Those bitterly cold temperatures that arrived late last week apparently are here to stay. We awoke Saturday to minus 11 degrees, with wind chills hitting minus 29. Sunday was a tad warmer, only minus 7 in the morning and the daytime temps have been in the single digits. Jack frost is busy frosting everything, even the front storm door.
When the weather gets this cold, I tend to prefer indoor activities, the rest of my family doesn't seem to mind the cold and ventured out for their usual skiing and a late afternoon snowshoe hike in our woods
(I stayed happily warm in the kitchen cooking, but took this photo from the kitchen patio door :-)
So what's good on a cold day?
Pumpkin Cinnamon Pecan Rolls with a little help from Nikki after her hike with the boys.
Pumpkin Cinnamon Pecan Rolls with a little help from Nikki after her hike with the boys.
Log filled with a little butter, cinnamon, sugar & pecans
Nikki working on her "roll" technique - at 7 she's getting quite good
Nikki making her own little dish of rolls
The finished result
Let's not forget the cream cheese frosting, even if the boys' already stole a few hot rolls
Isn't the pumpkin color just lovely in these rolls? These are my new "cinnamon roll" of choice. Moist, lightly sweet with just a subtle pumpkin flavor. They were quickly gobbled up by the cold, hungry crowd here, with requests for them to be made again soon.
The recipe is a King Arthur Flour Recipe Pumpkin Swirl Cinnamon Rolls with several of my personal modifications and additions -
I add a little allspice to the dough; I add a little butter, then make my own cinnamon/sugar filling and add chopped pecans when I make the log & I also substitute cream cheese frosting in place of the sweeter glaze on their recipe b/c my family doesn't like really sweet toppings.
While I think my family might have liked to eat just these for dinner,
I did make my european peasant bread and a pot of Smoky French Split Pea Soup to go with these goodies!
I did make my european peasant bread and a pot of Smoky French Split Pea Soup to go with these goodies!
Later this week, some very exciting news on the crafting front...
Until then, I'm pretty sure the Groundhog's gonna see his shadow tomorrow because
we have a lot more than 6 weeks of winter left here in New Hampshire!
we have a lot more than 6 weeks of winter left here in New Hampshire!
Your family is so adventurous to get out a snowshoe like that. Mike would love it if I was into that kind of thing, but I'd much more an "indoorsman". He's trying his darnedest to get the girls to be outdoorsy. They aren't so bad when it's warm out, but they can only stand being outside in the cold for so long before they want to come in and drink hot cocoa.
ReplyDeleteYum. can you come here and make those for me? It's so wonderful that Nikki is developing such her cooking/baking skills. She sure has a talented teacher:)
Brrr, that is definitely colder than I like, too. It's only gotten below zero once or twice this winter so far. I like to stay inside, too, if I can. It's the wind that makes it feel so bitter and actually painful.