Ice Storm Time

Sunday night, we started out with snow, but then early in the evening it turned to rain. Unfortunately, it turned to ice. And by this morning, we woke up to an ice covered fairyland of sparkle. All day today it’s been snowing again, blowing and drifting. It’s not very nice out there. Our car Blue is all encased in ice and snow, thank goodness we really don’t have anywhere that we have to be. I have practice tomorrow, so I hope that maybe we can dig her out of her icy coat.

We had a crockpot of ham bone and potato soup cooking all day and it was the perfect dinner for our icy night, tonight. A friend was coming over to work on his website I’m building, but that got canceled because of the weather. So it’s been back to back episodes of 24 on Netflix for me while I do some work for clients and catch up on a few blog posts. The girls are catching up on orders and watching anime movies. It’s actually kind of nice to have to be home, takes a little pressure off what you NEED to do, as opposed to what you CAN do. Right now? All we can do is stay home, stay warm and hope that we don’t loose electricity. So far, so good!

Jessy went outside around noon and took some beautiful pictures in the ice. I thought I would share some of them.

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Don’t you just love jars?

I have to admit it. I’m in love with jars.

Do you think there is a 12 step program for someone that is just a little too fond of glass jars? Of course, I love the old blue Mason jars… and I have several really old ones, in fact one is from 1910! The color of the jars is so beautiful. I love how they hold buttons and bottlecaps and anything that you have to collect.

But I also love clear glass jars, especially to hold spices and dried foods, condiments and other lovely food items. We use them instead of plastic and storage wear in the frig. Ikea has some beautiful jars and they are very reasonably priced. Every time we go to Ikea (which is once or twice a year since it’s about an hour away) we always pick up a few of them. I just love how they look in the pantry.


Last summer I got a great deal on over a dozen jars of spice mix and we’ve been using them in this and that. Awesome on chicken or steak, in hamburger mix, those kinds of things. But we had so many little plastic containers, it was getting a little crazy, so we combined them all! Most of them were very similar in style, so we just mixed them all down. Don’t they look beautiful? I think we have enough season spice mix for EVER! And I know that it will last longer in a nice glass jar.

Am I the only one with this affliction? I can’t wait until we can have a section of shelves all filled with our lovely jars in rows. Sooner than later I hope…

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Sweet Bread Rolls



We have found a wonderful sweet yeast roll/bread dough recipe. It’s a delightful old recipe from an old cookbook page.

1 cup warm water
5 tsp yeast
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp salt
4 -4 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

Combine the yeast, warm water and 1 tablespoon of the sugar in a bowl or measuring cup. Allow to soften and foam, about 5 minutes.

In another large bowl, or in your mixer bowl, combine butter, sugar, eggs and salt. Pour in yeast mixture. Beat in flour, one cup at a time, until the dough is stiff. Cover it with plastic wrap and pop in the frig for 2 hours or up to a couple days. You can use some as rolls and then say the rest for cinnamon rolls the next day.

Cut the dough into 24 equal spaces for rolls. Roll into little balls on a floured surface. Pop on a lightly greased pan, cover with a towel and when they have doubled in size, you’re ready to bake. Preheated oven, 375 degrees. Depending on the size, 15-20 minutes should make them perfect. You can brush with melted butter if you want to make them absolutely amazing!




We like to cook half the dough as rolls, making about a dozen little beautiful rolls… but then save half the dough for breakfast cinnamon rolls. They are so easy! Just roll out the half of the dough into a rectangle shape. Sprinkle with a mixture of white sugar, brown sugar and a little cinnamon sprinkled over. Thinly slice cold butter and lay on the sugars. Then roll up and slice into six thick slices. Pop on a pan and let rise for a little bit. About an hour is perfect.




Once they have risen, you can pop them into a oven at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes. Keep an eye on them, when they look perfect, you can bring them out to rest for a bit. We just make a simple powdered sugar icing by melting a tablespoon of butter in a dish, adding several large spoonfuls of powered sugar to it. You can add a wee bit of vanilla and then stir, adding a few drops of water until you get the consistency you want. It’s super easy, sorry we don’t have a perfect measured recipe but that’s how we cook a lot, just by a dash and a bit and a pinch.

Its best to let the rolls cool a little bit, maybe 10 minutes, or else the icing will just melt off the rolls. Usually the time it takes to make the icing is plenty enough for them to cool a bit. You don’t want them totally cool, just not hot outta the oven. Drizzle over and serve to wonderfully happy friends and family… these are so good!


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