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The photos above should give an idea about how I spent Friday night. There were about five cups of left over mashed potatoes in the fridge, so I mixed a batch of Best Ever Crescent Roll Dough, which is just about the most versatile dough in my baking repertoire. It makes wonderful dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, sandwich bread, and (if you omit a cup of flour and mix it a little slack) donuts. This morning the brethren had caramel pecan cinnamon rolls and donuts with hazelnut frosting.
(A little culinary hint. Keep a few of those flavored half and half creamers in the pantry, but not for coffee. Both the French vanilla and the hazelnut flavors make exquisite frosting. Add to powdered sugar with a pinch of salt and whisk until smooth, then heat in the microwave until the frosting just barely starts to bubble. Cooking it briefly will get rid of the raw-cornstarch-and-sugar flavor, plus make it easy to drizzle. AND if you use the hazelnut flavor and add Dutch process cocoa to the frosting, you get Nutella flavored frosting but at a fraction of what a jar of the real stuff costs.)
But even after breakfast and setting aside sandwich bread for lunch and dinner rolls for supper, I still have four dozen cinnamon rolls and two loaves of bread left. I could of course, double wrap everything and freeze them for future use, and I do that often enough. But one of my Facebook buddies posted a Pay It Forward challenge a few weeks ago and I signed up, so I think I'm going to deliver a random loaf of kindness or two.
Here's the idea: You post this as your Facebook status
I'm participating in this Pay-It-Forward initiative: The first five people who comment on this status with "I'm in", will receive a surprise from me at some point in this calendar year - anything from a book, a ticket, something home grown or made, a postcard, absolutely any surprise! There will be no warning and it will happen when the mood comes over me and I find something that I believe would suit you and make you happy. These five people must make the same offer in their FB status and distribute their own joy. Simply copy this text onto your profile, (don't share) so we can form a web of connection and kindness.
The first five people who sign up (I manged to get seven!) are the ones for whom you do random acts of kindness. BUT of course I couldn't leave well enough along and also posted this:
HOWEVER---we won't make the world a better place if all we do is help our FB friends. SOOOO, if you're in with ME, you have to agree that when you do something nice for a FB friend, you have to do something for a stranger as well. For example, you could leave money at a restaurant to pay for the meal of the next person who came in from the cold. Read Matthew 25:31-46 for ideas! Who's with me?
My first random act of kindness was to send a "valentine" to a food media friend of mine. I got the butter knife at a flea market for $2, and then used metal stamps and a hammer to make the inscription. I got the idea from Pinterest. I'm definitely going to be making more of these!
(A little culinary hint. Keep a few of those flavored half and half creamers in the pantry, but not for coffee. Both the French vanilla and the hazelnut flavors make exquisite frosting. Add to powdered sugar with a pinch of salt and whisk until smooth, then heat in the microwave until the frosting just barely starts to bubble. Cooking it briefly will get rid of the raw-cornstarch-and-sugar flavor, plus make it easy to drizzle. AND if you use the hazelnut flavor and add Dutch process cocoa to the frosting, you get Nutella flavored frosting but at a fraction of what a jar of the real stuff costs.)
But even after breakfast and setting aside sandwich bread for lunch and dinner rolls for supper, I still have four dozen cinnamon rolls and two loaves of bread left. I could of course, double wrap everything and freeze them for future use, and I do that often enough. But one of my Facebook buddies posted a Pay It Forward challenge a few weeks ago and I signed up, so I think I'm going to deliver a random loaf of kindness or two.
Here's the idea: You post this as your Facebook status
I'm participating in this Pay-It-Forward initiative: The first five people who comment on this status with "I'm in", will receive a surprise from me at some point in this calendar year - anything from a book, a ticket, something home grown or made, a postcard, absolutely any surprise! There will be no warning and it will happen when the mood comes over me and I find something that I believe would suit you and make you happy. These five people must make the same offer in their FB status and distribute their own joy. Simply copy this text onto your profile, (don't share) so we can form a web of connection and kindness.
The first five people who sign up (I manged to get seven!) are the ones for whom you do random acts of kindness. BUT of course I couldn't leave well enough along and also posted this:
HOWEVER---we won't make the world a better place if all we do is help our FB friends. SOOOO, if you're in with ME, you have to agree that when you do something nice for a FB friend, you have to do something for a stranger as well. For example, you could leave money at a restaurant to pay for the meal of the next person who came in from the cold. Read Matthew 25:31-46 for ideas! Who's with me?
My first random act of kindness was to send a "valentine" to a food media friend of mine. I got the butter knife at a flea market for $2, and then used metal stamps and a hammer to make the inscription. I got the idea from Pinterest. I'm definitely going to be making more of these!
But because I made the commitment, today I have to do a kindness for a stranger, or more accurately, several strangers, since I have plenty to share. I've been trying to encourage this sort of behavior lately. Last Sunday I was preaching at a parish in Morris Illinois, and in the narthex I put out about 80 photo greeting cards I had made and asked people to send a note of encouragement to someone they know who is hurting. The reaction was overwhelming: people were genuinely grateful to have an immediate, practical way to express Christian love and concern. It's the sort of thing we all want to do but somehow other things get in the way.
So when you read this blog, if you are at all inspired, get off the computer and do a random act of kindness now. Bake a batch of cookies and take it to the nurses in the local ER or the staff at the Veteran's Home, or drop it off at the police station. Call someone you know who has lost a loved one in the past year and just spent Valentine's Day alone, and invite them to lunch. Send a card with $10 for pizza to a college freshman, take a pan of lasagna to that single mom down the block, shovel the walk for the neighbor who yells at your kids. And start a batch of dough---we can change the world, one loaf at a time.
So when you read this blog, if you are at all inspired, get off the computer and do a random act of kindness now. Bake a batch of cookies and take it to the nurses in the local ER or the staff at the Veteran's Home, or drop it off at the police station. Call someone you know who has lost a loved one in the past year and just spent Valentine's Day alone, and invite them to lunch. Send a card with $10 for pizza to a college freshman, take a pan of lasagna to that single mom down the block, shovel the walk for the neighbor who yells at your kids. And start a batch of dough---we can change the world, one loaf at a time.
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