Cinnamon Rolls

I've had one of these for 5 years.I have never used it to make bread dough. I know!

So, as we prepare to exit this decade and enter the next, I decided to give it a whirl. Since I didn't plan ahead, I was happy to find a 60 minute, fast-rising dough recipe. Is it bad that the 'warmest place' in my kitchen (other than my oven) is the heater vent on the floor?!

It was covered (and it totally worked)!
15 minutes later, the dough was ready to go.

I'd just watched Giada make an excellent hazelnut cinnamon roll recipe HERE. I used pecans.

The icing has a little mascarpone cheese in it - [not so] secret ingredient!

They. were. inhaled.

Bread = not so hard in a mixer with a dough hook. I think I'll make dough more often.

I'd better get my run on tomorrow....I just ate 3 of these bad boys! Good thing we gave away one of these pans.

Hazelnut Cinnamon Rolls recipe HERE.

I May Have Set A Record

I've made a home cooked meal THREE nights in a row this week!

It began Sunday with beef stew and sourdough.

Granted, it's hard to take an appetizing picture of stew, but it was SO thick and flavorful...and it appears to have cured whatever ailed Jimmie for the preceding 12 hours!

Monday night I made a caprese salad, which we had with italian grilled chicken and [more] sourdough. Jimmie raved about this one, too. Can't you just smell that basil??

Tonight I roasted a chicken - for the first. time. ever. I know! ...pick your jaw up off the floor. How can one have gone so many years without ever roasting a whole chicken?? I defy the odds.

I stuffed it with rosemary, sage, thyme and lemon. Jimmie said it was the best chicken he's EVER had!

I'm starting to think he just likes when I cook. ;)

After we ate I put the bones on the stove for 4 hours and made chicken stock. This will be used another night this week for Carrot and Pomegranate soup! My fridge overfloweth with goodness this week.

I also made fudge topped with candy cane tonight, to go with the toffee I made Sunday night. Ready to put together some goodies for friends.

Tomorrow I'll make fresh pomegranate syrup (for the soup). Also on the docket is Giada's Ricotta and Vanilla Bean Puddings (with cranberry orange sauce) for dessert on FENCE-tivus [Christmas Eve]! I may even sprinkle some pomegranate seeds on top...

A Greek Tragedy

Found this at Sam's Club two weeks ago...I heart it.
Fell in love with it...

...and then they took it away.

Sad. I hope it's just a supply issue (not a discontinuation). I think it's a very small dairy that may have been overwhelmed with the demand. At least I'm hoping that's the case. Since I started eating greek yogurt a few months ago I can't even think about Yoplait. It's way too sweet and not nearly as satisfying. And greek yogurt has ~13 grams of protein and no fat! Too bad you can't order yogurt on Amazon!

Pomegranate Cheesecake

Cheesecake. It's good. The Clines have a cheesecake tradition. Every New Year's Eve we baked a cheesecake - the good kind with several bricks of cream cheese. And it was always topped with cherry pie filling. Yum.

I hadn't made a cheesecake in years when I made this one last spring for a 'birthday cake.' It was SO good. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed a good, homemade cheesecake with a graham cracker crust.
Fast forward 18 months and I was in the mood to bake another cheesecake. This time it was Thanksgiving and we decided to venture outside of our comfort zone and try something new. And so I bring you Pomegranate Cheesecake. The recipe came from Better Homes & Gardens, but was written so poorly that it took two trips to the store to obtain all of the ingredients and about 5 times reading through the recipe to figure out which portions went in what bowl when. You catch my drift. The recipe below is my re-written version that I'll use next time I make it.

Pomegranate Cheesecake (adapted from BH&G)

Ingredients:
· 1/2 cup butter, softened
· 1/4 cup (plus ¼ cup) packed brown sugar
· 4 eggs
· 1-1/4 cups (plus ¼ cup) all-purpose flour
· 4 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
· 1-1/4 cups (plus ¼ cup) granulated sugar
· 1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. vanilla
· 1 16-ounce carton dairy sour cream
· 1 tsp. finely shredded lemon peel
· 16 oz pomegranate juice
· 1-1/2 cups pomegranate seeds (1 fresh promegranate – I doubled it!)
· 1 Tbsp cornstarch

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a mixing bowl beat butter on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar. Beat until combined. Add 1 egg; beat well. Beat in 1-1/4 cups flour until combined. Divide dough in half. Cover and refrigerate one portion.

2. Spread unrefrigerated dough half on bottom of ungreased 10-inch spring form pan with sides removed, spreading dough to edges. Place on baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Cool completely. When cool, attach sides of pan. Press chilled dough onto sides to a height of 1-3/4 inches, using a thin metal spatula to spread dough.

3. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees F. For filling, in an extra-large mixing bowl beat cream cheese and 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar until fluffy. Beat in the remaining flour (1/4 cup) on low speed until smooth. Add remaining 3 eggs and 1 tablespoon vanilla all at once, beating on low speed just until combined. Stir in 1/2 cup sour cream, the lemon peel, and 3/4 cup (half) of the pomegranate seeds.

4. Pour filling into crust-lined pan. Place on baking sheet. Bake for 65 minutes or until edges are puffed and center jiggles slightly when gently shaken (I ended up 75 minutes...probably depends on altitude). Remove from oven.

5. Stir together remaining sour cream (the entire 16 oz carton, less the ½ cup you already used), sugar (1/4 cup), and vanilla (1 tsp). Spread sour cream mixture over top of baked cheesecake. Return to oven; bake for 10 minutes more (or until golden). Remove from oven. Cool on wire rack for 15 minutes. Loosen crust from sides of pan. Cool for 30 minutes more. Remove sides of pan; cool completely. Cover; chill 4 hours or overnight.

6. Remove cheesecake and Pomegranate Sauce (recipe below) from refrigerator 15 minutes before serving. Spoon some sauce over top of cheesecake; pile remaining 3/4 cup pomegranate seeds in center of cheesecake. To serve, slice cheesecake. Pass remaining sauce. Makes 16 servings. I say go with 2 pomegranates if you like them...you’ll want more seeds to sprinkle over the top!

7. For sauce, in a medium saucepan bring 1-16-ounce bottle pomegranate juice to boiling; reduce heat and boil gently, uncovered, until reduced to 1 cup (10 to 12 minutes). Stir together 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1 tablespoon cornstarch. Add to juice. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir 2 minutes more. Transfer to a medium bowl; cover surface with clear plastic wrap. Cool to room temperature. Store, covered, in refrigerator until serving time.

Baked Jalapeno Poppers

After thinking about hot poppers for two weeks, I finally decided to try out THIS recipe for low fat poppers, courtesy of Hungry Girl.

I am a big fan of using what I have on hand, rather than running to the grocery store for a missing ingredient and spending $30 on things I didn't know I needed! So, I changed it up a bit. AND I doubled the recipe to 4 servings:

10 jalapenos
1/2 cup fat free cream cheese
1/2 cup shredded fat free cheddar (I used jack cheese I had on hand)
1 cup Fiber One cereal (run through blender until consistency of bread crumbs)
salt, pepper, garlic salt to taste
1/2 cup eggbeaters (I used regular egg because I didn't have eggbeaters on hand)

I highly recommend wearing gloves, because I always seem to put my fingers in my eyes after cutting jalapenos.

Slice jalapenos lengthwise, removing seeds and membranes.


Combine cheeses in a small bowl and mix together with a fork. Optional: add salt, pepper, garlic salt to taste. (I added my seasonings to the cereal)

Stuff each jalapeno half with cheese mixture.

Blend cereal in blender until crumbled to a bread crumb texture.

How cool is this packaging? 2 separate bags to prevent it from going stale. Brilliant! All cereal should be packed this way.

Dip poppers into egg, then cereal mixture.

Place on cookie sheet (tin foil = I don't have to wash a cookie sheet).

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. They just came out of the oven. All I can say is "YUM!"

Now doesn't this baked, low fat goodness look more yummy than this gigantic fryer?

This is the world's largest jalapeno popper, in case you were wondering!

Dinner [was] Served

I cooked dinner two nights in a row!

--Santa Fe Chicken and Steamed Asparagus over Linguine
--Turkey Taco Salad with Pita Chips and Magic Sauce

I guess I'm done for the week. :)

Asian Noodle Salad

I spent a small fortune on these ingredients today for an asian noodle salad.

I just hope it looks like this when it's finished. And tastes as good as everyone claims!

I found this on http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/ and have been thinking about making it for two weeks now. It's time!

Asian Noodle Salad adapted from Jamie Oliver

SALAD INGREDIENTS:
1 package linguine noodles, cooked, rinsed, and cooled
1/2 to 1 head sliced Napa cabbage1/2 to 1 head sliced purple cabbage1/2 to 1 bag baby spinach1 red bell pepper, sliced thin1 yellow bell pepper, sliced thin1 orange bell pepper, sliced thin, 1 small bag bean sprouts,3 sliced scallions, 3 peeled, sliced cucumbers, LOTS of chopped cilantro—up to one bunch, 1 can whole cashews, lightly toasted in skillet.

DRESSING:
Juice of 1 lime, 8 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons sesame oil, 6 tablespoons soy sauce, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 3 tablespoons fresh ginger, chopped, 2 cloves chopped garlic, 2 hot peppers or jalapenos, chopped, More chopped cilantro—LOTS
Mix together salad ingredients. Whisk together dressing ingredients and pour over salad. Mix with tongs or hands and serve on platter. *Dressing keeps up to three days before serving, WITHOUT cilantro.

UPDATE:

I made this salad on Sunday. YUM-O! If you are flavor shy, this salad (or at least the dressing) is probably not for you. But, if you loves veggies and like a sweet and spicy ginger sesame dish once in a while, then this salad is right up your alley. This salad would also be excellent with a rice wine vinegar and oil (milder) dressing, if that's more your style.

I probably spent about $12 on ingredients, but $3 was cashews and $3 was sesame oil because I didn't have any. Next time, I'll still have both of those ingredients on hand, because I didn't even use half of them.

This is a HUGE salad. Like, so huge it didn't fit in my largest bowl. It would probably feed 12-15 people, so you can easily halve it. I also store the noodles, salad and dressing separately, so they'll keep.