Pillow-Soft Dinner Rolls

These are the softest, melt-in-your mouth, die-happy-and-fat rolls I've had in a long long time.


I'm always so impressed what yeast can do.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 cup warm milk

1 egg

1/3 cup butter, softened

1/3 cup white sugar

1 tsp salt

3 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 pkg active dry yeast

butter for top after baking

Directions:

Combine water and yeast and a sprinkle of the sugar, let set.

Add everything else...except only one cup of flour. Keep adding flour until dough pulls away from the bowl.

Knead until satiny and smooth.

Let rise until double.

Divide into rolls, place in greased dish.

Let rise until double again.

Divide into 12 small balls and arrange in a glass 9 x 13 casserole dish as pictured above.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes (my oven = 12 minutes).

You know they are done when they sound hollow if you tap them.

Spread tops with butter to keep them soft and moist. Let rolls sit in the pan to cool a bit...until they aren't so fragile, then you can flip the whole pan out onto the counter. I think the taste and texture are much better when they have cooled all the way.

See this link for the original recipe.

The recipe directs you to roll out the dough into a big flat circle, cut it into slices like a pizza and then roll those triangles into crescent rolls. As you can see, I just cut the dough blob into 12 pieces and arranged them in a glass dish...much faster and just as delicious. (Nick says they get "complete husband approval"...he just ate 3.)

Brazilian Rice and Beans

I lived in Brazil for 18 months while serving a mission for my church. The local members of the church invited the missionaries to dinner every day so I got really familiar with the local cuisine...rice and beans. They ate this EVERY DAY...you would think that one might get bored of such a simple daily meal, but I got so used to it, that on the rare occasion that we did not have a dinner appointment my body would go into withdrawal and I would crave it...after just one day!

So here is how to make authentic Brazilian rice and beans...although each region prepares their beans differently, this is what I learned:

You will need:
Pinto Beans
White Rice
Garlic
Onion (I prefer sweet onion)
Salt
Oil (they use corn oil in Brazil)

The following measurements makes 3-4 servings:

Pour boiling water over 3/4 cup pinto beans and soak for one hour.


The beans will plump up to about 2 cups of beans. Transfer beans to pressure cooker and add water...3 cups water to each cup of beans, so in this case 6 cups of water.

Cook beans in pressure cooker. When steam starts to pour out in a steady stream, set the timer for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, prep your rice by rinsing it until the water runs clear, then leave it to dry thoroughly...you want your rice to be pretty dry so that the grains don't stick together. 2 cups of rice is just about right.

You should also chop your onions and prep the garlic...I use about one cup onions and 3 cloves garlic.

Once the beans have cooked you are ready to cook the rice and season the beans.

I do both these things at the same time. Pour a little oil into 2 pans.

Saute half the onions in each pan...then add the garlic to whichever pan you'll be using for the beans.

Pour your cooked beans with all their liquid in with the onions and garlic and leave to simmer. This will thicken the sauce a bit. Salt beans to taste (it might take more than you expect...they taste really bland, then all of a sudden when you've added enough salt the flavor really pops).

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Then add your drained rice to the other pot and stir it around in the oil and onions for a minute or two.

After the rice has a quick saute, add boiling water to about 1/4 inch above the rice level. I heat this water in a kettle while I'm cooking the onions. I also salt to taste at this point.

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Cover the rice, reduce heat to low, and let cook until all moisture is absorbed...10-15 minutes.
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In the region where I lived, the people usually threw some salad on top...just thinly sliced lettuce and tomato with a fresh squeezed lime for dressing so while the rice cooks and the beans simmer I prep the salad.

Finished! This meal brings back such memories!!!

"Little Pizzas"

One of my all time favorite foods from my childhood...and still one of my favorite snacks today. I make these all the time.

Preheat your oven to 375 or so, then toast your English muffins...don't skip this step or you'll have squishy bread.


Top your muffins with spaghetti sauce...


sprinkle with cheese...


...any anything else you might have available.

These little lovelies are pepperoni, mushroom, onion, tomato, basil pizzas. YUM!

I bake them until the cheese starts to melt, then switch the oven over to broil for a minute or two to give the cheese a little crisp.

Now I'm hungry again...more pizza!

French Bread

I really love bread. I could eat it all day. Here is a recipe I really like.

French Bread
Ingredients:
6 1/2 -7 cups flour
2 pkg yeast (7 tsp) *see note below
2 1/2 cup water
2 Tb sugar
1 Tb salt
1 Tb shortening
yellow corn meal

*I just realized that 2 pkg of yeast to not equal 7 tsp...but that is how the recipe came to me. I have prepared this dough both ways and it didn't seem to make a difference. Maybe that's why I only needed about 30 minutes to rise last time. I'll experiment with yeast quantities and get back to you.

In large bowl combine 3 cups flour and yeast. In saucepan heat water, sugar salt and shortening just until shortening starts to melt.
(looks like this at first)

(now it's ready!)

Add to flour mixture, beat at low speed 1/2 minute, scraping bowl. Then beat 3 minutes at high speed. Stir and knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough. Turn onto floured surface and knead in remaining flour. Knead until smooth and satiny, about 10 minutes. (This is when you would add rosemary leaves or other ingredients if desired.)



Rise in oiled bowl until doubled (cover with damp cloth). The recipe says this should take 1 1/2 hours, but I never have to wait longer than about 30 minutes.

Pour out onto floured surface.

Divide into 4 loaves.

Shape loaf by flattening into rectangle...

then roll up...

pinch ends together...

roll ends up...

then flip over onto cookie sheet spread with cornmeal.

Slash tops and cover. Let rise until double.

Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Yum!

Homemade Baby Food

As we got ready to start our baby on solids it didn't occur to me to make my own until a good friend clued me in on how easy, affordable, and healthy it is to prepare your own baby food...no little glass jars for us (have you noticed how crazy expensive that stuff is?!).

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Before I got started I did a lot of reading...here are my 3 favorites so far:

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We've made all sorts of homemade meals for Lyla...including potatoes, carrots, peas, broccoli, squash, celery, green beans. As she grows we change the consistency and combine ingredients. Often we just blend up whatever we are eating before adding salt or sugars.

(see Lyla trying potatoes for the first time here.)

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I bought this squash for 50 cents, baked it for 25 minutes in the oven, then removed the rind, mushed it with a potato masher and portioned it into ice cube trays. It is totally natural with no added thickeners or a ton of extra processing. And it was 50 cents!!!

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You can easily make baby food of just about anything as long as you have a blender. This little hand mixer has been terrific. The little container of prune baby food in the center of this picture was 55 cents. I paid $3.99 for each container of dried plums...which seems expensive, but once I portioned out my big pot of stewed prunes I calculated that I saved $15 dollars by making my own!

Here's how I made prune baby food...throw all the dried plumbs in a pot with an inch or so of water. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. The prunes will become nice and mushy, add water to desired consistency. Blend remaining lumps into a puree and portion into ice cube trays for freezing. Voila!

Making my own baby food has been really rewarding...definitely worth the few minutes it takes to prepare. I highly recommend it.

Pita bread is SO easy!

Today I made pita bread for the first time. My sister, Holly, showed me how AMAZINGLY EASY it is...I'll never buy pita bread again! I also didn't think I liked hummus until she fed it to me. Her homemade stuff was delicious.

Find the pita recipe and a helpful video tutorial here.

Lovely little balls of dough ready to be rolled out.

Who would have thought those little dough disks would puff up so quickly!!! Check this out:

I usually don't have the courage to cook without a recipe, but the hummus recipes online felt forgiving so I just threw stuff in the blender.

Hummus Ingredients:

One can of garbanzo beans (with a little of the juice)

Toasted Sesame Seeds

Olive Oil

Lemon Juice

1 clove garlic

(hummus recipes call for "tahini" which is really just toasted sesame seeds pureed with olive oil...so I just threw in the raw ingredients)

After I blended these into a nice paste, I took out half the mixture and made two separate spreads...one blended with a roasted red pepper (red pepper cut in half and baked up-side-down on cookie sheet in oven at 375 until the skins look like they will fall off, remove skins) and fresh parsley, and the other with fresh cilantro and another clove of garlic. Yum!