Cinnamon Rolls!

Ok first off I would just like to say just how easy it is to misspell Cinnamon lol
Alrighty. Ingredients! We shall start with the Yummyness that goes on top :D It is called Confectioner's Frosting :D It has a looooot of Powdered sugar in it, then it is suppose to have half and half but I didn't have any so I improvised :D I used half coffee creamer and half milk :D (Don't judge :P) it also called for Vanilla :D (I love the smell of vanilla extract. So yummy!) Ok and for the actual Rolls. MILK! I got to drink a whole glass for myself as well :D Butter...lots of butter. Some sugar and salt. Then Yeast.............I hate yeast lol. WATER! Warm water to be exact. Very important for the yeast. Eggs. Rooooom temperature. No idea why but thats what it said. Vanilla <3 Flour...lots and lots and loooots of flour :P More Sugar! More Butter! And of course they wouldn't be CINNAMON ROLLS without Cinnamon :P
Alright so my baking adventure started at around 10pm or so :) The VERY FIRST instruction was, and I quote, "In a small sauce pan, SCALD, the milk over medium heat." I stood there for about 5 minutes thinking, "hmmmmm scald...scald...what does that even mean?" then I had an epiphany :D I continued to read :P "(See page 9)"...It is now that I shall encourage anyone who decides to try to do cooking like this...read ALL instructions! You will feel a lot less stupid in the long run <grin>. Ok so scald means to heat the milk to the point RIGHT before boiling. :P Simple as that. They could have just said that but nooooo :P they decided they wanted to make fun of us who are less fabulous with words and squish it into 1 word :P ANYWAY, Then once it is scalded :P add the butter sugar and salt then blend it together. Once it is blended remove it from the heat. Then...the horrible part lol...the yeast...It said while waiting for that other mixture to cool off a bit, (I am paraphrasing :P) in a small bowl sprinkle yeast over WARM water...not hot..not cold...not luke warm...WARM lol. Very important. But take it and stir and bled the water and yeast. At first I was like OH COOL! Yeast! So I stirred and stirred and stirred. Well then I got the bright idea to smell it cause it looked like it would be something that smelled good....WRONG! Wronger then wrong! So after I got done getting my sense of smell back :P I continued. It said to combine the 2 mixtures plus 2 cups of flour. So I did. Thanks to my wonderful mother I had an electric mixer to help me out. Then it got a tad bit more difficult. It told me to ditch the mixer and switch to a big spoon...It was so sad. For about 4 minutes I had it so easy lol. Anyway it said to take that big spoon and slowly stir in more flour until the dough wasn't touching the sides of the bowl anymore...in other words till it looks like bread dough. Then it said to put a towel over the bowl and let stand for 5 minutes. A CLEAN towel. This is important as well :D  THEN take the dough out of the bowl and knead for about 10 minutes...I tell you, 10 minutes of kneading is like lifting weights for 10 minutes lol :P But it said to knead it till it was smooth and like elastic. Then grease a pan really good and put the dough inside the pan...then flip it over and get the dough all greasy then cover the pan with a towel and let sit for 1-1 and a half hours...so I waited...10 minutes passed...then 30...then 50...then and hour...the 1 and a half...but sadly...the yeast didn't appear to be making the dough rise...I was so sad...so I left it sitting there...and another hour past and I kept glancing over at it frowning. But at about 2 hours later to my surprise it ACTUALLY started to rise! I got so excited. Sara was sitting in the living room and I went and was like, "Sara Sara Sara! It is RISING! YAY!" I am pretty positive it was annoying but I did it anyway lol. Anyway from then on it just rose and rose until aout 2 hours from when it actually started to rise it had doubled in size :D That was a pretty cool feeling. Going from thinking I messed up the yeast to it working beautifully :D So by that time I had decided ok this is going to have to wait till a few hours later because it was already 4AM! So I went to bed for a VERY short time and got up at around 6:30 and opened the cookbook and got started again. The next instruction was "Release all your anger that you built up last night starting this recipe out on the dough and punch it"…ok so maybe I am paraphrasing again. <grin> So it really said to "punch the dough down and knead it a little more" :D So I did as it directed. Then I was to cut the dough in half and roll the dough out in rectangle shapes…it was about this time that I remembered a small conversation I had with Sara the night before…
(Fades into yesterdays conversation with magical music) :D Sara was on the phone talking to Clint (My brother in law :D) and they were talking about Clint being a follower of my blog and how that gave him the right to be a taste tester of my Cinnamon rolls :) somehow that lead to the statement, "Uh oh! Amy you don't have a rolling pin…" To which I responded, "I have a tree outside I will just go out and rip a branch off and use that." Clint and Sara both laughed but were not to fond of the idea of "barky" cinnamon rolls. And so the conversation ended with no solution to the problem…(Fades back to the future *cue music from the movie*) Ok now it is just getting silly lol.
On a more serious not :) I was standing there with 2 balls of dough that needed to be rolled out and I was without a rolling pin. So I was looking around my kitchen thinking, "hmmmm what to use…what to use." Then something caught my eye. I found a glass bottle that was of ample size and shape for me to use as a rolling pin. I was so excited. I had no rolling pin but I had a bottle! Yay! So I successfully rolled out both balls of dough perfectly. Then I took some melted butter and coated 1 side of the dough with a thin layer of butter. Then I mixed ¾ cup of sugar and a table spoon of cinnamon and sprinkled the mixture on both of the rectangles and rolled them up in "Jelly Roll" fashion :D Then I decided to try my hand at a trick my mom taught me a long time ago. I took a piece of string and used it to cut the rolls into pieces :D It was pretty wonderful :) It turned out amazing :) It made 24 wonderfully PERFECT pieces in 1 pan :) So I put them in the oven for 20 minutes and they came out beautiful :)
Ah yes I almost forgot. The "yummyness sauce" for the top! Yes…that is what I decided to call it :) It took a buuuunch of powdered sugar, like I said earlier. Then I put milk, vanilla and some creamer and mixed it all up (with my wonderful electric hand mixer) till it was all wonderful and smooth and PRESTO! You have the "yummyness sauce"…and when I say yummyness…I mean YUMMYNESS! It was so hard not to just try eating the sauce while waiting for the rolls to get done. I assure you Sara can attest to that :)
So after the rolls had gotten out of the oven and cooled to where there were just warm…I drowned them in the "yummyness sauce" and let is melt into the little crevices and such and then let the topping kinda crystallize a bit but then I cut them apart and ate one and it was at that moment :) alllllll the frustration and heart ache that the yeast gave me the night before were gone :) It all became worth it. It was a warm yummy sweet cinnamony cinnamon roll that I made and I was soooo proud :D It was really good! It was hard to make but so worth the time. I definitely won't be making them very often that is for sure but not because they weren't good :) Just because of the effort it took to make them :)
Now for my rating…I give it a perfect 6! Like I mentioned in my previous post I am going by a 1-5 (and occasional 6) scale. The 6…yeah that is "FANTABULOUS!" :D
My next dish shall be a bit scary for me cause I am not sure how it shall work but stay tuned for the next round :)

Fresh out of the oven :)

Finished product! :D The sauce hadn't seeped down all the way yet :P

Happy Eating!

Change in Recipe list for the Week :D

So I mentioned in my post about shopping that I didn't get all the ingredients for my list this week.Well one of those said ingredients just so happened to be for my Carmel Rolls recipe. So I have decided on just plain ole Cinnamon Rolls :D Yay :D We shall see how they turn out :) Also! My dear sweet mother gave me a wonderful idea. I am going to start rating my "attempts" in the blog posts for each one :) I shall rate them as follows:
1-EWWWWWW! Never will I EVER try that again
2-Yucky! you would have to pay me to make that again
3-Eh, could be better. I would consider making it again
4-Its ok. Sure I could make it again
5-Yummy! Oooo! Definitely going to make that again!
and the occasional 6-FANTABULOUS :D I gotta make this once a week!
My first attempt, Cheeseburger soup, would be between a 4 and 5 :) I would like to make a variation of it with either noodles ooooor potatoes :D But it was still really good :) Anyway, tonight I am going to make the Cinnamon Rolls so check back tomorrow to see how it went :)
Happy eating! :D

Cheeseburger Soup!

Okie dokie I have done the first recipe :D SOUP! :)
Alright so what this wonderful soup has in it is as follows :)
Celery, Onions, Green Bell Pepper, Ground Beef, Beef Bouillon Cubes, Flour,  Milk, annnnd of course it wouldn't be Cheeseburger Soup without the CHEESE! :D
Ok so here is how it works. You chop up the Celery, Green Bell peppers, and onions. So I cut up the Celery...No problem :) Cut up the Bell Peppers...also noooo problem. Then I cut up the Onions...biiig problem. Me and onions..are not friends, never have been and probably never will be :P. I started cutting them and though, "piece of cake", and then it happened...the burning started and the tears began to flow! lol. Anyway, after washing my eyes out about 4 times and wiping away the smeared mascara that I put on earlier in the day. I FIIIINALLY got them all chopped up and in the pan I put the peppers and the celery :) The I got to use something I honestly thought I would never use :) OLIVE OIL! :D I put the oil in with the veggies and sauteed them :) Then I added the meat and browned it. Then I added the bouillon cube and the flour :) I thought it was pretty cool how much thicker it got after the flour was added :) I then added the milk :)  4 cuuups of milk :) hehe insane. Anyway then I grated cheese :) Cheddar to be exact and looots of it :) Ok then I stirred and stirred and stirred annnnd stirred :) then it was done :P 30 minutes! Whoop for quick meals. It was interesting when I was stirring it though. It was like stirring pudding but different lol. :P Ok so I dipped it up and my victims were, drum roll please! *dum dum dum dum duuuum* Sara and Ronnie :D And according to them it was pretty good :D  So that was definitely a successful first try :D hehe :) Yay! I am so very excited :) My next try shall be Chicken Ala King :D Yay! Stay tuned :D

Shopping :)

Alright so today right before I left the office to get the groceries for this week I sat down with both the cookbooks and had a short talk...yes I was talking to them...or rather reading them out loud :D Anyway, I was reading them out loud and writing down alllll the ingredients that I needed to get. It turned out to be a rather long list of groceries so I thought to myself , "ooooh Joy this shall be an interesting little adventure carrying all these groceries home by myself". It was just about that time that my wonderful cousin Ronnie asked if he could go with me :) Definitely a blessing to have wonderful helpful family members. Well we left and got straight to it. Before the grocery I had a couple other things to get but that didn't take that long to do. We got to the FIRST grocery store (yes I had to go to two, thankfully the mall I was in just so happened to have two :D) and I pulled out my list and got started. When I made my list I made the mistake of not organizing it to where the veggies were all together and the meats were together. Mistake just FYI :P I made many trips back to aisles that I had already gone to :P When I had finally gone through the store and found all the items I could I quickly made my way to the lines and was surprised how fast it went. Hardly anyone was there. Thankfully I was out of there quickly because I didn't have a bunch of time considering the mall closes at 9. So I flew (and by flew I mean I speed walked) my way down to the other grocery and found the rest...or should I say most of the rest of the items on my list :P I once again made several trips back and forth in that grocery store. I definitely learned that I need to kinda organize a bit better next trip to the grocery :P I had a lot of fun though :)

Week 1!!!!

Alrighty,

So before I reveal what 3 recipes I am going to do this week I am going to let you know what cookbook(s) I am going to use. I am going to be using 2 cookbooks:) The main one is by Diane Roupe called "The Blue Ribbon Country Cookbook."(TBRCC)

I get tickled when I read the front cover and it says "Timeless Recipes and Foolproof Cooking Basics" . When I see the foolproof part I laugh to myself and say "We shall see". :D

Anyway this week I am taking 2 of the 3 recipes out of this one and the second cookbook is called  "The Everything Quick Meals Cookbook" (TEQMC) by Barbara Doyen. 

I decided to add this one into the "mix", so to speak, because it had sooo many yummy sounding recipes in it that I couldn't resist :) 

Okay down to business :D I decided on a soup, a main course, and a desert.

I am going to start with a recipe out of "TEQMC". It is the soup dish called "Cheeseburger Soup". Right off the bat it sounds AMAZING so I just had to put that on my list for this week. 

The way I picked the next one is very unorganized :D I chose "Chicken Ala King". I decided it was going to be chicken but there were so many choices so I read out several choices to my 2 sisters (Rachael and Sara) and the both chimed in at the same time saying "Ooooo Chicken Ala King!" Thus I chose Chicken Ala King :D 

Then for the last one, the desert, is called Carmel Rolls. It sounds, annnnd looks, so fabulously delicious. 

So I hope that I can find a way to make all this interesting and fun! 

I look forward to what this foodblog could turn out to be!

Inspired :D

Howdy! 

So in case you haven't noticed from the background of my blog this is a cooooooking blog! I was inspired to try my hand at this after watching the movie "Julie & Julia" with Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. Although I am not as ambitious as Amy Adam's character :) Her character Julie went through Julia Child's cookbook. She did 1 recipe a day :P I started out thinking I could do exactly that but after much consideration I came to the realization that it wouldn't be possible. So I decided to try something a little easier. I decided to try out 3 different recipes a week and we will see how it goes. I will decide at the beginning of the week on the 3 recipes. I plan on including in my blog stuff I do in my regular life as well so we it might prove to be something interesting indeed. My goal of this blog is to encourage people to try something new! So please bear with me as I get a hang of all this cooking/blogging thing :) 

Happy reading....and cooking of course :)