Skippity Doo Dah

It’s finally Friday…….Skippity Doo Dah!!  🙂

I don’t know about anyone else, but for me one of the hardest weeks at work are the ones that immediately follow time off.  The clock couldn’t have moved any slower today ~ by 11 it felt like it should have been time to go!  Needless to say, the plans to prep the kitchen for painting never happened this week.  I did get some things accomplished, but not that.  This weekend will be too nice to stay indoors anyhow so it is probably a good thing I didn’t.  I plan to finish the outside flower bed by making it much smaller.  Right now it runs the length of the house…..much to big for me to weed and care for.  I’m going to re-seed about 3/4 of it with grass and hope it will grow and fill back in before weeds overtake it.  The remaining 1/4, which is closest to the front door, will be left for flowers and flowering bushes. 

I got a nice surprise today.  The Associate Director of Grounds at the College  of William and Mary gave me some veggies to plant.  We work together in the same department and have shared other plants in the past.  I have salad greens, lettuce and spinach to transplant into my new gardens out back.  Veggie goodness in my own backyard……..Yum!  🙂

And I had promised to give the recipes for the goodies I cooked last weekend.  I posted the Hummingbird Cake earlier……..now for the No Knead Cinnamon Rolls.  They are very easy to make and so very tasty.  This is another recipe I found on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog.   If you want to go directly to the recipe site, click here.

No Knead Cinnamon Buns

• 1 3/4 cup warm water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons instant yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 4 large farm fresh eggs
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 7 cups all purpose flour

1. In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, water, honey, melted butter, yeast and salt.
2. Stir well with a wooden spoon.
3. Add the flour and stir well.
4. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or up to 4 days. Letting it sit in the refrigerator is apparently what gives the dough such a great flavour . .( I believe them)
5. Take the dough out of the fridge and cream together your filling ingredients.

Filling Ingredients. . .(what I used)

• 1/2 cup softened butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons maple flavouring. . .. (ever since making Charlotte’s maple twists, I use maple flavouring in every cinnamon bun)

Cream this together well. Roll the dough out. . .I did quite thick, spread the filling on and roll up and slice with a serrated knife.

Now. . . .I put half of them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and put them in the freezer, where I let them freeze and then put them in a ziploc bag. The next day, ( I did this to test for you. . . really we didn’t want to eat more). . I took them out at noon. . . .(thinking guests might stop by later on). . .and let them thaw at room temperature and then baked them. . . it took 3 hours from freezer to icing them.

If you don’t want to freeze any. . .let the buns rise about an hour. . or until nice and puffy. Preheat your oven to 375. Bake until golden brown.

I made an icing of Icing sugar, heavy cream and again .. .(maple flavouring. . .maybe that is why they taste so good)

Here is a photo of mine right after frosting…….

They were huge…….and delish!  🙂

I took Alanna driving the other day down the Colonial Parkway in Williamsburg and I was able to get some photos of dogwood trees, plus a few others.  I have also taken some of my azaleas around the house……..coming soon!