Cinnamon Rolls

Yeast dough has always been one of my kitchen fears, but I finally decided to conquer this fear (with a little help from Daddy) by making cinnamon rolls.  The whole process was not nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be.  I probably would have ruined the whole batch, though, if Daddy hadn't been there to stop me from dumping the yeast into a bowl of hot milk.  All the poor, defenseless yeasties would have been killed!  Thankfully, Daddy told me to monitor the temperature of the scalded milk.  Once it was below 100 degrees F, I added the packet of yeast, and from that point onward, the dough-making went quite smoothly.  I made the dough and stashed it in the refrigerator last night, so that I wouldn't have to wake up at 4:00 A.M. in order to have hot, fresh cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  Mommy woke me up at 7:00 this morning and I got to work rolling out the dough, spreading it with melted butter, and sprinkling on the sugar and cinnamon.  Then I began to roll the dough into a log.  This morning's efforts are where I met with some difficulties, including, but not limited to, the following:

• A not-quite-big-enough counter (I had to move the food processor out of the way, and I only just had enough space after that)
• Dough that did not want to roll tightly into a log (this caused problems when I began trying to slice the individual cinnamon rolls--they all started unraveling, and I had to unseal the log and re-roll it more securely)
• A lack of easily-accessible floss for cutting the rolls (there was plenty of mint-flavored, but I didn't think that would taste very good with the cinnamon, so I used a serrated knife)
• More cinnamon rolls than prepared pie tins (maybe I should have put more in each pan, but I didn't want to crowd them)

Despite these challenges, the cinnamon rolls all came out beautifully, and my fear of yeast has been (mostly) cast away.  Now I'm ready to bake more yeasty goodies!  I'm thinking bagels, doughnuts, English muffins... :)

FLAVOR:  These cinnamon rolls were amazing!  They were sweet, soft, cinnamon-y, and positively dripping with icing.  The icing contains maple flavoring and brewed coffee, but neither flavor is really prominent.  They just meld together and create a perfect complement to the cinnamon rolls.

APPEARANCE/TEXTURE:  The cinnamon rolls may not have been as pretty as the ones from a refrigerated Pillsbury can, but I still thought they looked mouthwatering.  I also think that they had a much better texture than canned cinnamon rolls.  The dough was pillowy soft and melt-in-the-mouth tender, and each roll had a slightly crunchy, caramelized-sugar bottom that provided beautiful contrast to the gooey butter-cinnamon-sugar interior and the sweet, melted icing.

OTHER NOTES/COMMENTS:  These are definitely not everyday breakfast material!  The rolls take a fair amount of effort and quite a lot of time to make, but I think I would make them again for a special occasion or a holiday.

FAMILY MEMBER REVIEWS
Gabriel: "They were good, I liked the icing.  I'd probably give them four stars."
Anne Marie: They were very good and I liked the icing a lot better than the stuff from a Pillsbury can.
Elizabeth: I liked the glaze a lot.  It was nice because it had more flavor than just powdered sugar and milk.  The rolls were good.  I was expecting there to be more bread to filling.  The ratio of bread to filling wasn't bad, it just wasn't what I was expecting.  They were really yummy and you can make them again.
Mommy: They were tasty.  I liked the coffee and maple in the icing.  I would prefer a taller cinnamon roll and a thicker layer of dough.  You can definitely make them again.
Daddy: This evening after dinner, Daddy tried one of the cinnamon rolls rewarmed in the microwave.  He said it was good and he said that next time I make them, he wants to try one without the glaze because he thinks they'd be really yummy without it.

Cinnamon Rolls
I used the measurements for half a batch of Pioneer Woman's cinnamon roll recipe.  The original recipe can be found here, but I used some of the measurements and instructions found here (because I was too lazy to calculate half the recipe myself).  I did refer to the original while making the cinnamon rolls.  So, this is slightly adapted from both Pioneer Woman and Mommy's Kitchen.

Ingredients for Cinnamon Rolls:
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 package active dry yeast
4 cups (plus 1/2 cup extra, separated) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (heaping) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (scant) baking soda
1/2 tablespoon (heaping) salt
1 to 2 sticks melted butter [I used 1 1/2 sticks of butter]
1 cup granulated sugar
Generous sprinkling of cinnamon [I must have used at least two tablespoons.]

Ingredients for Icing:
16 oz. powdered sugar
1 teaspoon maple flavoring
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons brewed coffee [Mommy made a mug of instant coffee for me.  I just used 2 tablespoons of it and gave the rest to my coffee-loving little brother.]
1/8 teaspoon salt

Instructions:
Place the milk, vegetable oil, and sugar in a pan and mix together.  Scald this mixture (which means to bring it almost to a boil and then take it off the heat), then set aside to cool for 45 minutes to 1 hour [I placed mine in a large mixing bowl to cool.  It took closer to 1 1/2 hours for the temperature to drop below 100 degrees F.].  When the mixture is still warm but not hot, sprinkle in the packet of yeast and let it sit for 1 minute.  Then add the 4 cups of flour and stir it together.  Cover the bowl with a damp kitchen towel and let it rise in a warm place for at least 1 hour [Mine ended up rising for close to 2 hours and it was fine.].  After the dough has risen, add the extra 1/2 cup of flour, the baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and stir together until mixed.  [At this point, I transferred the dough to a greased bowl, covered it with plastic wrap, and stored in the refrigerator overnight.]

Sprinkle your rolling surface [a very large counter is best] generously with flour and place the dough in the center, forming it into a long rectangular shape.  Roll out the dough into a large rectangle about 10 inches by 30 inches [I would actually suggest not rolling the dough out this much, as I think that thicker dough would be easier to work with and would yield nicer rolls.].  Pour 1 to 2 melted sticks of butter over the surface of the dough and spread it out evenly using a pastry brush.  Evenly sprinkle the sugar over the whole surface of the butter-covered dough, then generously sprinkle with cinnamon.  Starting from the long edge farthest from you, begin to tightly and neatly roll the dough into a log.  When you reach the end, firmly pinch the seam to seal the roll closed.  Prepare three round foil pie tins by spreading each with melted or softened butter.  Slice the dough log into 3/4 to 1 inch rolls and place the rolls into the prepared pie tins.  [I followed these directions, but if I made these again I would do things differently.  To begin with, I would have cut the rolls thicker (more like 1 1/2 inches).  I also would have either prepared more pans (it took 6 pans to hold all my cinnamon rolls) or placed the rolls closer together in the pan.]  Cover the pans with a kitchen towel and let the cinnamon rolls rise for 20 to 30 minutes.  [This is a good time to preheat the oven.]  Bake the cinnamon rolls at 375 degrees F for 15 to 18 minutes, until they are light golden brown.  [I baked two pans of rolls at a time and mine took about 17 minutes.  If the rolls had all fit in only three pans, I would have baked them all at once.]

While the rolls are baking, prepare the icing: in a large bowl, mix together all of the icing ingredients with a whisk until smooth, thick, and pourable.  As soon as the rolls come out of the oven, liberally drizzle them with icing, making sure to get icing around the edges of the rolls as well as all over their tops.  [Don't be afraid to lay it on thick!]

[These cinnamon rolls are delicious fresh from the oven, but if they've cooled off, you can microwave one on a plate for 10 seconds or so.  I believe they're probably also amazing at room temperature.]

Pumkin Pie Yogurt Pops

It was way too hot to think about turning on the oven, and I hadn't even been outside the house this afternoon.  To remedy the situation, my older sister and I had the brilliant idea of making pumpkin pie yogurt pops.  We searched online for a recipe, but none of them were really calling out to us, so we decided to wing it.  To begin with, we whisked together plain Greek yogurt, about half a can of pumpkin puree, and some brown sugar.  Then we tasted the mixture and added some spices and a little more brown sugar.  After mixing, we tasted it again and thought it needed more pumpkin, so we dumped in the other half of the can of pumpkin.  Again, we mixed and tasted.  Then Elizabeth had a light bulb moment and thought of adding vanilla extract.  After this addition, we finally deemed the mixture perfect.  Since we didn't use a recipe and we didn't really measure anything, the amounts listed are estimates.  Just mix it all together until it tastes right! :)


Pumpkin Pie Yogurt Pops

2 cups plain Greek yogurt
1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin puree
1/3 to 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Ground cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg (freshly grated is best), and ginger to taste

Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix, using a whisk, until well combined.  Dip a spoon (or your finger) into the bowl and taste the mixture.  Add more spices if needed.  Place 8 small paper cups (we used the wax-coated kitchen sized ones) in a 9x13-inch pan.  Spoon or pour the pumpkin mixture evenly into the cups.  Loosely cover the pan with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for about 1 hour.  Remove the pan from the freezer, take off the plastic wrap, and insert a popsicle stick into the center of each cup of partially-frozen pumpkin mixture.  Replace the plastic wrap and return the pops to the freezer until completely frozen, about 5 hours.  Remove the pumpkin pie yogurt pops from the paper cups before eating. :)

Makes 8 Pumpkin Pie Yogurt Pops.

Broccoli Tofu Stir-Fry

On Friday night I made a broccoli and tofu stir-fry for dinner.  This was my first experience with stir-frying as well as with tofu, and I was quite impressed with both.  I really enjoyed both the taste and the texture of the tofu in this dish.  The preparation part of the recipe took me a while, because I'm a very meticulous slicer/dicer/chopper/measurer, but the stir-frying part went very quickly and smoothly.  I would definitely make this recipe again, because everyone enjoyed it (I doubled the recipe, and the six of us demolished every last bit of it) and it was so simple to put together.  If you used pre-cut broccoli florets, the preparation would be even easier.  I didn't measure my broccoli for this recipe.  Since I doubled it, I should have used four cups, but I just cut up three broccoli crowns and called it a night.  My family loves broccoli, so it wasn't an issue if there was a bit too much, and the doubled amount of sauce perfectly coated all of the tofu and broccoli.  The only thing I did not double in the recipe was the amount of water added to the pan with the broccoli and garlic--my mom said it was just to steam the vegetables and it wasn't necessary to add twice as much water.

My apologies for the lack of pictures; it was a very late night, everyone was hungry, and I completely forgot to grab the camera when it was all finished.

TASTE:  I had never cooked with oyster sauce before, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I think the oyster sauce really made this dish amazing.  It has a slightly briny flavor that really added something special to the stir-fry.  The sesame oil also gave the stir-fry that characteristic Asian flavor.  I absolutely loved the flavor of the sauce and I think it went perfectly with the tofu and broccoli.

TEXTURE/APPEARANCE:  My little brother loved the tofu, and he said that it had the same texture of scallops.  I thought the texture was similar to that of scrambled eggs, and the flavor was much more pleasing to me than I had expected.  The sauce evenly coated the bright green broccoli and golden-brown cubes of tofu, giving everything a delicious dark brown sheen.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS/NOTES:  As this was my first time working with tofu, I looked online for instructions on how to drain it.  I sort of combined all the ways of draining it I could find.  First, I placed a block of tofu on a large dinner plate.  Then I folded up a piece of paper towel, placed it on top of the tofu, and placed another dinner plate on top.  I repeated this process for the other block of tofu, since I doubled the recipe.  I was going to use two large cans of tomatoes to weigh each plate down, but they wouldn't fit on our dinner plates, so my dad once again came to my rescue and brought out two 2-pound weights from my mom's adjustable dumbbells.  I used one 2-pound weight for each block of tofu.  I let the tofu sit and drain for a little more than an hour before I cut it into half-inch cubes, and it held together fine, but I think if I'd had time to let it drain longer (maybe two hours?) it would have been less fragile.  I recommend draining your tofu for at least an hour before cutting it up.  Just be sure that you don't put too much weight on the top plate--you don't want to squash your tofu to death!


Broccoli-Tofu Stir-Fry
Adapted from Cooking Light, December 2001; Accessed at MyRecipes.com: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/broccoli-tofu-stir-fry-10000000356664/

Ingredients:
3 cups instant brown rice
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup oyster sauce
5 teaspoons cornstarch
4 teaspoons rice vinegar
4 teaspoons sesame oil
2-3 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 pounds firm tofu, drained and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 broccoli crowns, cut into florets
3/4 cup water
3-4 tablespoons minced garlic

Instructions:
Using a whisk, combine the soy sauce, oyster sauce, cornstarch, rice vinegar, and sesame oil in a small bowl and set aside.

Prepare the rice according the the package directions.

In a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, heat the vegetable oil.  Add the tofu cubes to the pan, sprinkle with salt, and cook, tossing frequently, for 8-10 minutes, until the tofu cubes are golden brown.  Remove the tofu from the pan and keep warm.  Add the broccoli, water, and garlic to the pan.  Cover the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender, about 4-6 minutes.  Uncover the pan and add the sauce mixture and tofu.  Stir gently to coat.  Cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes or until the sauce thickens.  Serve the stir-fry over the rice.

Serves 6.

Creamy Lemon Blueberry Crepes

I've always wanted to try my hand at making crepes, but I was afraid they would be really difficult to make.  Was I ever wrong!  If you mix your batter in the blender, the hardest part of making crepes is swirling the batter in the pan.  The crepes cooked super quickly in my nonstick skillet, even when I turned the stove burner to medium-low.  Next time I make crepes (and there will definitely be a next time!), I would like to try using a regular (non-nonstick) pan, and I'd like to try a savory version.

I made the crepes yesterday afternoon, let them cool, stacked them between wax paper, and put them in a plastic ziplock bag in the fridge.  My crepes were not as thin as I had always expected crepes to be, but at least they were mostly round(ish).  It took a couple tries for me to get the hang of swirling the batter in the pan, but once I got it, the process of cooking the crepes went smoothly.  I made two batches of crepes, just to be certain there would be enough for my hungry siblings and me.  The recipe I used said it yielded about ten crepes, but I only ended up with seven or eight per batch.  I may have used too much batter per crepe, but I found that if I didn't pour enough batter in the pan, there wasn't enough batter to swirl around.  I would like to try making crepes again and see if I can make them thinner and more tender.

I also prepared the lemon curd cream and the blueberry sauce ahead of time and stored them in the refrigerator.  For breakfast this morning, all I had to do was warm the crepes over medium-low heat in a skillet, microwave the blueberries, and assemble everything.

 FLAVOR:  The crepes themselves were slightly sweet and smelled of vanilla, and the flavor of the egg was prominent.  They almost tasted like french toast.  While delicious, the blueberry sauce and the lemon curd cream were very sweet.  Mommy commented that they would not be out of place as a dessert.  If I made these for breakfast again, I would increase the cream cheese and decrease the sugar in the blueberry sauce.  Altogether, though, I really enjoyed the flavor of this crepe dish.

TEXTURE/APPEARANCE:  The texture of the crepes was very different from how I expected them to be.  They were almost tough, for lack of a better word, and a knife was required to cut them.  Some of the crepes were prettier than others. :)  I found that one side always browned more than the other.  I just picked the nicer-looking side to go on the outside of the rolled crepes.  The powdered sugar on top made these look really elegant and fancy, and I loved the way the pale lemony filling looked next to the deep purple blueberry sauce.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS/NOTES:  Elizabeth and I both think that the blueberry sauce would be excellent on cheesecake (which is another thing I would like to try making).  I found that our tortilla warmer was perfect for holding the crepes as I rewarmed them this morning.

FAMILY MEMBER REVIEWS:
Gabriel:  "I think that they were the bests crepes that I have ever had, even though I have never had crepes before this.  I like crepes.  They're delicious."
Anne Marie:  "I liked how the lemons blended with the blueberries so well, and then you have the soft sweet flavor of the crepe and it all kind of blended together and it was very good."
Elizabeth:  Taste was superb but the texture was not as I imagined crepes to be.  They were almost tough, not delicate like I thought they would be.
Mommy:  I would like to eat them again but I would prefer them for dessert, because I don't really like sweet things for breakfast.  I do like the sweet and the tart.
Daddy:  Daddy was not available for recipe testing this morning (he was at work).

Creamy Lemon Blueberry Crepes
From Picky Palate, with my comments/changes in brackets.
http://picky-palate.com/2012/05/09/creamy-lemon-blueberry-crepes/

Ingredients:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon melted butter [I did not add this to my first batch of crepes because I didn't see it in the ingredients list, and the recipe never said to add it.  I realized this as I made the second batch, so I did add a tablespoon of melted butter to the second batch of crepes.  No difference between the batches was evident to me.]
1 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar  [I think I would try this with slightly less sugar if I made it again.  The blueberry sauce was good, but very sweet.]
1 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup prepared lemon curd
3 tablespoons softened cream cheese  [If I made this recipe again, I would use a higher ratio of cream cheese to lemon curd--maybe equal parts lemon curd and cream cheese.]

Instructions:
1.  Place flour, sugar, milk, egg and vanilla [and melted butter, if you remember to add it :) ] into a blender, blending until well combined, about 20 seconds.  Pour crepe batter into a large measuring cup and set aside.  [I did an internet search for crepe-making tips, and many websites said to let crepe batter rest for an hour, so I put my batter in the fridge for an hour before cooking the crepes.  For the second batch, I just left the batter sitting on the counter for about 15-20 minutes before cooking the crepes.  I did not notice any difference between the two batches.]

2.  Place blueberries, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice into a medium bowl, mixing to combine.  [I just mixed everything right in the saucepan.  Can you tell I do the dishes around here? ;) ]  Transfer to a medium saucepan over medium low heat.  Stir and cook for 5 minutes, until bubbly.  [This step took more than five minutes.  I think with fresh blueberries, 5 minutes would be spot on, but mine were frozen so it took a few extra minutes.]  Remove from heat and set aside.

3.  Place lemon curd and cream cheese into a small bowl, mixing until smooth and combined.  [I do not think I let my cream cheese soften enough, because the mixture would not become smooth.  It tasted fine, though, so I just left it with the tiny cream cheese lumps.]

4.  Heat a crepe pan or 12 inch non stick over medium heat.  [I used a 10-inch nonstick skillet.  I started out with the stove burner on medium heat, but ended up turning it down to medium-low, and I think I could have turned it down even more.]  Spray lightly with cooking spray.  [I switched between spraying the pan with cooking spray and dropping in a little butter.  Sometimes I didn't grease the pan at all.  I would need to experiment more to decide which method I like the best.]  Pour 2-3 tablespoons of crepe batter into pan swirling all the way around to get a nice circular crepe.  Cook for about 1 minute on the first side or until turning golden then flip and cook for another 30 seconds-1 minute.  [Mine never took a full minute on either side.]  Transfer to a paper towel lined plate.  Continue cooking crepes until all the batter is gone.  Makes about 10 crepes.  [I got seven from the first batch and eight from the second batch.]

5.  Fill each crepe with a thin layer of lemon curd cream and a spoon of blueberries.  Roll crepes and sprinkle with powdered sugar.  Now eat!

Makes about 10 crepes  [I got 15 crepes from two batches, and there was plenty of lemon curd cream and just enough blueberry sauce for all of them without doubling the filling ingredients.]

Chocolate Compost Clusters

The name doesn't sound too appetizing, does it?  I'm not sure why these are called compost clusters, but I don't really want to think about it too hard, if you know what I mean.  Anyways, I made these a few days ago as a way to use up the handful of candy canes we still had left from Christmas.  The sweet/salty, soft/crunchy combination of pretzel bits, mini marshmallows, peppermint candy, almond pieces, and dark chocolate was really good, and I enjoyed them more than I expected I would.  The clusters were really simple to make, and everyone but my dad liked them.  Daddy does not like anything minty (except for Thin Mints Girl Scout cookies--go figure!), so I do not take his negative response personally.

Chocolate Compost Clusters
Adapted from One Bite More: http://www.onebitemore.com/2011/12/chocolate-compost-clusters/

Ingredients:
350 g dark chocolate chips
1 cup pretzels, broken into bite-sized pieces
1 cup mini marshmallows
3/4 cup almonds, roughly chopped
5 or 6 candy canes, crushed

Instructions:
Melt the dark chocolate in the microwave in 15- to 30-second intervals, stirring until smooth.  Combine all the remaining ingredients in a large bowl.  Pour the melted chocolate over the other ingredients and stir to coat everything in chocolate.  Spoon the mixture by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper.  Let the clusters set overnight, and store them in an airtight container between layers of wax paper.

*Note: I attempted to pulverize a candy cane in our coffee grinder to sprinkle over the tops of the clusters before they set (as the original recipe suggests), but my candy cane was a bit stale, so all I succeeded in making was sticky pink peppermint powder/foam.  While this was delicious, it was impossible to sprinkle on the clusters.  Luckily, Daddy came to the rescue!  He tried pulverizing a couple of those soft, melt-in-your-mouth type peppermint balls, and this worked much better.  I liberally sprinkled all of the clusters with the peppermint dust, and I think it made them extra pretty.

Meatballs and Tomato Sauce

Today I made dinner for my family: spaghetti and meatballs.  I've made a lot of pasta recipes before, but never for a simple tomato sauce and never with meatballs.  When I decided to make tomato sauce and meatballs, my mom pulled out a couple of cookbooks for me to look through from the Italian Club my grandparents attend.  I found a simple-looking tomato sauce recipe in one cookbook and a meatball recipe in the other cookbook.  First I mixed the ingredients for the meatballs, and then I assembled the ingredients for the sauce.  I browned the meatballs in olive oil and removed them from the pot before adding the onions and garlic to sauté.  At my mother's suggestion, I sopped up some of the extra grease with a paper towel and deglazed the pan with the amount of red wine called for in the sauce recipe.  Then I added all the other sauce ingredients, mashed up the whole canned tomatoes with a potato masher, and brought the sauce to a bubble before adding the meatballs back in.  After letting the meatballs simmer for 30 minutes, I turned off the stove, put the lid on the pot, and left to attend a group fitness class at the gym with my family.  When we returned home, I put a pot of water on to boil for the pasta and rewarmed the meatballs and sauce over low heat.  Since I had left the lid off the pot while it was simmering for half an hour, the sauce had gotten really thick.  Luckily, I had saved the tomato juice from the cans of whole peeled plum tomatoes, so I just poured some of it into the pot as the sauce rewarmed.  After I boiled and drained the pasta, I transferred the meatballs to a platter and mixed the pasta into the sauce.  To serve, we piled spaghetti and sauce on our plates, perched our meatballs on top, and generously showered everything with Pecorino Romano cheese.

FLAVOR:  Absolutely delicious!  I loved the sauce.  When I was little, I despised tomato sauce, but I have since grown to enjoy it more, and this sauce was one of the best I have tasted (besides my Nanna's, of course!).  It was not spicy or overly herb-y, just warm and mellow.  The meatballs were great, too.  Nothing fancy--just classic, well-seasoned, savory meatballs.


TEXTURE/APPEARANCE:  The meatballs were tender and moist, and looked nice nestled in a pile of tomato-coated pasta, especially because of their beautifully browned exteriors.


WOULD I MAKE THIS RECIPE AGAIN?  Most definitely!  Everyone loved both the sauce and the meatballs.  I got more than one request for me to make it again, and to double the recipe.  We had no leftovers at all--a sure sign of a good meal.


OTHER COMMENTS/NOTES:  I used spaghetti rigate, which is spaghetti with ridges, because it holds more sauce than regular spaghetti.  Two large cans of whole peeled plum tomatoes, drained, yielded about the three cups of tomatoes called for in the recipe.  If (or more likely, when) I make this again, I will be sure to double the recipes.


FAMILY MEMBER REVIEWS:
Gabriel:   "Five stars!"
Anne Marie:  "The sauce was very good.  I wished there were more meatballs!" *laughter*
Elizabeth:  I felt like it was a very comforting, staple-type dish.  There weren't any crazy, stand-out flavors; everything blended well.  The meatballs were tender.
Mommy:  I liked that the meatballs were browned and then the sauce was cooked in the same pot, so you got all the yummy caramelized bits.
Daddy:  The sauce was tasty and balanced.  The meatballs were tender and flavorful.


Polpettine (Meatballs)
adapted from Preserving Our Italian Heritage 


1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 egg
1/4 cup Romano cheese
salt/pepper
1 tbsp. parsley, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 slice of bread, toasted and softened in milk


Mix all ingredients thoroughly.  Shape into small balls about 2" in diameter and brown in olive oil.  Drop into simmering tomato sauce.  Cook slowly 20-25 minutes, stir carefully.


 Marinara Sauce
adapted from Our Italian Heritage Continues into the 21st Century


1/2 cup chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup olive oil [I used the drippings left from browning the meatballs in olive oil]
1/4 cup red wine
3 cups canned Italian tomatoes, drained [I used two large cans of whole peeled plum tomatoes; I think they were 28 oz. each]
1 tsp. dried oregano
5 fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 tsp. salt
black pepper, freshly ground


Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil (or meatball drippings) for 5 minutes.  Drain off excess grease if desired.  Deglaze the pan with red wine, scraping up the browned bits.  Add remaining ingredients and break up the tomatoes (I used a potato masher and it worked beautifully).  Bring to a boil, reduce heat, drop in the meatballs, and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Southern Biscuits

My first official culinary adventure of the summer was biscuits.  The afternoon before I made them, I measured the dry ingredients into a bowl with a lid, in order to speed up the process the following morning.  I used Alton Brown’s recipe for southern biscuits.  It called for a cup of buttermilk, but we didn’t have any on hand, so I put a tablespoon of distilled white vinegar in the measuring cup and filled it to the 1-cup mark with whole milk.  This substitution seemed to work out fine in the recipe.  Also, I didn’t have a 2-inch biscuit cutter; the smallest one Mommy could find for me was 2 ½ inches in diameter.  As a result, my batch of biscuits only yielded nine biscuits, whereas the recipe’s yield was a dozen.  I baked the biscuits for 15 minutes and checked them, then baked them for 3 minutes more.  I think if I had taken them out of the oven after 15 minutes they would have been baked, but the extra three minutes allowed the biscuits to become golden brown on top.  If I made this recipe again, I would like to try using buttermilk to see if it makes any difference in flavor or texture.  I think I would bake the biscuits for slightly less time in the future.

FLAVOR:  The biscuits were good.  I don’t think I would call them fantastic, but I really enjoyed having fresh, warm biscuits for breakfast.  I think they would have been even better if we had gotten to eat them straight from the oven, but with six people in the family, it is pretty near impossible for everyone to be sitting at the table when the food is hot.  Also, my recipe testers commented on blandness; this could have something to do with the fact that I used unsalted butter.  Next time, I’ll used salted butter, and maybe brush the tops with melted butter.

TEXTURE/APPEARANCE:  The biscuits seemed a bit dry compared to what I am used to (premade, frozen, store-bought biscuits), but this may be a result of my inexperience with biscuit-making.  It is possible that I overworked or over-floured the dough, or maybe I baked them too long.  Or it is possible that real biscuits are dry.  The tops of the biscuits got nice and golden brown, but they could have risen higher.

WOULD I MAKE THIS RECIPE AGAIN?  Yes, I would make this recipe again, but I would also like to experiment with other biscuit recipes.  The biscuits were much simpler to make than I expected.  If I make these biscuits again, I will try using really cold ingredients and I’ll be sure that I don’t overwork the dough.  Next time I will try making some kind of gravy to go over them.  Maybe sausage gravy or chocolate gravy would be good.

OTHER COMMENTS/NOTES:  I think I should buy a 2-inch biscuit cutter.  I toasted a leftover biscuit and topped it with butter and honey today for breakfast, and it was delicious.

FAMILY MEMBER REVIEWS: (These are not exact quotes, just my paraphrasing of my family's comments.)

Little Brother:  Good texture, but they were bland.

Little Sister:  They were good.  They were best with honey and butter.

Big Sister:  They had a nice texture, they didn’t taste canned, and they were a little dry; jam would be nice.

Mommy:  Good, but bland; but I enjoyed them and would eat them again.

Daddy:  Daddy doesn’t like biscuits, so he didn’t eat any and therefore has no opinion of them.

Here is the link to the recipe I used: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/southern-biscuits-recipe/index.html

Welcome

Hello and welcome to Juniper's Table!  I'm Juniper, and I love cooking, baking, and trying new recipes.  I've started this blog as a way to document my culinary adventures this summer.  My hope is that by the beginning of the school year, I will have conquered some of my fears in the kitchen (including meringue and yeast breads), and will have learned some basic, valuable cooking skills.  At the end of the summer, if I find that I'm really enjoying blogging, I might continue to blog about my experiences in the kitchen and around the table.