part 2: august vaca.

. . . also known as part two of the week i realized i need to live by the water someday. huge lake, nice-sized river, or ocean . . . i need to live by the water someday.

it's not simply romanticism.
it's the flipside of the coin of beauty that He made. land: one side. ocean and waters: other side.
[humans are a whole other story; not really a coin. hahah.]
it seems to feed my soul.

saturday or sunday afternoon, we got the speedboat out on the river.

:)

and, for the first time in my life, i went tubing. i can't guarantee i'll ever do so again . . . i don't like the prospect of getting flipped. :P
and now, for charla, here are some pictures that were taken by mum when we went tubing. :)

of course, with my crazy wild imagination issues, i hate seaweed and everything that comes with the dark, unsearchable types of bodies of water . . . especially if i grew up with irrational stories told to me by my two older siblings while we sat in a paddle boat smack dab in the middle of this very river . . . uh. yeah.
as evidence by the slideshow below, this river has a lot of seaweed. :P

august 14, a sunday, we woke up . . . i slept an hour more than i normally do on a sunday [at home: 7am because i have to be there earlier; singing and everything, y'know.] . . . we went to church with gramma shirley. a lovely place where i smiled inside and outside when i saw the greeters and thought of the ones at our church; people i've known since we started going there when i was a baby. people like family.
they even had a sweet library set up outside the sanctuary; a coffee corner with an espresso machine . . . too bad it wasn't open that day. :P hah.

next: monday, the 15th, we left.
and stopped, as tradition [and my camera] calls for, at a lovely place on the rocky shore of lake michigan.

we took pictures, pictures, and more pictures.

i fell in love with the waves.

the wind.

the sunflare i captured.

the frothy edges of waves crashing on my feet.

overall, i'm sure you can see we quite enjoyed our hour or so there. :)
then, back into the van for a few more hours . . .
here are some random ones from rachel's ipod, and nikon camera.

 

by the way: that tall cliff i'm sitting on? a daddy long leg with a dark red body came walking towards me while i was waiting for a sister to hand me the flip-flops i had forgotten on the lower level.

yikes.

:P

p.s. a veryveryvery good post by amber: what is your identity? read it!!

happily ever after: a recipe.

Today, the counter got covered in flour.
[and just a note before we go on; all the brilliant recipe credit goes to sal:]

Now, this is sucanat. (sigh) I forgot to have Ben pick up some bs while he was at the store getting me a last minute jug of safflower oil.

That, the pale pinkish white stuff, is salt. It's got minerals in it. Lots of good stuff like that.

Here's the recipe we'll be working with today.

Now, since I had a (ahem) well, some sort of moment sometime in here, I forgot to put the oil in the dough. (ahem) How on earth did that happen?!

This was taken after it was fixed and had risen. I showed Anna the dough before she fixed it...it had so clearly gone over my head that I'd started a half-batch of my normal standby bread recipe. She took one look at the dough trying to rise, then glanced over the recipe. Did you put the oil in? Um....nope. Dang.

This is sucanat and cinnamon waiting for Ben to come back with their beloved: safflower oil. I didn't exactly plan ahead to make this, and the store didn't have sunflower oil.

Okay......

So this is how my filling turned out... Lyd had a more than a few words on how it looked to her. But in the end, it tastes amazing. Just to reassure you. ;)

Roll it up, and into the pan it goes...and into the oven.

Then, suddenly, they were done. 

 And I sliced into it......er, well, one of the back two loaves, which is the original recipe and the front two bigger ones are with my bread recipe---all with the same filling.....and we lived happily ever after.

Me and the slice of cinnamon swirl bread. 

I might not see you all for quite some time. The cinnamon swirl bread turned out better than I'd even hoped, and I've decided to elope with it. I've tasted its goodness and there's no turning back from such a jump-off-the-cliff of culinary love. ;)

Just a bit cooler than the burn-your-freaking-tongue-off stage, it was perfect.

Now, here's the recipe ramble.

1 TBSP and 1 1/2 tsp of yeast
1 1/2 tsp sugar
2 cups warm water
--Mix this in a Bosch or your mixer bowl of choice...let it sit for 10 minutes for the yeast to do its thing, bubbling...

Filling to make while that sits:
2/3 cup light brown sugar
2 TBSP cinnamon
5-8 TBSP sunflower oil [ahem. I used safflower oil, and it worked out just wonderful]

Then,
2 or 3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
8+ cups of flour
--Knead this into the yeasty stuff.
Let rise for about an hour, or if you're checking on it, whenever it seems to have reached a nice fullness --doubling.
I divided this into two loaves, which will make them kind of big.
So, divide it into your choice for a number of loaves.
Roll it out, sprinkle the filling evenly over it, roll it up, and put it like a nice fat worm on its side into the greased bread pan.
Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes, depending on how big your loaves are.

The original Cinnamon Swirl Bread recipe from our very good friends: 

and I doubled this:)
1 cup warm water
2 3/4 cups unbleached bread flour
2 TBSP sunflower oil
1/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp yeast (use only active dry yeast)

Combine all dough ingredients and knead 15-20 minutes. The dough should be slightly tacky and leave a residue on your fingers.
Let the dough rise for 37 minutes in a draft-free place.
Then punch it down and squeeze it for 3 minutes.
Let it rise a second time for 17 minutes. Punch down again. Now it is time to fill and roll the dough!

Flour counter or put down wax paper and flour that.
Roll it out. It should be 18x8 inches.
Spread filling very evenly. Roll the dough up and put it in the bread pan, letting it rise for about 60 minutes. It should be less than double in size. Bake at 400 until slightly brown. About 20 minutes.

Okey-dokey. That's it!

I have to say, the original one worked better. Didn't inflate as much, which is good, and dangit, I forgot to put extra sugar into my plain bread recipe (the first one that didn't work as well) so that's going to be slow-going for the family to eat. Darn. Especially once they've known a better cinnamon bread. :)

By the way, thank you all for your get-well's . . . and yes, Jen, absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder of coffee. ;)

The Mailbox kept me up till 11:30pm last night before I gave in and went to sleep. I've found myself wanting to at least know what's going to happen. And it's in a beach town, so that's kind of appealing. Being up north, with the river right down the hill...

It really was quite peaceful. Slower motions in life.

And today a Siri Mitchell book came in a the library! Yay! I love her writing.

Well. Let me know when you make that recipe, alright? ;)