Valentine’s

Valentine’s Day Coffee Cake

February 14, 2014 By amusingmjblog Leave a Comment

You may have figured out from our Valentine’s Day cards and table, but my family did Valentine’s Day right when I was growing up. We have a lot of tradition that goes into it, and as my mom said on facebook the other day: “I always wanted the kids to know, before they ever left in the morning, that no matter what happened at school with Valentine’s Day things (life can be difficult in school on Valentine’s Day) that they were LOVED!!!” We did know and it is one of the reasons that even through the years I was single on Valentine’s Day, I loved the holiday!

This morning I got to share the holiday with my twin brother and his fiancee (soon to be wife in 2 weeks!) and my husband. We did Valentine’s breakfast much as we had done as kids. The most humorous part of the morning was me struggling to read my brothers AWFUL handwriting on his sweet valentine to my husband and me. For this highly traditional breakfast, we always have eggs, sausage and coffee cake. My mom has made this super simple coffee cake (you better believe its easy if I can make it at 6:15am…)

My mom always made it in a heart shaped pan, so when I found this one at Crate and Barrel a few years ago on after Valentine’s day sale I snatched it up in anticipation of future Valentine’s Day breakfasts. This baby is DELICIOUS (don’t worry, the four of us polished this guy off before work this morning).

Want to know how to make it?

I thought so…

Coffee Cake

1/4 Cup salad oil (I use EVOO because its what I have around)

1 beaten egg

1/2 Cup milk

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Topping

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

To make this you have three bowls: dry ingredients: flour, sugar baking powder, salt

Wet ingredients: egg, oil, milk

and your topping. For the topping I add everything in except butter and then mix your butter in last.

Stir the melted butter in until it coats everything and some of it will start sticking together in clumps (ignore the fuzzy picture, apparently I am not a good photographer that early in the morning!)

Now set that aside and mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients together. If your wet ingredients have been sitting for a minute you will have to remix them since oil and milk separate if left alone (as they are in the picture above). Pour that into your greased pan. Then add the topping on top:

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes at 375° and you are ready to serve!

Filed Under: Baking, Valentine's

Valentine’s Table

February 13, 2014 By amusingmjblog 2 Comments

I mentioned in Tuesday’s post that my family had a tradition of having breakfast every Valentine’s Day morning of eggs, bacon and a coffee cake (I’ll share the recipe tomorrow… stay tuned). The decor is always the same: cutout construction hearts and doilies, chocolate kisses and dove chocolates scattered around the table and a mix of candles to make it more of a ‘special occasion’. To me this completely embodies what Valentine’s Day is: a little sugar and a whole lot of love.

So in tribute to my Jones Family Tradition, my husband and I have kept this up. The past two years that we have been together he has come over for Valentine’s Day breakfast at my house. And I hope (and plan) to continue the tradition with my kids whenever we have them.

I set the table for four (because two looks a little lonely), and don’t you love those red polka dotted plates? They have matching mugs to go with the saucers, but I think they look perfect as accent plates.

The white doily is a hand me down from my grandmother and looks perfect in the middle of the table.

And seriously, is there anything quite as good as a few Dove Chocolates?? (diet, what diet?)

The red candlesticks are from Crate and Barrel a few years ago, after Christmas they were on supersale and so I bought a few in several heights.

Here is a shot of the buffet… nothing fancy, just chocolate.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Filed Under: Valentine's

Valentine’s Day Cards

February 11, 2014 By amusingmjblog Leave a Comment

One of the many many things that my parents did right growing up was Valentine’s Day. For us growing up it was always about showing those people we love just how much we love them. It was not about having a boyfriend or girlfriend, single or dating; just about loving the people around us. One of the key ways they ingrained that in us was having a Valentine’s Box with red, pink and white paper, doilies, stickers etc for us to make Valentine’s cards for each other. I remember being a very young child and sitting down with my mom to do crafty cards to tell my brothers and dad just how much I loved them. To this day I still have several cards that my family gave me.

My mother almost always writes clever poems on hers (she has an uncanny ability to write clever poems) and my older brother has a tendency to find appropriate comics to send. We always exchange them on Valentine’s morning at breakfast Mom makes for us (stay tuned later in the week and I will share about that).

When I got married last year a couple of great family friends threw me a ‘holiday long distance shower’ for all of our family friends who live far and wide and wouldn’t be able to make it to a shower for me, and the theme was Holidays. I got some great gifts that I have used throughout the year to decorate for various seasons and one of the great gifts I got was from my second cousin and her family. They also have a Valentine tradition of making cards for each other and they gave me my own box full of cute Valentine’s cards and stickers!!

vdaycard5

My cards this year are not particularly clever or creative, but its the thought that counts right?! I bought some calligraphy pens and ink right before Christmas (seriously wasn’t Christmas just yesterday??) and I’ve been trying to improve my calligraphy skills… I have a ways to go!

Some years I am good at still sending them, and some years I am not, but I love that even as adults we occasionally still send the card to share how much we love each other.

The washi tape is an easy way to spruce up an otherwise simple card: