Cinnamon Roll Season

My mother is a big fan of traditions, especially when it comes to food. One of my favorites is her propensity for making cinnamon rolls every November. Now, there's nothing wrong with making cinnamon rolls any time of year, but there is something about November, when the air is cool and crisp and kids come home from school with rosy cheeks and big appetites to find mom pulling a fresh batch of hot cinnamon rolls out of the oven. Cold autumn days and kids and cinnamon rolls go together naturally, so in my family we only make cinnamon rolls when it's perfect, when it's November.

Mom's Cinnamon Rolls:

1/4 cup warm water
1 Tbsp dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1/4 cup shortening
2 1/2 cups flour
Raisins (optional)

Glaze:
butter or margarine
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
hot water

Combine the water and the yeast, then combine all ingredients. Stir well until ball forms, then knead for 5 minutes. Let rise till double. Roll dough into an oblong shape about 15 X 9 inches. Spread with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar - liberally! Add raisins if you wish. Roll up tightly, seal edges, cover and let rest for 20 minutes. Then, cut rolls in 1 inch slices, place in greased 13X9 cake pan, not touching each other, and let rise until double. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes until golden.

Frost with the glaze, then eat 'em while they're hot!

Pseudo Guest Post: Cutouts from Childhood

My sister posted this on her blog around Easter and I liked it... so I'm posting it here... along with the recipe

Childhood memories work in such funny ways.

We went to Grandma and Grandpa Taylors house for Easter dinner. Grandma had made red finger jello for one of the dishes. Aunt Kellee was cutting easter shapes into it with cookie cutters. I saw the bunny cookie cutter. I had completely forgotten it even existed.

All these memories came back to me of those red cookie cutters. I remembered the turkey cutter quite clearly and think about it every thanksgiving when I make cookies. But I can't believe that I had forgotten about the cake and the bunny and that great flag cutter. Sugar cookies were one of the first things I learned how to make. My mom makes the best cookies and instead of frosting them we actually sugar them with colored jello so you can see the designs from the cutter on the cookie. They are so delicious.

Anyway, I got such a kick out of seeing these cookie cutters that I tried to make mom promise to leave them to me. But she wasn't committing. I'm a girl that takes matters into my own hands so I bought my own set on e-bay. Gotta love e-bay. They were easy to find as they were made by Tupperware. 

So watch for some cool flag cookies to be coming your way in July.

Sugar Cookie Recipe:

1/2 C shortening (butter)

1 C sugar

1 egg

3 C flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 C milk

Cream shortening and sugar. Add egg. Mix well. Add dry ingredients alternately with liquid. Chill 1 hour. Roll out on floured board. Cut into shapes. Place on greased cookie sheet. (Here's where you would sprinkle on the colored jello if so desired) Bake at 350' until light brown (8-10 min). 

Food, Family, and Fish Haven

Over the course of fall 1998- summer 2002 (I didn't have a car freshman year), I spent nearly a weekend a month in Bear Lake, ID. My grandparents lived in an old pioneer house built in 1865 just two miles past the Idaho Border (thank you, Google Earth for the picture).

A family history house in more ways than one, I think it will always be more special to me for the relationships it allowed me to have with my grandparents. We had spent summers there during my childhood, but these memories were mine and no one else's. For that one weekend a month, they got an extra daughter, and I learned to see them as real people and not just doting grandparents.

Many times my memories of those weekends are of food. Grandma was very particular about when meals were served. You could get your own breakfast (though heaven help you if it wasn't before 8:30), but lunch was at noon and dinner at five--and that is when I got them on the table--not a minute later.

I was a passable cook growing up and had some training thanks to Mom and 4-H, but Mom cooked in our house; and the rest of us were sous chefs. My brother Nathan had a gift for just tossing ingredients together, but I had to train and practice. And I did it in my grandparents kitchen, last updated sometime in the 70s, with the hand crank can opener (I still covet) on the wall and the cast iron stove brought across the plains from St. Louis back in the day (It was more a warming area for foods that came out of the electric oven across the kitchen) while Grandma told stories of her years growing up, being a young newlywed, or how many boyfriends my mother had. She always sent me home to Provo with enough food for weeks.

Sundays were the usual: church and then a roast of some kind, mashed potatoes & gravy, green beans with mushroom soup (or cauliflower with cheese), home-canned fruit, stuffing, and some kind of bread (rolls, bread rings, you name it), and what you didn't eat was sent home. But Saturday, Grandma and Grandpa were my guinea pigs. Grandma's staples were meat and potatoes or something she didn't have to work on too much (frozen dinners), but I would prepare tacos, homemade pizza, enchiladas, spaghetti, etc.--stuff that seems really basic to me (now that I have become more sophisticated in my food tastes), but were often new and different for them. After dinner, we would often watch an old timey musical for Grandma (often Deanna Durbin--a star from the 1930s and 1940s, the Julia Roberts of her day) and then a fun action flick with Grandpa after Grandma went to bed.

I cooked my first Thanksgiving for them. I grieved for friends and family with them--cooking the pain away. I picked fruits and vegetables (and Grandfather made fun of my jumpy nature--he said I had a guilty conscience). We watched General Conference while I made pie or bread or fudge. We canned; we cooked; we laughed; we loved. You name it, it happened in that kitchen or the living room or the picnic tables under the boxelder trees, and food and family history tied it all together.

One of my favorite memories of my Grandfather happened on their 60th wedding anniversary. I had been perfecting my fettuccine alfredo recipe at the time, and I decided to pair it with steak (Daddy did those on the grill usually, so I had never actually cooked one on my own). The look of bliss on my Grandfather's face as he bit into that steak--his first in 10 years--will stay with me forever (especially since it was probably overcooked and not my best--I do much better now), and Grandma could not stop talking about that moment of pure pleasure.

Another favorite memory of my Grandfather happened at my Grandmother's funeral. I flew in early to help Mom and her sisters with whatever they needed. Mom, who for years had been pretty territorial in the kitchen, had come to trust me in there, and turned the food over to me while she and her sisters hammered out the details you must during that kind of time. I threw together some kind of chicken pasta the night I flew in--but Grandpa wouldn't eat. Though years had passed since I had been the long-lost, Larsen daughter, coming up every month, I was once again his surrogate child, sitting in Grandma's chair as we talked. Well, I talked--he was never a big talker--after I set a plate of pasta on his lap. Half an hour later, the plate was clean, and I filled it up again and sat down to talk some more.

When it was time for me to leave, I remember holding his hand, tears close to the surface, and looking into his eyes as hours and days rushed back--me and Grandma and Grandpa in our own little world, with dinner at noon and five; music, stories, gospel, laughter, and food tying us together always.