA.  So good.  So, so good.  {In full disclosure, I used whole milk and regular cream cheese in her recipe.}  The end result was that everyone ate dinner last night and everyone was happy.  ALWAYS a small miracle!  Haha. 

Today's back to the grind agenda for me included the uszh -- gym, tanning, laundry {j/k on the tanning} -- and the unusual: a brief detour from our regular programming to pick up a quick anniversary gift for  Scott and to let Lover Boy ramble on the bike trail and throw rocks into the river to his heart's content.  An added bonus was finding 3 really cool rocks to give to Grace for her always-kind-of-hanging-around-somewhere collection.  {She really likes rocks.  Kind of weird and funny, but also kind of cool.}  I should have taken pictures before giving them to her because I think they've already been misplaced, but one had what looked like the impression of butterfly wings on it.  She really liked that one.

After picking Jane up from preschool we headed home, and in between whipping up some smoothies for the kids' after school snack, I threw together another batch of bread -- with our newest variation in the mix. 

 4 pieces of dough divided up for the batch's loaves.

About a month ago, I decided to do a little experimenting with our bread dough and gave cinnamon bread a try.  And guess what?  It was SUPER easy.  Like seriously easy.  And for the minimal amount of effort it takes, the joy it brings to the kids is WELL worth it.  The process is as follows:

• After letting the dough rise for 45 minutes or so and then dividing it into 4 pieces, I knead 3 of them, shape them into loaves, and plop them into oiled pans.  For the 4th piece, I flatten it out as best I can into a rectangular shape using mostly my hands since I'm too lazy to get out a rolling pin. 
• Then I drizzle a bunch of honey over the dough, spread it out with the back of a spoon -- it's pretty sticky and kind of hard to spread perfectly but that doesn't really matter.

 

Finished rectangle drizzled with honey.   Please note this is before spreading it out with the spoon.

• After sprinkling with cinnamon, I roll it up -- the crazier the better -- and pinch it closed when I'm done.  

• I put the pinched seam side down in another oiled pan and let it rise with the other loaves for a good 45 minutes.  

• Same baking instruction apply -- 40 minutes at 350 degrees.
• Eat and enjoy. 

 See what I mean about the crazier the better for rolling it up? 

 Mmm. Mmm.  Good.

And that's a wrap.  Our solitary loaf of cinnamon bread never makes it past the first day, so I don't know how long it will keep.  It is definitely more dense and moist than the plain bread {thanks to the extra honey} so it probably wouldn't last super long.  

In closing, a flashback:

Twelve years ago tonight, I was crammed into a single hotel room with every member of my family, listening to a grand symphony of snoring, trying to get my beauty sleep and stop myself from freaking out about the next day, while sharing a bed with my baby brother, Jacob {who was only 5, and was tossing and turning and thrashing around all night}.   The occasion?  The eve of our wedding.   

Stay tuned for an anniversary recap!