Mother's Day Brunch

Last weekend the whole family was in Huntsville at the graduation of niece #2.  Hannah graduated from Sam Houston State University and we all went to cheer her on and celebrate.

And because it is such a loooooonnnnnnnnggggggg trip, mom and dad drove up the day before and stayed until sometime on Sunday and then made the long trip home. 

Mom would understandably be very tired and so we decided that we would celebrate "Mother's Day" this weekend with a brunch at my house. 

I'm making Migas and Cinnamon Rolls.  My sister is making a breakfast casserole with sausage, eggs and potatoes.  Hannah is making mimosas, Christine is making Ranch Potatoes and Sheila is bringing a fruit salad. 

So the following is my favorite cinnamon roll recipe.  It's a Betty Crocker recipe that I found on the back of a flour bag about 30+ years ago.  It's one of the best recipies that I've ever found for cinnamon rolls and it's stood the test of time.  There are several reasons that I love this recipe.  First reason is because you actually make up the rolls on the day before you bake them.  That way all you have to do is get up in the morning, take them out of the fridge and then bake them.  Second reason I  like it is because it calls for part whole wheat flour....so you sorta feel like you are eating something that's good for you while you are eating something not so good for you.  Everything in moderation.

So our ingredient list is active dry yeast, warm water, milk, sugar, vegetable oil, baking powder, salt, 1 egg, whole wheat flour and all purpose flour.

Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup warm water.

While that's getting dissolved put 2 cups of milk in a saucepan and heat just until you see little bubbles forming around the edge of the pan.  Take the milk off the heat and let it cool for just about 5 to 10 minutes.






Now stir the milk into the dissolved yeast along with the sugar, oil, baking powder, salt, egg and 1 1/2 cups of each of the flours. 

Beat this until smooth. 

Add enough of the remaining flour till it's easy to handle.  And then knead until smooth and elastic. 

Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place till doubled...at least an hour but it may take more time depending on the temperature in your kitchen. 

Punch down.  Now here you can divide into 3 equal portions.  Make one and freeze the other two to use on another Sunday or Saturday or whenever you want. 

Roll your portion out...I've got a crowd coming so I'm using the whole thing. 

Sprinkle with a cinnamon sugar mixture.  I won't give you any measurements for that because my husband and I are sorta cinnamon snobs.  I will only buy a certain kind of cinnamon and we like a lot of it.  It's a very subjective thing.  If you like a lot...use a lot...if you don't then don't.  I also like to sprinkle just a bit of dark brown sugar as well over the entire dough.  

Roll up the dough jelly roll style and pinch the edges together.  I've found that it's easiest to cut the rolls with dental floss.  Slide the dental floss under the roll and then cross the ends over each other and pull.  It will cut clean through without crushing the rolls. 

Put the dough into a greased pan or glass container and cover and let rest in the fridge over night.

Next morning take them out of the fridge and let come to room temperature before you bake them.  Then make your icing (recipe follows) and frost and eat.  

FROSTED ICEBOX CINNAMON ICEBOX ROLLS

2 pkgs. active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

2 cups lukewarm milk (scaled then cooled)

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons salt

1 egg

3 cups whole wheat flour

3 cups all purpose flour

Dissolve yeast in water, stir in milk, 1/3 cup sugar, oil, baking powder, salt, egg and 1 1/2 cups of each flour. 

 Beat until smooth. 

 Add enough of the remaining flour till easy to handle. 

 Knead 8 to 10 minutes. 

Let rise in greased bowl about an hour or an hour and a half.  Punch down and divide into 3 equal portions and freeze till later or use. 

Spread with butter and cinnamon and sugar and brown sugar if you want. 

 Roll up jelly roll style and cut into rolls and put in greased pan. 

Let rise in the fridge overnight. 

Next morning let come to room temperature and then bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Let cool for about 5 minutes and then frost. 

BROWNED BUTTER ICING

Heat 3 tablespoons butter over medium heat until delicate brown. 

 Stir in 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon milk and 3/4 of a teaspoon vanilla extract. 

 Beat until smooth and of spreading consistency. 

New Life

I have a part-time job working for a woman Dr. that lives up the road from me.  I do a variety of tasks and one of them is to keep her animals fed and watered.  

About 6 months ago she got some goats to help with her ag exemption with the hope that they would eventually have babies. If the baby turned out to be a doe then she would either keep or sell to someone.  If the baby turned out to be a buck then she would have several decisions to make.  One would be that she would have to castrate it to be sold for Bar-B-Que or not castrate and sold to someone looking to expand their herd. 

 That may sound harsh for some of you out there but that's what life is like in the country.  You need to pull your own weight in some form or fashion or you are bound for greener pastures...and sometimes not on this earthly plain. 

These two adorable little guys were born not last night but the night before.  They are both little bucks so their fate will be decided in just a few short weeks.  But at this age they are almost too precious for words.  

We have two more momma's that are pregnant.  One will probably give birth within the next two weeks and the other momma will be a little later than that. 

With any luck the other does will give birth to girls.  At any rate we're looking forward to more babies in the near future.  

Poppies

Poppies, poppies...everywhere. 
Last fall my husband received a packet of Poppy seeds from a friend in Northern California and told me that if I wanted I could sprinkle them around the front yard.  So I did. 

For those of you that don't know about Poppy seeds...they are tiny...about the size of a pin head and I'm not talking about those glass heads...no way....about the size of a stainless steel pin head. 

So sprinkling them is a little difficult and hard to figure out just how many of those will take and how many will get eaten by various bugs and how many will just wash away in the rains. 

Well.......I guess that I did too good of a job cause we got a LOT of Poppies.  This particular variety is pink and the petals are kinda ruffley...is that a word????   

My husband was less than pleased...especially when you consider that each one of these blooms becomes a seed pod after the flower is spent and that seed pod contains hundreds of seeds.   He wasn't upset that we had the success of the blooms but he was upset because he felt like it might shade out other plants that were getting started at about the same time.  

So I have been very busy lately as the blooms have faded and produced the seed pods of gathering the seeds.  I know that I won't get every one but hopefully I'll gather enough to share and enough to sprinkle along the long drive to the house so that we have color next spring.  

Springtime Chores

Springtime has really sprung in Central Texas and Bob and I are taking advantage of the great weather to get some chores done. 

We are lucky enough to be the proud owners of a Bobcat that helps with some of the heavier chores and saves our bodies now that we are getting older. 

Unfortunately due to the drought of last summer we lost a lot of our fruit trees...3 peach trees, 1 pear and 2 plums.  It's heartbreaking because many of those trees we planted long before we moved and built the house over here.  And the peach trees always seemed to produce peaches one after the other so we never had too many peaches all at the same time.  

The Bobcat makes quick work of having to pull them out of the ground. 

So one after another Bob pulled them out of the ground and then on to the next chore.  

In the fall of 2010 we bought a bunch of native wildflower seeds to spread all over our flower beds and along the drive.  This year we were rewarded with this nice show of poppies.  There are lots of other flowers popping up along the drive...many of which we cannot identify.  So I'm thinking that if the rains continue we will have color everywhere hopefully long into the summer.

And of course I couldn't forget the bluebonnets.  They are spectacular this year.  This is just right outside the backyard fence.  And the perfume from this batch is so heavy on some days it will give you a headache.                                                                                                                                  

Happy Anniversary

Fifty nine years ago today, my parents were married in an Air Force Base Chapel in Big Spring, Texas.  Both from New England they didn't have any family present to witness their union.  Not that the families were adverse to the union, it was just that it was such a long way for the family to travel.  They had a couple of witnesses and a small reception and then my father had to go to work. 

They have endured a lot during their union.  Long separations, dangerous duty, foreign assignments and lately health issues.  But through it all they have remained together and they have that deep abiding love that only comes with years of experience.

When my mother was in ICU this past Christmas and we thought that we were going to lose her, I saw my father shed a few tears.  In my 57 years on this earth I have never seen him do that. 

My mother is the strongest woman I know and she had endured a lot in being married to my father.  The best way that I can illustrate this is to tell you this story. 

In 1962 we were stationed at James Conelly A.F. Base in Waco, TX.  My father got orders for Okinawa, now known as Okinawa, Japan.  The fly in the oinment was that he would travel there first and we would follow a few months later.
There were 4 of us kids.  My older brother was 8, I was 7, Chris was 6 and Chickie was just 2 years old.
My father left sometime that summer and we were to follow during the Christmas Break.  This was the first and only time that we were to travel in the middle of the school year.  All the years following we moved during the summer. 
So here was my mother, all alone with 4 small children, traveling to an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and right before Christmas. 
We left Waco, headed for Dallas to catch our plane that would take us to San Francisco and then to Okinawa, but with 4 small children and suitcases etc....we ended up late and missed our plane.  According to my mother, we spent the next 2 days in the Dallas Airport waiting for our plane to take us to San Francisco.  We slept in chairs and ate what was available in the terminal.  And there wasn't much because this was 1962 and flying was still kind of a novelty.  
Finally we boarded our plane that was to take us to San Francisco and off we went.
When we landed in San Francisco we had a couple of hours until our next plane took us to Hawaii for refueling, Wake Island for another refueling and then to Okinawa.  But during those couple of hours fog rolled in and we weren't able to fly out of San Francisco.  So the powers that be boarded us all on a bus and we went to Oakland where we were finally able to board the plane that took us to Okinawa and our new home. 
I hear women these days complain all the time about having 2 children and how complicated it can be.  My mother took 4 small children by herself half way round the world and never missed a beat.  That is one tough lady. 

So Happy 59th Anniversary to my parents whom I love madly and may others be inspired by your commitment to one another. 

Hope Springs Eternal

See that plant there?  That plant in the middle of the picture..the one with 5 leaflets.  That my dear friends is the Texas Bluebonnet "Lupins Texensis".  Doesn't look like much now, but come spring it will be beautiful with blue and white flowers.  It is also for those that do not know...the state flower of Texas.

But what I wanted to point out in these next pictures is for you to look closely at the ground from which it springs.  Notice anything???  Maybe a lack of soil for one.  This wonderful little flower springs from some really rough terraine and the worse looking the better for this beauty.  It also takes water, but not just water any time...no, water in the fall and winter around here will make for a beautiful show of flowers in the spring. 

So after a spring and summer last year literally from hell with 90+ days of 100+ temps and no rain to speak of...we've had some rain, not a lot mind you, but enough to make the bluebonnets appear.  So it gives me hope that we will have a wonderful spring with lots of wildflowers.

This is one hardy wildflower.  It doesn't transplant well, many have tired and few have succeeded.  It has a really tough seed coat that needs to scarafied with heat or water in order to make it germinate. 

This small hill on our property doesn't look like much, but come spring it will be covered with Bluebonnets.  You can't see them now but if you walked this hill you'd see that it was covered with Bluebonnet plants.

So with that in mind, I think about my mom.  She takes a licken but keeps on ticken.  She got some good news from her Dr. this past week.  The new meds that she is taking are working.  We know that we will lose her at some point but for right now...with the right meds, at the right time, she will continue to bloom. And that's enough for me to hope for. 

Happy Birthday Chickie!!!

Fifty two years ago, on my 5th birthday, my sister was born.  At first it was a novelty and I was pretty excited.  But when she came home from the hospital it wore off pretty quickly.  She cried and wanted attention all the time...or so it seemed to my 5 year old brain.

As the years went by it seemed like we were always at odds with one another.  She was still a baby at 5 and I was a pre-teen at 10.  She was a pre-teen at 10 and I was practically a High Schooler at 15.  It probably didn't help that we always had to share a room, so tastes and need for privacy tended to keep us at odds with one another. 

My mother would say to me at times, "you should be nicer to her, you're going to miss her someday".  I'd look at my mother like she was out of her mind.  But you know...she was right.  My first year in college was in Virginia and my family was in England.  And for some reason I began to miss hearing her voice and listening to her talk about her friends and her day.  I was surprized as anyone to realize that she was such a big part of my life and I couldn't just pick up the phone and call her like you can today.  At that time there were no cell phones and if you wanted to make an overseas call you had to wait for an overseas operator.  This was not easily done on a phone in the hallway of a dorm and that doesn't even include how much money it cost...and you'd have to have it in change.  Yes, I missed her big time. 

I think that we started to begin to see each other as equals when I began to talk of getting married.  She'd had a steady boyfriend for a while and although they were both finishing up college, they knew that they would be getting married as well.  We both had very strong ideas about our weddings.  I wanted something simple and no fuss and she wanted the church and the dress.  Both of us got exactly what we wanted and it was perfect. 

She and her husband have been married now for almost 30 years.  They have 2 wonderful daughters, one who is a second year Vet student studying at Texas A&M and the other who is finishing up her senior year at Sam Houston State majoring in communications.  Both wonderful women in their own right. 

But my sister is the rock that I lean on.  There is no one like her.  I love her so fiercely.  She's a great mother, wonderful friend and someone that I know will be there for me anytime or anywhere. 
We share a birthday now for many years gladly and  one of us will call the other sometime today and sing the Happy Birthday song.  It has been our habit for decades now. 

So Happy 52nd Birthday, my sister, my friend.   I love you truly.