Ugh…Dishes…I despise dishes..

I can’t think of anything I despise more than doing dishes.  Unfortunately, for me (and the hub), I love to cook and my hub loves to eat. 

Let’s face it, us Southerners have so much more we could be doing with our time on a nice evening besides doing dishes after dinner.  We could be sitting on the front porch sipping a glass of sweet tea (with lemon if you prefer), we could be visiting with our neighbors on a nice summer evening, we could be playing with the kids in the backyard until the sun sets gracefully behind our home, we could be taking a stroll down the road with our sweetie, and there are many other options depending on who you ask.  Wait a minute…dang…I don’t have a front porch with a great view…we rarely see our neighbors (although when we do, we love them!)…I don’t quite enjoy southern evenings because I am sweet meat, the mosquitos love me, and the evenings in North Carolina tend to me muggy…we don’t have kids…and the husband doesn’t like to “stroll” after coming home after a long day at work…Ugh!  It seems I am all out of options…good grief!

Unfortunately, this leaves a time-honored tradition around too many of our households nowadays…sitting on our caboose in front of the television…only after doing dishes.  What does that get you???  Yes, there are plenty of chuckles to be had watching Chuck (ha!  I made myself chuckle with that one).  There are plenty of dramatic comedic moments watching House.  But, aren’t you missing out on life if you just sit in front of the television after dinner to digest?  Do you and your family actually talk during the shows?  On top of that, how many of us start a show late off of DVR just to skip the commercials?  At that point, there aren’t any commercials to mute and spend time conversing with your family until the next segment of the show comes on…you sit in silence for a majority of the night.  No good people!  Oh no, I hear it coming…crap…it appears I am going to make one anyways…sigh…I resolve, this year, to spend more time away from the television.  There!  I said it!  I declared I wasn’t going to make one this year, but I just did.  It’s a worthy one.  It will match nicely to my healthier lifestyle.  Now…if I can only convince the dear hub of this resolution (and make sure all of my programs are set up correctly for DVR)…

So, back to dishes…(that is what this post is about afterall)…the upside to having dishes to do???  It signifies a wonderful meal was just prepared (most of the time at least).  It’s proof that you put effort into something today, instead of just coasting through life nonchalantly.  It’s evidence that you…unlike others…are not starving.  You have been blessed with another meal.  On top of that, if you didn’t prepare it, and are the one stuck (and I do mean stuck in all the sincerity) doing the dishes…you had someone who loved you enough to spend time preparing that meal for you.

Don’t take for granted the chef…a lot of love goes into cooking!!!

One of the best times to do dishes in our family, is after Christmas morning breakfast at Maw-Maw’s.  You  know why?  Because there is this one glorious dish…this one dish that you can’t wait to scrape clean just so you can enjoy the gooey sugar clinging to it.  It’s Maw-Maw’s Biscuit Ring (this is something I have talked about before on here)!  Now, for those that have been asking me…you get what you ask for…but, think about it…how does this recipe fit into your resolution???

Maw-Maw’s Biscuit Ring

(I looked in my trusty Maw-Maw Cookbook, and lo and behold…no Biscuit Ring recipe was in it!  The shock!  The one staple of our Christmas morning breakfast not included.  Sooooo…that just means I had to call her to get it.  She said this is one of her recipes where she just throws it together by heart.  Sounds pretty simple…enjoy and excuse the vagueness at some points…sometimes cooking with your heart gets you less specifics, but wonderful dishes…)

• Preheat your oven to 350.
• After your oven is at temperature, place one stick of margarine in a Bundt pan and slide pan in the oven.  Allow to sit in the oven just until the stick has melted completely.
• Combine 1 ½ cups of brown sugar and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon in a mixing bowl.
• Take 2 cans of flaky biscuits (you can find these in your refrigerated dough section) and lay them out, separated, on a sheet of wax paper.
• Dip each side of each biscuit in the melted margarine in the Bundt pan, and then dip in the brown sugar mixture on both sides returning to the wax paper.
• Next, after all have been dipped, stand them up in your Bundt pan to form a ring. 
• Bake at the 350 until the ring is browned.  She wasn’t sure how long this took, as she is super busy every Christmas morning with other cooking.  As you can see from the pictures below, it becomes a nice golden brown.
• Once removed from the oven, dump upside down immediately onto a heat proof plate.
• Combine 1 cup of confectioners sugar, ½ teaspoon of vanilla, and (here’s where it gets tricky and you need to use your common sense) enough milk to make it the consistency of a cinnamon roll icing.  Mix this together well and drizzle over the Biscuit Ring (this creates that decadent dish that everyone wants to clean).

This is truly a family loved dish.  From our family to yours…cooked with love.

(I don’t have many pictures of this decadence, as it got devoured quite fast…including my piece.)

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