Ooh Baby Butterscotch Buns

A lot of buns taste better warm out of the oven - and slowly lose their appeal as they sit around.  If there are any buns left by the next day, they're practically inedible in comparison to what was experienced when they were literally hot out of the oven.  Not with these buns!  

These actually taste better when you let them get to room temperature.  They are great the whole day, the next afternoon - and even the day after that.  If that's not enough, they're also very simple to make - I'd say beginners level baking.  Turn the oven on, you're making Butterscotch Buns!

Butterscotch Buns

Preheat oven to 425

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup plus 1tbsp packed brown sugar 

Cream butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.  Set aside.

2 cups cake and pastry flour (or all purpose flour)

2 tbsp white sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Mix dry ingredients together in large bowl

1/4 cup chilled butter or vegetable shortening*

Cut butter or shortening into cubes and put in flour mixture.  Cut into flour mixture using a pastry cutter until crumbly.  Make a well in the middle of the bowl.

3/4 -1cup milk

Slowly add milk 1/4 cup at a time.  You may not need to use all the milk, please don't add it all at once!  You want just enough liquid to hold the dough together.  Once combined, knead the dough in the bowl a few times to ensure it's fully mixed.  

Transfer dough to floured board and roll out to 2cm thickness, roughly a 10X10 inch square.  Spread butter and sugar mixture evenly on dough - spreading right out to the edges.  I usually do this with a butter knife so I don't get overzealous and rip the dough with vigorous spreading.  Tightly roll the dough into a log and slice into 1 inch pieces.  Place a few centimetres apart from each other on a parchment lined baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes.  While buns are baking prepare a second cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Once buns are done baking, place second tray over the first and invert the buns (flip them over on the clean tray).  If you're a butter-a-holic, you can brush melted butter over the tops of the buns before they cool to keep the edges from getting too dry.  If you can manage to wait until they are cool, they are better at room temperature - but I'll admit, knowing they're better cool hasn't stopped me from eating one hot almost every time I make them! 

Happy Baking!

*Biscuits are traditionally made with lard.  They turn out lighter, flakier, and truly scrumptious.  I've tried this recipe with both butter and vegetable shortening and I prefer the shortening.  They are delicious either way, but if you eat anything deep fried at restaurants you're eating lard so just try it the proper way :) *  

Remembering.... Every Day

Remembrance Day is unfortunately being clouded by arguments surrounding the white poppy, red poppy, Christmas lights on too early, etc.  While all of these issues can be discussed (hopefully with civility) it is important we don't let them overshadow why we remember. 

Pacifists.  War supporters.  Soldiers.  We are all called on to Remember.  

Beyond wearing a poppy or shedding a tear at a Remembrance Day service, what do we do to truly remember?  Honour.  Show gratitude.  

This Remembrance Day, and every other day - live a true life.  A life that doesn't trivialize what so many have sacrificed on our behalves.  

Consider what a soldier might have wanted from the life they gave.  Consider the regrets expressed on deathbeds.  Yes, it is morbid - but war is grim, and we need to remember that deeply enough to cause change.  Spend time with those you love.  Real time.  Sit down at the dinner table together.  Enjoy the freedom to walk outside.  No curfews.  No armed soldiers on sidewalks.  Take time, every day, to appreciate living in a peaceful country.  Educate yourself on what war was like for your family members who lived through wars past.  Rations.  Children shipped away from mothers to "safe zones".  Talk to a family with someone in service now.  What do soldiers need from us?  Letters?  Care packages?  Do families left behind need support?  Beyond our peaceful borders, there are many war zones.  Support a trusted charity helping those in refugee camps.  Refugee camps filled with children, the elderly, and men and women without the opportunity to work, grow food, or create a life for themselves.  

There are so many ways to live a life that Remembers.  Let's spend less time arguing over poppies, when the Christmas season should begin or whether or not we agree with war - and focus that energy on living a life that honours the freedom we are fortunate enough to have.  

Friday of Selfies

Selfie Friday makes me so happy, and this week is the best week of submissions EVER!  

Happy Friday!

 Not to offend any other submissions, but this may be THE best selfie set I have ever seen.  I wish I had an award to hand out - this is just so amazing!

Saving your Children's Artwork

I have a lot of little people in my house, and for now they are all young enough to adore me.  I get cards and pictures like you wouldn't believe.  I don't think children should feel like they are the centre of the world and all their art should be cherished as if drawn by Picasso himself, but they did make something they're proud of and probably shouldn't see it sitting in the recycling the next morning.  

I'm pretty honest with my kids.  Age appropriate honesty of course.  I don't like recycling their art without telling them that's what is going to happen, so if they're feeling attached to what they've made I take a picture with a digital camera and then recycle it.  They feel happy that their paper is going off to a plant to make more paper, and also feel like all their work wasn't for naught.  

This was a sign my son wanted me to take a pic of and post to facebook so he could "get work".  Is this one saved on the external hard drive?  You betcha.  The print says he will work for one week, for $5.00 - but that's only for people 45 and under, for "old" people it's free!  

I usually wait until our art table is crammed with paper (every four months or so), take 30-40 minutes and sort out all the artwork and take digital pictures of all the "special" pieces.  Computers have a lot of digital space these days, and if yours doesn't there are external hard drives and online storage like iCloud.  Your kids will get to "keep" their art, and you get a tidy art corner again!  

Get Handy!

I know a lot of us wait for someone to get things done for us.  A sink that is leaky, a step that is wobbly, holes in walls waiting to be filled.  Ladies and Gents, wait no more, YOU can do it!

I'm not sure why this is the image I see when I type "YOU can do it", but it is - so remember Uncle Sam's face when faced  with an around-the-house job!

I live in a beautiful old home that I am lucky to have.  It was completed in 1920 by a company who helped build this city and made it what it is today.  I love living in an old home, and couldn't imagine myself anywhere else.   The problem is, the people who lived in this home before me may have loved it, but they didn't love it true.  The hardwood floors were covered with nailed in particle board (whaaa?), walls were half painted, there was a garbage bag in place of a window.  You get the idea.  Slowly, my family (husband, father and myself) have been restoring this beauty.  This next project started with a light fixture.  

I found a beautiful light fixture at an antique barn.  Ten bucks.  Couldn't beat it.  My Dad saw the light and started rewiring the front porch so we could hang it.  I didn't even have to ask - now that's a Dad! The box for the light had been boarded up and the light moved to the side of the house prior to us buying it.  It took days longer than he expected (brick cut, holes in walls, etc) but the light was up.  The light shone bright on my hideous front porch ceiling.  It had to be fixed.  

This paint was make-shift for a few years - the original ceiling colour was the yellow you see where the light fixture should hang.

Older homes usually have wood panelling lining the porch ceiling and at one point my house would have had it too.  For whatever reason, it was replaced with particle board.  

I debated painting and stenciling it.  Maybe tin.  No... it would have to be wood panelling, true to the house.  And I would do it on my own.  

I shopped for wood slats or panelling, ultimately deciding on tongue and groove.  Most older ceilings have much smaller slats but I couldn't get the length I needed in the thickness (needed to be very thin and light) required.  

I bought the wood, quarter round and stain.  I brought everything home, remeasured my dimensions and cut all the wood (not the quarter round).  I used a little mitre saw I picked up at a yard sale, and guess what - I still have all my fingers!  After it was cut, I stained it prior to installing so I didn't have to torture myself staining something so far above my head.  

I borrowed my Dad's air compressor nail gun to install the panels of stained, cut wood.  It's big, heavy and noisy but it does a great job and is totally worth getting your hands on (borrow or rent) if you're doing a project like this.  The panels were just shy of 7ft, and I needed my husbands to help to hold them up, wedge the tongue into the groove and nail it.  

I brought the quarter round and the mitre saw to the front porch so I could cut each piece as I went along.  Angles are not my friend.  It took an insane amount of time for me to figure out what angle I needed and how to achieve that angle with the saw.  After installing all the quarter round I gave myself a giant pat on the back for sticking it through, not calling my Dad to come do it for me, and not compromising on the quality of work.  I lastly took a small paintbrush and stained any nail marks that left a hole big enough to see the unstained wood.  

That's it.  Four days*, $100.00, a lot of sweating and cursing - and I have a beautiful front porch that suits the home.  If you have a project you've been waiting (maybe nagging a little) to get done, just try doing it yourself - the results might surprise you!

*Four days with prepping/making meals, changing bums, cuddling, breaking up fights, running the household included. It might take a lot less time without so many little ones to chase around*

Voila!

YouTube is a great resource for learning how to do things.  Watch a few videos related to what you'd like to do and give it a try.

The story of my Hairy Pitts

My family isn't Catholic, but we do practice Lent.  Lent in a nutshell, is fasting or abstaining from certain things for the 40 days preceding Easter.  This is done to prepare oneself for the most important Biblical event in a calendar year, the remembrance and celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  

Although the Faith shared by my family strips religiosity out of their relationship with God, Lent is a practice we have carried on because of its ability to cleanse our hearts and souls.  Think of it as a juice cleanse for the soul.  

One of our first Lent seasons we collectively chose to stop purchasing anything outside of food and gas.  Nothing new, or used was purchased.  While 40 days doesn't seem like an extreme amount of time to abstain from buying stuff it was actually very difficult.  It was post Christmas clearance season, plus lots of new things coming in for Spring, and for someone stuck in the consumer mindset it was hard.  All of this to say that this first observance of Lent led to a lot of changes in me.  

Removing myself from the buying culture made me so happy.  I felt relieved and more satisfied and ultimately duped by the system I had so unconsciously become a part of.  This led me to challenge other beliefs within that system - such as makeup, shaving, deodorant, etc.  Things society told me I needed to be happy just as it had with buying stuff.  

Enter the hairy armpits. 

I do not own the copyright to this photograph.  

Sophia Loren - one of the greatest beauties of all time, showing off her glorious underarm hair.  

I committed to a year.  A year without make up.  A year without shaving.  A year without deodorant.  A year without buying (I did make exceptions for buying used clothing on half off days).  A year of deciding what I want and not what I'm told to want. 

Although I could expound on what I learned about myself during that time, I will save you the Lena Dunham introspection (I love her, that wasn't an insult) .  The result was I made decisions for myself.  

I love shaving my legs.  I like shaving them, wearing shorts to bed and feeling how soft and silky they are.  

I like wearing makeup for special occasions.  I don't want it every day.  I don't feel the need to put it on every time I leave the house, go to an event or visit a friend.  There's also nothing wrong with putting on a pinch of makeup.  Eyebrows and lipstick are what I do 99% of the time. 

I like deodorant.  It's an essential thing for me.  I'm stinky.  Almost to the point of inhuman.  I didn't want to go back to deodorant full of aluminium and chemicals so I shopped around trying many (if not every) kind of natural deodorant and have found the stuff my husband makes me works the best.  I'm sharing the recipe today (see below).  

I love my hairy armpits.  Yes, there is a small part of me that probably loves it because it grosses a lot of people out.  I also have a slightly larger part of me that loves to challenge typical standards for beauty. Society's insistence on us shaving or waxing absolutely everything except our heads is ridiculous.  What the big payoff is, and 90% of why I don't shave my pitts is that my armpits feel and smell better.  No more razor bumps or ingrown hairs.  No burning when I put deodorant on after a shave (although that wouldn't happen with the deodorant I use now).  Nothing but glorious, soft, and what I consider beautiful, hair.   

You don't have to take a full year to try this.  You don't have to try it at all if you don't want.   If I can insist on you doing anything, just take the rest of the day and consider why you do things.  If you feel pressured to look and be a certain way, identify those pressures and relieve yourself of them.  People who love you will allow you to change (if it is a healthy change).  

Deodorant Recipe

1 tbsp cocoa butter

2 tbsp shea butter

1 tbsp baking soda

2 tbsp corn starch

Essential oil of your choice

Melt cocoa and shea butter and add remaining ingredients.  Choose your essential oil wisely.  I love bergamot and patchouli, but lavender, or peppermint are also great options.  If you have sensitive armpits use less essential oil (or none at all) and add as many or little drops as you'd like.  Mix well and pour into muffin paper or an old deodorant applicator.  Allow to set for 24 hours before using.  

Selfie Friday my Friends

Two is better than none?  Send in your selfies, it's fun to laugh at other people (of course) but even more fun to laugh at yourself!

I think I make a pretty good man.  This is what I handed out candy looking like last night.  It was a pretty good idea until a Dad that looked just like me showed up with his kid.  I don't think his beer belly was a blanket, and it was awkward.  Awkward.  

I love these themed selfless, keep them up pretty/crazy girl.

This is like an advert for coffee - with coffee, without.  I prefer with :)