Cinnamon Rolls

Every Christmas, (or the two we've had together) Seth and I make cinnamon rolls for breakfast! They're gooey and wonderful, and they're perfect for a special breakfast. The best part is that we usually make them on Christmas Eve, so they just need to be reheated that morning. It saves us from slaving in the kitchen rather than enjoying the holiday :) 

Ingredients:

1 pkg dry yeast

1 C warm milk

1/2 C sugar

1/3 C margarine

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

4 C flour

1 C packed brown sugar

2 1/2 tbsp cinnamon

1/3 C margarine

2 tbsp flour

Icing:

8 tbsp margarine

1 1/2 C powdered sugar

1/4 C cream cheese

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/8 tsp salt

Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk in the bowl of a standing mixer. Let sit for about five minutes so the yeast can fully dissolve. (A good trick to see if your yeast is actually active is to throw a pinch of sugar in the bowl. If the yeast bubbles, it means it's eating the sugar and will actually work for your rolls.)

Add sugar, 1/3 C margarine, salt, eggs and flour. Mix well.

Scrape the dough out of the bowl and onto a well floured surface. Knead the dough into a large ball. Put into a bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place for about an hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

Before:

After:

Roll the dough onto a floured surface into a 1/4 inch rectangle.

Melt down 1/3 C margarine and spread all over the dough. It's going to seem like a lot of butter, but it's what makes the filling so gooey! 

Mix together brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Sprinkle all over the dough until completely covered. Next, sprinkle the 2 tbsp flour until it's in a pretty even layer on top. This is so the insides don't seep out all over the place in the oven.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll the dough into a log, and cut into 1 3/4 inch slices.

Put the rolls in a greased pan. We usually get twelve or thirteen rolls. Give each roll room to move as they will rise a little and puff in the oven.

Let the rolls sit for about 15 minutes and let the rolls rise a little. Put them in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are slightly browned. 

Beat the icing ingredients together. We usually one and a half the icing because Seth likes a LOT of icing! Spread the icing all over the rolls, and Voila! Enjoy :)

Molten Chocolate Lava Cake

I never realized how hard it would be to keep a blog updated! :) When did life get so busy? Just a couple years ago, I had more time than I knew what to do with, but lately it seems I have limited time to experiment in the kitchen, let alone blog about it! But, don't distress, foodies!! I have a real treat for you today :)

Seth and I had some friends over for dinner last week, and I was really stressing over what to make for dessert! I just had zero inspiration. But, then I stumbled upon this recipe for Molten Chocolate Lava Cake. I have tried to make cakes like this before, but they would cook mostly all the way through, and if you don't get enough chocolate gooey deliciousness, then what's the point? However, this recipe promised a soft center, so I thought I'd try it. Thank goodness I did! Seth liked it so much that we had to make it two more times that weekend. And it really isn't all that hard to make. The only ingredient we didn't have was baking chocolate, and one 8 oz. box lasted us through three batches :)

Ingredients:

2 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate

1/4 C butter (1/2 stick)

1/2 C powdered sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

3 tbsp flour

To start, preheat your oven to 425 degrees. You will definitely want your oven to be hot before putting these cakes in so they cook enough not to be a gooey mess.

Melt chocolate pieces and butter. Most likely the butter will melt faster, so just whisk until the chocolate melts all the way.

Add the powdered sugar and continue whisking until incorporated. Now, the first time I made this, the mixture got so clumpy that I almost panicked, assuming the chocolate burned!! Don't worry about it. The mixture settled out after adding more ingredients. And this honestly only happened the first time, so I don't know what I did differently the other two times.

Now, whisk in the eggs and then add the flour. At this time, the batter should be creamy and smooth, and it should resemble the color of a bar of milk chocolate. 

Grease two ramekins with baking spray and divide the batter between them. They should be 3/4 full and the cake will puff in the oven. Cook for about 14 minutes. THE CAKE WILL NOT LOOK ALL THE WAY DONE! It is supposed to wiggle :)

Let the cakes sit for one minutes, so they can set a little more. Now, you can choose to eat them straight out of the cup or on a plate. When putting it on a plate, it's important not to just plop it out onto the plate. It's not a very stable dessert and doing this would probably make it fall apart, which frankly isn't much fun! Inside, put the upside down plate on top of the ramekin and turn the whole thing upside down so the cake falls gently onto the plate. Voila!!

Seth likes his with ice cream, but I think it's just delightful on it's own!

Potstickers

I got out of work two hours early on Saturday, so Seth and I decided to try something new for dinner. Not only a new recipe, but a new technique as well :) Potstickers were definitely something we have never made before! We had actually only eaten them a few times before, but it was something different that we both liked, so we thought we'd try it.

Normally, potstickers are made with pork or shrimp. But each of those cost more than chicken ;) So, we substituted! This recipe would probably work for both of those though if you had some to use. 

Ingredients:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

3 tbsp chopped green onion

1 tsp minced garlic

1/4 C sugar

1/4 C water

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp rice wine

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/8 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp hot mustard

1-2 tsp chili garlic sauce

pkg wonton wrappers

1 egg, beaten

canola oil for pan

Put the chicken in a pot and top with water. Boil until cooked through. Drain the pot and let the chicken cool. 

Once it is cool to the touch, shred the chicken and put it into the bowl of a food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients up until wonton wrappers. Pulse until the mixture resembles a chicken salad-esque paste (I know this sounds kind of gross, but it tastes good and it keeps all the mixture in the wrapper after you've taken the first bite).

Put a spoonful of mixture in the middle of a single wonton wrapper. Brush beaten egg around the edges of the wrapper. Fold the wrapper and pinch the edges together to form a pocket. Seth was a little better at this than me. I always put too much in, and my wrapper would split when I tried to close it. You don't want this! All the chicken will fall out when you boil it :) Repeat until you've used up all of the chicken mixture.

Place the potstickers gently into a large boiling pot of water. Let them cook for about one minute or until the purses float to the top. 

Sear the outside of the wrapper in a hot canola-coated pan until brown.

Serve!

I like them dipped in the following sauce:

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp rice wine

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Come autumn, there are always tons of recipes popping up everywhere whose main ingredient is pumpkin. Pumpkin bread. Pumpkin pie. Pumpkin cookies. It's all good fun for those who love pumpkin, but I've never been a fan of the taste :/ Don't get me wrong! Coming home from school the day before Thanksgiving to the smell of fresh-baked pumpkin pies will always be one of the strongest holiday memories from my childhood. I love the smell, just not the taste. So, I thought I'd give the others like me an alternative for a hearty bread :) Chocolate Chip Banana!

Ingredients:

1 1/4 C sugar

1/2 C butter

2 eggs

1/2 C milk

3-4 mashed bananas

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 C flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 or 1 1/2 C chocolate chips (depending on how much you like chocolate)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Cream butter and sugar in a mixer. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. 

Mix in milk, mashed bananas and vanilla.

Mix in dry ingredients.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Pour into a greased loaf pan.

Now, the baking time can get iffy. I usually set it for an hour, and then check it. It always takes different times. I think it may have something to do with how many bananas you use and how ripe they are. Anyway, the center is usually rather uncooked once the hour is up, and I just set the timer for small increments until it's more solid :)

Enjoy!!

Vegetable Beef Soup

As the saying goes, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach." Well, in this house, I've added another line. "The way to my man's stomach is through his wallet." :) For the first 6 months of our marriage, Seth insisted that he didn't like soup. Now, me, I'm a huge soup person, but I went a whole fall without any soup! So, I needed a plan. I finally convinced Seth to agree to a batch of vegetable beef soup. He'd had the recipe at my parents' house before, and he did like it because it was more on the stewy side than soupy. But, he was still a little apprehensive. Until he realized that we were able to stretch the soup to last several dinners in the week. Seth was happy about anything that can stretch our grocery budget :) Plus, he says it tastes pretty good ;)

This week has been rainy and gross, so I thought it was time to pull out the recipe for the cold season.

Ingredients:

-1 chuck roast, cubed

-med onion, diced

-6 small bouillon cubes

-1 C barley

-1 bag mixed veggies

-4 or 5 potatoes, cubed

-1 can diced tomatoes

-1 can tomato sauce

Fill a large pot 3/4 of the way with water. Add meat and onion, a little salt, a little pepper and several bouillon cubes.

Bring to a full boil and then turn down to a soft boil. Add 1 C barley.

Cook for 1 hour.

Add veggies, potatoes, tomatoes and sauce. Stir and check consistency. (Optional: 2 tbsp bacon grease)

Bring to real soft boil for 20 minutes or so.

Add more bouillon cubes to taste.

I also like to sprinkle Old Bay in my bowl, because it gives it a little spicy kick. Perfect for rainy and cold weather!

Tilapia Milanese

A few days ago, I had not even heard of Tilapia Milanese. But, that's what we ended up making for dinner last night :) We usually get tilapia pretty often because ShopRite has a pretty good deal on the frozen stuff when it goes on sale. However, even though we eat it a lot, I haven't branched out a lot in terms of flavors. Most of the time, we make it fried with an Old Bay cornmeal crust, but I wasn't in the mood for spitting grease last night. I have also tried a soy sauce-brown sugar marinade, but that resulted in a small oven fire, so I'm not trying that again :) So, I searched the internet and found Tilapia Milanese! I usually wouldn't go for a breaded recipe, but I'm so glad I did! It was delicious, and it's definitely becoming a staple in our house!

Ingredients:

4 tilapia fillets

1 1/2 C milk

I C all-purpose flour

3 eggs

6 slices white bread, torn into pieces

1/3 C freshly chopped parsley

finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon

5 to 6 ounces extra-virgin olive oil

4 tbsp butter

Preheat the oven to 425.

Soak the tilapia in milk and a cup of ice for 15 minutes. While the fish is soaking, mix the flour with 1/2 tsp each of salt and pepper. Beat the eggs in another dish.

Use a food processor to pulse the torn bread, parsley and lemon zest until it's little crumbs. Put this into a third dish.

Remove the fish from the milk one at a time. Dredge them through the flour, then egg and then bread crumbs. Repeat with all the fillets. 

Heat 2 tbsp oil and 2 tbsp butter in a pan. Add the fillets and sear them for 3 minutes on each side until golden. Repeat with more oil and butter. 

Put the fillets on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes until cooked through.

Enjoy!!

First Day of School Double Feature :)

Seth was back to teaching yesterday :) I swear, having him home for the summer really spoils me. The house feels really empty, and I'm bracing myself for another year of nights home alone while Seth is off having parent-teachers conferences and late night practices or matches. At least I'll get more done around the house! :)

Anyway, this year, first day of school meant two things for me in the kitchen: chocolate meringue pie and calzone. I have made a tradition out of making the pie for Seth on the first day of school, and Seth requested calzone for dinner this year. Both look and taste fantastic when they're done, and they sound a whole lot more complicated than they actually are!

Chocolate Meringue Pie

Here's what you need:

1 C sugar

1/4 C cornstarch

1/4 tsp salt

3 C milk

3 egg yolks, beaten

2 T butter

2 tsp vanilla

3-4 oz chocolate (This really depends on how much you like chocolate. Seth likes his a little on the less chocolatey side)

4 egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

2 T sugar per egg white

1 9-inch pie crust (I didn't give you a recipe for this, because it all depends on what kind of crust you like. We use a pat-in-the-pan type, but you can pretty much use anything)

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch and salt. Stir in milk, blending until smooth. Cook over medium heat until mixture boils, stirring constantly. Boil 1 minute. Remove from heat.

Blend a small amount of hot mixture into beaten egg yolks. Return to pan, mixing well. Cook just until mixture starts to bubble, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in butter, chocolate and vanilla.

Cool mixture slightly, then pour into cooked pie shell.

Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until frothy. Gradually beat in sugar. Beat until egg white form stiff peaks.

Spread meringue over the chocolate filling. Make sure you spread the meringue all the way to the edges of the crust so that it completely covers the filling. 

Cook pie at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes until the meringue browns slightly. 

Ham and Cheese Calzone

What you need:

2 frozen loaves of bread dough

1 lb pepper ham

1 bag shredded mozzarella

1 pkg sliced provolone

1 onion, chopped

2 tbsp butter

On the morning before you make this calzone, take the frozen bread dough out of the freezer and place in bread pans. Cover loosely with wax paper. During the day, the dough will defrost and puff at the same time. When ours was done, it was quite a few inches above the pan. 

Melt the butter in a small frying pan. When butter has completely melted, throw in the chopped onion. Toss it around with a spatula, and be careful not to burn any pieces. At this point, you are only caramelizing the onion to make it softer and give it a more rich flavor. You will know the onion is done when it becomes slightly transparent and smells really fragrant.

Take one puffed dough and pull it to make a round or rectangle shape, depending on the pan you have available. We have a cookie sheet to make it on, so we make it rectangular. However, Seth's mom has a large pizza pan,  so she makes her round. Pulling the dough may take a while and may get frustrating as the dough may rip in some places, but persevere! 

Once the dough is pulled into shape, spread the onions in an even layer on top. Put down a layer of mozzarella, a layer of ham and a layer of provolone. Pull the second ball of dough to put on top. Pinch the sides tight so no filling can get out.

At this point, make one hole in the top of the calzone, about the size of a quarter. This hole lets air out while the calzone is cooking, but any more holes and the inside will dry out.

Cook the calzone at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until dough is done.

Enjoy!