An old fashioned breakfast

Cinnamon rolls. Hot, yeasty, and straight from the oven. Does breakfast get any better than that?

It does if the recipe is from pioneer times. Or at least if we can imagine it is. I don't know how far back this recipe dates but I know they used a lot of sourdough in the 1800's and this cinnamon roll recipe calls for sourdough. So...if it doesn't date that far back please leave me with my illusions.

However far back it dates it is my understanding that this recipe is from the Appalachian area so it has its own history.

And whatever time period or geographic location it's from, it was a hit at my house this morning. My two year old grandson started out wanting to know 'what is this' and ended by saying 'I love this.' Everyone else just wanted seconds...and thirds... and...

Well, you get the idea.

So from my house to yours, here's a wonderful cinnamon roll recipe that's well worth the time it takes to make them. 

4 tsp salt

5 tbsp. sugar

2 cup milk

 1 cup sourdough starter (if you don't have a sourdough starter you can substitute 1 pkg yeast)

10 tbsp melted shortening

 4eggs, slightly beaten

6 cups sifted flour

Cinnamon filling (I had plenty of filling left over...and I used it liberally... so you may want to use only a cup of brown sugar)

1 1/2  cup packed light brown sugar
6 tablespoons quality ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix the yeast and milk and sugar and salt together and let rise for 30 minutes. (I skipped the rise time here because at this point my mixture was very liquidy and there wasn't any hope of it rising. I did let it sit for a few minutes just to make sure everything was mixed well. My sourdough starter was very watery...my daughter was the last one to feed it and she believes it might be extremely thirsty...so the consistency of your dough will vary with the liquid content of your sourdough). Add the remaining ingredients and mix, let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes. Mix up the filling, roll out the dough into a large rectangle, apply butter and add filling. Roll into a loaf, slice into cinnamon rolls and arrange on a buttered pan. Allow to rise again in a warm place for 30 minutes or until double. Bake at 400 for 10-20 minutes. (My first pan of cinnamon rolls didn't rise like it should have because I didn't put it in a warm enough spot. I went ahead and baked though to satisfy little bellies. The next batch rose nicely.)

Frosting

2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla

Milk-enough to bring sugar to frosting consistency

Spoon over rolls when they come out of the oven. 

Enjoy!

Flowing Words

What makes the words flow? What is it that makes one person a writer and another say I can’t string two sentences together.

Writing is a gift…I know that.

And yet.

Where do the words come from?

Growing up I was always the little girl that sat and day dreamed. At home. At school. In the car. It didn’t matter where I was or what I was doing…I lived in a dream world. Sometimes I did it as an escape, to get myself away from where I was and what was happening. Sometimes I did it because I was bored. And other times…I just did it because the imaginings were there.

In school I enjoyed the assignments that required writing the most. It didn’t matter the subject I’d take an essay or a report over multiple choice any day.

The words just came even back then.

I think I was about 15 the first time I ever attempted to write a book. I say attempted because it was doomed to failure from the start. A spiral notebook, a pencil, and the determination to write another book just like ‘that one’ because I wasn’t ready for that one to end… That was not a set up for success. But it was a beginning. I completely wrote my first manuscript at age 19 or 20. I made it all the way to the end with that one.

But that time I had a computer.

My husband tells me… ‘you sure can write’. And it doesn’t seem to matter if I’m writing a blog post, a book, or just a letter. His opinion is that I can write.

Sometimes I think he wishes I’d write just a little less.

And he hasn’t seen me get lost in writing for 12 to 15 hours at a time. I do most of my writing when he isn’t home so that I can focus on him when he is.

Still…I have no idea where the words come from.

Or why some days I can turn out five blog posts and other days I can’t think of any. I don’t know why sometimes I have more story ideas than I’ll ever be able to popping into my head write (my document section in my computer proves this) and other days there simply isn’t an idea to be found.

I am simply one of those people that can take a word and make a story. Even when there are no ideas, when I think my imagination has been wiped clean, even then I can take a simple word and turn out a story, a letter, a blog post…something.

So, dear readers, here’s a challenge for you. Take one word and turn it into something. If you’re inclined to play this writing game with me…

What can you do with the word corset?

Post your stories in the comment section for a chance to have your story posted on my blog along with your bio and the option of writing a blog post to appear on my blog. My daughters will randomly pick a winner on Feb. 14.

Happy writing.

 

Capturing the Emotions

You see them everywhere. Couples. Husbands and wives. Men and women. Some make you happy just looking at them, seeing their joy in each other. Some make you shake your head and wonder how they manage to stay together. Some are like carbon copies of each other- they dress alike, act alike, talk alike. Some you’d never know they even know each other.

I never had the privilege of knowing a couple that took true joy in each other. My grandparents fought like cats and dogs and kept all sorts of secrets from each other. My aunt and uncle fought like Tasmanian devils with machetes. My adopted grandparents seemed to have marriage down to a comfort level-they lived together, got along well, but I can’t remember them ever showing a speck of emotion for the other. My mom and stepdad spent time together and argued often. My mom kept secrets and talked bad about her husband when he wasn’t around.  These were the prominent marriages in my life as I grew up. It was what I saw, what I learned.

But they aren’t the couples I’ve always enjoyed seeing together. It’s the elderly couples holding hands as they walk into the grocery store, the men who look at their wives across a room and their expressions change, the women who seem to gravitate toward their husbands- looking happier when they’re with them than when they’re apart… Those are the couples I enjoy seeing together. They’re the ones that give hope to everyone around them. They’re what we strive to capture when we write romance.

There’s a couple at my church that you can tell get pure joy from one another. He lights up when she walks in the room, she becomes…more…when he’s around. He looks at her with pure indulgence on his face, she leans close everytime he gets near. And when they’re surrounded by people…they’re in a world all their own.

And they’re a joy to watch because they bring romance to life.

I’ve tried time and time again to capture all of that in a manuscript. My hero’s give in to my heroines, they hold their hands, stroke their cheeks. Their eyes soften when they look at each other. She gets warm and tingly when he touches her in the lightest caress.

Those deep relationships are something I find most difficult to capture with words. I struggle to put onto ‘paper’ (okay its digital paper on the computer but still…) the emotions I see in those very few couples that seem to get it right leave me longing to capture it in the relationships I write about.

I have one hero that refers to a picture of the heroine as looking at the camera with love then he goes on to think that she only ever looks that way when he’s behind the camera. In another manuscript the world disappears everytime the hero and heroine look at each other. For her…she gets sucked in and nothing exists but the man in front of her.

But no matter how hard I try I’m always left feeling like I can’t capture those feelings. I can’t grasp and transfer to my manuscripts the deep affection and…what? Completeness? Oblivion? Love?... that I see in those very few couples.

How do you portray the emotions between your couples?