Super Easy, Super Quick (Almost Cheating) Cinnamon Rolls

Does this picture make your mouth water? It makes mine water, but of course I can't eat these right now. However, I made them anyway yesterday for a breakfast potluck we had at work. I chose them because I've been wishing I could eat them and if I can't, the next best thing is to make them for people I care about and watch them be enjoyed that way. That was my thought, at least. What I forgot is that (literally) everyone in my office is either fasting or dieting right now. So pretty much most of us just sat and looked wistfully at the cinnamon rolls while we chose to eat healthier things. It was bonding of a different kind :)

These are not your typical yeast-bread cinnamon rolls. These are Bisquick, sour cream and milk and and have more of a biscuit consistency. And they take almost no time to throw together! I have sweet childhood memories of my Mom making these on Sunday mornings before church or on holiday mornings. I hope you have time to whip up a batch and enjoy!

Cinnamon Rolls

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
GENEROUSLY grease 12 muffin cups

3 cups Bisquick
3/4 cup sour cream
4 1/2 T milk
1 stick butter, softened
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
Powdered sugar
Vanilla extract
Milk

- Combine Bisquick, sour cream and milk and beat with 20 strokes. (I remember getting really intense about the "20" part when I would help my Mom make these when I was a kiddo. Don't worry too much about it. Just mix it as little as possible to get your ball of dough).
- Place ball of dough on a lightly floured surface and knead approximately 10 times.
- Using a rolling pin, roll out to a 12'x10' rectangle



- Spread dough with softened butter and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon



- Roll lengthwise and cut into 12 equal slices using a sharp knife or dental floss
- Place in muffin tin and brush with additional softened butter.



- Bake 15 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and cool approximately 15 minutes.
- For icing glaze, mix powdered sugar and milk until it has the desired consistency and then add a few drops of vanilla extract. Spoon over rolls and ENJOY!

Quinoa Carrot Breakfast Cake

Serenity... The picture above is my view as I sit here typing but I don't think it quite captures how cozy and peaceful my apartment feels on this Saturday morning and how quiet and happy I feel to be here cuddled up on my couch with a glass of orange juice. But they say a picture is worth a thousand words so I thought I would give it a try!

I felt a little funky (or "tweaked" as Jeff would say) upon waking this morning and decided I needed something beyond a handful of nuts and a banana for breakfast. I actually had all of the ingredients on hand for Quinoa Carrot Breakfast Cake, which makes me feel like my gluten-free pantry might officially be called "well-stocked". I love the idea of naming something "breakfast cake". I mean, why not just come out and call it what it is? We eat essentially eat "cake" for breakfast all the time in the socially acceptable form of muffins, doughnuts, pastries, waffles, cinnamon rolls, etc. So breakfast cake just seems like a very direct and shameless way to say, "I know I should be eating my oatmeal and a grapefruit, but gosh darn it, it is Saturday morning and I had a long week and I want cake!"

So I had it. And it was wonderful, even without the gluten. I'll let the Gluten Free Goddess tell you how to make it. The only adjustments I made were to 1/2 the sugar amount (only used a 1/2 cup) and omit the raisins (because I think the bag I had in my pantry might have been upwards of two years old. Yikes!)

Quinoa Carrot Breakfast Cake

Wishing you some peace and quietness and a very happy Saturday!

Thai Pineapple Curry

Hello! I have to sincerely apologize for my 6 week blog absence! I have been having some stomach problems and rather than be fun and inspiring, food has been a source of pain, frustration and, if I am brutally honest, a bit of depression over the last couple months. As I write this, I haven't figured anything out yet, but I do have an appointment with a guy who specializes in digestive disorders coming up in a week and half and I am feeling hopeful that he will help me to figure some things out! I am a bit nervous that he is going to restrict my diet even more (beyond gluten, dairy, yeast, peanuts), but need to just prepare myself for that because it is a good possibility. So I make no promises about the nature of the recipes you will find here over the coming weeks! It's quite possible that strange and funky dishes will become a more regular occurrence.

In the meantime, I have been on a major Thai food kick in the last few weeks! There is an awesome little restaurant here in town called Arharn Thai that has become my favorite because I can eat almost everything on their menu. I wanted to try my hand at some Pineapple Curry last week and my sweet boyfriend (who I am sure is getting sick of Thai food!!) agreed to serve as my taste-tester :)

I looked online at recipes and then tweaked a few things. Here is what I came up with:

Thai Pineapple Curry

1/4 cup red curry paste
2 - 13.5oz cans light coconut milk
3 T fish sauce
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 white onion, thinly sliced
1 cup pineapple chunks or tidbits, drained
1 T vegetable or olive oil
Meat of your choice: chicken, pork, beef, fish, cut up into 1/2" strips
Cooked white rice
Lime wedges
Cilantro for garnish
Sriracha sauce, optional
Salt to taste

- Heat oil in a pan and add the curry paste. Saute for 1-2 minutes. Add meat and continue cooking on medium heat until meat is cooked about 1/2 way through.
- Add in coconut milk, fish sauce, and sugar and simmer for 2-3 minutes.
- Add in bell peppers and onion and simmer for another 2-3 minutes or until meat is cooked all the way through.
- Remove from heat and add pineapple.
- Salt to taste
- Serve over cooked white rice topped with lime, cilantro and Sriracha sauce

When I served this to Jeff, I had not added any salt. His feedback was that it needed some salt and some heat. I love Sriracha sauce and had a bottle on hand. We thought it was pretty good drizzled on top. You could also add in some red Thai chilis with the bell peppers. I also think I might add in a little fresh ginger at the step where I am sauteing the meat next time.

Here is a couple photos:

The finished product:



Slightly blurry photo, but he finally told me I could put one of him on here!!!



I'm off to reheat some of this for lunch. If you are here in Colorado, hope you are enjoying a lovely, snowy, Sunday!

Twice Baked Butternut Squash

Do you ever have foods that you wish you liked more than you do? I feel that way about winter squash. Almost every year, at least once I get totally sucked into the total Autumn festive-ness that is the winter squash table in the produce isle. They are colorful and comprise all kinds of fun shapes and textures and just seem to embody everything that I love about fall! And so I promptly forget that I don't really care for them, buy a couple and then inevitably it goes like this: I cook up the first one with all kinds of excitement, feel disappointed after the first bite, wonder how in the world I can dislike something that looks so darn pretty and then struggle through the leftovers.

This is precisely what happened a week or two ago when my weekly grocery trip landed me with an acorn squash and butternut squash. The acorn squash is the prettier one so I cooked it first. (Do you see how my mind works???) I just roasted it in the oven and ate it with a little butter and salt and pepper. It was "okay." I think I still have some of it in a tupperware on the bottom shelf of my fridge. Since the acorn squash was a little anti-climatic, that poor, plain butternut squash has been hanging out by itself for a couple weeks in my produce basket.

Yesterday, being my day off, left me feeling inspired to cook something nice for dinner for my sweetheart and I. He is not a picky eater and likes to be adventurous once in a while, so he is a good person to try out new recipes on. I looked online for some ideas on what to do with that butternut squash and low and behold, found an idea that looked fun on the Martha Stewart website. It turned out really good. Jeff approved and proceeded to eat 3/4 of that squash all by himself (and it was a big butternut!)

The original recipe was for 6 squash! I only prepared one. I will put the original quantities below. Just cut back accordingly on the proportions depending on how many you do.

Twice-Baked Butternut Squash


6 butternut squash (or about 9 lbs)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon nonfat sour cream (I used the dairy-free Tofutti brand, which substitutes beautifully)
2 tsp paprika
6 fresh chives, cut into 1/8-inch pieces
3 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs, lightly toasted (Used gluten-free ones and they worked great)

- Heat oven to 450 degrees with the rack in center. Cut the squash in 1/2 lengthwise, remove seeds and fibers and sprinkle with a little of the salt and pepper. Fill a roasting pan with 1/4 inch of water and place the squash in, flesh side up. Cover with foil and bake for 30-40 minutes or until the flesh is tender.
- Reduce oven heat to 425 degrees.
- Remove the squash and cool until you can handle it. Scoop out the flesh, leaving about 1/4 inch with the skin so it will hold its shape.
- In a bowl, combine the flesh and all remaining ingredients except the breadcrumbs with a hand mixer or potato masher so that it is smooth and creamy. Spoon the filling back into the squash skins, top with breadcrumbs and bake for another 20-30 minutes until heated through and slightly browned on top.

For my seasonings, I used my Penzey's Smoked Paprika and added in a little chipotle seasoning. So my dish was a little bit spicy. If I could eat it, I might have added in a little parmesan cheese to the breadcrumbs on top. This would also be really delicious if you were to make it sweet instead of savory and mix in some cinnamon and nutmeg and a little brown sugar with maybe some toasted walnuts on top. Yum!

I have actually found my first squash dish that I will definitely make again and that makes me happy. I hope you enjoy it!

Celebrations!

Quite a few years ago, right after college, I read Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster. Although I liked the book, I remember very little of it except that the last chapter was about the discipline of corporate celebration. That chapter stayed with me more than any other in the book because it took me by such surprise. Celebration isn't what I had expected to learn about after working up the nerve to read about about the spiritual disciplines!

I was thinking about that chapter earlier this week as I was able to join one of my closest friends and her husband and a large group of people to celebrate the adoption of their new son, Simon Theodore. I can think of few things more worthy of a wild celebration than the gift of a child. And this child in particular has quite a story, as do his new parents. It has been a privilege for me to get to share in a little part of their journey over the last several years.

AND... I got to make dessert for the party! I re-arranged my work schedule and took off a 1/2 day of work to bury myself in flour and buttermilk and lemon zest and Rice Crispies and Hershey's Special Dark Baking Cocoa. I borrowed my old roommate's standing Kitchen Aid Mixer, which we used to affectionately call, "The She-Beast" because of its weight and awesome mixing power! The She-Beast and I cranked out a chocolate cake, a carrot cake, lemon-vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, plain vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting and last of all, because the food theme was "kid foods," some Rice Cripsy Treats. Whew!

(And I am feeling quite proud to say that this bounty of desserts was all produced in my tiny little 6'x8' kitchen!)

Here are a few pics...

Before:




After:




My dear friend, the star of the show, and me: