Christmas Break Part 1 of 4

It seems like time has flown by since Christmas! Let me back up and go from my last post. We spent Christmas in Leoti, KS with Chris’ family. We had a great time and really enjoyed being able to just chill after working hard all semester. It was nice to have nothing to do. Although, I did learn a few new tricks of the trade of being a Laws:

1. Sugar goes in lots of things that I have not put sugar in before
2. ish is a good measurement.

I learned to make “real” cinnamon rolls while I was there. I have made them before with my dad, but I don’t think I ever made the dough from scratch. There is a reason for this: I don’t do the yeast rising thing too well. : o )

After throwing all the ingredients in together, and mushing it with my hands for a good 10 minutes or so, I was wishing it was Christmas evening I was doing this instead of Dec. 24 (we got Carol a Kitchen Aid and there was a dough-hook attachment for kneading the dough! Boy I wanted to break that out of the box…but I restrained.) Needless to say, the first batch did not turn out : - ( and Carol had to remake the dough…she kindly said it could have been the yeast, but I think it was the “Robin” factor. (hence the reason I usually don’t make things with yeast in them…they just don’t seem to rise properly…?!)

After she made the fresh batch of dough, I helped cinnamon and sugar, roll them up, cut them, and sugar the pan, followed by putting them in the pan for baking. AND-then they had to rise again….I’m too impatient for that…so I think I’ll stick to the ones in the can, and you can keep the icing. But I did appreciate the learning process to validate the reason I usually make cinnamon rolls from the can : o )

Another thing I learned to make is the famed “Chicken and Noodles.” Chris said he almost couldn’t marry me because I did not know how to make this…but he was willing to make an exception! Tee hee-Lucky me! So to go along with Carol’s Christmas present, Terry got her the attachment for making noodles. So, back to dough-making we went-but this time, NO YEAST! This will be swell, I thought!

I got a good chuckle out of watching Carol during this process. I put the ingredients in the Kitchen Aid Mixer and she supervised, and threw some things in here and there. We put the machine to mixing…and every now and then she would stop it and feel the dough. She said she was a bit nervous about making it with the mixer because she has only ever made it by hand and won’t know when the dough is right. THIS IS WHERE THE 2nd thing I learned comes into play: the “ish” measurement. The measurements would never be exact, therefore it was always-“ish”—like 1 1/2 cups-ish. Or “oh that looks good.” I have hard time knowing when or how to make something when the “ish” is good enough…or did I need more? But she set me straight, and the dough came out all right. Before long we were rolling out the dough with the new attachment. All in all, the dish came out well and the noodles were quite delicious. Carol wonders why she didn’t get one of those years ago…it hardly took any time or effort to make the dough and the noodles!