Homemade Egg-nog

Here is the long awaited egg-nog recipe...because like I said before, friends don't let friends drink store bought sludge egg-nog.

I won't write a whole long spiel about it, other than to say, you can modify it however you want.  I took this recipe here (Non-Alcoholic Egg-nog from, A Sweet Pea Chef) and tweaked it a bit.  I like creamy things, but Joseph does not like them as much as I do ... so I lightened it up a bit and expanded the recipe so that everyone could have some.  We also like a lighter spice blend as well.  If you like nutmeg and clove, add them, I didn't.

You will need:

6 C whole milk
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (more or less to your taste, though)
4 egg yolks
1 1/2 C sugar
3/4 C sweetened condensed milk
2 C half-and-half
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp rum flavor (optional)

Method:

Over medium heat, bring the milk, S-C milk, and cinnamon to a low boil.  In a separate bowl combine the egg yolks and sugar till they are a fluffy slurry, and the color has lightened up.  After the milk has come to a boil, temper the eggs, by whisking a 1/4 C at a time, of the hot milk into the egg/sugar mixture, till you have about half the milk left in the pan on the stove.  At this point the eggs should be tempered enough so  you can add the egg/milk mixture back into the pan on the stove.  Continue to heat on med-low for about 5ish minutes.  Remove from the heat, and add the half-and-half, vanilla, and rum flavor.  Allow to cool in the fridge for several hours, but it's actually really good warm too.  If you want a richer egg-nog use cream and 2 more egg yolks.

Pinstrosity cookies

I LOVE Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux cookies ...

I LOVE them with every fiber of my being. Do you understand how much I love these cookies?

Well, I do.

I never buy them because they're crikey expensive and I am trying to make better food choices these days (very large bottom is not getting rid of itself, dangit!). That said, I also like to cook with James on Wednesdays, and cookies are easy and everyone likes a cookie. Hey cookies!

I turned to my good friend google to find a copy cat recipe, and lo and behold about 2 clicks in I found one. HERE is the recipe on a cute little blog with bees and grandmothers. She was right...I did have all the ingredients in my pantry. (Except I do not get the whole unsalted butter snobbery going on here. Just use salted butter.)

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 c. light brown sugar

2 T. whole milk

1 c. All-Purpose flour

1 t. baking powder

Cream the butter, brown sugar and milk. Mix the baking powder into the flour and add half to the creamed sugar and butter till combined, then add the rest and combine. Turn out onto a piece of wax paper and form into a roll and wrap in the wax paper. Chill for at least 2 hours or over night. Slice into 1/4 inch slices, place on a baking sheet and bake for 7-9 min at 350F. Allow to cool for a minute on the cookie sheet, then remove to a cooling rack or paper towel.

Now, you can see how cute and delectable those cookies look in the picture.

As you can imagine, since this post has pinstrosity in the title, it didn't really turn out that way for us.

Please observe:

Cookies spread, and were actually heaving and bubbling like shark infested hot lava when I took them out of the oven.

Not to mention they tasted like butter. Now, you all know butter is not a bad thing, just ask Paula Deen -- BUTTER Y'ALL! But there is a limit to the goodness of butter in a recipe. Not enough and it's dry. Just enough and it's moist and flavorful. Too much? Your cookies spread and leave grease spots that would make the La Brea Tar Pits blush. I am not kidding, the spatula was dripping butter when I removed the cookies. I think that's too much butter. And now that the cookies are all cooled off, they are crackly. Not crunchy, because crunchy is good, but crackly. As in they crackle when you bite into them, and because they are liked a baked piece of caramel, they stick to your teeth in dangerous ways.

The boys seem to like them, because they are like Mikey and like every thing. I'm meh, about them. I think I'll wait for them go on sale and start hoarding them.

Root Beer Float Pie

You know we are pie people around here. I make myself birthday pies, not cake, every year. I always make a strawberry pie, the recipe for which can be found HERE and a second pie, which I choose based on my mood. I was thumbing around on pinterest the other day and I saw a pie recipe I'd pinned a while back for Root Beer Float Pie. It was a no-bake pie, which here in The Atomic City, without an air conditioner, is the only way we survive ... by not baking and keeping our cooking to a minimum.

The recipe can be found HERE. The author of the original recipe used sugar free and fat free ingredients, which you can do, but I didn't.

Here is my version:

1 tub of cool whip, defrosted in your fridge
1 box of instant vanilla pudding
3/4 C cold root beer
1/2 C whole milk
1 pre-made, 9" graham cracker crust

In a bowl combine the pudding, milk and root beer and mix till smooth. Fold in half of the tub of cool whip till completely combined. Pour out into the graham cracker crust, smooth the top and freeze. Remove from the freezer 15-20 min before serving and top it with the other half of the cool whip.

This was the HIT of the party among the old and the young alike. I'm sure too, you could make this with any flavor of soda pop you like and it would be just as good ... oh yes, Dr. Pepper, you are NEXT!

Roman Bread

You know you all love going for steaks at Monti's La Casa Vieja on Mill Ave in Tempe. Right? Right? It's the best place for meat, at least in my opinion, in all of the East Valley. When you go and are seated, they bring out baskets of warm bread coated in rosemary, olive oil and onions. It's pure heaven.

Thankfully, they provide a recipe on their website for you to make at home between your trips. (At this point, I think it's been at least 20 years since I was last there ... for shame, for shame!)

I've made this three or four times in the last few months. It's a great side to any meal that requires bread, especially a good warming soup.

You will need:
1 pkg of yeast or 1 heaping Tablespoon of yeast from a jar.
2 1/2 C warm tap water
2 Tbs sugar

Add the sugar to the water and dissolve, then add the yeast and allow to bloom for about 5 mins.

Add to the water, yeast and sugar:

2 Tbs salt
3/4 C finely diced onions (which will be less than an entire onion. Save the rest for the top)
6 C flour

Mix all of this together to form a dough. Turn out onto a floured surface and kneed till smooth. Place in a moist and warm spot to rise, about 30 mins, or until doubled in volume. Make sure to grease the bowl with a generous amount of olive oil as well.

When the dough has risen, turn out onto a floured surface and roll out to fit onto a half sheet pan, or a pan that is at least 9x13. Grease the baking pan with oil or PAM and transfer the dough to the pan.

Drizzle with olive oil and brush the oil out, so that the whole surface is covered. Sprinkle generously with dried rosemary or a rosemary spice blend. I use Pampered Chef Rosemary Blend. Also, add garlic salt and any left over onions on the top.

Bake in a 350F oven for 25-30 mins or until the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for about 5 mins before cutting. It's great the first day, better the second and freezes beautifully for about a month. To warm it up, pop in the oven on350 for about 5 mins before serving.

Atomic Christmas, part 1.

There is no more fitting a way to start out the new year, than by talking about the previous year. Right? Am I right? Of course I am. Seriously, I wanted to blog during the Christmas break but life got in the way, and that's ok too. But since, Joseph is back to work today and we're back to our old routine today is the perfect day to blog. And for the record, I will finish blogging about Thanksgiving and November as well, because I need to write about Thanksgiving....I just need to.

Anyway ...

Christmas came and went and it was good. I think I have finally got a handle on why I get so melancholy in December and I was able to re-route a lot of that angst, which made it an enjoyable Christmas for me, the first in many years. I won't go into the details, as I feel they are very personal, but I had good insight and for that I am very thankful.

We started our Christmas festivities with the obtaining of our Tannenbaum. Joseph and I have come to the conclusion that we have to have a tree every year for things to "feel" right, so our task was to figure out how to have a tree with a very curious Jeffrey.

The tree all decorated and pretty -- you will notice the new location in the corner by the wood stove (which remains dormant unless the power is out):

The tree all decorated and pretty, and protected from small fingers. Despite our best efforts Jeffy still managed to push toys and other things over to the fence and climb up and fling ornaments all over the place:

This tree was amazing. It was full and heavy when we bought it, and lasted the entire 3 weeks we had it up. Unlike last year's tree disaster, which as you may or may not recall turned brown 3 seconds after we got it home. The lesson here is to always buy the Noble Fir. They seem to be the most sturdy of Christmas trees, also make your husband double check the tree for brown spots and finally, never buy a tree when you are pregnant and out of your mind, as I was last year.

James finally understood Christmas this year as well. He was beyond excited to decorate the tree and was tragically sad when we took it all down after Christmas. All Friday, as I was taking things down, he kept asking me if Christmas was over. When I said yes, he just let out this little sad whimper.  And here is where I will ask a favor of the universe...we decided to not do Santa in our family many years ago.  When asked if James was excited for "Santa to come", I very casually mentioned that, this was not something we do in our house.  You might as well have thought I was eating kittens.  It's ok to have your own traditions.  It's ok to not agree with me about how we do our traditions.  But it's not ok to be snarky with me about it.  Ok?  OK?


We found these fun decals at Tar-zhe. James thought they were pretty amazing. (Yes, that is a Santa.  We have Santa decorations, but it's made very clear that he is pretend...and, again, that is ok.)

James also loved the Advent Calendar. He called it "his snowman" and wanted to put up all the charms on the first day. He actually threw a mock-10 tantrum when we said only one day at a time.

And on another front, James branched out culinarily. I made numerous pans of shortbread for giving away. He loved it. I mean he LOVED it. He figured out pretty quickly that if there was butter defrosting on the counter, I was going to make a pan of shortbread. He got pretty miffed that I made him wait for the pan to cool before I let him have a cookie.


I don't have a picture, but I will give you the recipe:

2 C flour
2 sticks of butter at room temp
2 egg yolks
1 C sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Method: Cream butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla. Add flour a cup at a time. Turn dough out into a greased 9 x 13 pan, push the dough out to the edges and smooth it down with your fingers, and prick the top with a fork. Bake at 325 for 25 to 30 mins, but remove when the edges are golden brown. Allow to cool for 15 mins and cut into diamonds, sprinkle with a healthy measure of white sugar.

This is the easiest cookie to make if you are doing neighbor gifts or need something quick to eat when you are craving a cookie.

And if you think this is the end ... stay tuned. More posts to come.

The BEST Banitza EVER!

I mentioned in my pitiful tribute to November that I'd made the perfect banitza ... twice!

Yep.

That is not the greatest of pictures, but I am not a photog.

My friend Becca Anderson, who actually was my study partner at BYU, in German, yea many years ago, and who also served her mission in Bulgaria forwarded me a recipe she uses when she makes Banitza.

The original recipe is HERE.

I don't know who you are Ralitza, but oh for the love, your bantiza is the best thing I have ever eaten. Seriously, Bulgarches, it tastes just like homemade banitza your Bulgarian best friend's mom would make for you. It is that good.

Here is how I did it:

FYI: in a box of phyllo there are two packages of sheets. Defrost only one package for each pan of banitza you make.  And the best way to defrost it, is to leave it in the fridge for a day, then set it out on the counter for an hour or so the day you are going to make this.  You want the sheets to be at room temp.  Also remember, work fast with phyllo, as it dries out quickly.

For the filling:
4 eggs
1/2 c grated, cold butter.
1 C of sharp cheddar or Colby-jack cheese
1 package of feta cheese crumbled up. (I used Athenos, but that is not my favorite. Be sure to soak it in fresh water for about 2 hours before hand)
1 C plain yogurt -- with live active cultures.
1/2 tsp salt, or a bit more if you like a bit more flavor

Mix that all together and set it aside.

For the pan:
Melt a stick of butter and use it to grease your baking dish.

In a 9x13 baking dish (you can use a glass dish or a metal dish)
brush a layer of butter and lay down 1 sheet of phyllo. Do this 6 times. The layer in a cup or so of the filling and spread it evenly over the dish. Layer 6 more sheets, making sure to butter each sheet. Repeat this until all of the filling is used up. BEFORE baking: cut the banitza into squares.

For the top: mix 1 beaten egg with 1/2 C soda water and pour over the top of the banitza, making sure to cover the entire surface with this mixture, especially the corners.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 35-40 mins. Poke with a knife to test for doneness.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 15-20 mins. It actually tastes really great if you wait an hour or so to eat it (if you can even wait that long!)

Variations include spinach and onion. Just add 1 to 1 1/2 C drained, and patted dry frozen spinach and/or green onions or leeks which have been finely chopped and cleaned.

Thank you Ralitza, who ever you are, and thank you Becca for sharing this with the rest of us. Now be quiet and pass me a plate.

Lytenitza

We went to Utah a month ago and Joseph's mom loaded us down with tomatoes from her garden. She had about 7 or 8 plants, all of which, were in full bloom. Have I mentioned that I love fresh tomatoes? I do. They grow here in The Atomic City, but our growing season is short I never bother. In the end, I think we brought home about 30 pounds of tomatoes. Not that all of those survived the journey, but enough did to make...

LYTENITZA!

You know, that most wonderful Bulgarian tomato and pepper relish you spread on hot, fresh bread. It seriously melts away all of your problems as well. Any Bulgarian will tell you that. It's pretty much the best thing you can spread on bread besides Nutella.

When I lived in Sofia there was the little deli down the street from our house. The Babichka of the owners made the lytenitza fresh every day, and because he thought we were pretty he'd give us a 500 gram container of it whenever we went in there for free. Thank you. Oh, how I'd missed it since I came home. It was one of the two things I never learned how to make while there.

Thankfully my friend Holly is a librarian and when I made mention of lytenitza she found me a recipe. I'm sure I could have found myself a recipe, what with the google and the interwebs and all, but I never connected those dots. She found a good recipe HERE.

You will need:

3 lbs roasted red pepper /red pepper paste (I used roasted red peppers in jars)
3 lb tomato, crushed
4 roasted eggplant
1 C sugar
4 Tbsp salt to taste
4 Tbsp dried summer (Balkan) savory

Do the following:

1--Roast the eggplant before you start by pricking them like you would a baked potato and roast on 375 for about 45 mins. Remove them from the oven and allow to cool till you can handle them. When they are cool, remove the skin and scoop out the seeds. I used a grapefruit spoon to do this. 2--Process the eggplant in a food processor till a thick paste. 3--Drain the red peppers and process them in the food processor till a chunky paste. 4--Cut and quarter tomatoes and process in the food processor as well, till a thick puree with some chunks. 5--Combine all of this along with the savory and sugar and salt in a big soup pot on the stove to reduce in volume. My own experience taught me to add the salt last, as things will reduce and the salt will become more concentrated and will overpower everything else. 6--Bring to a boil and reduce to med-high so that it's simmering for about an hour. It should look like this:


7--The finished product will have liquid, but will not be watery. Think the consistency of a really thick spaghetti sauce. 8--Allow to cool and freeze in freezer jars, or if you are really brave, can it.

The finished product should last about a month in your fridge. I mentioned you spread lytenitza on bread, but it's good on eggs, sandwiches in place of mayo, as a pizza sauce, or as a base for guvech or mussaka. (If you don't know guvech or mussaka, let's talk shall we?)

My stove and kitchen looked like this afterwards:

And out of my brain spilled this:

Lytenitza is DONE! My house smells wonderfully of Bulgaria, and autumns past and of chooshki and choobritza. The sun is lower in the sky and I think to bundle myself up so that I won't offend my Babichka neighbor, who is after all, looking out for us young religious girls. I can imagine myself drinking a big cup of lipov chai (linden flower tea) from a big bone china tea cup or a tall Russian tea glass, but it still tastes comforting and warm no matter the vessel. I see the kiosks in the Krasno Selo and Zhenski Pazaars over flowing with food and flowers, too much to buy and take home, but it's comforting to see such bounty, to see the love of God made manifest in the fruits of the earth. My Bulgarian friends gift us with jars of food they have preserved for the winter and the hungry times, so we won't starve. Riding home late nites on the trams, rocking back and forth, being lulled to sleep, I know this is where my heart is. I love this land and these people. I am a Bulgarian. Az sum Bulgarche. :)

I only wish I could have all of you na go-sti so we could enjoy it together.

Joyce Baking (again)

Now that it's getting Autumny, yes that totally is a word, or should I have used Fallish? Anyway ... the point is, I can turn on my oven again. I am making up for all the things I didn't bake over the summer this week. The other point is, I needed Bisquick to make some biscuits. Normally I don't have Bisquick in the house. I just don't. And didn't want to go and buy any. Not because I didn't want to spend money, I have no problem with that. The real reason was I did not want to load us all into the car and then unload us and reload us and so on and so forth, alleluia, amen. It's really hard to lug both boys places. I have big children and wonky back muscles.

Anyway, so what did I do? I looked on pinterest and found a recipe for homemade Bisquick and I made it and it was all good. (I want to say Heavens to Neighbor Juila too -- we are neighbors and always joking about pinterest -- Hi Julia!)

So, because I love you all so much I am going to save you a trip to the store with all of your kids in tow and tell you said, home made Bisquick recipe:



Mix these together with a wire whisk or a fork
2 cups flour,
1 tsp. baking powder,
1 tsp. sugar,
1/2 tsp. salt;

Then:
1/2 cup cold butter cut in to the flour like you would for a pie crust. Cut it in, till the butter is evenly distributed and there are no lumps.

Store this in the freezer till you need it. It's just as good as the real stuff, and no trip to the store!

(I got this recipe HERE)

Now, I've only ever eaten at Red Lobster once in my entire life, because I am not necessarily a big sea food person. In fact when I was pregnant with Sweet Baby James the very thought of fish and any thing that might have come from the briny deep made me want to hurl. I'm sure that's why I hate Sponge Bob Square Pants, or as James calls him, Sunge Bon Pantsy Pants. However, Red Lobster serves these delightful little yummies called Cheddar Bay Biscuits and that is what I needed the Bisquick for. If we could open a restaurant called Cheddar Bay Biscuits and not serve seafood that would be dreamy.

So, these babies go with anything...soups, salads, snacks etc, etc, etc. Make them at your peril because they are full a butter and cheese and they do not do anyone any favors in the diet department.

Recipe from Pin Cookie

Here we go:

2 C Bisquick that you made yourself
3/4 to 1 C milk or buttermilk
1 1/2 C cheddar cheese shreds. Or any shredded cheese you might have, it's really good with Colby/jack cheese as well.

Mix this together to form a sticky dough. Scoop out onto a GREASED baking sheet with a large scooper. It should make about 12, 1/4 C sized biscuits.

Bake these for 10 mins at 400 degrees.

Pull them out and brush them with 2 Tbs melted butter, mixed with 1 Tbs Italian seasoning/oregano/Pampered Chef rosemary blend and 1/2 tsp garlic salt.

Return to the oven and reduce the temp to 350 degrees and bake for 5-7 more mins till golden brown.

Let them cool for about 2 mins and remove from the baking dish.

I think these would also work well with Bulgarian Feta (Sirene) as well for a breakfast biscuit.

They were delish ... none were left over, and we'll fight you for the last one.

What was cookin'

As alluded to yesterday when talking about my true love I had another thing cooking up for him for Valentines Day, literally, I cooked him something. I like making homemade presents, which I have not really been able to do for a while now, but I knew I could do this.

I saw this idea on Pinterest:



However, I didn't really want to use store bought donuts. Let's face it all we really have here is Smiths and their donuts are not that fantastic. So, I found another idea in Pinterest and made these Baked pumpkin-spice donut holes.



I was really easy and all I needed to buy was a mini-muffin tin, which I've always wanted anyway...

James had a fun time helping as well. This boy LOVES to help me cook. All I had to do was measure and mix things up at the end for him and he did it all by himself.



The verdict: EXCELLENT!

And now, this will satisfy my need for baked goods till I have this baby. Seriously, I might never buy a donut again.

The Middle of Nowhere, the Mall and the Orange Julius

There are things I really miss living in the middle of nowhere.

Orange Julius is one of those things. (Am I right Marie Cowgur?)

You know what I mean, creamy, orangy, smoothie goodness, only found at the mall.

OH THE MALL!

Can I tell you how much I loved Fiesta Mall as a child for the Orange Julius alone? We'd go, mom would always buy us OUR OWN Orange Julius to drink.

We were lucky kids.

Like I said, there are things that I miss. The mall being second and the Orange Julius being THE ONE. There are some OJ's in The Duke City, but that is some 100 miles yonder, and as much as my husband loves me, I don't think he'd love it if I just drove down to Albuquerque for an Orange Julius.

So what is a girl to do?

Turn to the internets and pintrest of course. For you can find all the information you seek and all of the good ideas you crave on the world wide web.

I found an Orange Julius recipe on pinterest, that was ok, but not THE SAME. So I tweeked it and came up with something that I think is about as close to the real-deal Orange Julius as you can get with your Osterizer.

My tribute to Orange Julius is as follows:

1 C milk
1 C water
6 oz frozen orange juice concentrate -- which is half a can, thawed a bit (I like the Old Orchard brand the best, it's a bit sweeter than Minute Maid or Donald Duck)
3 Tbs sugar (this is optional if you like it really sweet -- some recipes said powdered sugar was the best)
4-5 ice cubes

Blend it baby, blend it!

Now, I also made some modifications:

I used Old Orchard Orange/Pineapple juice and I added about a 1/4 cup of frozen strawberries in syrup (the kind you put on your Christmas waffles) in my Julius, and I omitted the sugar.

It was good.

It was VERY, VERY good. And now I can get my Orange Julius fix without having to drive to the mall, or 100 miles away, which ever comes first.

A Baby Shower

I know this is silly, but I've always wanted to throw a baby shower for a friend. Up until now, I've never had the chance till last week. My friend Juila is about to have twin girls. It's not that my friends have not had babies. They have, they all have and will have more babies than me. It seems however, that if you are going to throw a baby shower for someone here, you have to call dibs the second the pink lines show up on on the stick test. We're a very party throwing crowd up here. And with these babies it's going to be girls camp from now on at her house, as she is the mother of two girls already.

This is Julia. (I totally cropped you, as promised Julia!)

So, last week, our friend Melissa and I gave Juila that baby-shower. It was a fun party and if I do say so myself, the food was fabulous!

We had lemon-cheesecake cupcakes, recipe found HERE. (The only variation was that I made it with lemon cake instead of white cake, because for some reason The Piggly-Wiggly never sells white cake mix, but is constantly having sales of lemon cake mix.)



Here is where I would like to say as well, a baby shower is the perfect excuse to buy a dessert tower...thank you Wilton cake supplies at Walmart. I also used this party as an excuse to buy a set of cake decorating tips. I have no idea how to use them, as I tried to use them to frost these cakes, but oh nelly that was a bad, funny, tragic not such a good idea.



We also had finger sandwiches made with q-cumbers and roasted red peppers. My friend Laura Fisher gave me the recipe from her recipe blog, which I have lost the link to. The recipe was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy:

1, 8oz cream cheese at room temp
1/2C mayo
1 packet Italian salad dressing

Blend that together, and then schmeer on baguettes, crostini, cocktail bread and then top with q-cumbers or red peppers or what ever you want. So very DELISH!!

Melissa made some yummy fruit salad, and a veggie tray.

We also had Brazilian Lemonade to drink. Everyone loved it. How can you not love things that include sweetened condensed milk? You can't, you must, it's in the Constitution.



Julia had a good time (I think), and got lots of good stuff to help her as she is thrust into the world of twins parenting.

Lemon-Sour Cream Pancakes

I just invented the best lemon-sour cream pancakes for my husband.

You will love them, they are deeeelicious!

1 C flour
1/2 C cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
2/3 C sugar
2 eggs
1 C milk
1/2 C sour cream
1/2 C oil
zest and juice of 2 lemons

Combine all of this and cook on a hot oiled griddle.

General Conference cinnamon rolls, have just met their match.

You're welcome!

Buttermilk Pesto Salad Dressing

If you remember, whilst we were in Mesapotamia we were able to go on a dinner outing by ourselves. We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory, which as you can imagine is the place to get GREAT spaghetti. We also ate salad with a GREAT, buttermilk pesto dressing. I am not kidding, this is the best salad dressing. I've recreated the recipe for you all, because I love you all that much. Ok truth, I did not come up with this on my own. I googled and put together a recipe from several other recipes.



You will need:

1 C mayo
1 C buttermilk
1/2 C (at least) of regular milk
2 T grated Romano cheese (I actually just used the Parmesan/Romano blend that you shake on top of spaghetti)
2 T dried basil
1 T minced garlic
1/4 tsp salt

Add all ingredients together and blend. This will be a very thick dressing. Thin down with milk to your desired consistency.

Self-Frosting Cinnamon Rolls

A few weeks back I posted the recipe for my Grandpa's Dutch Oven Yeast Rolls

The great thing about these rolls is that they don't take long to rise like many other yeast roll recipes and they are totally easy and quick to make. They are also very easy to turn into what Grandpa called "Self-frosting Cinnamon Rolls". I like to think of them more as sticky buns, but whatever you call them, they are great. Last weekend was our ward's Creche Show, Nativities from Around the World, my friend Connie and I were in charge of Team Kitchen and we decided to to "breakfasty" type foods on Saturday morning. I supplied the cinnamon rolls.

The finished product

So here is what you do:

4 1/2 tsp yeast in 2 1/4 cups warm water (Jeri's note: I use 2 cups milk)
3 T sugar (1 T with yeast and water/milk)
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp salt (Jeri's note: I find that 2 tsp is fine; at a higher altitude, if you use only 2 tsp, then decrease the yeast by 1/2 teaspoon)
1/2 C powdered milk (Jeri's note: I omit and add extra flour as needed)
1/2 C oil
2 pounds flour (Jeri's note: ~6 cups flour)

Preparation

Bloom yeast, sugar and lukewarm-water/milk for 10 mins. Add to all ingredients except flour and mix all ingredients, adding flour last. Let stand about 20 min (you can also put this covered in an oven that's been turned on to 200F for 5 mins then turned off, with pan of water on the bottom rack for the 20 mins). Roll out dough ½ to 3/4" thick. Cut with a biscuit cutter. Dip lightly in oil on both sides and fold over into Parkerhouse shape. (Jeri's note: butter is better than oil.) Put in round cake or pie pan almost touching and let raise in the same warm oven for about 10-15 mins. Bake in Dutch oven. Put 3 small rocks or bottlecaps in bottom of oven to prevent burning. Cook about 15 minutes, until golden. (Jeri's note: Can also bake at 350º for about 15 minutes.)

Cinnamon Rolls: Add 6T more sugar to dough mix (Jeri's note: if using the same recipe for regular and cinnamon rolls, don't add the extra sugar; the rolls come out fine). Roll dough to ½” thick or less and 6-8" wide. Sprinkle with brown sugar, chopped pecans, and cinnamon. Roll into a tube and cut ½-1" thick. **I made a mix of brown & white sugar with cinnamon before I started the whole project. I also chopped my nuts ahead of time. There is really no recipe for your sugar to cinnamon to sugar ratio, just to your taste.

Prepare the pans with 3 Tablespoons melted margarine, and sprinkle with brown sugar, cinnamon, and chopped nuts.
This was my first batch of pans. I put too much sugar to margarine. The margarine should soak up into the sugar so everything is "wet".

Here are the rolls before they go into the oven. You can cut them as big or as small as you want. I cut them kind of big and ended up with 3 1/2, 9" cake pans. So I made another batch and got 3 1/2 more pans for a total of 7 pans.

Put rolls into pans, let rise (about 15 mins), and bake. Turn out of pan immediately.

The rolls will look like this when they come out of the oven. Turn them out onto a plate (a big Chinette paper plate works the very best) like you would do with a pineapple upside down cake. If you let them cool, they will cool to the bottom of the pan. Also let them cool completely before putting them into a ziplock bag or covering with anything. They'll get soggy otherwise.



Again, the finished product:


These are also great warmed up in the micro for about 20 seconds the next morning. When we were kids I loved these and looked forward to the times when my Dad and Grandpa cooked BBQ dinners for people. There were sure to be lots of rolls and cinnamon roll left overs.

Happy eating!

Slices of Life: Fall 2010

As promised some cute baby pictures:

Joe Cool


Baby James, loves buckets, bins, clothes baskets. He's going to be seriously sad when I fill this one up and put it away today


The boys watching a show. This is a Sunday afternoon ritual


Out in front of the house

Fruity, fruity, fruity

So earlier this summer a lady in our stake (a group of Mormon congregations, comparable to a diocese) did a big group order on berries from Oregon. She does it every year, so this year I thought I'd get in on the fruity goodness. However, (of course there is a however here) no one could tell me exactly how big the cases were. No one, other than to say, "they're bigger than the flats at Sams." Ok, bigger than the flats at Sams is good, but...

The way to Joseph's heart is with blackberries

Anyway, so I decided to get a box of blackberries for Joseph, because he grew up in Seattle and they had a blackberry fence in their back yard. And then a box of boysenberries, just for fun.

Well, they were each 14 pounds. Have you ever seen 14 pounds of berries? And then add to it that there are 2 boxes. Use your math skillz, that's 28 pounds of berries -- it's the size of a toddler and It's A LOT! So much so that I'm a little nervous of how we're going to use up all those berries in the next year. And I suppose that you all expecting a picture of 28 pounds of berries, but that's not going to happen. I'm not digging in the freezer today, just not.

One thing that I do know how to do is make freezer jam. So that's what I did on Saturday. I made a batch of blackberry jam and a batch of boysenberry jam.

Boysenberry, which is very similar to a raspberry flavor and color

I just followed (mostly) the instructions on the box of pectin, but it still was and is delish! For berries like raspberry, blackberry, boysenberry, loganberry (any berry that looks like little bubbles) use the recipe for raspberry.

Gather:
3 C defrosted or fresh berries OR 6 C frozen berries
Juice and zest of one lemon (make sure and strain the seeds)
5 1/4 C sugar
1 box of pectin prepared according to the box directions for freezer jam
Jars



Preparation:
Defrost and then mash the berries. Add lemon juice and zest and then sugar. Stir till all the berries are coated by sugar and the sugar is mostly dissolved. Add the pectin and stir till totally blended. Fill jars with jam, leaving room at the top for expansion while freezing. Leave out on the counter for 24 hours to set, and then freeze. This keeps in the freezer 12 months and in the fridge for 1 month, but it wont last that long...seriously!

The jam is heavenly, but the lesson has been learned....one box only!

Chocolate Waffle Cookies

The other night some twitter friends and I were talking about waffles. I know, random. Anyway, I promised Ozma the recipe for Chocolate Waffle Cookies:

I totally stole this picture from the google. I am not making these anytime soon

1 1/2 C sugar
1 C melted butter
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 C flour
1/2 C cocoa
1 C chopped walnuts

Cream butter and sugar and add eggs one at a time till combined. Add flour cocoa, nuts and stir till just blended. Drop dough by heaping tablespoons full onto the sections of a hot waffle iron. Cook for 2 mins and then remove. It might take a few trys to see how long you need to cook them in your waffle iron, so experiment, your family will not mind! Dust with powdered sugar, or frost with your favorite frosting.

Variations: You can put different nuts, or no nuts, chocolate chips, sprinkles etc.

Before SBJ was allergic to peanuts I also did a yummy peanut butter frosting:

1 C smooth peanutbutter (or you can use almond butter which is just as good)
1/4 powdered sugar
1-2 T milk

Melt the peanut butter in the microwave and then add the powdered sugar. Add milk as needed to get to whatever consistency you want. Frost and let harden for about 15 mins.

Pumpkin-Black-Bean Soup

As you may (or perhaps may not) know, I am a HUGE fan of the pumpkin. I love pumpkin. Not to carve them, but to eat them....they are yummy! Every year I prepare my own pumpkins for use thru out the year. For some reason however, this year I have lots of left overs from last year. What to do? I already made some mini-pies over the weekend, but you can't eat pie all the time and expect to loose your very large bottom.

Oh how cute! Mini-pies!

So I went on the hunt for soup recipes. The problem here was most recipes I came across had about a pound of butter and a gallon of cream. Not that I don't love me some butter and cream, I am a McKay after all, but really, I'm trying to be good here. I found a recipe for Pumpkin-Black-Bean soup that was good.




So, here is what you will need:

2 C pumpkin. Your own or the canned kind (if you must)
3 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can stewed tomatoes of any variety
2 cans beef broth
1 med, diced onion
1/2 pound cooked ham, cut into small cubes or
1 pkg ground turkey
1 pat of butter
2 Tbs red wine vinegar
4 cubes frozen garlic (or 2-3 cloves of fresh)
3 cubes of frozen cilantro (or a handful of fresh to garnish)

Here is what you do:

Sautee the onion in a bit of olive oil till soft. Add ham or turkey and cook till warmed thru or cooked thru if you're using turkey.

In the blender, puree 1 can of beans with the can of tomatoes and add to the pan. Add the other cans of beans, the beef broth and the pumpkin. Let heat thru and then add the butter, garlic, cilantro and vinegar. Continue to simmer for 30 mins or so.

Serve with hot rolls, corn bread etc.

Gaspacho

So in the summer, which sadly is coming to a close here in the Atomic City (saddness), I don't really cook. It's just too hot in a house with no air conditioner. So we make things that don't require cooking. Like Gaspacho. Which is a very yummy Spanish/Portugese cold tomato soup. In fact I made some today, and had what I call "The perfect lunch". Gaspacho and a peice of cheese toast.

Campari tomatoes are smaller and a bit sweeter than regular tomatoes. But if you can't find them, just use vine ripened tomatoes with the seeds scooped out.

You will need:

1 lb campari tomatos
1 clove of garlic, minced up.
2 Tbs fresh basil, cut into a chiffonade
1 or 2 roasted red pepper
salt & pepper to taste
2-3 Tbs olive oil

What you need to do...

Cut the tomatoes in halves and with a grapefruit spoon scoop out the seeds (they are bitter).

I acutally never use "fresh" garlic cloves. I hate dealing with them, so I get these nifty froze garlic cubes at Trader Joes. Notice them in the bowl at the top of the picutre. Totally worth it!

The lable says Zer Gut, which would lead you to believe these here chooshski are German, but they're not. Nope, they are 100% Bulgarian! YaaH baby!

Add to that the basil, garlic red pepper, oil, salt and pepper to the blender.

You can also add cold water to make it blend easier, or to just thin out the thickness.

Blend till smooth.

Now I realize that you're techincally "supposed" to blend q-cumbers and bread into this, but I like them as a crunchy topping and my bread on the side. You can also top it with grape tomatoes, tortilla strips or whatever you like. Gaspacho, like any other, good homemade dish can be made a million ways and there are as many variations as there are people.

The perfect lunch, yes it is!

Puleni Chooshski -- Bulgarian Stuffed Peppers

Every year about this time the chile roasters come out in New Mexico. The air is thick with the perfume of roasting green chiles, and it is divine. Every year similar things happen in Bulgaria. Except they roast their chiles over open fires in the commons between the hulking grey monotliths knows as Bloks. I love this smell. Slightly burned, slightly sweet with promises of tasty things to come.

In Bulgarian a pepper (chile) is called a Chooshski. I realize that in Varna they call them Pipperkey, but I never lived there so they're called Chooshski in my mind. A dish that is very prevalent during the long and very cold Bulgarian winter is stuffed peppers, or as they call them Puleni Chooshski (full peppers). I have managed to recreate this cullinary goodness and I'm sharing it with you....because as ever, my love for all of you, knows no bounds!

You will need:
1 med diced onion
2 med cubed zuchinni
1 C chopped carrots (I use my PC chopper for this)
10 oz ground turkey (10oz is half the package, cook it all, freeze the other half)
1, 14 oz can Italian style tomatos
1, 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 tsp ground savory
1 C minute rice
2-3 bell peppers, cut in half and cleaned. I like red, they have the best flavor, but greens are more uniform in shape. You choose
salt and pepper
cheese of your choice (cheddar is good, jack is good and feta is best)

What to do:



In a big (or not so big in my case) soup pan, bring salted water to a boil and cook the bell peppers till they are almost soft, about 15 mins. Meanwhile, in a big sautee pan, start your onions, carrots and zuchinni and cook them till they are nice and soft. Add to this the rice, tomato and cook till the rice is done. Salt and pepper to taste, and add the savory (this is what makes is taste "Bulgarian", but you might not like it, so omit if you want.)



At this point, remove the peppers into a foil lined baking dish. Scoop the filling into the peppers and give each a spinkle of cheese. Top with a spoon of the tomato sauce. Cook in a 350F oven for 20-30 mins.



Serve with a big spoon of plain yogurt -- also a very Bulgarian thing to do. And as we would say in Bulgaria Zap-o-vya-die-te ee, Pri-yat-no Ya-dan-eh.