Unremarkable December.

Summer at the Dry Canyon, in December.

It's been two weeks since my last post and I have not done much of anything with that time. I did manage to get my hair trimmed and dyed, and schedule some photo shoots for current pictures, as you may have noticed on Facebook. In fact, waiting to see what pictures she'll have ready next are pretty much the only thing I look forward to lately.

I've cooked a bit, but nothing I've been thrilled with. I'm making a new Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe in the slow-cooker soon and I'm not even sure I'm looking forward to that. I made Cheddar Broccoli Soup last week that I wasn't impressed with, and Chicken Bacon Panini's to go with it. I wasn't thrilled with those either, which was depressing. I do have some turkey meat, I want to make a Turkey & Swiss panini inspired by the one and only Pioneer Woman.

Rigged with bells, to hear troublesome cats.

We did go out in the woods and steal a Christmas tree. It was the puppy Bo's first trip away from the house and into the woods.

This past weekend Ed's brother, Ron, came to visit with his new girlfriend and we had "Christmas" early. They didn't come for Thanksgiving this year, and Ed's parents will be gone for Christmas so this was our big weekend together. We took family pictures with the same photographer, as I came across a fantastic Holiday Package on CraigsList. (it included the pictures of Ed & I, which we took on Wednesday.) Afterward we had a turkey dinner (again. 16 days after Thanksgiving...) and watched Love Actually. Sunday before they left we decorated the tree and put up lights (which the puppy has chewed though two strands of outdoor lights already).

Terrible quality, hard to see. Sorry.

I was inspired to crochet again last night, sat down with an audio book of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (one of Ed's favorite books, and Ron's, and Kirk's. He's been waiting for me to read it forever.) and made myself a headband style ear warmer  In one sitting. (Did stay up until 3 am..) Without pulling it apart even once. So pleased with myself. I even made a bow on it. The perfectionist I am, I'm not 100% pleased with it.. but I am pretty close to 95% please with it. (A Christmas miracle!) I do find it too wide, so it doesn't sit around my head well. And I would like to change the dimensions of the bow, but besides that.. I've decided to make a handful of them for Christmas gifts this year. They only take a few hours, and the more I do it the quicker I get. (I've already made another basic wrap..I need more yarn for trim and decorations.) So I hope to sit down with all 51 discs of Les Misérables, crochet away, and maybe get though most of the book before the movie comes out. If I'm lucky. I want to practice making some flowers instead of bows for some, and I've been working on a new stitch I'd like to use on one of them, except now my hands are cramped up and sore, add Benadryl in the mix and I've decided to stop for the night. Sorry the picture is terrible. Taking a picture of something dark, on dark hair, in poor lighting doesn't turn out well.

The only other bit of interest is that I've recently began actually studying for my RHIT exam. Not terribly seriously at the moment, but I do now have access to mock quizzes and tests. I've been told by a classmate who just passed his exam over the weekend, that it wasn't worse than anything we had in class. That the program I am using is pretty much all he used to study, and working in the field as a coder he felt gave him no advantage when it came to the coding section of the exam. That is the area I am most concerned about, as it wasn't one of my strongest areas, or something I am particularly interested in pursuing. So.. while the questions are obviously not exact, they are covering the same material. There are some things I've found already that I need to go back and study in more detail, so that when the question is reworded, I still know they are talking about. (I have found it really easy to memorized the questions in the resource already, which is a bit of a problem.)

I shall have yarn and yarn flowers to share with you soon.. Pinkie Pie promise.

Squash & Cardamom Cinnamon Rolls

Trial got dismissed. It's good for the client, but I was getting excited. Oh well, I'm sure another one will come up again, tis the nature of the business, afterall.

It was nice to get to regroup at home this weekend. This was my first week working nearly full time and it wiped me out, I will definitely need my weekends in the future. Today Austin and I went out to Roseville (the 'burbs) and went to the behemoth mall they have out there just to look around. We didn't buy anything, but it was nice to get out of the city for a bit. After we got our fill of the holiday-mall craziness we meandered home and I continued to make these cinnamon rolls I'd started this morning.

Sure, it's not the prettiest roll on the block...

A few years ago on Christmas I made these cinnamon rolls, and we loved them. They're pretty cardamom-y, and after round two my inclination is to 1/2 the amount she used in the dough, and then omit it from the filling (which I will tell you about down yonder).  Still, I love the unique, almost anise flavor cardamom has.

For the filling, I wanted to use up a mostly whole butternut squash I had sitting on the fridge. I thought fall flavored cinnamon rolls would be awesome on Christmas morning, and since the recipe makes two batches we'll have some to bring over to our friends' house tomorrow morning.

le process

I diced, then roasted, a nearly whole butternut squash in the oven after coating it with brown sugar (maybe 2 tbs), cinnamon (1 tbsp), nutmeg (1 tsp), cardamom (1 tsp) and a small pinch of cloves.

When it was soft (20-30 minutes), I pureed the squash with a little soymilk (2 tbsp), maple syrup (1 tsp), and honey (1 tsp). I added extra cinnamon and one or two drops of almond extract.

The mixture made enough to spread on both batches of dough. Before we head over in the morning I'm going to make a simple glaze to pour over the top after I bake them. The one above is a lone-roll I baked just to make sure they were good (they are).

The butternut squash is a pretty subtle flavor and I think the cardamom flavored dough from the recipe kind of overwhelms it, so while I would highly recommend the recipe, I will certainly half the cardamom the next time I bake these. Also, it is not a typical super-sweet cinnamon roll recipe. It would be good with a nice glaze, since the rolls themselves are moderately sweetened.

Alright, now that I've made breakfast, I better run and whip up dinner!

UPDATE: I set the cinnamon rolls in a well buttered baking dish in the refrigerator overnight. Then I baked them at 400° for 15-20 Min. They were great. The cardamom had settled down a bit anf he filling tasted like pumpkin pie. YUM. <3 <3 <3