Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts

16.12.12

winter wonderland + hey there


Hi there, friends!

I'm dropping in for a moment or two to tell you that I will be hosting a giveaway later this week - so keep your eyes out! It's going to be great! :)

Annnd...look at how pretty my little street looks right now! It's been snowing off and on for the past few days, and is supposed to keep up until Christmas! So very excited! I love white Christmases. 

I'm off to bed now - I promise I'll work on stopping in more! Really :)

xoxo, Ruthanne

9.11.12

apple cinnamon rolls

Good morning wonderful friends!

Today I have an incredibly delicious (and probably borderline sinful) recipe for you!

Yesterday it was snowing and I decided it was the perfect time to try out a recipe I've been holding onto. Apple cinnamon rolls, y'all!

I adapted this recipe from here. Ready? Here we gooo! You will need:

Dough
5 cups of all-purpose flour (separated)
2 cups milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 packet of active yeast (1/4 oz. or 2 1/4 t)

Filling

Apple Filling
3 medium apples, chopped into small cubes (about 1 1/2 - 2 cups chopped)
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
3 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Cinnamon filling
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 cup of butter, melted (2 sticks)

Frosting
1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick)
1 1/3 cup of powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


To prepare the dough, heat milk, oil, cane sugar and cinnamon for 5-8 minutes (do not boil). Pour milk into a large mixing bowl and let it reach lukewarm temperatures (to the touch) for about 10 minutes.

Once milk is lukewarm to the touch, sprinkle packet of yeast on top and let it set for one minute. After a minute has passed, pour in four and a half cups of flour and mix until incorporated nicely. Cover bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let dough rise for one hour in a relatively warm area.

After one hour, mix in last 1/2 cup of flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Cover with a kitchen town again while you prepare the filling.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

For the filling, heat up 1 cup of butter and brown it. Be watchful not to burn the butter by looking out for the center of the boiling butter. When the center forms a caramel color quickly remove it from the stove-top and set aside. Then in a small bowl mix apples, brown sugar and cinnamon together. In another bowl mix the cinnamon sugar filling.

Place dough onto a well floured surface and begin to roll it into a thin, long rectangle. I split my dough in half, and ended up getting around 22 rolls from it all. I'd say it varies though, depending on how big and thick you want your rolls to be. 



Once filling components are ready, spoon 1/2 of melted browned butter onto rolled out dough and spread evenly with spoon or pastry brush. Then evenly sprinkle on sugar and cinnamon mixture, followed by chopped apples mixture. Take long end, closest to you, and start to tightly roll dough with filling (try to keep the roll as tight as possible). Once dough and filling has been rolled into a log, pinch the seams shut. Using a sharp knife, slice 1 1/2 inch slices and place into a greased baking pan. be careful not to overcrowd the rolls. I made 9 of mine in a 9" cake pan and the other 13 in a glass pyrex pan. 

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until lightly golden.



For the frosting, melt 1/2 cup of soft room temperature butter for 20 seconds in the microwave. Remove, and add sugar. Stir well and place in the microwave for another 10 seconds. Remove, and stir vigorously. Add in the maple syrup and vanilla. Keep stirring! Once the frosting has reached a thick consistency, you're golden!

Pour frosting evenly over cinnamon rolls and serve warm.


 And now you can enjoy. These are so delicious - be warned, they may cause you to want to work out. Or not. 

Let me know if you make them - and what you think!

xoxo, Ruthanne

20.12.11

the quickest, easiest, and cutest outfit ever.


My brother was being a dork (again) while taking the photos. I couldn't help but crack up. 

Jeans. A long sleeved t-shirt - right now my favorite is white. It's simple and makes any color scarf pop - and then the scarf itself. I personally like to pair it with my cowboy boots and a belt too :) 

My "I'm smiling like I'm warm and happy" face and my "brrrrr" face. All unintentionally captured. Bahaha. 

 My favorite. You'll be impressed after I tell you this though. My brother took this while he was hanging upside down, on our monkey bars, in basketball shorts, a t-shirt, and socks. Skill.


So I'm not much for taking a long time with my clothes or hair or makeup. It helps that I live in a place where pretty much no one does that, but still. On those mornings I wake up 30 minutes late and I'm like, "Shoot, I need to get going...", this is my favorite kind of outfit to throw on during the school year. And for the record, generally, it's scarf weather during my entire school year. Just depends.

And just so we're clear, it was 23 degrees outside at this time. It was also 4 o clock.....and sunny. Talk about cold. 

This week has already been great though. I spent yesterday making my tiny gingerbread house - and then went to our local Safeway and sang carols with my friends for salvation army. Almost everyone who passed told us it was "much better than the bell." and dropped some kind of money in. It was so nice and wonderful.

Today was filled with the wrapping of Christmas presents, rehearsing the song I'm doing for Christmas Eve services, and just breathing. I can feel a lot of changes and redirecting coming up in my life soon, and I'm so excited for it. I know God's going to take me somewhere great in the next couple years. I know He has some crazy big plan for me that I can't even comprehend, and I've just been sitting in awe of that lately. So magnificent. 

Hope you had a wonderful tuesday! :)

xoxo,
Ruthanne


17.11.11

christmas dress & christmas music

So it's getting to be that time of year again..time to start looking for a Christmas eve dress.

I am playing/singing a song this year for both of our Christmas Eve services {I did one last year, too} and as of now I will also be the team doing all of the music for the evening...sooooo...I need to find a dress...that's red...or something....red is great but it could be black or something else too....and I need to find a pattern to make one...or just find fabric and try to whip one up. Who knows. But I want to find one/make one something resembling these ones on ModCloth :)



This is my favorite dress right now...Love it so much.

This is a good, simple, dress that would be really cute with maybe a red cardigan? I love it.

This one is just too stinkin' cute...wouldn't really work though, because with how cold it is, you always need a sweater and that shoulder bow would get it the way :( sad.

Black tights, red heels, black cardigan...cute red headband....would be cute, right?

Frock Brand Dress
This is my second most favorite one...So very bold and perfect.

Here's the main problem, though, with finding/buying/making dresses. Around here, no one ever really dresses up, unless it's prom, a wedding, graduation or a funeral. And even then all of those are fairly casual. As you saw in my Sunday best post, that's basically the norm, usually, for Sunday mornings...so Christmas Eve services are kind of hard to figure out what to wear to, cause you want to look nice if you're going to be on stage, but not *too* nice. So...you see my problem, right?

See, look at this dress! I love it, and I would so be down for wearing it except it's a smidgen too much...sad, isn't it? :(


Which one do you like best? And if not any of these, do you have any other suggestions? It's generally around 20 degrees farenheit on winter evenings here, give or take....well...mostly take..ha! So it makes it even more fun to shop for winter appropriate dresses...joy.

Also...I've been listening to Christmas music since Halloween...and I need some new music, I haven't bought any albums this year, yet...any recommendations?



7.11.11

california and six inches.






It snowed last Thursday :) Yes, it did indeed. Six glorious inches! I know you're sitting there going "Okay, there is something wrong with this statement...you live in California...there is no way you got snow in november..."

Well...firstly...we got our first snow the second week of October...

&& secondly, your idea of California is totally warped. Let me enlighten you.

See, here's the thing. Us California divide our lovely (note sarcasm) state into two parts. NorCal and SoCal. SoCal people tend to refer to California as "Cali", you will notice. And NorCal people do too...just not as much.

Now, as I was saying...to California natives, the state is divided in half. If you were to draw a perfectly straight line from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe, you'd basically get a pretty good idea of north and south...okay. Moving on. Now that our geography lesson is over...

Northern California is known for having some crazy ridiculous mountain ranges...like the sierra nevadas.

That, folks, is where I live.


And it's so freakin' beautiful, I mean really.

That is all the bragging I am going to do for today - I may do more in the coming days, however, seeing as I know you're potentially slightly envious of this beauty, and longing to see more. Right? Totally.