Oh My God Rolls in an Hour

So reading the food blogs I kept seeing recipes for rolls, and I wanted to eat all of them. But since I spend the weekends doing school work out of the house, I don't have hours at home to make them. Normally, the only kind of homemade bread I am able to make with a meal is a quick beer bread or biscuits. Enter the recipe I found for these rolls, which had them listed as taking a little over an hour. Amazing. These are life changing. That I could take these big warm yeasty rolls out of the oven in an hour from start to finish? It's all i want all the time, I'll have to fight the urge to just make these for dinner and just eat them. 

Oh My God Rolls in an Hour
from Mommy's Kitchen


3/4 cup milk

4 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup hot water

4 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

4 - 4 1/2 cups flour, divided

1 heaping tablespoon instant yeast

Preheat oven to 170 degrees. Butter a 9x13 pan and set aside. Put butter and milk in a microwave safe container. Microwave mixture until milk warms and butter melts (about 1 minute). Add milk/butter mixture, hot water (it can be straight from the tap, just make sure the water is plenty hot), sugar, salt and 2 cups of the flour to stand mixer bowl fitted with a dough hook. Mix everything together for 1 minute.

Add the yeast. Slowly incorporate the rest of the flour 1 cup at a time as the mixer runs. There's enough flour when the dough scrapes the side of the bowl clean. Mix on medium speed for 5 minutes.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let sit for 5 minutes.

Spray the counter, or cutting board with cooking spray. After the 5 minute rise, lay the dough on top of it. Flatten the dough out into a rough rectangle (no need to get out the rolling pin or knead it, just shape it with your hands). Take a sharp knife, spray it with cooking spray and cut your dough into 12 roughly equal squares. Gently round the squares into balls, and put them into the buttered 9x13 pan.

Bake the rolls at 170 for 20 minutes, or until they have risen slightly above the rim of the pan. Leave the pan in the oven, turn the heat up to 350 degrees, and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until the rolls are golden brown and impossible to resist. Serve warm.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to Me! 

Of course, when you find yourself to be the typical baker in your group of friends / family your own Birthday cake can be a bit tricky. In my case, I'm used to having other people tell me what they want. Val wanted something that was low-carb, and Liz didn't want anything chocolate, and you catch my drift. So first, I had to decide what I wanted. Then I had to find some recipes. My mom offered to make the cake, as long as I provided the recipes. I decided that I wanted something with a salted caramel frosting, but I didn't like any of the recipes I found. 

I ended up having her halve the recipe on this Chocolate cake recipe, and double the recipe on a traditional buttercream frosting. All the Salted Caramel Buttercream recipes I found just listed proportions for making the caramel sauce straight away, and I had already made the caramel sauce. She ended up adding a pint jar of salted caramel that I had made earlier in the weekend. It was delicious. It was fairly salty the first night, and after that it just got saltier. I was fine with this, but I recognize that not everyone shares my undying love of sea salt. Mmmm, salty and sweet, my favorite. 

First Food of Fall - Roasted Butternut Squash Pasta

The last couple of weeks at the farmer's market I've been resisting the squash. There's a long winter full of squashy things ahead of me, and best to get a last few dishes out of the tomatoes and eggplants and zucchini. I finally gave up the fight this week. It's been feeling like fall finally, and so there was only one thing left to do: Butternut Squash Pasta. 

I first made this with Kelly in Syracuse, and it's been a favorite of mine ever since then. Roasting the squash, onions and bacon all together gives it this flavor that's indescribably good. Nothing ever goes wrong when caramelized onions are involved. And the squash gets all soft and slightly roasted. Plus once the squash is peeled the whole thing comes together really quickly. If you are opposed to bacon for some reason, it could easily be left out. Though I think you would seriously be missing out. 

Roasted Butternut Squash with Pasta
(from Kelly at Nerd in the Kitchen)

1 medium to large butternut squash, peeled and seeded

1 medium onion, diced

4 strips of bacon, diced

Olive oil, salt, and pepper

1 lb. of pasta (rigatoni / penne / farfalle)

1.5 cups of the pasta water

1 cup Parmesan or Romano cheese grated

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees.

2. Cube the squash into pieces no larger than 1″. Distribute the squash, onion, and bacon on a baking sheet. Lightly coat with olive oil and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Put in the oven for 25 minutes, turning the squash about halfway through.

3. While the squash is cooking, boil the pasta. When the pasta is done, drain it, but reserve about 1.5 cups of the pasta water. Pour the pasta back into the now-empty pot.

4. When the squash is tender and the onions have caramelized, pour the baking sheet contents into the pot with the pasta. Add the Parmesan cheese and 1 cup of the pasta water. Mix until the cheese is melted and the squash is combined. Add water is needed.

Summer is late, my heart.

"Summer is late, my heart.

Words plucked out of the air

some forty years ago

when I was wild with love

and torn almost in two

scatter like leaves this night

of whistling wind and rain.

It is my heart that’s late,

it is my song that’s flown.

Outdoors all afternoon

under a gunmetal sky

staking my garden down,

I kneeled to the crickets trilling

underfoot as if about

to burst from their crusty shells;

and like a child again

marveled to hear so clear

and brave a music pour

from such a small machine.

What makes the engine go?

Desire, desire, desire.

The longing for the dance

stirs in the buried life.

One season only,

and it’s done.

So let the battered old willow

thrash against the windowpanes

and the house timbers creak.

Darling, do you remember

the man you married? Touch me,

remind me who I am."

- Stanley Kunitz, Touch Me

Bread and Butter Refrigerator Pickles

In all of my trips to the Carbondale Farmer's Market I've been intrigued by the tiny baby cucumbers. I finally went ahead and bought a couple of them last weekend for my first foray into pickling. I wanted to stick with refrigerator pickles, because I still haven't found my metal strainer for the hot water bath canning. Whoops.

I was about to start cutting up the cucumbers when my mother requested Bread and Butter pickles instead of Dill. So to please my mother I made a trip to the grocery store for a few other spices.

Bread and Butter Pickles 
from Brown Eyed Baker

 Yield: About 4 cups of pickles

 5½ cups (about 1½ pounds) thinly sliced pickling cucumbers*
1½ tablespoons kosher salt
1 cup thinly sliced sweet onion
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup white vinegar
½ cup apple cider vinegar
¼ cup light brown sugar
1½ teaspoons mustard seeds
½ teaspoon celery seeds
1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric

 1. Combine cucumbers and salt in a large, shallow bowl; cover and chill 1½ hours. Move cucumbers into a colander and rinse thoroughly under cold water. Drain well, and return cucumbers to bowl. Add onion to the bowl and toss with the cucumbers.

 2. Combine the granulated sugar, white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seeds, celery seeds and ground turmeric in a medium saucepan; bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over cucumber mixture; let stand at room temperature 1 hour. Cover and refrigerate 24 hours. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator up to 2 weeks.

 * I had significantly less cucumbers than this. Rather than attempting to adjust the rest of the liquid ratio, I just made the full liquid mixture and ended up with more liquid than pickles. Still tasted awesome.

Roasted Red Pepper, Onion, Bacon and Cheese Tart

Last week, I made this amazing Onion, Cheese and Bacon Tart. Tonight we had some red peppers going bad in the fridge and some extra bacon. So the stage was set for a reprise. Sadly, by the time I got back to the house I realized that I had used the last pre-made pie crust, and I file making pie crust on a weeknight on the list of kitchen tasks not worth the effort.

So I went ahead a used a spare puff pastry shell I had in the freezer. Delicious. Highly recommend.

But what really makes this recipe amazing is the bacon, and then cooking the onion and red pepper in the bacon grease with some sugar. Amazing things happen to onions sauteed in bacon grease. Try it. For me it's a struggle not to sit down and eat the onions, peppers and bacon hot out of the oil.

Roasted Red Pepper, Onion, Bacon and Cheese Tart
Adapted from Epicurious

3 thick-cut bacon slices, chopped
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 red peppers, seeded and chopped
Pinch of sugar
1 cup half and half or heavy cream or some combination of both
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Generous pinch of salt
Generous pinch of ground nutmeg
1/2 cup (packed) coarsely grated cheddar cheese
1 pie crust or puff pastry

(If using pie crust, either home made or store-bought, roll out dough, and arrange in tart or pie plate. Poke holes in the the crust and par-bake for 10 minutes @ 400 degrees. If using puff pastry, thaw, arrange in tart or pie plate and poke holes in the crust. No need to par-bake.)

Sauté bacon in medium skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 4 minutes. Transfer bacon to paper towels to drain.

Add onion and pinch of sugar to drippings in skillet. After a few minutes add the red pepper and sauté until onion is deep golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Whisk cream, egg, egg yolk, pepper, salt, and nutmeg in small bowl to blend.

Spread onion over bottom of baked crust; sprinkle bacon over, then cheese. Pour cream mixture over.

Bake until tart is puffed and filling is set, about 25 minutes. Cool tart on rack 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Raspberry Cupcakes

Raspberry cupcakes with buttercream frosting. It's just a simple vanilla cupcake with some raspberries mixed into the batter, and a raspberry on top of the frosting.