Sunday Breakfast on the Patio

Sunday is delight of a day.  Some of our favorite memories are of wonderfully relaxed Sundays spent sipping coffee, reading, and talking.  We have our favorite Sunday music, and of course, our favorite Sunday foods.  Sometimes we do a full breakfast, and other times we go out and let someone else do the cooking. 

Cooking is one of the ways that I show those I love how much I care about them, and so obviously I spend a lot of time planning and executing culinary delights for my sweetie!  However, our favorite Sunday breakfasts tend to be the ones that don't require a lot of cooking and clean up, so that we can enjoy as much of the day as possible relaxing together.  And so, Saturday night, I decided to do some preliminary work on the next days breakfast.  

The weather has been absolutely wonderful, and the best time of day to sit outside is the morning and early afternoon, before the sun is too high and the backyard becomes uncomfortably hot.  I knew that I wanted to take full advantage of this wonderful time of day.  So, I planned a simple breakfast of sweet rolls, fresh juice, and of course, dark roast French press coffee. 

As many of you know, the mandate of Nesty is to chronicle my pursuit of a happy home and a honeyed life through simplified living. And to me, part of this pursuit is finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.  I could have easily baked the rolls the night before and served them up cold, from a plate on the counter, and it would have been fine.  Instead, I decided to put a little more thought, yet not a lot more work into the whole thing and make a memory out of this particular Sunday.


I decided to make cinnamon rolls, which are always a favorite in our home.  I prepared the rolls up to the point of shaping them and putting them in the pan, but instead of letting them rise at the time, I loosely covered them and popped them in the fridge for the night.  When I woke up, I let them sit on the counter for half an hour to rise while I preheated the oven and took care of the dogs.  Once the rolls were in the oven, I made coffee and orange juice.  Before long, the rolls were finished, and while they cooled I prepared a vanilla glaze for them.  I popped outside to move my barbecue table up to the upper patio.  I fetched a few serving items, such as my cake safe and a favorite tray, plus a pretty tea cloth, and set everything up outside.  Before long, I was calling my husband to breakfast on the patio:

Now, isn't that nicer than just putting everything on the counter?  By waiting to bake the rolls until the morning, the house was filled with the scent of baking bread and fresh coffee.  In addition, we enjoyed our breakfast outside in the fresh morning air surrounded by the beautiful coastal mountains.  And by keeping the menu simple, we got to enjoy each others company without thinking about the cleanup.

This took so little effort, and yet it made us both so happy.  And that's the real motivation for me to do things like this; the joy I feel seeing someone I love happy.  What do you do to make life nicer for the ones you love?  

Have a wonderful week!