Bitty Cinnamon Rolls

The last two times I made bread, I snagged a bit of the dough to make some sweet rolls.  The first attempt was a cream cheese/strawberry mess of a roll that was too gooey to even cut into individual pieces.  I ended up baking the whole log in a round with a slashed top.  It came out of the oven looking pretty good, but caved in as it cooled into a very moist mess.  Yum.  We ate most of it, and I learned that my bread dough would definitely make a good sweet roll base.  As long as I used a drier filling.

Next up, plain old cinnamon-sugar rolls.  I used about a fourth of my dough recipe to make a pie tin's worth of rolls, shaping the rest of the dough into three small round loaves.  One thing I've been doing lately that seems to result in a moister, sweeter dough is to dump my whole grains (oats, whole wheat flour, flax, etc.) in with all the wet ingredients and letting that sit for awhile--30 minutes to a few hours as I have time/need of.  I think this lets those grains soak up more liquid before adding enough white flour to make the dough hold its shape.  If I would add all the flours at the same time, I would end up with a dough that seems like the right consistency but would dry out some as the whole grains continued to soak up moisture.  Make sense?

Anyhow.  Itty bitty cinnamon rolls.  

I rolled my bit of dough out pretty thin, spread with butter, sugar, and cinnamon, and then sliced them about 3-4 inches across after they were rolled up.  These were tall, skinny, and just funny looking in my pan, so I squashed them down with my hand until they just touched each other at the edges.  

Let rise until double and bake for about 15 minutes at 350F.  I had some leftover icing from another project that I slathered over the top when they had cooled some.  So yummy when they were still a little warm.  And good the next two days too. 

Buttery Sauteed Cabbage

I made this cabbage (with spinach) to go along with my St. Patrick's Day meal of Irish stew and soda bread (see previous post).  I really liked how it turned out and thought it complemented the stew nicely.  Plus, it was a cinch to throw together.  And it was buttery.

Buttery Cabbage

1/2 head cabbage, thinly knife-shredded
few cups spinach, washed and roughly chopped (optional)
2 - 3 TBSP butter
generous pinch ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

In a hot skillet, steam cabbage in a little water--covered--until tender (about 10 minutes).  Remove lid, add spices and butter and spinach if using.  Cover again and let sit a few minutes for butter to melt and spinach to wilt.  Stir, taste, and add additional salt and pepper if desired.  That's it!  Serve in a pretty bowl.

P.S.  My taste-tester (the adult one) really enjoyed this too!

Irish Stew

I have typically made up my own Irish stew version for St. Patrick's Day, but this year I decided to follow a recipe from my bought-in-Ireland Irish cookbook (brilliant idea, right?).  And I mostly stuck to it.  What I love about this recipe is that it is so simple and you actually end up with a stew--thick, rich gravy in the bottom of the pan that is absolutely wonderful to mop up with fresh soda bread.  YUM!

[[Funny/ironic side story about the meat used in my Irish stews.  It's venison, not lamb or beef which would be more traditional.  One year when we celebrated St. Patrick's Day with our small group from church we read the St. Patrick's Breastplate prayer as a prelude to our meal together.  One story goes that the prayer was chanted for protection against druids who were laying in ambush for Patrick and his followers.  Legend has it that God answered this prayer by making Patrick and Co. appear as deer to the druids and they were able to pass by unharmed.

Yep.  Then after we read the prayer we ate Irish stew with venison.]]

Anyhow, this year I followed an actual Irish recipe (except I still used venison of course!).  You basically brown your meat in some butter or oil then layer onions and carrots on top followed by thickly-sliced potatoes.  Add turnips if you like.  Pour broth over the whole and stew for two hours on the stove or in the oven. 

Making this in my cast-iron skillet meant it was a one pot deal.  Nice!  I'll go ahead and post a recipe since I made a few (just a few!) changes.  I used less meat and added some flour when it was browned to make sure I had a nice, thick gravy in the bottom of the pan.  I also pre-sauteed the onions the second time I made this which I thought added a nice depth of flavor.

Traditional Irish Stew

(adapted from "The Irish Heritage Cookbook" by Margaret M. Johnson)

1 lb. lamb, beef or venison cut in about 1-inch chunks

2 - 4 carrots thickly sliced (I like the diagonal look)

2 onions, sliced 

2 - 3 large baking potatoes, peeled, halved, and thickly sliced

Thyme, salt, and pepper to season

1 cup water or broth

Butter (as much as you need!)

2 - 3 TBSP flour

My method:  Pre-heat oven to 300F.  If you want to caramelize (or saute until lightly golden) your onions, do this first in a few TBSP of butter.  Remove from the skillet when they are done to your likeness and add the meat into the same skillet.  Add more butter if necessary.  Sizzle and stir until browned and add the flour.  Work the flour into the meat and bit and remove from heat.  Toss in a bit of your chopped or dried thyme.  Layer on the onions and carrots (and turnips if using) and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a few tsp chopped, fresh thyme.  Spread Potatoes on top and sprinkle again with salt, pepper, and thyme.  Pour your water or broth over all.  I used some vegetable bouillon broth with a generous splash of balsamic vinegar in it for a little depth (I think a nice, dark beer would be fantastic in place of the broth!).  Cover, and return to low heat for two hours.  Or, do as I did and bake it in the oven for the same amount of time.  Check it after an hour or so to see if it needs any more liquid.  The original recipe called for 1 1/2 cups, but I found just one cup to be satisfactory.  When the potatoes and carrots are cooked to your likeness and the meat is tender, uncover the stew and brown the potatoes under the broiler.  Garnish with fresh parsley or thyme.  Serve it up soon with thick slices of fresh soda bread--baked along with or right after the stew!  I also served mine with some delicious cabbage/spinach saute ("recipe" to follow in another post).  My mouth is actually watering as I write this.  And we've got more venison chunks in the freezer, so there's no reason not to make it again soon.  Wonderful recipe for the winter repertoire!

I "heart" Valentine's Day

just because it's another excuse to make themed shaped cookies! 

My goal was to make a heart cutout cookie in pretty pink without using any food coloring (or buying super-expensive food-based colorings).  I found this recipe which called for using strawberries in the dough for color and flavor.  The picture was so pretty!

Well, that optional "dot" of food coloring must have made a huge difference because my cookies came out kind of purply-grey rather than a nice perky pink.  Extra strawberries to the rescue!  I mixed my leftover puree into some icing, and got this pretty soft pink color which I thought looked nice with the chocolate frosting accents.  

Flavor: could'a been better.  Another time I think I'd make a basic shortbread cutout cookie with the same icing combinations as I did here.  I wasn't a big fan of the itty bitty seeds in the cookies, though I could've strained them out.

Three Kings

Do you get stressed out over the winter holidays?  Does Christmas seem to sneak up on you too fast, and you find you just can't get all the things done that you wanted to before it arrives?  My friends, I have a solution:  Three Kings' Day.  Apparently we like to borrow traditions around here.  This one is from Latin America and some parts of Europe.  The celebration takes place on January 6 and commemorates the arrival of the wise people seeking the Christ child in Bethlehem.  

In a way, you're just stretching out the holiday season, so it might seem like more stress to add another one.  But believe me, it is SOOO relaxing to celebrate a holiday that no one around you knows about or pressures you to observe in any particular way!  We choose to give our gifts to each other on Three Kings' Day because it just seems to make more sense to connect the gift giving with those wise people.  Plus, this way we can enjoy the Christmas celebrations with our extended families without having to squeeze our own family time in sometime, somewhere, somehow.  We have our own Christmas season traditions that make the time special for us without the presents.  

Since we've borrowed Three Kings' Day from another culture (and some cool families we know), we don't try to be all authentic with it or anything (in fact, we celebrated a week late this year on January 13--who cares?!?  it's just for us!) but this year I did look up some traditional foods for the holiday and decided to make a "rosca de reyes"--Three Kings' Bread. 

 

I won't tell you how many pictures I took trying to make this look more appealing.  That would be embarrassing and seem contrary to the nature of this blog (which my husband is always accusing of not being "uncensored" enough in that I don't post every single dish I ever make).  But for the record, I think it would have looked better if I had taken some sort of icing application class or just not put any of those Princess-Leia's-hair-like loops of icing on it.  YET, the added sweetness was a definite bonus (I flavored the plain icing with cinnamon!), so I'll try not to be too vain about it. I also would forgo the orange slices which I put on along with the colored sugar for some festive flair.  It just meant that the bread was soggy underneath and not slathered with yummy hair-like loops of icing.

The bread is eggy, lightly sweet, and lightly spiced with cinnamon and orange zest.  I pretty much followed this recipe.  Which is pretty much the exact same thing as the Easter bread I made last year (just switch out the orange zest for lemon zest and swap the baby Jesus for an egg!  viola!).  We didn't really put in a baby Jesus figurine since we don't celebrate Candlemas on February 2 (whoever bites into the figurine treats everyone to tamales at Candlemas apparently).  

So you see, we pretty much do our own thing, incorporating bits and pieces of the tradition that we like.  We took the bread over to my in-laws' that evening and "caroled" for them ("We Three Kings", of course!) before sharing the bread and hot chocolate together.  That in itself was fun enough to make this a true tradition for our family by doing it again next year.  Maybe we'll even hit the right day!

Pogaca

Pogaca are little cheese/herb-filled Turkish pastries that I got a sudden hankering for last week.  My sister-in-law has never been afraid of making Turkish foods that she loves, so I was inspired to try these even though I'd never made nor seen them made before.  

First off, we must work on our pronunciation.  It might be tempting to look at "pogaca" and want to say "po-gak-a".  Um, no.  I apologize for not having Turkish characters (or not knowing how to access them), but the "g" should have a curl on its head (making it silent, drawing out the preceding vowel) and the "c" really needs it's tail (making it a "ch" sound).  Thus, we say "poh-ach-a" with a kind of dip in the voice after the "o".  All right, then.  Practice makes . . . good enough.

I found a great recipe online that yields a dough with a kind of flakiness.  It was very easy to work with and the pogaca were delicious--cold or re-heated--several days following.  The only changes I made to the recipe were to make a 1/2 batch (which I made into 20 pastries) and to use a mixture of feta and cottage cheese rather than all feta to make the inside a little creamier.  I think next time I would even go 1/2 and 1/2 on the cheeses; I would also make a 1/4 batch and do something like 15 pastries to get more of a two-bite size rather than a four-bite. 

I shaped mine by taking the ball of dough in both hands, sticking my thumbs in the center and turning it as if making a vase or cup on a pottery wheel.  You don't have to kick your foot as you do this, though.  Once I had the "walls" of the dough thin enough I put about a TBSP of filling in, pinched it shut, then turned it over and smoothed it back into a ball shape. 

As the recipe says, there is no need to pre-heat the oven (fun!), but I would recommend checking on them after about 25 minutes to see if they're browned to your liking.  I thought 35 minutes got them a little too dark for my taste.

If you're looking for an easy, fun pastry project that tastes delicious and keeps well, try making pogaca!  Did you remember to say "poh-ach-a"?

Easy, Easy Truffles

So I'm the dummy who can't figure out how to melt chocolate for dipping without scorching it in the microwave (I think I'll just use the stove next time).  BUT, I'm also the genius who turned all that slightly scorched chocolate into yummy, smooth truffles!

I found this recipe for almond truffles (requirement being "uses evaporated milk instead of heavy cream"), but I'll re-write it here since I made enough minor alterations . . . 

Almond (or any flavor) Truffles
yield: about 24 1-inch candies

1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 tsp almond, vanilla--or any--flavoring (amount is for extract--proceed with  caution if you are using oils, adding just a little at a time)
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup coating of choice (nuts, sugar, cocoa powder, etc.)

Method: Bring evaporated milk and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan on the stove.  Once it boils cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and stir in chocolate until smooth.  Add flavoring and salt and stir again.  Refrigerate for a few hours until hard enough to mold.  Roll into one-inch balls and coat with cocoa powder, powdered sugar, toasted and crushed nuts, etc. to match the flavor of the truffles.  Enjoy!