When you live 100 miles from the nearest Walmart, and 20 minutes from the closest grocery store, you tend to make a LOT of food at home. Plus, when you are frugal (or cheap, as my husband would say, or Dutch as my father would say) you try to use up as much as possible. No waste here! For me, that means that some days I think I live in the kitchen.
This morning the Ranch Boss (that's my husband) mentioned that we had fresh cream in the fridge. That means he wants caramel rolls. Caramel rolls are a Midwest thing. They are a sweet roll, but instead of white icing, they have a caramel top...think Cinnabon, but gooey. You can get good caramel rolls lots of places, but GREAT caramel rolls require fresh farm cream, and are huge (like the size of an entire dessert plate), and topped with freshly churned butter. My oldest daughter makes GREAT caramel rolls. Fortunately for us, my father-in-law milks my cow. (Another post topic, but long-story short, he's "semi-retired", and a little bored, and has time, and I'm totally okay with someone else doing my chores!) So, we often have fresh cream.
However, to make her GREAT caramel rolls, Kitchen Kid (aka oldest daughter) requires buttermilk.
So, first we made butter (you know, so we had buttermilk), then dough for rolls, and then while that was rising, I spilled cream in the fridge, so I was cleaning out the crisper drawer and noticed I had apples that needed to be used up, so I cut those. Not enough to can though, so we made an apple crisp for lunch tomorrow, and still had a few apples left over. So, I made some stewed apples, but didn't want to waste all the peelings, so I started a batch of apple cider vinegar and sent the rest of the peelings out to the chickens. By this time, we had 2 pans of GREAT caramel rolls cooling on the counter (minus the one that Ranch Boss had sampled for "quality control") and still had just enough buttermilk left over for supper waffles. Move over EGGO!
Now it's dark. And I'm exhausted. And my son just asked what we're having for lunch tomorrow. REALLY??? So, you'll notice that a bunch of my blog headlines have to do with food. I often say that my whole life revolves around food. I'm either making food, or cleaning up from food, or planning the next "food project". Hopefully, you can get a little inspiration for your kitchen from some of these food posts. But, if you're just in the mood for a GREAT caramel roll, stop by. We'll have some tea and a chat (but only if you volunteer to peel apples)!
Summer Joy