Winter Has Arrived

Oh yes, indeed. Old Man Winter blew in on Wednesday night with a whopper of a storm. Strong gale force winds coming from the NE assaulted us for over 12 hours and when it was all over, this is what we saw.  Notice the bluish light - so common in winter particularly in the late afternoon ~ especially when more snow is in the forecast! 

This is the view of my garden that was previously lush and filled with this just a few short months ago:

The coop was starting to ice up inside (especially on the inside of the door), so I plugged in the heat lamp to take the chill off for the chickens.

I spent an hour with the walk behind snowblower clearing paths to the cars, the coop and the garage.  The driveway needs clearing, but it's too big to use the walk behind, so I'm waiting for our oldest son to run the tractor this weekend to clear it for us.  With Kelly away, we have all had to pitch in to take over his usual duties.

With winter here, I've got more time for baking, and out come favourite recipes that we haven't had for months.  This is a refrigerator dough which is super quick to make and it is very versatile.  It keeps for a long time in the fridge, but we usually end up using it all up in one go.  The photos are yellowish as it's dark now and my halogen lights make all the night time pictures look very sallow.

I had hungry teens to fill up this evening, so I rolled the dough out, cut it into triangles,

and then added some pepperoni and cheese to each piece.  I also use ham and cheddar which tastes equally delicious.

Roll from the wide end toward the pointed end and pinch the ends together to keep the cheese from oozing out when it melts.  I'm really not very careful during the rolling, I tend to really stretch them and manhandle them to try to fit everything in.  This dough IS very stretchy and it's REALLY easy to work with.

Bake at 350 for about 20 minute or until golden brown and when pressed, they spring back.

Recipe makes enough to fill 2 large cookie sheets and is guaranteed to fill up a hungry gaggle of teens lickety split.  It's much healthier when made with some whole wheat flour (and I often do that) plus it's frugal.  Buying this type of teen friendly snack in the frozen aisle at the store would cost a lot of money and packaged food isn't that nutritious.  This is super fast and easy as you can get this in the oven from start to finish in about 10 -15 minutes.


Refrigerator Dough from the MOMYS cookbook

3/4 c sugar
3/4 c shortening (don't substitute as it isn't as good)
1 c boiling water
1 c warm water
1 pkg yeast
2 large eggs
6 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt

Combine shortening, sugar and boiling water, stirring until dissolved. Add warm water and eggs. Add dry ingredients and knead for a few minutes until smooth and elastic.  I use a mixer.  I always use the dough right away although the recipe calls for it to be chilled first.

This is a fairly sweet, tender dough (like a crescent roll dough) and it can be made into all sorts of things, so it's great to keep some ready in the fridge.

Happy baking!