Friday, December 3, 2021

Autumn Lessons

 

Sweet Potato Mix Rolls are simple to make using a packaged potato, sweet potato mix. | recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #dinner

 

 It started about a month ago. Right around Halloween. Autumn was already long here, but before then it had been in name only. Now, it was in temperature as well. After waking rolled up in a ball with my head under the covers three mornings in a row, I finally gave in and turned the heat on in the house. Hubs shut down the sprinkler system and switched prominent garage status from the lawn mower to the snow blower. 
 
The leaves were turning color and falling. And due to a simple decision about a screen, I'd seen something in the yard. Something that compelled me to go out and take a picture. While there, I saw something else, just as noteworthy, and snapped a picture of that as well.
 
I wasn't sure what I'd do with the pictures, but their presence had felt important to me somehow. Embodiment of life lessons type importance. So I did what I always do, just let it be, let it germinate, tell me what I wanted to do with those pictures, to say about them.
 
Just for context, although many of you who read this blog regularly already know, let me just say this:
 
I grew up in New England. Fall is beautiful there. I've been on the Kancamangus Highway, seen the rolling mountains bursting with the colors of the season, reds and yellows and browns and burnt oranges and even greens all decorate both sides of the road.
 
Living in the Midwest, I always laugh when people who've never been anywhere else talk about the beauty of the Fall leaves. They have no idea. This, my friends, is nothing.
 
 
Autumn Lessons | picture taken by, property of, and featured on www.BakingInATornado.com

 
My house backs up to woods. Although, when I venture out, there are a few different colored leaves on trees here and there, what I get is just green, yellow and brown. Not that those aren't perfectly fine colors, but they are one-note, and I'm someone who's heard the symphony.

I wrote a blog post right about that time, published just a couple of days ago, called I Can See Clearly Now. I talked about the difference when we took the screen out of our kitchen window, the sharpness of the view. I credit that new clarity for, while working on a recipe, thinking that I had caught something out of the corner of my eye. 

Sweet Potato Mix Rolls are simple to make using a packaged potato, sweet potato mix. | recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #dinner

Sweet Potato Mix Rolls
 
It was just a quick glimpse. The wind was gently blowing and leaves were falling. The lawn was not yet dormant, but was covered in a brown and yellow carpet. But when that wind blew, did I see a variation along the woods line? A deviation from the norm?

Truth is, had I not been so used to my monochromatic view, I would never have paid attention to the flash of color, even seen it, perhaps, let alone gone out to investigate. I wouldn't have been treated to the lesson embodied by nature, nonconformity is noteworthy. There is beauty in difference. Highlighted, no doubt by the juxtaposition of that difference among all that conformity.

There it is. Can you see it? Way over on the far left? Red. Hanging out there, just being red.

Autumn Lessons | picture taken by, property of, and featured on www.BakingInATornado.com

 
And had I not been out in the back yard acknowledging, documenting, that difference, I never would have taken that second picture. 
 
Autumn Lessons | picture taken by, property of, and featured on www.BakingInATornado.com

 
There among the dead leaves and half dormant, wilting plants, stood one Daylilly. On one single stock, one single hearty, fully formed flower that, despite the odds, was determined to have its one single day in the sun. 
 
Perseverance, determination, they can pay off. You can't know unless you try. That's what I got from that little yellow flower.
 
But for me, the main lesson, one we desperately need to acknowledge in this country, is what those red leaves so beautifully personified, just by being the only thing they could be. There is beauty in diversity.
 

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Sweet Potato Mix Rolls       

                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 package (5.6 oz) Betty Crocker Homestyle Sweet Potato Mix
1 1/4 cup milk
1 cup hot water
4 TBSP butter, divided
2 1/4 cups flour, divided
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp allspice
 
Directions:
*NOTE: this recipe calls for a package of sweet potato mix, this recipe does not use the entire prepared mix.
*Prepare the packaged potato mix with the milk, hot water, and 3 TBSP of the butter in the microwave according to package instructions. Set aside, uncovered, for 5 minutes.
*Cover a kneading area with 1/4 cup flour. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the remaining 2 cups of flour with the baking powder, salt, and allspice.
*Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
*Add 2 cups of the potato mixture to the flour mixture. Mix just until incorporated, then, on the floured kneading area, knead for just 1 minute.
*Form the dough into 12 balls, place on the baking sheet and allow to rest for 30 minutes.
*Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Melt the remaining 1 TBSP butter and brush onto the tops of the rolls.
*Bake for 20 minutes.

10 comments:

  1. An important lesson we all need right now. There IS beauty in diversity! We just have to see it to appreciate it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are those of us who need to remember to look for it, others of us need to be willing to open their minds to it.

      Delete
  2. Nature teaches a lot of lessons, if only we look, if only we pay attention. And yes, the diversity in nature, makes the natural world in total function. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Those of us who do pay attention are those of us who would. If only everyone did.

      Delete
  3. Beauty is everywhere, we just need to remove our screens.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Beauty is everywhere, without screens, and even with (we just have to look a little harder).

      Delete
  4. Beauty is all around us, if we choose to see it

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sometimes we (I, anyway) just need to slow down a bit.

      Delete
  5. I'm glad you were able to see that Daylily. And its great that you were able to have some fun outdoors.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We're actually still having nice weather, I've been getting out more than I thought I would in December.

      Delete

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