Tahoe

Here are a few collages of Tahoe pictures. The pictures here take awhile to get posted so I created a couple collages to speed the process up!

We had a great time -- our only plan was to RELAX -- which is what we did.

The club house at the timeshare (thank you mom) had some art projects - we had lots of fun making them. We did candle holders and candy trains.

I look my Kitchen Aid because I did want to do some baking. I made a French Bread loaf and two different kinds of cookies, Sugar cookies & Molassas Oatmeal Chocolate Chip - will post this recipe another time. We didn't add the colored icing to the cookies as I don't like the girls to get the artifical colors and I haven't jumped at spending $20 for a set of natural coloring yet - I guess that might have been something I could have asked Santa for! The French Bread I made with 1/2 wheat flour and 1/2 white. It was very good - it might have been better if it would have risen more but I couldn't get it to rise any more and it was time to get it in the oven to have it with dinner.

We went out to play in the snow, it started snowing the 2nd day we were there - and by Sunday we had a huge snowstorm and got about 12 inches between Sunday evening and Monday evening. We didn't stay outside to play long - it was snowing to hard!

On the way home -- the mountains are just beautiful lightly covered in the beautiful white snow. Here you can see the ice on our tires -- this is after we got to where we could take the chains off (and some of the ice had already come off!)

We had a great time! We can't wait for our next vacation even more though -- Mickey here we come!

Baking, Menu Changes and More!

Well I had a busy afternoon, in the kitchen, but it was so nice to be back in the kitchen and baking. I don't bake much in the summer! I was able to make some rolls, cinnamon rolls and some pretzels.

The cinnamon roll and soft pretzel recipe came from Laura at Heavenly Homemakers. I am always interested in being able to freeze things before they are finished so I have fresh baked homemade items without all the time it takes to make them. So today I started an experiment, I made ONE batch of the dough for the cinnamon rolls/pretzels. The dough is the same for both of these so I simply made 1/2 into cinnamon rolls and the other half into the pretzels.

The cinnamon rolls - I made up one batch right then (5 rolls) so I would know what fresh baked tasted like - prior to freezing. The remaining rolls I cut up and laid out on a jelly roll pan then put into the freezer. 2-3 hours later I took them off the pan and put into a ziplock bag for the freezer. Next week (probably for Thanksgiving) I will take them out the night before put in a pan in the fridge and then simply bake that morning. I will return and report what I find out and if they turn out as good as they were tonight. I only had one (and didn't make the ooey gooey frosting for them yet) but they were still pretty good. We will have the others for breakfast in the morning.

This is what they looked like on the tray put into the freezer.

Here is what the bag looked like that went into the freezer:

As for the pretzels - both Rebecca and Rachel LOVED them and I thought they were good also but I did not make them thin enough so they ended up being REALLY soft (cooked but still really soft) so I know next time to really roll them out thinner. I put them into a ziploc for tomorrows snack. I did not try freezing any of these (not sure why!) but next time I make them I will try freezing these also.

I also made up a quick batch of rolls (sorry no pictures) using a recipe from Janelle at Home with my Monkeys. These rolls were pretty good for the little time they actually took, about an hour total. I made them up -- mixed in the Kitchen Aid then formed rolls (she said her recipe makes about 2 dozen -- she must make smaller rolls -- I got about 14). I then put them in the oven and turned it on-- they raised up quite nicely in the preheating time. They were done before the rest of dinner.

Speaking of dinners my menu plan for this week looked pretty pathetic (leftovers, and more leftovers!!)

Menu Revisions!

Well Sunday we had Ribs, Baked Potatoes, Carrots and Salad that a sister brought over.

Monday we had a Rotarisse Chicken with Potato Salad, Broccoli and Rolls.

So today we finished off the Chicken Pasta Alfredo that the people from work brought to us, had the carrots, the remaining Baked Potato, the rolls I made and some more of the Rotarisse chicken.

Tomorrow I am making Chicken Taco Soup using some of the broth I made from the chicken - it will be done in the crockpot. The leftovers will be frozen for meals during the holidays when we are to busy to cook a meal!