Passing On the Traditions: Part I - Yeast Rolls

I am not a quilter. I'm not a proficient crafter like Marie, Randy's mom. I don't have my Mom's talent with the sewing machine.

But I do like to cook and bake. Kinley and Brooke came to visit the week before Thanksgiving. Kinley didn't have school all week, so it was Grandma-time day care at The County Line.

And it gave me a chance to share time in the kitchen with two curious bakers.

It's certainly not the girls' first exposure to the kitchen. Jill is a wonderful cook and baker, and from the time the girls were little, "helping" in the kitchen has been part of their lives. When Kinley and Brooke come to Grandma's house, they always want to help make the meals.

But this gave us a chance to work together on holiday traditions - yeast rolls and pies. (More on pies in the next blog post.)

I certainly wasn't baking bread at age 4 or 6. True confessions: I was a white-ribbon yeast bread baker as a Pratt County 4-Her back in the day. That's what happens when you only make bread before the county fair.

Jill & Holly's yeast bread adventures started with pretzels. Click HERE for the pretzel recipe they used.

But when Jill was in 4-H, she and her friend, Holly, got interested in yeast breads. And I learned right along with them.

Thanksgiving gave me the chance to bake yeast rolls with a new generation of little girls. We even used the same recipe that Jill and Holly made years ago. (Click here for that recipe and for step-by-step photos on making crescent rolls from a previous blog post.)

 

The girls helped me mix up the bread dough using the KitchenAid mixer that belonged to my late mother-in-law, their paternal great-grandma. Since I got to take it home after Marie's death 20+ years ago, I've told Randy that I will be immediately replacing it if this essential piece of kitchen equipment breaks down. It's just as vital to my kitchen as combine parts are during harvest.

I neglected to get photos of the girls kneading the dough. However, Jill says that Kinley had some tips to share about "how Grandma does it" when they were making pizza dough after their bread-baking adventures. (Sorry, Jill!)

They loved seeing how much the dough had risen after letting it rest for an hour. (Here's a better photo of the actual bread from my pre-Christmas bread baking session.)

They were ready to punch it down:

Look at those faces!

The next step was rolling out the dough. Since I knew we were going to be making bread dough and rolling out pie crusts, I borrowed a smaller roller pin from their house and bought an even smaller one. The medium-sized one and my full-sized rolling pin worked better than the small one for getting the dough even.

Rolling bread dough requires a great deal of concentration (and holding your mouth just right ... she gets that from me)!

They were troopers. We made two recipes of dough - one white and one whole wheat - and they rolled out every bit of the dough.

We used a pizza cutter to separate the dough circles into eight equal parts. That's even hard for me!

Then we rolled each section into a crescent shape.

I told the girls to try and press the end underneath the roll. That probably led to a little more "squeezing" than "shaping" on Brooke's behalf, but we got the job done. And, again, they kept with it the whole time.

Even though their Mommy said they didn't particularly like yeast rolls, they definitely ate their share when they came out of the oven.

And the rest of the family enjoyed them with our Thanksgiving meal, too.

This past weekend, I completed the process again to make rolls for the Moore family Christmas Eve gathering. I made five recipes, using part for crescent rolls. I also made cinnamon rolls for the freezer as a gift for my parents' Christmas, and I used a portion of the dough for hamburger and cheese-stuffed sandwich pockets.

I was ready to be done. I could have used those two extra helpers, don't you think?

How Sweet It Is!

Here's the Christmas-card-worthy version of gingerbread house building. 

And here's how it was behind the scenes! (Don't worry. No one but Brooke ate her gingerbread house!)

OK.The girls' houses looked a bit different from the version on the perfectly-appointed Wilton kit photo.

But that's what made them special, don't you think? Perfection is overrated (or so I hear).

Before the girls visited in November, Grandpa and I perused the gingerbread house aisle. Since both girls love animals, we decided on Wilton's gingerbread dog house.

Their love of dogs was just one factor in the decision. The others were:

• It appeared there were fewer pieces, a positive for the first gingerbread house building project for the girls AND for us. Architects we are not!
• Each kit was around $5 - an economical price sure to yield a fun activity for part of an afternoon (or part of two afternoons, as it turned out.)
• I knew that even though the kit came with only two colors of icing and the candy was limited to a sugar puppy and dog bones, I could pull out my arsenal of sprinkles from the kitchen cupboard. I also had M & Ms, chocolate stars, several different colored chocolate discs and gummy bears on hand. (You could also use dry cereal or crackers for shingles, etc.)

We constructed our houses in two sessions. The first day was a building day. I have one big piece of advice for you grandmas out there: Have another set of adult hands during this part of the process. It took both Randy and me to apply the royal icing supplied in the kit to the different components and hold them together while they dried. (I thought I could do it myself, but I was sure glad to see Grandpa walk in the door at just the right time.) I don't have photos of that process. My hands were a little busy at the time.

We set the houses aside on plates and left them to dry overnight. The next day was the fun part for the girls. I asked them what color of icing they'd like me to make to go along with the red and white that came in the kit. Predictably, they chose purple and pink.

Then it was time to let their creativity shine. It takes a lot of concentration to provide the perfect decor for a home.

Just ask HGTV ... or Brooke.

Kinley is a typical first-born child who likes things done precisely, as you can tell from her neatly-arranged M & M shingles.

And when her little sister needed a little help to get it all done, Kinley was glad to pitch in.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Wilton may not be calling to use our versions for their holiday marketing, but we sure had a good time being architects for the day! (Check out the frosting on Brooke's face!)

Kinley wanted photos of every side of her masterpiece, and she couldn't wait to take it home so Mommy and Daddy could see her creation.

I've been watching the Holiday Gingerbread competition on Food Network this month. I don't think we're ready for that. 

But, if you have grandchildren coming for Christmas and are looking for a fun project to do, we recommend a gingerbread kit. (Bonus: The kits may even be on sale right about now.)

Kinley and Brooke thought the houses tasted good, too. (I cannot vouch for that. And I don't think they ate any more after their first tasting when they "raised the roof.")

Shop Local - Stay Local

Shop Local - Stay Local. It's more than the latest internet buzzwords. It could mean the difference between survival or death for local businesses.

Let's face it: It's usually not too difficult to find a parking spot on Main Street in small-town Kansas, including Stafford.

Stafford's Main Street looks different than it did in this photo from 1955 (found in Stafford's Centennial book, Crossroads of Time: 1885-1985).

By contrast, back in the early- to mid-20th century, Main Streets provided the hub of social and business activity on Saturday nights as farm families loaded up the car and came to town.

During the past three months, the City of Stafford and the Stafford Chamber of Commerce asked people to Shop Local - Stay Local. People could keep receipts and a tally of monies spent at local businesses. Then, there was a drawing for prizes - for everything from gift certificates at local businesses to a credit for electricity to a summer pass for the new swimming pool. (I won one of those passes. I am going to see if I can gift it to a Stafford youngster who might enjoy using it!)

On the little leaflet in which we collected our local receipts, it said this:

If 100 families within Stafford spent an additional $75 locally per month, that would inject more than $90,000 annually into the local economy. Shop Local - Stay Local

We are doing our part - especially at the grocery store, farmers' co-op, lumber yard and auto parts store.

The world is different today. We're more prone to "like" something one of our "friends" said on Facebook than to make plans to meet them for a treat at the soda fountain or share a tub of popcorn at a Saturday movie. For many, the big box store in the town 30 or 40 miles away is the place to stock up on paper goods or groceries. A click of a button on a website means that a store will deliver your every want and need to your own front door.

We say we want to shop local. But do we choose to do it enough?

Before Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, I saw an editorial in The Salina Journal. Here's part of that column:

We'll be spending money. A lot of money. According to the National Retail Federation, we’ll shell out $717.45 billion to $720.89 billion total this holiday season. According to the federation, each shopper will spend about $1,007.24 apiece.Make sure, though, when you plan out that spending, that you think about what companies benefit. Will you be funneling your dollars to Amazon or a big box retailer? Or will you be supporting local businesses?

That decision makes a difference. ... It makes a difference to the city and state economy, which benefit directly from you keeping your dollars in the community. It makes a difference to businesses, many of which work mightily to survive in a shifting retail marketplace. 

Think about it this way: Big online retails extract capital from cities. With few exceptions, we don't see that money again. Local retailers put that money straight back into the local economy.

Brent's first job out of grad school was at Morehead State University in Kentucky. Morehead had a vibrant "shop local" initiative. At one of their local eateries, tucked alongside the menu, there was a page thanking people for shopping there. It detailed 10 ways that the decision to patronize at a locally-owned business made a difference. Here are just a few:

1. You kept dollars in our economy. For every $100 you spend at one of our local businesses, $68 will stay in the community. What happens when you spend that same $100 at a national chain? Only $43 stays in the community.

2. You embraced what makes us unique. You wouldn't want your house to look like everyone else's in the U.S. So why would you want your community to look that way?

5. You nurtured community. We know you, and you know us. Studies have shown that local businesses donate to community causes at more than twice the rate of chains.

10. You made us a destination. The more interesting and unique we are as a community, the more we will attract new neighbors, visitors and guests. This benefits everyone. 

Does it really make any difference whether I spend the bulk of my grocery dollars at Wal-Mart or at my local Paul's Grocery?

 

Does it matter if I buy paper goods at Paul's or at Stafford's Simply Overstock store instead of stocking up in Hutchinson? Randy and I think it does. Even something as mundane as toilet paper can make a huge impact on the success or failure of our small-town businesses. (Click on the link for more details.)

Instead of being like Chicken Little and yelling, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling," we need to be part of the solution. I believe the possibilities could be as vast as the big, blue Kansas sky if businesses worked together and small-town citizens made a commitment to buy locally first.

Admittedly, smaller storefronts don't always have every single item you need. I'm not saying that you can never shop in a Wal-Mart or Target again. I shop in those stores, too, and I keep a running Hutchinson shopping list for ingredients and other items I can't buy locally. I just think it's time to look at our small towns for all the pluses instead of concentrating on the negatives.

Admittedly, Main Street Stafford isn't as bustling as it was in the early 1900s or during the oil boom of the 1940s. But there are businesses that have been here for the long haul and some new ones that complement them. (I started to list local businesses and then decided that was a formula for leaving people out. Our little town has restaurants, a bank, a flower and gift shop, farmers cooperative and many other businesses that contribute to a good quality of life for its citizens and neighbors.) We are fortunate to still have Stafford District Hospital and a rest home meeting health care needs in our hometown.

 

We have the Ritz Theatre showing first-run movies each weekend. Several years ago, the city upgraded the sound system to digital.

Our Stafford USD 349 continues to offer quality education to our community's youth, including adding innovative programs like the Stafford Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (SEED) Center. Students start their own business and become business owners through this program.

Our high school added a Culinary Arts and Management program several years ago, cooperating with local restaurants, Stafford County Flour Mills at Hudson and others in the private sector. Vo-ag students have built a greenhouse on school property and they're even trying to impact world hunger. Technical career education is a focus for our school district. It just goes to show that you don't have to be a big, metropolitan school to offer innovative, hands-on programs.

Sunset, July 15, 2016

Shop Local - Stay Local:  It's a message that should resonate during this holiday season ... and every other day of the year. It has to ... if we want to keep our rural communities from becoming ghost towns.

I'm in the Army (Truck) Now

I'm in the Army now!
OK, more accurately, I'm in the Army TRUCK.

 

For the past week, due to circumstances beyond my control, my to-do list has had an addition. I'm the feed truck driver.

In its former life, our feed truck was an Army truck. We purchased the 1991 5-ton, 6-wheel drive Army truck and had the Kelly Ryan feed wagon box added to the back in 2014.

C. Melvin Fritzemeier, 10th Infantry Division, U.S. Army

Since Randy's Dad drove an Army truck in the Korean War, there's a bit of nostalgia there, too.

It still has its Army number emblazoned on the driver's side door.

That first step is a doozy. So I use my handy-dandy ladder to get into the truck.

Once inside, it looks a little like mission control. 

To start the feeding session, I have to zero out the scale. We add grain to the bottom of the feed wagon. Randy augers it in from our storage bin.

 

Right about now, we could use some extra help like we had a few weeks ago when Kinley and Brooke were visiting.

In our high-tech operation, I honk the horn when the scale gets to 650 pounds. (My auger operator can vaguely be seen through the dusty rearview mirror.)

He's a good teacher. Once you get the crash course, the feed truck is not so intimidating. Wait ... maybe I shouldn't say "crash course" when talking about driving. Especially when I consider the rather tight turn into the pasture where the silo is located.

To make sure I don't end up in Peace Creek, I have to pull into a driveway past the actual entrance into the pasture, back up and then come in from the north.

There are no guard rails on that wooden bridge, you know!

Once at the silo, Randy uses the loader tractor to put silage into the feed box. 

Several scoops later, we're ready to be Meals on Wheels and deliver the silage to the feeder calves.

Once we get back to the farmstead, Randy hops onto the step of the truck for a short ride to the pasture, so he can open the gate and flip down the feed chute. 

The feeder calves were ready for their breakfast.

I'm getting better at getting the right trajectory to get the feed delivered to the bunks.

These cows across the road on sudan stalks always look a little envious that I'm delivering already chopped feed to the feeder calves. They are having to forage for theirs right now!

While I put the feed truck back in the shed, Randy gets some grain to top the silage in the feeder bucket.

That mixture goes to the calves we are fattening for our own dinner table.

 Mission again accomplished!