scones for breakfast!

We have been on a huge cereal kick for quite awhile now. But the supply has run low, so I decided to make these yummy scones for breakfast yesterday. The grapefruit are especially sweet and juicy this time of year! I just adore grapefruit! The scones recipe is from the cookbook "Baking with Julia: Savor the Joys of Baking with America's Best Bakers." Copied the recipe from this cookbook at the library years ago and it's been my favorite ever since. I found the recipe again by doing a google search. I used half of the recipe for this batch and it made just enough for the two of us!

sunday morning breakfast.

I don't know about you, but there is nothing like a weekend breakfast. I sometimes make something special for the end of the week (or beginning, however you look at it). It's especially comforting now that the seasons are changing and it's getting colder every day. Little things like baking more often or maybe just making another cup of coffee or tea is just what I need on a cold autumn day.

Someone asked for the recipe in the comments, so I'm adding it here. It's from my 1969 Better Homes & Garden Cookbook. However, I have another really really good cinnamon roll recipe, but will save that for a later date. Enjoy!

::RAISIN-CINNAMON ROLLS
Makes 16 rolls

Basic Roll Dough (1/2 recipe)
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup raisins

On lightly floured surface roll 1/2 recipe Basic Roll Dough to 16x8-inch rectangle.

Mix sugar and cinnamon; add butter. Spread over dough. Sprinkle with raisins. Roll as for jelly roll, starting with long edge; seal. Cut in 1-inch slices. Place, cut side down, in greased 9x9x2-inch baking pan. Cover; let rise in warm place till double, to 45 minutes.

Bake in preheated moderate oven (375 degrees F) for 20 minutes. Remove from pan. Frost with Confectioners’ Icing, if desired.

::CONFECTIONERS' ICING
Add light cream (I used 1% milk) to 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar for spreading consistency. Add dash salt and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

::BASIC ROLL DOUGH
Makes 2 to 3 dozen rolls

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided use
I package active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup shortening
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg

In mixing bowl combine 1 1/2 cups of the flour and the yeast.

Heat milk, sugar, shortening, and salt together just till warm (115-120 degrees), stirring constantly till shortening almost melts. Add to dry mixture; add egg. Beat at low speed of electric mixer for 1/2 minute, scraping bowl. Beat 3 minutes at high speed. By hand, stir in remaining flour to make a soft dough. Shape into ball.

Place in lightly greased bowl; turn once to grease surface. Cover; let rise in warm place till double, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Punch down; turn out on floured surface. Cover; let rest 10 minutes.

Shape into desired rolls. Place on greased baking sheets or in greased muffin pans. Cover; let rise in warm place till double, 30 to 45 minutes.

Bake in hot oven (400 degrees F) for 10 to 12 minutes.

scones for breakfast.

My sister came to visit a couple of weeks ago and I made scones with lemon curd and fresh strawberries. If only I could have this every morning!

dresses are coming along...

Working on those dresses. Almost done. Almost!
Made Dutch Babies on Sunday for breakfast. Spent the whole day with J. It was tops.
Thank you for all the lovely sweet comments/emails lately! You guys are the best!!

happy st. paddy's day!

I made these to celebrate the occasion. It's wet and rainy outside. Reminds me of when I was in Ireland. :)

{a silly picture of my friend and i in an irish pub 4 years ago.}

the week at its end.

**Been sewing a lot and listening to Billie Holiday.

**Yesterday I woke up to a blanket of snow on the ground. Despite wishing it were summer, this made me happy.

**Last night I watched The Women while hand sewing trim on a dress. I saw it once a long time ago and I don't remember it being so good! Really, you must check it out (especially if you are a woman.) ;) I heard there is a remake? It couldn't possibly be as good as the original.

**Today is another day of sewing for me, but I'm nearing the end of one project and it's turning out really very nice. I always get a little nervous until I see it all coming together the way I pictured it.

**Hey, look...Erica gave me a little blog award. Aww, thanks! :) And here are 10 blogs I love:

• The Habit of Being
• Grass Doe
• Manteli
• Needled
• Abby Try Again
• A Continuous Lean
• Obscure Classics
• Behind the Curtain
• The Pioneer Woman
• Savilintu
  

I hope everyone has had a lovely weekend. I had better get started on that pile of sewing!

P.S. I forgot someone had asked awhile back if I could get them the link to my old music playlist. I took it off because it was screwing up my page, but I want to make a new one sometime. Until then, you can find the old one here. :)

oatmeal pancakes.

I woke up this morning to find a plate full of oatmeal pancakes. How did Dad know I was craving oatmeal pancakes? Thanks, Dad! :)

weekend... already?

Wow, time sure flies! I can't believe it's already Friday. I don't have a lot of time at the moment, but wanted to share the pictures I've been taking of my breakfasts. Plus last night I decided to make more bread! I mixed it up last night and let it sit overnight for about 12 hours. I'd say it turned out rather nice. It's delicious, too.

On a different note, I'm thinking of doing the whole no-shampoo thing again. Awhile back I broke down and used shampoo and when you do that, it's so hard to get back into the no-shampoo routine. But right now my hair is just nasty. I shampoo it and it's still gross. I blame it on the weather. Anyhow, I'm going to post more about this later, but wanted to give a little shout-out to anyone who wants to join me. No shampooing for at least six weeks! We could start a little support group, taking a picture every two weeks to see the progress. If you're interested, check out my next post.

Have a wonderful weekend, all!

p.s. Thank you all for the breakfast suggestions! They're great!

brunch with annie.

I made cinnamon rolls today using the left over bread dough (that same no-knead dough I have been raving about) and it turned out pretty good! Except next time I will not leave it in the oven as long as I did. They were a bit crispy. But they were still edible. A little too edible, I might add. Yum. Let's just say it's very hard to stop at one.

sunday.monday.tuesday.

{today.}


{yesterday}


{sunday.}

I guess the times slipped away from me and I didn't get a chance to sit down and post anything. So we've got three breakfasts to show you today. Nothing exciting lately. I'll try to be more creative. I've just not had a lot of time to think about breakfast. Any ideas?

granola.take two

Yes, granola once again. But it's so good and so easy.

In a few minutes I'm going to head out to Shape Note singing. Can't wait! I've been starting to do this once a month and enjoying it immensely.

Last night I saw the movie Rachel Getting Married with some friends. I'd never heard of it before and it turned out to be a really great movie. You should check it out. {And I was also quite pleasantly surprised to discover Tunde Adebimpe, singer from the awesome band TV on the Radio, playing the groom!}

Have a fantastic weekend! I've got a full to-do list of things to accomplish {hint: there is no way I'm getting all of this accomplished}.

granola.

I'm one of those people who really can't stand oatmeal. I mean, the oats themselves are fine, just don't prefer that soggy dish people seem to always make for breakfast. I know it's healthy and all that, but I think it's kind of revolting. Even as a child whenever I had cereal for breakfast, I didn't put milk in it because I hated how mushy it got. (Also my dad would make me drink the milk at the bottom of the bowl and I thought that was disgusting.) So when I make my oatmeal, I like it to crunch. Granola is the happy alternative. This time I used a recipe for peanut butter granola. It uses very little peanut butter, but it's that awesome natural kind (which I think is marvelous). I also added a few raisins in mine. I'm really starting to dig this whole breakfast thing. It has definitely helped me wake up in the morning. I wonder if that's the reason breakfast was invented in the first place? Probably not, but it's a nice thought.

toast and more toast.

I didn't have time to upload pictures from yesterday and honestly, toast can get kinda boring to photograph after awhile. I'm sure if I was a better photographer, I'd find all these cool new ways to make toast look grand, but I'm not. Yesterday I made some white no-knead bread and it was delicious! This could become a bad thing if I make it too often. That just means I'll be eating bread all the time and I don't really need that much bread in my diet! But I have a bucket full of dough left in the fridge and I'm so tempted to put in another loaf today.

toast.

Yesterday I decided to try out that recipe for no-knead bread that I keep hearing about. As I was making it, I discovered we only had 2 cups of all-purpose flour left, so I had to use whole wheat for the remaining amount. I like whole wheat bread, so I was fine with that. But I wasn't sure if it would screw up this recipe as wheat tends to be a little bit heavier than white flour. It worked out just fine and this morning I made toast with blackberry jam. Exactly what I needed to start out the day. The nice thing about this recipe is that you can stick the remaining dough in the fridge for up to two weeks and break off a chunk to bake whenever you feel like bread. Next time I'm going to try it with white flour and see if there's much of a difference. I also found this video that was helpful. I'd like to check out this cookbook too.

nothing special

I decided to just re-heat the left over muffins from yesterday's breakfast. Simple, but I didn't have time to make anything this morning. Lots to get done today! I cannot believe it's almost February. Seems like the time has completely passed me by.

Be well.

donut muffins.

Recipe can be found here.

Feel like a good movie on a lazy Sunday afternoon? You might want to check out this adorable film, Vivacious Lady. You can't go wrong with Ginger Rogers and Jimmy Stewart.

As for me? I'm going to continue sewing and watching movies that I've seen over and over again in hopes that I won't get too distracted by them. I've tried watching movies I've never seen before and work at the same time, but I'm always distracted and end up getting nothing accomplished. Most likely it will be some Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire films or The Thin Man. They never fail to make me incredibly happy.

One more week until February! Have a fabulous new week and what's left of the weekend.

{On second thought, perhaps My Man Godfrey is in order for this afternoon. :) }

egg again.

Another rather boring breakfast, but this time I didn't burn the egg! I added cheese and made it into a sort of omelet instead. Tasted much better than the burnt egg I ate yesterday.

Nothing super exciting today. I've got to finish a project I'm working on and then dive into my taxes, which is pretty much furthest away from fun as you can get. But maybe I'll make it fun by putting on a movie while I sit there typing in numbers. I could never be an accountant in a million trillion years. {Funny I say that, because having your own business automatically makes you an accountant of sorts.}

Well I'm off to get things done.

Also, Vetiver is coming out with a new album in February. Love. {Don't forget to click on the mp3 "Everyday." Pretty song I can't stop listening to.}

And, this song by Bon Iver. {via. Lisen.}

egg.

I actually burnt my egg. Probably the simplest breakfast you could make. What a special way to start out the day. :)

I'm making red velvet cake for my friend's birthday today. Actually her birthday was last weekend, but we are celebrating it tonight. I also picked up champagne and orange juice to make mimosa's! It's her favorite, any time of the day or night. Doesn't have to be at breakfast. And we're going out to eat. Should be delightful evening. In the meantime, I've got to get some mad sewing done! Happy Friday!

home-made bagels.

Home-made bagels for the first time ever! Next time I won't bake them as long as I did. I was afraid they might not get done, so I left them in for a few minutes longer than the recipe directed and they came out a little too brown. Oops. Live and learn. Also I might try making the bagels a smidge bit smaller. But they were really very easy to make and I have a bunch of ideas for different types of bagels next time. I'd like to try a whole grain bagel for sure. Maybe something with oats and honey in it. Oh the possibilities! I used this recipe. They even show a short video on how to form the bagels, which was quite helpful.

The book I'm flipping through is a Christmas present from my grandma! It's one of the Japanese Craft Books that many of us obsess over. This one is Natural Material Clothes Pt. 2. Lots of great ideas in that book. They even have a pattern for leather sandals! I'm itching to make them for the summer. Perhaps I will document how I make them on here whenever I get around to that.

Listening to Alela Diane. Watch this beautiful video! More of her lovely music here.

banana muffins.

We had bananas that needed to be used, so I decided to mix up a quick batch of banana muffins. Oh man, it is hard to stop at just one.

Listening to Chopin.