Cinnamon Rolls in an hour and a half

My sister has a delicious cinnamon roll recipe, but you have to make the cinnamon roll dough at least 8 hours before you want to cook them.  That’s too much pre-planning for me.  The cinnamon roll recipe below is delicious, and is all done in an hour and a half! This recipe is found at food.com.

What you need!
 – 1 (1/4 ounce) package dry yeast
– 1 cup warm milk
– 1/2 cup granulated sugar
– 1/3 cup margarine
– 1 teaspoon salt
– 2 eggs
– 4 cups flour

– 1/3 cup margarine, softened
– 1 cup packed brown sugar
– 2 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon

– 8 tablespoons margarine
– 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
– 1/4 cup cream cheese
– 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
– 1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Add the yeast to the warm milk and let sit for 5 minutes.

2. Add the sugar, margarine, salt, eggs and flour.  Mix, then let rise for 1 hour.

3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough until about 1/8 – 1/4 inch thick. I rolled the dough out on a cutting board.

4. Melt butter and rub on rolled out dough.

5. Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle on buttery dough.

6. Cut dough into 1 3/4″ strips, roll up, and place on greased baking sheet. Leave plenty of room for each roll.

7. Bake for 10 minutes.

8. Mix together margarine, powdered sugar, cream cheese, vanilla and salt, and spread the icing on warm cinnamon rolls.

9. Enjoy.

Diamond Fork Hot Springs

This weekend, Bade’s brother and his family came to stay at our house.  Saturday we drove to the right fork of Hobble Creek, and loaded onto the snowmobiles. We rode 20 miles up the right fork, over to Diamond Fork, and to the hot springs trail head. We then hiked up the 3 mile hike along the river to where the hot springs are.  It is definitely a different experience hiking 3 miles, in the snow and ice, with all your thick snow gear on, with 4 kids, the oldest only 7. But it was fun, tiring and the kids hiked quite a bit of it themselves.

If you don’t want to ride on a snowmobile for 20 miles to get to these hot springs, you can drive into Diamond Fork Canyon.  The road is closed for the winter after about Monk’s Hollow.  So if you go this way, your hike goes from a 3 (6 total) mile hike to a 4 (8 total) mile hike.  Definitely dress warm (most the hike is in the shade)!! We passed so many hikers who were not prepared for such a cold hike.  It is so cold that water evaporates from the river, and freezes on the trees just feet away, so all the tree branches are COMPLETELY coated in this these cool big frosticles. The snow on the ground even has HUGE crystal ice chunks that look awesome.

The hot springs themselves start just above this waterfall, but the most popular areas to swim are (1) just below the water fall, (2) this spring we are in, and (3) a little hot tub shaped pool about 30 yards down from the waterfall.

We caught the sunset just as we were coming over the peak into the right fork of hobble creek canyon on our way home. Starting at 11, and getting home at 6, this was a good way to spend our Saturday.

Out Of The Inversion, Into The Blue

Snowshoeing way above the inversion and through the aspens with Bade’s favorite sister and her daughter this holiday weekend was so nice! Great weather, great company, and an enjoyable activity.

“Was The Beadboard White?”

Tonight Bade and I spent our evening in the emergency room. While using a 2.5 inch saw drill bit, that caught some wood and slipped, Bade accidentally sawed through the top of his pinky.  He handled it like a champ; stayed calm while we had to drive to 3 different ER’s/Instacare’s spanning 2 cities, to find one that (1) took our insurance and (2) would be able to fix it.The PA fixing Bade’s finger cleaned it out (after Bade’s finger was seriously high).  While she was cleaning it she asked “Was the beadboard white?” Bade responded “yes” and she continued “I can see some white pieces in here” gross!  After it was cleaned out, she let me take a picture.

6 stitches later, and the idea that Bade might have a permanently numb finger tip, this is what it looked like.

Stats at the end of the night:
– 5 large curly fries from Arby’s because Bade milked it when we picked up dinner.
– 1 person (down from 2) able to work on the bathroom remodel.
– 1 blood-spattered 4′ x 4′ piece of beadboard
– 3 bottles of various pain killers
– 22 awesome pictures of bloody Bade at the hospital

Sweet Mustard Chicken

The chicken was so good I totally forgot to take a photo before eating. This image is the photo from tablefortwoblog.com for their Holy Yum Chicken.

If you like honey mustard sauce (or even if you don’t because I am not the biggest fan of honey mustard sauce), you’ll love this chicken.  I got the recipe from tablefortwoblog.com.

Into a Ziplock bag I placed:

2 chicken breasts
1/4 c Dijon Mustard
1/8 c Maple Syrup
1.5 tsp rice wine vinegar
salt
pepper

I let that sit in the fridge until I was ready to cook dinner.  Once I was ready, I preheated the oven to 450 degrees. I dumped the entire contents of the Ziplock bag into a little bread pan, just big enough to fit both pieces of chicken comfortably. I cooked the chicken breasts for just under 30 minutes.  After plating the chicken breasts, I mixed in 1.5 tsp cornstarch into the remaining fluid to make a sort of gravy to put on the top of the chicken. Also add fresh rosemary for a garnish. I served it with mixed veggies and mashed potatoes.

Tony Grove Snowmobiling

So, its a little early in the season to snowmobile…there wasn’t much of a base, and we hit a largish number of rocks hidden under the snow, AND we were mostly confined to trails, but it was still a good snow outing.

Work And Play New Year’s Eve

Saturday – homemade pizza

Sunday – water fight before bed.

Monday – made Chicken and Biscuits for dinner for my parents. We slightly over kneaded the biscuits.

Tuesday night was New Year’s Eve.  We spent dinner time with Bade’s friends, eating and playing games. Then spent the remaining few hours of the year with Bade’s brother and his family, playing games and eating junk food.  The first day of the new year was spent demolishing the main floor bathroom at my parents house, and re-tiling the floor. This remodel is a Christmas gift to my mother.

Wednesday – Started bathroom remodel.