The Most Amazing

Being a homeschool family, our workload during the week is pretty heavy. Breakfast usually consists of something fast but filling. The weekend is a whole other story.

We like to have big family breakfasts on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Ian prefers eggs and fruit, Jacob likes lots and lots of pancakes. We all have our favorites. Last week, Nathan asked me to make some cinnamon rolls because “it had been a long time since we had any”.

Truthfully, I’ve always made store bought cinnamon rolls because they’re easier and I’ve never found a recipe that I really like. I LOVE a good homemade cinnamon roll. They are the best! I’m happy to say, I finally found the perfect recipe for cinnamon rolls.

I found this recipe on Pinterest, but it’s actually the Pioneer Woman's recipe which means it’s awesome. Every recipe I’ve ever tried of hers, I’ve loved. I love Ree Drummond. Did I tell you I met her once? She had a book signing here in Pearland so a few friends and I waited in line for her to sign our cookbooks.

 

She was as genuine and funny in person as she is on her blog (and I’m sure on her show too but we don’t have cable so I haven’t seen it). I have a hard time wrapping my mind around how she does it all? Homeschool, cooking show and books, blogging, photography, living on a ranch, etc. She’s my hero.

Back to the recipe. I wanted to share with you the most amazing cinnamon roll recipe courtesy of the Pioneer Woman. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Photo credit: The Pioneer Woman Blog

ROLLS:

Adapted from: The Pioneer Woman
Note:   The original recipe makes about seven 8" round aluminum tins of cinnamon rolls.  After cutting the original recipe in half, you'll end up with 3 - 4 tins full of rolls, with 7 - 8 rolls per tin...depending on how large you cut them.
Ingredients: (This is 1/2 the original recipe)

DOUGH:
2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup sugar

1 pkg active dry yeast

4 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tablespoon salt
FILLING:

1 cup melted butter, plus more as needed

1/8 cup ground cinnamon for sprinkling
1 cup sugar, plus more as needed

Directions:

Mix milk, vegetable oil, and 1/2 cup of sugar in a pan. Scald the mixture (heat until just before the boiling point.) Remove from heat and let it cool 45 minutes to 1 hour.

When the mixture is lukewarm to warm, but NOT hot, sprinkle in package Active Dry Yeast. Let this sit for a minute and then add 4 cups of flour. Stir mixture together. Cover and let rise for at least an hour.

Next, add 1/2 cup flour, the baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir mixture together. From here, you could cover the dough and put it in the fridge until you need it—overnight or even a day or two, if necessary. Just keep your eye on it and if it starts to rise out of the pan, just punch it down. Or, of course, you can just go ahead and make the rolls.

Sprinkle surface generously with flour and roll the dough into a thin rectangular shape, about 1/4" thick. Brush melted butter on top, then sprinkle sugar over the butter, and finish with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon.

Starting with the wide end, roll the dough tightly towards you in a neat line. Next, pinch the seam to the roll to seal it. Spread 1 tbsp of melted butter in each pan/dish. With a sharp knife, begin cutting the dough into 1 inch slices, and laying them in the pans. Let rest for 20-30 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 13 - 17 minutes, or until golden.

It’s Our Last Day of School

We’re having a little party over here. Doing a little dance.

It’s our last day of school this year!

We’ve successfully completed kindergarten and the third grade. The boys and I were remembering all the wonderful new things we learned this year in American history, geography, math, grammar, reading and so much more. Praise God! It is by His grace alone that we’ve accomplished all that we do. Where He calls, He certainly equips.

In honor of our last day, we made a little homemade celebration. A special treat for all our hard work.

 

Be jealous. No don’t be jealous, I’m going to share the recipe with you and their super easy.

Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Mix up your favorite recipe or box of chocolate (in my opinion, dark chocolate is the way to go) cake. After you’ve mixed and divided the batter into cupcake tins, insert one unwrapped miniature Reese’s cup into the batter.

I spread a little batter over the top of the Reese’s before I baked them so that the chocolate wouldn’t be burned in the oven.

Bake as directed. Let the cupcakes cool and whip up some peanut butter buttercream. I used a box of powdered sugar, 1 stick of butter at room temperature, 1/4 cup of creamy peanut butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1/4 cup of milk.

Spread frosting as desired and top with a miniature Reese’s. Voila.

If you think these are over the top, you’re right! So have a glass of milk ready to wash it down. But I can’t think of any better way to celebrate than with chocolate and peanut butter!

Extreme Goodness

 I recently found this recipe for a dessert that sounded amazing. It’s a combination of two very delectable foods, cookies and s’mores.  I tried it…and amazing it was! It may even become a new family favorite because each of us had more helpings than necessary!

First you make a batch of cookie dough except part of the flour is substituted for graham cracker crumbs, keeping with the s’mores theme. Dividing the dough in half, you spread it on the bottom of a greased pan.

The next step is to add the melted yummy goodness you find in the middle of the s’more…chocolate! The recipe says to lay the chocolate bars side by side but I separated mine and it was more than enough chocolate in the finished product.

Next comes the very naughty part…marshmallow crème, and lots of it!

Spread an even layer over the chocolate and top it all off with the remaining cookie dough. Bake it in the oven and this is what you get…

photo credit:Lovinintheoven.com

Extreme Goodness! After sampling this little beauty, Nathan said he no longer wants a cake for his birthday, he’d like S’mores Cookie Bars please! (I added the please part)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 king-sized milk chocolate bars (e.g. Hershey’s)
• 1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combined.
3. Divide dough in half and press half of dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan. Place chocolate bars over dough. 2 king-sized Hershey’s bars should fit perfectly side by side, but break the chocolate (if necessary) to get it to fit in a single layer no more than 1/4 inch thick. Spread chocolate with marshmallow creme or fluff. Place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the fluff (most easily achieved by flattening the dough into small shingles and laying them together).
4. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Makes 16 cookie bars.

Make Aheads

For those of you who know me well, you'll remember that I LOVE organization! My friends joke but I really do love my label maker :) Orderliness (is that a word?) makes me very happy. A part of being well organized is planning ahead.

Having a newborn in the house makes both organization and orderliness (I say it's a legitimate word) difficult or near impossible. Especially when it comes to meal planning. Through God's kindness, extended through our amazing church friends, we've had meals delivered for the past two weeks. It was great not having to shop for, plan and cook dinners for two weeks. I never wanted it to end! But end it did. Now I'm trying to figure out, again, how to plan meals for this growing family of ours.

We are still involved in our dinner co-op which takes care of three of seven nights but what about the other four?

I found these recipes that look delicious and might be the perfect answer.

I love using fresh ingredients. Especially fresh fruits and vegetables because we never seem to get enough of those. And I love using my crockpot, because it's EASY! So these recipes seem like the perfect combo.

photo from Mama and Baby Love Blog

What's even better is you can plan ahead (YAY!) and freeze these crockpot meals for as needed. LOVE IT. I can't wait to try them and thought you might like them as well.

This busy mom wants to know: how do you plan/prepare/think ahead for meals for your family?

Having A Little Fun

Even though currently, I have 3 boys, that doesn't mean we don't enjoy a good craft every now and then. By now, my boys have learned they have a mom that loves to do crafts and they have become happy to play their part.

This project was actually Jacob's idea so I can't even take credit.

Edible Peanut Butter Playdough
It calls for just a few basic ingredients that yield lots of fun and smiles.

In a mixer, beat ingredients together.

*Warning-with children involved, this is a messy project!

It will end up looking something like this...

For best playdoh results, divide into equal portions and refrigerate before attempting to play with it. Afterwards, you can do this...

Or this...

Or this...

And even this...

The best part about this recipe is it really tastes yummy. Because I prefer NOT to play with my food before I eat it, I covered mine with chocolate!

The lesson we learned today, you can have fun with what you eat! This recipe makes a whole lot so I would suggest cutting it in half.

Peanut Butter Playdough

3 1/2 C peanut butter

4 C confectioners sugar

3 1/2 C honey

4 C dry milk powder

In a large bowl, cream together peanut butter and sugar, then beat in honey and hold in milk powder. Divide into 15 equal portions and refrigerate or freeze until ready to use.

Spooky Treats

We're not big fans of Halloween around here. With all the evil looking and scary stuff, my kids are happy when it's over. (even though, they are not opposed to an opportunity for a sugar induced coma once a year.)
And we do enjoy it as an opportunity to meet and greet with neighbors and see more of the people in our community.

Anytime of the year, my boys love crazy and funny looking things. So, when I saw this idea on a decoration kit from Target, I thought it would be fun to try.

Ghost and Goblin Brownie Bites

They were fairly easy to make. I just put together a box mix of brownie's and baked them in a cupcake pan as directed. When they cooled, we put large marshmallows on top of each brownie.

The next step is to mix two bowls of powdered sugar glaze. We made one white for ghosts and the other green for the goblins. Then spooned it on top of the marshmallows. Then we let the fun begin as we decorated their faces and hair.

And even though they looked funky, they tasted quite nice! What other time of year can you get away with making such weird looking treats?

Food For Summer

One of my all-time favorite things to have in the summer is bruschetta. Think fresh summer tomatoes and basil on top of sliced crusty bread...mmmmm. Especially this summer since I have tomatoes and basil growing abundantly in my garden.

I wanted to try a recipe that plays on bruschetta but uses different ingredients. It's super simple and super yummy.

Strawberry and Goat Cheese Bruschetta

To make them:

Take a pint of strawberries, slice them and add a little sugar to let them macerate for 30 minutes.

Slice your crusty bread and put it under the broiler for a few minutes. But don't forget them!

Smear a dollop of goat cheese on top of each slice of bread.

Add a spoonful of strawberries on top of the cheese.

Now for the yummy part...

Sprinkle a little bit of balsamic vinegar over the strawberries and the top with bits of sliced basil.

Beware, these are addictive and you won't want to stop eating them.

Enjoy your summer food!

Overboard

I have been meaning to try a cookie idea I had seen somewhere on the internet. After the craziness of a broken-down car, online stolen credit card information and a very busy 3 day home school conference last week, I decided it was the perfect time.

It's a simple process that yields INCREDIBLE results. In fact, Jacob actually said "don't you think this is overboard mom?" What does he know, he's 8 right? =)

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Basically you make a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough. (We used dark chocolate chips because they're the best) Apparently shirts are optional for baking!

And you grab a bag of Oreos. This is the part where you say, "isn't this overboard?" Scoop a dollop of cookie dough on top of an Oreo and a dollop underneath. Then mold the cookie dough around the Oreo.

Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. 

If you are not pregnant, you can clean out the bowls and spoons as well.

And you wait as patiently as you can while they bake. If necessary, pull up a chair and stare at the oven, it might go faster.

Enjoy!!!!!

12 weeks and lots more to go...

One of the privileges of making it through the first trimester is those early hormones start settling down and your stomach no longer tells you that food is the enemy!

Well here I am. At the 12 week mark. And I know I'm starting to come out the coma of non-stop nausea, woozy feelings, vertigo and the likes of such when I can eat sweets again. So in celebration of a stomach that will let me eat the things I shouldn't, I baked!

From a friend, I found this recipe on this amazing blog. And decided to try it myself. I'm normally not a fan of making cakes/cupcakes from scratch...because the box cakes are so much easier...but let me say, this my friends, was totally worth it! Look for more of these kind of posts to come, I may have to cook my way through that blog =)

Cherry Limeade Cupcakes

I do apologize for the drooling nature of this blog post :)