Sunday, February 15, 2009

Pretty Posies and Tasty Treats

My kitchen is currently bursting with colour.

On Friday, one of my colleagues dropped off a bouquet of flowers, a (more than generous!) certificate for HomeSense (yay!) and the nicest card I have ever recieved. The card read as follows:

"To our beloved friend and colleague Jen,

On behalf of William Osler Mental Health and especially the staff on the MH Intensive and MHESU, we want to wish you the best of health and speediest of recoveries. In short, we love you and have missed you. Please enjoy your gifts. They are directly from the heart.

With Love from your friends,
XXXOOO"

As you may have already guessed, I was a bit overwhelmed. Thank you all so very much.

Yesterday I had a lovely few minutes to myself and picked up the camera... they were far too beautiful, far too full of colour and texture not to.



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There were more surprises to come... At one point there was much hush-hushing in the kitchen (and broken off toddler exclamations); much to my surprise, my husband and son walked into the living room a few minutes later, each bearing six long stem red roses. Quinn said, "Here Mommy. These are for YOU! They're flowers! Happy Val-wem-times!"

How could one not melt?

Love ♥ Love ♥ Love
Love ♥ Love ♥ Love

They were very, VERY appreciative to the homemade cinnamon buns that I made in return. I tried to pinch them into heart shapes, but they rose in the oven and went back to a round spiral. In the spirit of creating a simple pleasure, I took my time making these and was rewarded with an excellent dessert. They are not calorie wise, they are not heart smart or anything like that. They are good, old fashioned, everything in moderation food. They are also DIVINE! If you are interested, here is the recipe:

2 envelopes yeast
1 cup lukewarm water
6 tblsp shortening
1 tsp salt
3 beaten eggs
2 tsp + 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup + 2 cups flour
brown sugar, cinnamon, nuts, raisins and cherries to taste
butter or margerine

Add yeast and 2 tsp sugar to water and let stand for 10 mins then stir. Add milk, shortening and salt to 2 cups flour to make a batter. Add yeast and eggs. Beat well. Add remaining flour. Knead lightly and put into a bowl. Let rise to double in bulk then punch it down.
Roll out flat and spread with butter or margerine. Sprinkle with cinnamon, brown sugar, raisins, nuts and cherries to taste. Roll and cut into rolls. Place in a buttered and cinnamoned pan. Bake @ 375F for 15 minutes.

(I used cinnamon, brown sugar and pecans in mine and then made a quick drizzle icing for them. I also used a flat pan with Pam, so they were slightly less gooey. They were marvellous!)

These are the simple things that make life enjoyable...

Making the simple complicated is commonplace;
making the complicated simple,
awesomely simple, that's creativity.
--Charles Mingus


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