Snow Day

Snow.

Wet snow.

Cream Cheese Danish

Pinterest win!

I'd like to try some cold, but I'm not sure we'll have any left.

I am a bit addicted to Pinterest lately.  Love. It.  Anywho...while trolling the boards this week I came across a picture of diy cream cheese danish.  It's dangerously easy to make.  Dang.  So far the voting has been unanimous - it's a winner.  My only regret is that I forgot that I happen to have some raspberry filling down in my food storage.  Oh well, next time.

I did make mine with the reduced fat cream cheese - so this is practically a diet food.  I was not, however, willing to compromise standards and try the 'lite' crescent rolls.  That just seems wrong.

Cream Cheese Danish

(slightly adapted from The Adventures of Kitchen Girl)

Ingredients:
2 cans ready to use refrigerated crescent rolls
1 8-ounce packages cream cheese (regular or low fat)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 egg (break one into a small bowl, stir with a fork to break it up, then eyeball the amount)
1 egg white

Glaze(I used some leftover vanilla frosting, but if you don’t have any of that):
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Method:
Preheat oven to 350* degrees and grease a 13X9-inch baking pan. Lay a pack of crescent rolls in the pan and pinch the openings together. Beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and egg together until smooth. Spread the mixture over the crescent rolls evenly and then lay the second pack of crescent rolls on top of the cheese mixture and brush with egg white. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the top is golden brown. Top with glaze after cooling for 20 minutes.

Servings: Since there are currently four people residing in my house, I'd have to say: 4 servings. I was pleasantly surprised with how easily this sliced - even when warm - so you could cut the pieces as small as you'd like.

Challah Bread. By Danny.

It's amazing how much better this bread looks
when I tell you that my 16 year old son made it.

The youth in our ward had an International Cook-off this week.  Daniel wasn't very inclined to make anything - but he reckoned without me.  I informed him that if he was going to sample other people's cooking, it was only fair that he take an entry.  Since he's not really big into very many 'international' foods, I figured some type of bread would be a safe option.  Besides, I had all the ingredients on hand. He made this almost entirely by himself - I did stand over him...and helped a bit with the braiding. 

He came in third.

Challah in a Bread Machine

(recipe adapted from the Sunset Cook Book of Breads - which I've owned forever)

1 package active dry yeast

1 1/4 cup warm water

1 tsp. salt

1/4 cup each sugar and canola oil

2 eggs

2-3 drops yellow food coloring

5 (ish) cups of all-purpose flour

1 egg yolk beaten with 1 Tablespoon water

poppy seeds

Add water, yeast, salt, sugar, oil, eggs and finally flour to your bread machine.  Set on 'dough' setting.  Come back in 1 1/2 hours and dump it out on a floured counter.  Pinch off about 3/4 cup of dough and set it aside.

Divide remaining dough into 4 equal parts; roll each between your hands to form a strand about 20 inches long. Place the four strips lengthwise on a greased baking sheet, pinch tops together, and braid as follows: pick up strand on right, bring it over next one, under the third, and over the fourth. Repeat, always starting with strand on the right, until braid is complete. Pinch ends together.

Divide reserved dough into 3 pieces. Roll each about 5-6 inches long. Make a small 3 strand braid and lay n top center of large braid. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about an hour (until almost doubled).

Using a soft brush or your fingers, spread egg yolk mixture carefully and evenly over braids; sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake at 350' for about 30-35 minutes.

I think Danny was a little shy on the flour, so his braids were pretty soft and hard to keep even - but considering this might have been his first loaf of bread, he did great.



Just Call Me Ol' Paint

I painted my bedroom and bathroom last week. 

I overheard Steve talking on the phone to someone: "...she paints our room every year..."

I have to rebut that statement (is rebut a word?). We've lived in this house for about 13.5 years.  I've only painted our bedroom 5 times.  Do the math.  After doing some highly improbably sums on the back of a napkin, I've come to the conclusion that I've averaged one paint job for every 2.7 years. If you factor in the fact that this paint color is nearly the same as the second color I painted, you can clearly see that I average 3.425 years between paint jobs.

The end.

(go here to see more pictures)

A Very Harry Christmas

From back left: Hermione, Ron, Harry.
From front left: Snape, Voldemort

Introducing Potter Puppet Pals ornaments. I like to think of them as poorly crafted charmingly naive.  I spotted them on Pinterest a few weeks ago and knew that I had to figure out how to make them for Rebekah.

Mischief managed.

The Week in Review OR My Slip is Showing

Since it's only a little over a week until Christmas, I can't really show pictures of everything I've done, but here is a bit of what's been going on at our house:



The youth activity this week was making 'gingerbread' houses (no actual gingerbread was harmed in the making....).  Danny proved himself a genius and simply constructed a 'swimming pool' and then poured his entire bag of mini M&M's in it - thus bypassing the fiddly step of picking the good stuff off and eating it.  We were able to go straight to the eating.



I was able to earn some big brownie/matrimonial points with Steve by making a thermal slip for his mother.  It's just like a regular slip, but lined with fleece.  I would have gotten it done sooner, but when I asked Steve to find out what type of slip (half or full), he came back with the wrong answer: three quarters.  I then packaged said slip AND went to the post office today and queued up to send it off.

On Wednesday Alex finally got the wires removed from his mouth! That evening we canned 18 cans of stuff in #10 cans: Beanland soup mix, red lentils, sugar and powdered sugar.  We had to get it done Wednesday night because I only had the can sealer checked out until Thursday noon.  Yes, we had it a full week and yes, we waited until the last possible moment to use it. What's your point?

Keeping Busy

I've been keeping fairly busy lately.  Much of my time has been taken up with my regularly scheduled programming (family, seminary, sleep, house....) but I've been sneaking in some time to work on Christmas presents.  Unfortunately, I can't really blog about what I've done because you never know who might peek. 


Here's a little something I posted on Help Me Hanna: