On a Roll

Today I was a busy bee. I had a list of things I wanted to bake, and though I didn't get through them all, I did manage to bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies and a batch of mom's dinner rolls. One reason for doing this is that, when Mike and I were first living together/married (I know, it makes it seem like we've been together for years!), we bought everything. We had a sweet tooth? We would buy Little Debbie cakes or packs of cookies or cookie mixes or containers of icing (yeah, we ate icing just out of the container). If we needed something to go with dinner, we would get tubes of Pillsbury biscuits. Well, we've found that we don't have the money for four dollars for a can of squeezy icing or three dollars for a pack of cookie mix. So, hopefully by baking my own stuff from scratch, we can cut back on our grocery money. Another reason for baking (aside that it's fun!), is it makes me remember what it was like baking with my mom. I remember when I was little, I would pull up the little wooden stool to the counter and watch while mom put in the ingredients, occasionally letting me help by putting in a cup of flour or a teaspoon of vanilla or, when I was a little older, cracking in an egg (that was my favorite part!). I'd then watch her put the spoonfuls of batter onto the cookie sheet (I don't ever remember her letting me do this...maybe I was too messy, I don't know). Once the cookies were in the oven, I'd help clean up...aka lick the batter off the beater and/or spatula! Duh, it's the best part of baking! I'd then go watch TV until the cookies were done, coming back to taste them and make sure they were up to par (which they always were!). Making the rolls today made me think about holidays, which is for the most part usually when this particular recipe was brought out. I remember after the dough rose, mom would ask if I wanted to punch down the dough (maybe not with this recipe, but with just about any bread she baked), which of course I wanted to! As I rolled out the dough, I saw the air bubbles in it and heard the little squeaks they emitted as I rolled them out, and I remember mom telling me to quiet down so I could hear them. I smiled a little as they popped, remembering how I'd giggle when they popped under her rolling pin (hey, I was a kid and easily amused...well, I guess not much has changed!). When I finally put them in the oven to bake, the warm aroma almost immediately began wafting from the oven to fill my house, and it took me back to me being upstairs in my room and knowing mom was making bread without actually having known what recipe she was whipping up in her mixer downstairs. While I was baking today, not only did I reminisce about the past, but I thought about the future, hoping that I will have as much fun baking with my son (and other children) as I had (and occasionally still do) with my own mom.