Weekend Food - March 15/16

Once Tim had the cinnamon rolls from my last post, he said we had to make them again this weekend.  So we did!!

 

I made Fast Bread dough again.

 

Here are the rolls after I rolled out the dough, put in the filling, rolled, cut and put into a prepared pan.

 

For the goo in bottom of pan, I used my mother's recipe from her 60 Minute Cinnamon Rolls. 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 After baked, before we turn them out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And after being turned out of the pan (ready to eat).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were all finished making these by 9am, then went to the grocery store and BJ's Wholesale.  We were done with errands and were home by 10:30!

 

We did a good job with not eating these cinnamon rolls all at once; as of Monday morning, there were two left.  I took one into work for a co-worker, Casey, and ate the last Monday night after work.

 

 

Also on Saturday, we made mom's Mock Quiche.  It's mock because there's no traditional pie crust, it uses store bought salad croutons to absorb the egg mixture, and it's all combined with onion, green pepper, bacon, cheddar and Swiss cheeses.  I remembered to take a picture before we put it into the oven, but forgot to take one after it came out of the oven.  And now, it's all divided into small lunch sized containers, so you'll have to imagine. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then on Sunday, we made Fast Easy Bread Taco Braid.  I used sour cream only, added salsa (picture below), used onion and green pepper in the taco meat, used my own (homemade) taco seasoning mix (think Old El Paso); there was also a can of black beans and a cup of cheddar cheese. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fast Easy Bread dough rolled out really easily, but I did make a couple of mistakes with this recipe. 

 

I made too much filling for the dough.  The recipe called for 1/2 pound of hamburger to make the taco meat for the filling, but because I need lots of protein, I doubled it and used a pound of burger.  Plus I added onion and green pepper to the taco meat, adding more volume to the filling. 

 

Once I added the filling and tried to braid it, I should have used some milk to seal the edges together.  Because this is how it looked before it went into the oven.  Messy at the top and bottom, but with pieces of dough overlapped over the top of the filling.  Actually, I'm kind of embarrassed about how messy this turned out. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is what it looked like after baking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The extra filling spread the unsealed dough edges apart from each other.  And since I added the black beans on top of the taco filling, they dried out a bit, so they're not as tasty as they might usually be.  The cheese did protect the beans a little bit.

 

So next time, I'll use less taco meat in the filling (save some aside for some other purpose, for make some smaller ones and freeze for later).  I'll also mix the black beans into the taco meat while it's simmering, to let them cook, and be protected from the heat from the oven by some of the taco sauce from the meat.  And I'll use some milk to seal the edges together when I braid the dough.

 

But in the mean time, we'll have to suffer through eating some delicious taco/bean/cheese/bread stuff.  We all have to suffer for our art!

 

 

 

 

 

Mid-Week Day Off!

For some reason this week, I decided I HAD to have a day off from work.  Tuesday weather was to be in the 50's so Tuesday it was.

I got a lot done that day, but one thing I did was bake a set of home-made cinnamon rolls.

I used the Fast Easy Bread Kit:

 

The plastic container on the left is filled with the yeast from the open bag.

It was easy to make the dough, dump ingredients into mixer bowl, add water, mix on dough hook for 5 minutes (basically walk away!).  Really easy!

Then I filled and rolled the rolls, cut them and put them into the baking dish.  I used my Mom's recipe for the filling (spread with butter, sprinkle with cinnamon, add brown sugar).

I tried to remember the recipe for the yummy goo in the bottom of the pan (which ends up on the top of the cinnamon rolls), but I got something wrong, as that yummy stuff on top should be smooth and gooey, and these turned out a bit on the sugary (gritty) side.  So not all the sugar dissolved or melted.

Totally still completely edible, and delicious!

35 minutes later (which was longer than they suggested to cook), here is the result.

You need to turn these out of the pan ASAP after they come out of the oven.  Here is the yummy side.

I probably shouldn't admit this, but after 1 day, there are only 2 of these babies left!  They are delicious, and we've already decided we want to make them again this weekend.

Dinner, Sunday night

Here's what we made for dinner last Sunday.  Americas Test Kitchen Skillet Beef Stroganoff.

It may not look like much, but it is very good.

New Photos of Dinner

Hi everyone.

It seems that I'm compelled to take pictures of the food we make here at home, and I thought, why not inflict them on the rest of the world?  So, to get started, here's what we made for dinner last night.

Chicken Pot Pie (mostly from scratch)





I used store bought pie crust, and store bought frozen mixed veggies.

We didn't have any celery, but I want to make sure we include celery next time, it adds nice flavor.





















And for dessert, I made Orange Sour Cream Cake, a recipe from my childhood (started with an orange cake mix).

To amp up the orange flavor, I zested an entire orange, put the zest in with the dry ingredients and mixed it all together.  The zest adds additional orange flavor to the cake mix.

Then for the frosting, I mixed powdered sugar with the juice that I squeezed from the orange that I zested.  Nice and tangy, but still sweet like an orange.


For Sunday's meal, we're making Stuffed Chicken Breasts from Americas Test Kitchen.    You won't be able to get the recipe unless you're a member, but you can see the pictures of what it's SUPPOSED to look like, to compare with how ours turns out.