Monkey breading around

I have a wonderful staff of ladies (and one gentleman!) who fold and label our little church's monthly newsletter. I usually bake a breakfast bread or other sweet treat for them, but  because of the holiday crunch I was at the office very late on our last folding date. Hmm. What could I make them that wouldn't take too much time?

I poked around the Interspace cookbook for a while, and found a monkey bread recipe from Pillsbury, using two cans of their Grands biscuits. Gee, it was meant to be...I actually had two cans in my icebox! Unfortunately, I was out of raisins, so I substituted a down home Cape Cod favorite, our very own Ocean Spray's sweetened dried cranberries.  I was also loathe to open a new bag of walnuts since I had several open bags of almonds on hand. In short, I improvised, and made -- ta dah! -- my variation of monkey bread:  I'm calling it Cape Cod Chimp Cake.

If you'd like the original recipe from Pillsbury, it's fast and easy. If you'd like to help the cranberry bog farmers here on Cape Cod,  with my even better and  delightfully cran-delicious variation, try my  recipe:

Cape Cod Chimp Cake

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
2 cans Pillsbury Grands refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
2/3 cups orange flavor Craisons
1/2 cup sliced almonds

1 cup brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup melted butter


Grease bundt pan with cooking spray.


Mix cinnnamon and sugar in a large zip-lock bag, and mix.


Separate biscuits, and cut each one into fourths. Roll lightly into ball and shake in bag of sugar.


Arrange biscuits in bundt pan, adding almonds and Craisons in the nooks and crannies.


Microwave butter until well melted, and mix with  brown sugar. Pour over rolls - get it down in the lower levels, because any mixture that stays on top will over brown.


Bake 25-30 minutes. Cool 15 minutes. turn upside down on serving dish.

Guess they liked it. Here's what I found at the end of the day.

Does Wilton's wonderful cake taker work for monkey bread, too? Funny you should ask (especially since that's the cake taker you see in the background above). Yes, yes, it does!

This posting is linked to Show off your stuff party # 27 at Fireflies and Jellybeans. Welcome visitors- hope you stay and poke around Olde Cape Cod!

Snow, snow, this won't go!

Well, as you know now, despite the fact that we do have milder winters than the rest of Massachusetts, it does indeed snow on Cape Cod. Here's what I saw last Monday when I arrived for work at the little church in Orleans.

And this is how it looked around the darling little fish pond in the courtyard at the top of those stairs:

So pretty, isn't it? After I've taken shots of all four seasons, I want to post them. It's hard to say when this lovely little area is at its best -- it's a very peaceful place for parishioners to sit and have a few quiet moments (um, when the benches aren't enveloped in wet snow that is...).

But the thing about snow on Cape Cod, is that it usually melts very quickly. Is it our milder temperatures? The salt in the air? Maybe a weather expert would know better, but all I know is that we very seldom have the giant snowbanks I remember from my childhood north of Boston. When I worked at home, I'd often wait out the shoveling and choose to be housebound for a day or two, and even now, I'll drive over a few inches in the hope that the gravel driveway will be down to bare stone soon.


This week, though, it's been cold. And the snow, to some degree has stuck. And while I don't like driving in poor snowy conditions, and  I don't like shoveling ever, there's a certain thrill in spying that white stuff through the windows.  It's a week since our last big storm, and here you can see the yard in front on my house.

Snow, snow, please don't go?

Buon anno

I always feel a special connection to the New Year's holiday, because my grandmother's maiden name was Terese Capadanno, which translates to head of the year. I till miss my Nonna so much, and during this holiday season of baking, I thought of her often as I made her biscotti and pizzelli.

Buon Anno a tutti!

Buon natale

And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Honor Christmas

I've been unpacking the (yikes. ten.) boxes of Christmas decorations since the week after Thanksgiving, but it's just not Christmas until I find this little sign. Every year, I'm tempted to keep it out, but I'm afraid that I'd get used to it, and not see it with fresh eyes the way you do when you bring something special out. And this is my special Christmas thing.

Of course, I have others. And I have new treasures. Like Santa Chef. You've seen him before, but here, again, ta dah...

A Santa that cooks.

 

Santa, will you marry me?

And then there's Mr. and Mrs. Santa, my Santa Vincenzo finds:

And, this year, finally, I instituted the kitchen tree I've been thinking about for so many years.

In last year's after Christmas markdowns at Williams Sonoma in Mashpee Commons, I found a fantastic set of kitchen ornaments, with an Italian coffee maker, a Cuisinart toaster, and a copper bundt pan. I added the fantastic Santa Claus rolling pin ornaments my cousin Beth made. And this week, I was poking around KMart after work, and I found the wonderful cooking utensils from Martha Stewart. I needed something else, something, something....then I remembered!

 

The tea kettle my cousin Jan sent me years ago. I keep it in my china cupboard all year long because it reminds me of Jan whenever I see it. I opened the door, grabbed the kettle, added a ribbon link et voila!

Love my tree. Love Christmas! Love you all!