Saturday is a time for fun so let's head to the World Famous Penny Arcade in Manitou Springs, Colorado!

Let's be a little silly and have some fun with photos!

Calling all word lovers! It's game night and our elves are playing Scrabble. 

   It's time to wrap up all those gifts and get them under the tree!

  During the holiday season we can let our chores pile up, but let's get the laundry done together with a smile on our face!

What is better after a long day of skiing than a good soak in a hot chocolate tub?!

Let's take a trip and climb a mountain!

During the holiday season we can let our chores pile up, but let's get the laundry done together with a smile on our face!

Have you been naughty or nice?

It's a sleepover night with a scary book and a friend!

 It's time to head to Nicolas High School for a day of learning.

In need of a good read? Stop by your local little free library! 

It's the season of giving so gather up your old toys! 

It's movie night for the elves and they have headed to the old drive-in theater. 

There is nothing like a warm and gooey cinnamon roll on a lazy weekend morning. But turn them into orange sweet rolls and it's like eating sunshine. That bright citrus flavor cuts through the sweetness, giving you just enough bite. It's perfect for a summer morning.


And during a pandemic, what is better than having cinnamon or orange sweet rolls during the middle of the week? It's like comfort food, right?

I used a recipe I found on Pinterest from Money Saving Mom for easy bread machine cinnamon rolls. I've tried out the basic recipe in the past and it was heavenly. But I wanted to try making them into my favorite orange sweet rolls instead. We had some clementines we needed to eat and they are the perfect size to get a little zest from! And now that the weather is getting a little warmer, I'm craving fruity flavors.


Since this recipe whips up two round cake pans full, I wanted to share with my sister, Caitlin. We've been doing door drops to share baked goods with them, waving at them from a safe distance with masks on when they come to the door to get their gift. It's been nice to see their faces.

Because my sister is still breastfeeding her daughter who is currently sensitive to the cow protein in dairy (and she loves to eat the same food as mom and dad), everything we do for Caitlin and Alira has to be dairy/milk free. And that meant replacing the milk in the dough and icing with a substitute.


I also wanted an intense orange flavor, so I chose to replace the 1 cup of milk with a half cup plus 2 tablespoons of almond milk and a half cup of orange juice. I also added in zest from 1 clementine into the dough. For the icing, I replaced the milk with almond milk, the vanilla extract with orange extract and added the zest from 1 clementine.

Throwing all the ingredients into your bread machine makes these rolls a snap to make. You can even make the dough and leave the prepared unbaked rolls in the fridge overnight so all you have to do is pop them in the oven the next morning.


And let me tell you, these orange sweet rolls were a big hit! My niece got a little chunk of one to eat and my sister said she loved it so much she gobbled it right up. There weren't much in the way of leftovers, but if you have any, cut apart the individual rolls and wrap them in foil to freeze them.

Irresistible Bread Machine Orange Sweet Rolls

Dough:
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons warm milk (or your choice of milk substitute, I used unsweetened almond milk)
1/2 cup orange juice
3 tablespoons oil
1 egg, lightly beaten, plus 2 egg whites
zest of 1 clementine (about 1/2 tablespoon)
1/2 cup sugar
4 cups flour (add in an additional tablespoon at a time if dough seems to wet after the first few minutes of mixing)
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons yeast

Filling
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon

Icing
1 tablespoon milk (or your choice of dairy free substitute, again I used unsweetened almond milk)
1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
4 tablespoons (or less) butter, softened
1 teaspoon orange extract
zest of 1 clementine (about 1/2 tablespoon)


Directions
First, take out your butter for the icing so it has time to soften as you do the rest of your work.

Then begin by putting your ingredients into your bread machine bowl in the order listed and run the dough cycle. Check on it after the first few minutes of mixing to see if you need to add any extra flour. (I ended up having to add 4 extra tablespoons of flour to get the right consistency. The dough should form a nice ball when mixing and kneading in the machine.)

As your dough is mixing and rising in your bread machine, create your filling. Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl and set it aside. Also, grease two round cake pans and set them aside.

When the dough cycle is done, flour your counter and roll the dough into a large rectangle. The thickness is up to you, but you don't want it thicker than a quarter inch. I personally prefer going a little thinner so I have plenty of layers to my rolls. (You can now also begin to preheat your oven to 325 degrees if you plan on baking these off right away. If you live at altitude like I do, heat your oven to 350 degrees.)

Next, brush the melted butter over the surface of your dough. Then sprinkle on your brown sugar and cinnamon filling. Roll up your dough into a log and cut it into 10 to 15 rolls and place them into your greased cake pans. I like to cut the whole log in half and then each half in half and so on so I get nice even rolls.

At this point, you can bake them off or cover the unbaked rolls in plastic wrap and leave them in the fridge overnight along with the icing.

Bake your orange sweet rolls at 325 degrees (350 degrees for high altitude) for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

As the rolls bake, I like to whip up the icing. The original recipe only called for 1 teaspoon of milk but every time I've made this recipe, I've ended up using 3 teaspoons (equals 1 tablespoon) of milk. Mix your icing ingredients together until smooth and incorporated.

Spread the icing on the rolls as soon as they come out of the oven then serve and enjoy warm.


Thanks to Money Saving Mom for sharing this recipe that one of her readers shared with her. It is definitely a keeper and even delicious when using a milk substitute!

Times sure are strange right now. Here in Colorado, our governor has a stay-at-home order in place during the Coronavirus pandemic. Everyone in our household is in a high-risk category, so we've been doing lots of online shopping and having things delivered or going for curbside pickup.


To make things more fun and delicious during our time at home, we decided to buy a bread machine from Amazon. We figured it would be easier to buy some flour and yeast than to constantly try to buy bread. And here in the high altitude, it's hard to get bread dough to rise properly. Having a machine do it for you takes out so many of the high-altitude and high plains desert variables. And really, who wouldn't want a bread machine even if you can make your own bread? It's like a slow cooker--you set it and forget it. We are talking convenience here, people!


And you know us ladies, we are constantly on Pinterest. On our blog, we share either our own recipes or the most pinter-worthy recipes we come across. And we found a delicious and easy bread recipe on Pinterest! You can find the original recipe on Happy Hooligan's blog, but we'll list it below too just to make it easy on you.


This recipe is for a honey-oat bread. We used a medium setting on our bread machine and got a nice and crisp crust but the inside was oh so fluffy and chewy. Yum! We made two minor changes to the recipe when making this bread. My sister is currently on a dairy-free diet because of breast feeding so we are constantly figuring out how to make things dairy-free. So for this recipe, we used a plant-based butter instead of regular butter or margarine. The other change was just because our bread flour hasn't been delivered yet, so we tried with all-purpose flour. We were in need of bread so we thought we'd just try it out and see what happened. Hopefully we have our bread flour for next time!


The recipe also calls for 7 to 9 ounces of water. Because we live in super dry Colorado, I opted for starting with 8 ounces. I only ended up adding about an additional teaspoon in later to make the dough the right consistency. I also pulsed our old fashioned oats with my immersion blender to get it more to the size of quick oats.


My mom ate her warm slice with some European butter slathered on. I opted for butter and a little honey. We bought a giant bottle of honey on Amazon, so why not, right?  It was delicious and turned out great even without the bread flour! Now what are you waiting for? Go pull out the ingredients and your bread machine!

1.5 Pound Honey-Oat Bread

Ingredients

• 7-9 ounces of warm water
• 1 ½  tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon softened butter, margarine or plant-based butter
• ½ cup quick cook oats
• 2 ½ cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 ¾  teaspoons active dry yeast or bread machine yeast

Directions

1. Place your ingredients into your bread machine bowl in the order listed above.
2. Ensure that your salt and yeast do not touch when placing your ingredients into the bread machine bowl. 
3. Set your bread machine to make a 1.5 pound loaf plus any other settings you need depending on your machine and then hit start.
4. Once your bread is done, take it out of your bread machine and turn the loaf onto a cooling rack. Let it cool for 20 minutes before cutting into it to allow it to set up.