Cinnamon Rolls

Breakfast is one of my favorite meals of the day. I just love breakfast food. There is nothing like bacon and eggs hot off the frying pan with a great cup of coffee. Breakfast sausage is unlike any other kind of meat in the world. There is just something about it that makes it totally unique, horribly unhealthy, and extremely delicious. Don't even get me started with hash browns. All the different shapes and sizes are just so awesome. Country potatoes, shoe string potatoes, tater tots, and all the rest are so good in the morning. Let's not forget about the carbs we love to eat for breakfast; The fluffy pancakes with the melted butter running all over them and the warm syrup, warm muffins fresh out of the oven,  hot and crispy waffles with fruit and cream. Boy do I love me some breakfast food. 

So since I love breakfast so much, I decided to have some dear friends of mine over for breakfast. I wanted to make something special for them that they would enjoy, and I also wanted to make something that I have never made before: cinnamon rolls. We always buy the sweet ones from the grocery store and then feel bad after we eat them because we have no clue how much sugar and butter we consumed, but what the heck, they are always so good. I decided to try making them myself, meaning that I know exactly how much sugar, butter and fat are in them. To the pleasure of my taste buds and the delight of my friends, they turned out pretty darn good. 

However, if you are making a new bread recipe for the first time as I was, I suggest having a practice run before you serve it to guests. Bread can be very tricky to make and I know that I have messed it up plenty of times.  A trial run is always a good idea to make sure you have it down right. 

On that note, I have put together a few little hints about making bread. These tips have helped me and hopefully they are helpful to you too. 

• Yeast: make sure it's not expired. Expired yeast is like using no yeast at all. It has lost its ability to help your bread rise
• Warm water: Warm water is not scalding hot water. Most people recommend about 120 degree water for combining with yeast for bread (120 degrees is a little cooler than a hot cup of coffee). It should be warmer than luke warm, but not so hot that you can't dip your finger in it. 
• Kneading the Bread: Do not over-knead the bread. Once it is done and smooth and no longer lumpy, STOP. If you over-knead the dough, the bread will turn out dense. Make sure you knead it completely, but once it is finished, there is no need to keep going. 

Alright, it's time for some Cinnamon Rolls

Dough:

1/4 oz package of yeast

1/2 cup of warm water

1/2 cup of milk

1/4 cup of sugar

1/3 cup of melted butter

1 tsp of salt

1 egg

3 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

Filling:

1 cup of raisins (more or less based on what you prefer)

3 Tbsp of cinnamon

3/4 cup of brown sugar

1/2 stick of butter cut into small cubes

Frosting:

1/3 cup of water

1 1/3 cup of powdered sugar

For the Dough

1. Combine the yeast with the warm water in a small bowl. Mix together and set aside. 
2. In a stand mixer, mix together the milk, sugar, butter, salt and egg. Mix together until all ingredients are incorporated. 
3. Add in 2 cups of flour and mix with the dough hook.
4. Add in the yeast mixture and mix together until all of the liquid has been absorbed into the dough.  
5. Slowly add in the rest of the flour until. Mix until the dough ball forms around the dough hook and the dough has pulled away from the side of the mixer. 
6. Remove from the mixer and place on a floured cutting board and knead together. Knead until smooth. Get out all the lumps and make sure that all of the flour is worked into the dough ball. 
7. Place in a greased bowl and cover with a towel. Store in a warm and dark place for about and hour and 15 min.  The dough should double in size. 

For the Filling:

1. Mix the powdered sugar into the water until dissolved and smooth. 

Once the dough is done rising:

1. Put the dough out on a floured cutting board and punch it down. 
2. Take a rolling pin and flatten the dough until it is a large rectangle. It should measure about 15 x 9 inches. 
3. Take the cubes butter and spread it evenly all over the surface of the dough. 
4. Sprinkle the cinnamon and brown sugar and raisins evenly all over the surface of the dough. 
5. Roll the dough together starting from the 15 inch side. Pinch the dough together once you get to the end so it does not unroll easily. Cut into about 12-14 pieces. 
6. Place in a greased 9 x 13 glass baking dish. They should be spread out in the baking dish as much as possible because they are going to rise more and need room to grow. 
7. Cover with a towel and let rise for another 45 min. 
8. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 25 min or until golden brown on top. 
9. Once they are done baking remove from oven and pour frosting over the top. 
10. Let cool and enjoy!

Pesto, Eggplant, and Peppered Salami Pizza

PIZZA!!!!

Still one of my favorite things to make. If you don't have my recipe for the crust here it is:

http://whilestilldark.blogspot.com/2011/01/pizza.html

For the Pesto

2 cups of arugula

1/2 cup of olive oil

1/3 cup of graded parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp of salt

2 cloves of garlic

1/2 cup of cashews (or pine nuts, or walnuts)

pinch of red pepper flakes

You can make this in one of two ways. 

1. Take all of the ingredients and put them in a tall mixing bowl. Blend together with an immersion blender. you can add more oil to adjust the consistency if it is too thick with the proportions that I have put here. As far as consistency, a thin paste is what you want. 

2. Take all ingredients except for the olive oil and put them in a food processor. Start to process continuously and slowly stream in the olive oil. Pour in the oil until you have the desired consistency. Again, it should resemble a thin paste. 

Spread evenly over your prepared Pizza Dough

Grade 1 1/2 to 2 cups of parmesan cheese and spread over the pesto sauce

Topping:

1/2 an eggplant, peeled and thinly sliced

12-15 pieces of sliced peppered salami (I buy this at my local grocery store. It is sliced salami with a coating of coarse black pepper on the outside. If you can't find this at your grocery store then feel free to get regular salami)

Olive oil

For the eggplant: lightly drizzle it with olive oil. The Eggplant will absorb the oil right away. This is to add a little extra flavor and soften the spongy texture of the eggplant. 

Arrange the Salami and Eggplant on top of the Pizza

Bake (475 degrees for 12-15 min or until golden brown underneath)

Invite a good friend over to share it with you and enjoy

Your Home

This post will not be about cooking. I have no recipes in this post and no cooking tips and no pictures of food. Hopefully it is still interesting.

I read a book this week called Inspired Design. Written by Roxanne Hughes Packham and Hannah Packham. I bought the book because I was a little interested in reading it but mostly because I wanted to support the ministry that the funds from the book would go to. I brought the book home thinking that it would look nice on my coffee table and I would open it and look at the pretty pictures when I had the time. Little did I know that once I cracked the book open I was hooked and I would finish the book in less than two days, going away from it inspired to use my home in a whole new way. My husband and I live in a small apartment. We are saving up for a down payment, so in the meantime we live in a conservative 583 square foot apartment that is just big enough for the two of us and we totally love it. I worked hard to decorate my little home to make it look like ours and to add my own touches to it when we first moved in. I am learning what a cozy and neat home can mean to people and to their lives. The book Inspired Design was written by an interior designer who uses her home and hospitable spirit to minister to and love other people. I could not imagine a more wonderful purpose for a home. It sounds a little like what God intended for women to do in their homes.

I remember hating cleaning my room when I was a child. I remember telling my mother that real friends would not care if the house was clean or dirty. My childish logic is funny to me now as I have come to realize that the reason you clean and decorate your home is to make people feel welcome and loved. To make them feel like they are important enough for you to clean and decorate and welcome them into your life and into a tidy home that is comfortable, beautiful, and peaceful.

My husband and I wrote our own vows at our wedding. One line that I wrote for him and promised to him was that I would "make our home a place of comfort, peace, and rest". I now add to that that I want our home to be warm and welcoming to others who come in. That my decorations will tell a story about the things we love and what we are passionate about. Wether that is a guestbook, a picture, a quote, or a color, I hope and pray that our souls and love for God, each other, and other people will be clearly conveyed through the little 583 square foot apartment.

Homemade Pretzels

 

For this next dish, I really have no claim to the recipe. I am a follower of one blogger who is most intriguing. My husband and I were home on a sunday afternoon, looking for something to do. We ended up in the kitchen doing my favorite hobby. Making food. He is such a sweetheart. We decided that pretzels would be fun to make. You can find the recipe at
http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/02/knotted-and-stacked-disappearing-acts/
Seriously. You are going to love these things. We took them over to my brother and sister in-laws house and ate them with warmed marinara sauce and a cheese dip. My cheese dip was super easy. All you need is:
3/4 cup of milk
1 Tbsp of melted butter
4 Tbsp of flour
                                                      1/2 cup of shredded cheese of your choice (I used pepper jack for this)
                                                       Salt and pepper to taste

In a small sauce pot, heat the milk and butter until warm. Do not boil. slowly stir in the flour until a smooth rue forms.  Once the flour is dissolved slowly stir in the cheese allowing it to melt into the sauce as you go. Once all of the cheese is melted and incorporated, add salt and pepper to taste.

Breakfast Potato's with Eggs Benedict Redone

Saturday morning is the time for fun breakfast. I remember that when I was a kid. Saturday morning was the time that my Dad took over the kitchen and made a scrumptious breakfast. Usually it consisted of eggs, bacon, toast, potato's etc. It was always one of my favorite meals of the week. Now that I have my own home I have tried to start to incorporate meal traditions into our family. One of them will be scrumptious, cholesterol filled, and delicious Saturday morning breakfast. This week I tried to make one of my personal favorite breakfasts: Eggs Benedict. I have had many eggs benedict meals at many different restaurants and everyone does it a little different. One of the main components of Eggs Benedict is the Hollandaise Sauce. Be warned. This was my first time making Hollandaise Sauce so I am by no means an expert. I found a recipe and through it sounded good so I tried it. If you know how to make it better or have tips for me that I could improve on what I have done then please let me know.

Ok enough chatter. Let's get to it.

Eggs Benedict:
2 large eggs
1 tomato, sliced
4 slices of bacon
2 english muffins or other kind of toast-able bread
butter for spreading on the toast
2 T of vinegar (any kind)

Hollandaise Sauce:
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/3 cup of melted butter
pinch of cilli powder
pinch of salt

For the Hollandaise Sauce:
1. put the egg yolks and the lemon juice into a bowl and whisk together until the yolks become thick and   doubled in volume. About 5 min or so.
2. Get a small sauce pan and put about an inch of water in the bottom and turn  on low. Take the whisked eggs and lemon juice and put them over the saucepan in a metal bowl. The bottom of the bowl should not touch the water. Whisk the mixture and add the butter. Whisking until it thickens further and doubles in size. Be careful not to let it get too hot or else the eggs will scramble.
3. Remove from the heat and add the chili powder and the salt. Mix in. Store in a warm place until you are ready to use it.

Eggs and Bacon:
1. Get a small pot to poach you eggs in.  Fill with water and heat until it boils and then reduce to a simmer. Add the vinegar and a pinch of salt to the water.
2. On the side take a bowl and put ice and water in it. This will be used to blanch the eggs after they are done poaching.

3. Crack the eggs, one at a time into a small bowl and then slowly and gently place the egg into the pot of water. Let it poach for about 4 min. Depending on how you like your eggs you can cook longer or shorter. Very carefully remove from the pot with a spoon and place in a bowl of ice water.
4. Let it sit here for about a min and then remove with a spoon and place on a plate with paper towels to let it dry off.
5. Repeat with the other egg.
6. Toast the Bread
7. Cook the bacon on the stove top and save the bacon grease.

The Benedict:
1. Preheat the oven to Broil
2. Assemble the sandwich by buttering the bread, then place the sliced tomato, the poached egg, bacon and finally the Hollandaise Sauce on top.
3. Place on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil or parchment paper (so you don't have to wash the baking sheet) and put in the oven for about 3 min.  You just want to heat the sandwich a little to melt the hollandaise over the sandwich and heat the tomatoes.

Breakfast Potatoes:

1 large yukon potato or 2 small potatoes of your choice
Rock salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Chili Powder
2 Tbsp of olive oil
Leftover bacon grease

1. Cut the potato into small, square, equal size pieces.
2. While on the cutting board, add salt, pepper, chili powder and olive oil. Move it around the potatoes with your hands to spread out the oil and seasoning.
3. Fry in the bacon grease over medium heat. About 8-10 min until potatoes are cooked and crispy.

Hope you love it!

Meat Free Night

Lately, I have been trying to find ways that my husband and I can eat very healthy but still enjoy good food and even indulge a little from time to time. One of the ways that I have decided to do that is to make sure that I have at LEAST one night a week where we are meat free. For some of you this may be a novelty. For others, you may eat meat free multiple times a week or you may even be vegetarian. Wherever you are coming from, I am going to try to post my meat free meals from time to time just to share with you my ideas. They may not be the most inventive recipes in the world, or, who knows, they may be the most inventive. I got the idea for this recipe from a magazine and added my own twist to it. I thought that the result was tasty, pretty, and, most important, very healthy.

I made a pasta dish with pesto and grape tomatoes. I used my own home made pesto for this which is super easy and fun because you can virtually change any of the ingredients and still make an awesome pesto. I also used whole grain rotini pasta. Whole grain pasta was used because it adds texture and heaviness to the dish along with a little extra protein and fiber. This is good because we are not using meat so the extra protein is nice and will make you feel more full. Rotini is good because the pesto will stick easily to all the swirls. You can use this or any other small pasta noodle. Grape tomatoes are fantastic. Tomatoes are one of my favorite foods by the way, but we will cover that in another post. Grope tomatoes are awesome because they have a condensed flavor and are sweet and add juiciness to the bite. Hmmm, my mouth waters just thinking about it.
Also, I have an easy and yummy salad that I hope you will love.

Here we go

Ingredients:
1 pound of whole grain rotini or other small pasta
1 cup of grape tomatos, cut in half,
1/2 cup of parsley
1 cups of fresh spinach
1/2 cup of basil
1/2 cup of olive oil
1/3 cup of grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
1 clove of garlic
1/2 cup of pine nuts
1/2 cup of cashews
1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes

Get a large pot for your pasta and boil the water, once water is boiling, add the pasta and a small hand full of salt. Keep the lid off and let cook for 8-10 minutes or until done. Strain.
In the meantime take 1 cup of the spinach, the parsley, the basil, garlic, cashews, 1/2 tsp of salt, parmesan cheese, and olive oil. If you have a food processor put these ingredients in a food processor and turn on and slowly stream in the olive oil. If you do not have a food processor take all of these ingredients plus the olive oil and put in a large bowl and blend together with an emersion blender. You can adjust the consistency of the sauce by adding more olive oil if you like. Once the pesto is done, combine with the pasta and mix together in a large bowl. Add the cut grape tomatoes. Take the pine nuts and put them in a small frying pan and toast over high heat for about 3-4 min and then put pine nuts over the pasta.
                                                                 Combine. Salt and Pepper

Salad
3 cups of fresh spinach
1 orange
1/4 of a red onion
1/2 cup of white wine vinegar
1/4 cup of lemon juice
1/2 cup of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste.

Put the spinach in your salad bowl. Take the orange and cut the top and the bottom off. Then cut down on all sides of the orange to remove the skin. Cut down the middle and then into bite size pieces. Like such

Take the red onion and slice it into thin bite size pieces. take it and put it into a small bowl and pour 1/4 of a cup of white wine vinegar over it and let it sit for 10-15 min. The vinegar will begin to break down the onion and make it flavorful and not as strong when you eat it raw in the salad. Once it has set, add it to the salad. In a separate bowl, put the remaining vinegar, lemon juice and add some salt and pepper. Whisk in the olive oil. Pour the dressing over the salad. 

  Enjoy!

Panda Redone

Who doesn't love a huge plate of chinese food? All of those unique and salty sweet spices are so pleasing to the pallet. Ordering a huge quantity of chow mien and chicken and sitting on the couch and eating as much as you can is so much fun. I was craving me some panda express last week. Rather than running out and buying a 3 item combo from panda express, I though it would be fun to make my own. There are a ton of different recipes online for orange chicken. I find that if you have the few basic ingredients, you can add whatever you want to make up the rest of the sauce. If you don't have every single thing that I used for my orange chicken recipe, that's ok. THe basic ingredients for the orange chicken sauce are orange juice, orange zest, soy sauce, and corn starch. As long as you have those items, you are good to go. You can add other ingredients to fill in the rest of it. The orange juice and zest are a must because... well... we are making orange chicken! You cannot make this without soy sauce. You will need it to bring out that salty flavor. The corn starch is necessary because it will thicken the sauce and help it stick to the chicken. COrn starch is inexpensive and you can find it at any grocery store. Here is how I made the orange chicken:

3 boneless skinless chicken breast cut into bite size peices
1 1/2 cups of orange juice
1/3 cup of soy sauce
2 Tbsp of corn starch
Zest from 1 orange
1/2 cup of ketchup
1/2 cup of crushed pineapple
2 Tbsp of orange marmalade or apricot jam
1/4 cup of white vinegar
pinch of hot red pepper flakes
1 cup of plain bread crumbs
2 Tbsp of canola oil

Take the chicken and marinate it in 1/2 a cup of orange juice. Let it sit and marinate while you are making the sauce.
In a small saucepan, put the vinegar and the ketchup. on low heat, stir together until they are combined. add the soy sauce and the remaining orange juice. Stir together until combined. add the orange zest, pineapple, corn starch and the marmalade (or jam).  Crush the red pepper flakes in the palm of your hand and mix into the sauce. Stir occasionally until the sauce starts to thicken. Once it is thick and bubbling, turn off the heat and cover the pot. Set aside.

Take the chicken and lightly coat it with the bread crumbs. The only reason you are using bread crumbs is to give the sauce a little extra something to stick to, so don't use to much on the chicken. Just a light coating. In a frying pan, heat the canola oil over medium high heat and add the chicken. Cook until the chicken is lightly browned and cooked all the way through. put chicken into a separate serving bowl and pour the sauce over the chicken. stir until the chicken is covered with the sauce. hmmmmm Yummy. Your orange chicken is ready to go!

Now it's time for the noodles.

1 pound of pasta (long noodles)
1 red bell pepper, cut into long thin slices
4 shallots, in half lengthwise and then cut into 2-3 inch pieces
1/3 cup of vinegar
1-2 cups of green snap peas (ends cut off)

Sauce:
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup of canola oil
1/4 cup of sesame seed oil
2 Tbsp of chili oil (may use more if you like it spicy)
1/4 cup of white vinegar
1 medium piece of Ginger root. Peel it with a paring knife
3 cloves of garlic

In a large pot, bring water to a boil for the pasta. Once it comes to a boil, add the pasta and stir. reduce the heat to medium and let it cook. about 8-10 minutes. Cook to taste and drain noodles and put into a serving bowl. add the red onions. Take the cut shallots and put into a small bowl. Cover them with the vinegar. This will start to break them down a little and make them not quite as strong. Take the snap peas and put into a small pot of boiling water. Cook for 2-3 min and remove from hot water and place in an ice bath. This will stop the cooking process and keep them bright green and crispy. Add the snap peas to the pasta along with the shallots.
In a glass bowl combine the soy sauce, and the white vinegar. Zest in the garlic and the ginger. Slowly add in the canola oil, chili oil and sesame oil while stirring with a whisk. Pour sauce over the pasta and veggies. Combine.

Enjoy!