What's Cookin': Meg's Ridiculous Cinnamon Rolls

I have been craving cinnamon rolls like crazy lately. Even more so since everyone has been talking about fall. I just haven't gotten around to making them because they are a little time consuming.

Well today was Bread Day, so I figured I might as well whip up a batch of cinnamon rolls while I was at it and the kitchen was already a mess.

Oh my. I'm so glad I did. And Ben was glad I did too! I usually judge how good a dish is by Ben's reaction. And let's just say he had seconds. He even said that when it gets colder I need to make a whole batch for him to take to work and give everyone. :D

I didn't follow a recipe for this (except for the dough) because every time I've tried a cinnamon roll recipe they never turn out the way I like them. I like sweet bread, with lots of filling and lots of icing. The recipes are usually lacking in at least one, if not all of those areas. So I just made up my own and it turned out phenomenal! I put so much filling in that it oozed out and caramelized a bit on the bottom giving a chewy/crunchy little bit of extra goodness - my idea of the perfect cinnamon roll.

Meg's Ridiculous Cinnamon Rolls - Makes 1 dozen
Dough (based off of the Rich Egg Bread from Betty Crocker, but with more sugar):
1 C warm water
2 1/2 tsp yeast
1/4 C  + 1 Tbs sugar
3 to 3 1/4 C flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
2 Tbs vegetable oil
1/4 C vital wheat gluten (if you have if. No biggie if you don't.)

Filling:
1 1/2 C brown sugar, unpacked (yes, really. That much.)
1/2 stick (4 Tbs) butter, melted
3-4 tsp cinnamon, to your taste
1/2 tsp salt
Dash of nutmeg (secret ingredient!)

Icing:
2 C powdered/confectioner's sugar
8-12 Tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla

For the dough, mix the 1 Tbs sugar and water together. Stir in the yeast and allow to soften and bubble for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, mix together half of the flour, the rest of the sugar, salt, and the VWG (if you have it). Add the yeast mixture and combine (I use my KitchenAid mixer). Add the egg and stir until well mixed. Add the rest of the flour in little bits until no longer sticky. Knead for 10 minutes, place in a greased bowl and let rise for 1 hour (or until doubled).

Punch down dough, then roll out on a lightly flour surface to a rectangle of about 13 x 8 inches (ish. Just eyeball it.) Combine the filling ingredients in a small bowl, then spread onto the dough, leaving about a half inch on one of the long sides for sealing. It is a LOT of filling, so it will be a thick layer. Roll up, pinch the seam and ends to seal.

Cut into 12 equal slices and place into a greased 9 X 13" baking dish about 1/2" inch apart. Cover with a towel and let rise for another hour.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown. If they get browned to quickly then place a piece of foil on them for the remaining cook time to let the centers cook.

Cool for 20 minutes, then mix the icing ingredients and pour over the top. Devour with a delicious glass of milk!

Since Everyone Else Is Doing It...

 (Not my picture)

Apparently, today is "Let's Welcome September Day!" and I totally missed the memo. While I do love September, I find it slightly sad that nobody has really welcomed any of the other months and September seems to be the favorite child. How come nobody gets excited about March? Or May?

Oh well. To jump on the bandwagon, I shall present to you a list.

10 Things I Love About September/Autumn

1. Fall is just a wee bit closer. Ok, this is obvious, but there's something about knowing it's September that makes it more real. 
2. The air gets crisper. I love crispy air, it's very refreshing.
3. Apple Season! I love me some apples and I hope this year to drag take my man and the kids up to Tehachapi to get ridiculous amounts of the delicious fruit to eat, can and freeze.
4. Labor Day Weekend! Which happens to be this coming weekend and as long as Ben doesn't have crazy amounts of work to do, forcing him to work on Saturday (which is possible), we get a three day weekend!
5. Cooler weather, for the most part. Our county fair happens the last and first weeks of September and October, respectively. We will get cool weather up until those two weeks, when it will be sweltering hot. Then as soon as the fair is over it will cool off again. The desert hates us like that.
6. The colors. Oh sweet sheep the colors. I love the deep reds, oranges, browns, purples and golds of autumn. Sadly, we don't get them very long, but I will savor them while we have them.
7. Jeans. Colder weather means longer pants and I love jeans. They make my butt look good. 
8. Warm drinks. Tea (my favorite), cocoa, apple cider (my other favorite) and hot toddys. Tis the season for warm drinks!
9. Fires. In the fireplace of course. I love sitting in front of the fire. We have a gas insert, which makes me kind of sad. I appreciate it for keeping us warm, but there's nothing like a real roaring fire.
10. No more cooler! In just a little bit we won't have to turn the swamp cooler on anymore! We've already had it off for 4 days now, and it's been so nice. I can't until we're done for the season.

So, what are some of your favorite things about September and the coming fall?

Don't You Wish Your Fridge Was OCD Like Mine?

To anyone who has come over from my mom-in-love, Farmgirl at My Field of Dreams, thanks for stopping by! I'm glad you're here and I hope I don't talk your ear off. :D

This is actually a Random Monday post, but I just really wanted to use that title. 10 points to the first person who gets the reference.

Every time my eldest brother in law comes over, he stares at my fridge and asks what it's all about. Then he says something like "Wow, Meg! You're so organized!" My mom says the same thing too, except she giggles and calls me anal as well. So today I share with you my (current) system so mayhaps I can get second opinions that say something like "Oh my goodness, you're a genius!" Or "Hey! Good idea!" instead of "Heh... you're a little "special" darling..." Bro-in-law also says he wished his office looked like mine, so I think he thinks my organizational skills are awesome. In which case he should get a high-five.

First for your OCD viewing pleasure... my white board. I had this living in my closet for a long time and finally decided to put it to use when I was tired of throwing away the inventory sheets I had originally. I hot glued little magnets to the back so it sticks there. In the upper left side goes the current contents of leftovers, the bottom left goes condiments, and ingredients that will perish soon, and the upper right is produce. This way I know what's in the fridge and it's a reminder of what needs to be eaten and how long it's been in there. (Ignore the measurements, that's for a shelf.)

This is my grocery list. I might have talked about this before. I can't remember and am too lazy busy to look through my previous posts. I always wound up forgetting things when I went to the store and I hated doing the "Oh shoot, I forgot to get [blank]" as soon as I got home. So I spent a day or two compiling a list of things we keep on hand and ingredients for dishes I make often. Then I opened up Word and made a list, by category, of those items. Now I just check off what I need as I run out, and when I need to go to the store I have a reference there of what I need to check before I leave (like toilet paper). Works perfectly. I also spaced it out so I can fold it in fourths for ease of carrying.

Now to the fun stuff! My mom-in-love said on her blog that I post great pics of the boys, and it's been awhile since I've done so. So here you go!

Duder looking at me expectantly for pancakes and raisins. He was a hungry man this morning.

The boys lounging and watching Veggie Tales. Goofballs. They're speech is coming along so well. I asked Jack why he turned off the TV and he looked at me and said "Cause it's over." Oh! Ok then!

Our potato bush is the last big of color we have left on the property. Ben picked this yesterday, by accident, when he wanted to moved it from going through the fence posts and it ripped off. He said it was so pretty he hated to throw it away, so I ran to grab the vase. I really do love our potato bush. It has such gorgeous color. I will be very sad when the flowers are done for the year. But it will also mean it will be cold. I had to wear a jacket yesterday because it was so chilly and I LOVED it. It was great.

Knitting! Because I know that's what y'all come here for. ;)

The Sock! I knit most of this on Friday at my mom-in-loves. It was a very productive knitting day. I only had about an inch and a half of the toe done when I got there, and I worked all the way up to that stitch marker on the left side. Which means I even turned the heel while I was there. I really thought I was going to finish the sock that day. But alas, I did not. I now have the leg portion to do. I've decided that I will just do ribbing until I run out of yarn.

This is how much yarn I have left for this sock. I think I might get knee-highs. Hehe.

And the shawl... Oh my goodness the shawl. I decided I would do another repeat of a chart from clue 3, to make it a bit longer since I am using smaller needles than it called for. I have 37 rows left. Which doesn't sound so bad except for the fact that there are over 1,000 stitches in each row. I believe it takes me 15 minutes to do one single row, and that's just on plain knit rows, not the lace pattern ones. So I still have a bit longer to go. Then the lace edging. But I'm not giving up! I will finish this thing, because I want to start a new one and I'm not letting myself until I finish this one.

Also, I have to share this because it is SO cute - Stan loves this shawl. Mr. Doesn't-usually-cuddle will crawl into my lap when I'm knitting this and snuggle into it. Unfortunately, he also likes to chew on my stitch markers, so I have to boot him off. But I just thought it was adorable.

Whew! Long post! I really do think I talk too much. Must be the southern in me. If you made it to the end here, congratulations! And thanks for sticking around. ;)

I did all my laundry and cleaning on Saturday, so now I have nothing to do today. I guess I'll just have to knit... Darn. I hope y'all have a great Monday!

What's Cookin': French Bread

One of my Domestic Goals is to make french bread. And not just french bread, but Really Good French Bread. I have had this goal for a very long time (since I started making bread over 3 years ago, really). The one recipe I had been using was from the Betty Crocker cookbook.

Now, I love my Betty Crocker cookbook. My mom-in-law gave it to me when I got married and I have cherished it deeply. It is marked and tagged and covered in food (the signs of a well loved cookbook). However, I have come to the conclusion that the French Bread recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook is crap.

For a long time I thought I just sucked at French Bread. It was never going to happen. There was really just no hope and I should just give up and stick to Whole Wheat and white breads. My attempts at french bread always turned out flat and hard, with a lame texture. (Lame is the best word I could come up with to describe it. Just go with it.) The taste - a sourdoughish flavor - was good, but the fact that it never really rose and just turned into one big breadstick turned me off.

Then I joined the Cooking From Scratch forum on Ravelry. It just started about a week ago, and I am a founding member. (If you are a part of Ravelry, I highly suggest this group. If you are at all into fiber arts or crafts, I highly suggest Ravelry.)

So I put a plea out to the girls. Please, does anyone have a good French Bread recipe? The Betty Crocker one has failed me on many occasion. Please someone tell me it's not just my poor pathetic attempts.

LuisaCA (her Ravelry name - I'm guessing her real name is Luisa) answered my call and gave me a recipe for "Stretch Bread". It sounded horribly easy. And fast! It didn't call for the 4+ hours of refrigeration that the BC recipe did. So last night I tried it, to have with dinner.

And it worked. It turned out great! It tastes just like french bread, it looks like french bread, it even crackles like french bread. It was delicious and wonderful. It's a little flatter than I had hoped, but I could have let it rise longer. I was impatient. I wanted to try it and eat it. I double the recipe, and I'm so glad because now I have extra bread to munch on. So here is the recipe from Luisa, so that you too can have wonderfully easy Real Good French Bread.

Stretch Bread (Pane Francese)
1 envelope active dry yeast or (2 ½ tsp)
¼ cup warm water (110 F)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 cups AP flour (preferably unbleached)
1 to 1 ¼ c ice water
Activate yeast in the warm water for 10 minutes. Mix 3 c flour, sugar, salt in large bowl. Add yeast mixture and 1 c cold water. Mix slowly then med for 5 minutes. ( I use an Kitchen Aid mixer) Dough is a “wet” dough.
Let dough rise until doubled about an hour.
Shape loaves:
Sprinkle counter with 2 Tbs flour. Divide dough in half, form into 2 loaves. Sprinkle lightly with flour. Cover with plastic wrap lightly sprayed with Pam. Cover, let rest 30 minutes. Carefully lift & stretch dough to 12-14 inches. And place on greased or parchment lined baking sheet. Cover loosely with the plastic wrap again. Let rise until puffy 10-15 minutes. Slash tops in about 3 places, or however you like. Place in pre-heated 475 F oven, lower temp to 425, bake 20-30 minutes. If you are not sure about testing for doneness by the tap-to-hear-if –it-sounds-hollow method, you can use an instant read thermometer poked in an unobtrusive place. It should register 190-210. After done, turn oven off and leave oven ajar for another 10 minutes for a crisper crust. This bread has an open crumb with a rustic look.

I think you could fudge a sourdough taste with this one as well by refrigerating the loaves just like the BC recipe. I would say stick them in during the rise before you stretch it and let it sit over night. Just a guess though, haven't tried it.... yet. 

FK: Footies

Finito! (Or however you spell it.) Hoo boy that was close. I did what I (badly) explained yesterday. I ticked back both socks to where the heel ended, the did a mini cuff for about 1/4 inch and bound off. I took the rest of that yarn and added it to the second sock and continued in the same fashion. And looky how much I had left....

15 inches - I feel like a knitting ninja! (Just to toot my own horn a bit.) It got kinda scary for that last bind off...

Pattern: No pattern! Just toe up socks with a short row heel and a bebe cuff

Yarn: Regia Jacquard Color in, uhh... "5270" - 1 (50g) ball

Needles: US 1/2.25mm Susan Bates Quicksilver dpns for foot

US 0/2mm Susan Bates aluminum dpns for tiny ribbed cuff

YTD Mileage: Since I used just about the whole ball, I'll round it to the full amount (229 yards) giving me a new YTD total of 3.32 yards! 

I have a few dishcloths I've done that I need to add up for my total as well. With my shawl, I just might hit 5 miles by the end of the year!