Worlds Best Cinnamon Rolls

I hadn’t ever had cinnamon rolls like this, the cornmeal in them was different. But they’re the most amazing things ever. I give them as gifts often because they make two, so I still get to keep one pan! Win-Win!

Dough:

2 cups milk

1/2 cup water

1.2 cup sugar

1/3 cup cornmeal

2 tsp salt

Boil together, cool, add 2 eggs and 2 packets of yeast.

Then add flour to make a dough that is not tackey anywhere from 5-7 cups.

put into greased bowl and let rise until doubled.

Topping:

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup milk

Bring to boil and divide into 2 9×13 pans. Top with 1/2-1 cup of chopped pecans, optional but highly recommended.

Filling:

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Once dough has risen, punch down divide into 2 pieces. Roll out each piece to 12×15 top melted butter and cinnamon sugar. Roll and divide into 12 pieces. Repeat with other batch of dough. Place rolls into pans with topping in them, coer and let rise for 30 minutes.

Baek at 375 20-25 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes and then flip out so that all the gooey topping is actually on the top.

Some variations:

Replace the filling with apple pie filling, nutella, add pecans to the inside, or pureed pumpkin with pie spice. Bake longer with wet fillings!

To make sourdough:

Replace yeast with 1 cup active starter, you may have to adjust flour amount and rise time.

These freeze very well, just bake all the way, cool, plastic wrap, and freeze. When ready to eat, thaw, take off wrap, heat in oven until warm, flip out and enjoy.

Chicken for the Week, Take 2

Back again for another whole chicken inspiration? This time we are going to start by spatchcocking it, aka take the backbone out. Take some kitchen shears and just go down both sides of the backbone, through the ribs. Flop it over and smash it flat on a sheet tray, dizzle with oil and smear on a mixing of any fresh herbs you have. Onto the BBQ at 400 until internal temp is 165. Side salad, bread… you really don’t need anything else.

Then pick the chicken and start your stock, add in that backbone you took off of the chicken.

The next day take your stock and leftover chicken and make gravy, serve over mashed potatoes or… rice cooked in the stock. This is seriously one of my favorite comfort meals. I can’t make this often because i can eat my weight in it. If you cook the rice in your stock then you may not have a ton of stock left but if you serve this with potatoes you’ll have enough stock to make a good, hearty soup. If you don’t use all your chicken in the gravy you could do a chicken noodle or dumpling.

And there you go again, 2 or 3 meals from 1 little chicken. You might just have to trust me on the rice & gravy. But it’s similar to rice and chicken casserole with that cream of mushroom soup, just better. Promise.

Roast Chicken for 3+ meals in 1 week?

It’s come to my attention that some people could use some help a) stretching their food budgets and b) knowing what to do with a whole chicken. Because, guess what?! it’s the cheapest way to buy chicken because it’s the least labor intensive way to sell them.

For the last 2 years we have only had whole chickens. We have been raising and processing out own birds and haven’t decided to learn how to break them down yet so i’ve become an somewhat of an expert in making the most of a whole bird. I can usually have one chicken be a part of at least 3 meals in the week that I make it.

For the first day you have a few options, all easy and all wonderful. (I’m going to stick with one per blog post here). I love to roast it in the oven just throw on some oil & seasonings/herbs and 375 until it hits 165 internal temp. I like to serve this meal with a side of somethings green (salad, broccoli, green beans) and a loaf of bread. That is almost as simple as it gets.

Once it cools you can pick all the wonderful leftover meat off the bones and set them aside for another meal. Today it’ll be chicken salad sandwiches, with the leftover bread too. This can be as simple as adding mayo, salt, pepper and a slice of cheese or you can go “all out” and add pecans, grapes, celery, apples… so many good recipes out there.

So then once you’ve picked the bones clean you are going to add them to a pot, I love my Instant Pot but a stock pot works too. Then if you keep scraps from onions, carrots, celery, fennel, etc. add them to the pot. some peppercorns, bay leaf, parsley, whatever you have. I have been known to do just the chicken bones and water…. it works just as well. I IP for 4 hours pressure and then leave it on keep warm for 10 hours, overnight normally. The you strain out the bones and can put the stock in the fridge, the fat will float to the top and solidify, congradulations you just made shmaltz. Use it instead of oil to sauté in.

Stock is easy to use, I cook all my rice in stock instead of water now. The little fat that is left keeps the grains from sticking together and it just makes a nicer rice. So use it to make rice! Then that rice you can make fried rice with and add any leftovers from the week.

3 meals, from 1 chicken. I love, love, love doing this. We work hard to raise and process these birds so I definitely want to use them to their fullest potential.

Come back for more chicken inspiration. I have lots more meal ideas to come. Whole chickens are where it’s at! Even if you don’t raise them yourself, they’re the cheapest to buy.

OPTIMUS Grilled Cheese

Thus named because these beauty’s were made after watching Transformers.

Mostly this is a brag blog post, because these pictures are totally magazine worthy and the food is too.

Best grilled cheese sandwich ever.

Bread, Onions, Bacon, Cheese, Butter, and Fried Eggs. YUM.

Midnight food tastes great. Especially when shared with people you love.

I’ve been watching different food movies lately, they have come out with a good deal of good ones. It’s inspired me to try to cook more and try to cook new things. Stay tuned.

Olive Lake

Extensive pictures are posted on my Facebook page, follow me there to see more!

We ate and ate and ate all weekend, it’s amazing that my clothes still fit. I thought I would have to roll out of camp!

We had hash with sausage, bacon, and eggs, tri-tip steak and caramelized onions, German sausages, chips and dip, pear dump cake, cinnamon rolls, and I’m sure I forgot some 🙂

Oi, I love camping.

Blackberry Season

One of my favorite times of the year is almost over and gone. The blackberries have been amazing this year! It was a very early start to the season and it’s going to be a very early end. My sister has been coming over on Sunday’s to help pick them. We pick until our hands are purple, they sting from the thorns, and our buckets are full. There’s something about the smell of picking blackberries that is so relaxing, it brings back memories of going up to the mountains with my mom, Oma, and Aunt in the summer to pick while wading in the creek.

While we pick we hear Howard (mom’s big black lab) snorting as he eats the blackberries off the lower branches. Silly dog will eat anything. The other dogs laze about in the shade.

After we pick it’s never hard to think up of something to do with all the berries. The options are endless, variations galore, and all of them taste delicious!

We’ve had: blackberry & peach cobbler, blackberry coffee cake, blackberries and angel food cake, blackberry margarita’s, blackberry pie, and blackberry jalapeño jam.

I have enough in the fridge from yesterday to make another batch of jam, so I think that’s what I’ll do today!

pie

Ali and the Monster

cobbler

blackberry jalepeno jam

coffee cake

Do you have a favorite blackberry recipe??

 

 

 

 

Pretzels and Jalepeno Cheese Sauce

Last night my cousin Peter and I got an itch for a hot pretzel and then of course to go with it gooey cheesy sauce. YUM. Here’s what the results were:
They are so good!!
It has been fun to have Peter stay with us the past week (ish) He’s started working on the farm, only he broke down so I get to put him to work at home :] haha. I feed him well in return for all the help.

Cheesy Sauce Recipe:
3 cups grated cheese
2 TBS. cornstarch
1 cup milk
onion
jalapeño
2 cloves garlic
2 TBS. butter
4 oz. cream cheese

Melt the butter, sauté the onion, garlic, and jalapeño until soft. Add milk and cornstarch. Then add cream cheese and cheddar cheese, melt and serve. YUM!!

Pretzels:
5 cups flour
3 cups water
2 TBS yeast
1 tsp salt
2 TBS honey

Mix dough, let rise 15 minutes. Divide into 12 parts and shape into pretzels! Brush with and egg mixed with 1 TBS water, sprinkle with salt and bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes. Enjoy!!

Jalepeno Popper Rolls

I made these lovely things and made them again and will make them many more times. They are so amazingly, bready, spicy, creamy, hot, and yummy. Super easy to make too, just some bread and the filling. Just like cinnamon rolls, but savory.

I made a dough recipe:

2 cups warm water

2 packets yeast

2 tbs oil

1 tsp salt

4 cups flour (approximately)

Mix together, let rise until doubled, roll out into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick, spread with filling:

8 oz room temp. cream cheese

4-6 diced jalapenos

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp salt

Roll up like cinnamon rolls, pinching the ends closed, slice, put into a greased 9×13 pan and bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.

 

These are pre-bake and they were gone so fast I wasn’t able to get a picture 🙂 that’s how good they are.

Pineapple & Cucumber Salsa

I made this salsa a while ago and it was a hit!

It was pineapple, cucumber, red onion, jalapeño, lime juice, cilantro, salt.

Chopped up and mixed together, it only got better in the fridge overnight. We tried to eat in on chips but actually ended up liking it as more a side. It would be great topping a fish taco. Maybe that’ll be tomorrow’s dinner :]

Hope you try it and enjoy! I promise it’s delicious!

Easter Cake

My class had a bake sale the Friday before Easter to support a classmate who had a family tragedy recently. So I, of course, had to make a cake.

I took a basic vanilla bundt cake and some melted, dyed almond bark, malt eggs, and peeps.

It turned out great! Super easy and it looks fantastic :]

I had fun flicking the almond bark over it and my entire kitchen too.