Dinner Rolls

There is nothing as delicious as a fresh out of the oven homemade roll slathered with butter.  It is one of life's great pleasures, and you cannot buy it.  It must be made.  The following is my mom's homemade dinner rolls recipe.  I've been eating these rolls my entire life- every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter for sure.  Other times as well.  This recipe makes around four dozen rolls, so if that is more than you need, it is perfectly fine to half it if you're making rolls for a smaller gathering.


Dinner Rolls

2 1/4 tsp yeast
1/4 cup warm water
2 eggs, plus enough scalded and cooled milk to make 2 cups of liquid
1 stick of unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup of sugar
6 cups all purpose flour

Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup warm water in a mixing bowl.  Let sit for about 5 minutes until yeast starts bubbling and is activated.  Add eggs, milk, butter, salt and sugar and stir until blended (I just stir this with my dough hook).  Stir in 3 cups of flour and combine until smooth.  Continue adding the rest of the flour until a smooth soft dough results.  Knead dough for about 5 minutes by hand.  Place into a buttered bowl and cover until dough has doubled (around 2 hours).  Punch down.

To make rolls, divide dough into smaller sections (4-5) and roll out each section into a circle.  Use a pizza cutter to cut circle into 8 triangle shapes and roll them into crescents.  Place on baking sheets and cover with dish towels.  Let rolls rise again (45 min or so) and then bake them at 375 degrees for 15 or so minutes.  I usually set my timer for 13 minutes and then watch the rolls carefully until the tops begin to brown some and they look done.

Enjoy!

P.S. this dough can also be used as a base for cinnamon rolls if you'd like.

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

In our corner of the world, it rained over two inches yesterday.  Weather like this stirs something inside me and I start cranking out soups and stews like there's no tomorrow.  A warm soup on a soggy day makes for the best of dinners, and perfect leftovers for tomorrows lunch.

The following recipe is a family favorite that is on a regular rotation in our home.  It's easy, relatively quick- for soup, and makes enough to feed all four of us while leaving a good portion that can be dedicated to leftovers for the next day or two.



Loaded Baked Potato Soup (recipe comes from here)

6 medium sized Russet potatoes, scrubbed and washed
4 tbsp unsalted butter
6 green onions (if I don't have these on hand, I use yellow onions, diced)
5 cups of chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
2 heads of broccoli, chopped (I use one bag of frozen broccoli from Costco. It is one pound, I think.  I microwave it before putting into the soup.)
cooked bacon for topping (I used 4 strips and I cook them ahead of time.)

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Once preheated, place potatoes in oven, and cook until done (1 hour?)  After the potatoes bake, take them out of the oven and place them on a plate and let them cool a bit before you start chopping them up.  Once cool enough to handle, slice open and scoop out the meat of the potato and chop it into bite sized pieces.

In a large heavy duty dutch oven, melt butter on medium heat.  Add green onions and cook for 1-2 minutes.  Add potatoes and season with salt and pepper.  Cook for 4-5 minutes.

Add chicken broth and turn heat to high and bring it to a boil.  Then turn heat down to medium and allow to simmer for 5-6 minutes.

Add cream and sour cream.  Make sure to temper the cream!  You can find out how to do that here.  Add cheese and broccoli to soup.  At this point I take an immersion blender and I blend the heck out of the soup.  Not everyone will want to do that (if you are more partial to chunky style soups), but my kids do much better with soups if they are smoother.  The broccoli will become fine and blend throughout all of the soup and become less noticeable to a picky eater.  Keep soups simmering for another 20-30 minutes before serving.

Top with crumbled bacon.

Enjoy!


(BTW, this soup keeps in the fridge for a few days following, but does not freeze well)

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

I grew up in a home where my mom always made our spaghetti sauce.  Not once did the likes of Prego or Ragu touch my lips during my youth.  Now, of course you might think it is simply too great a hassle to make your own spaghetti sauce, but trust me, once you have a delicious batch of the good stuff, you'll never go back.  Interestingly enough, Spaghetti is Alice's favorite dinner, but Wes' least favorite.  Wes doesn't like pasta much, so I solved this dilemma by buying a small spaghetti squash that I prepare and make available to him and he is quite satisfied.  I thought I'd throw out that option in case you have a family member who isn't a fan of pasta, or are trying to prepare meals in with a low carb option.  Also, I make a batch large enough that it makes a full five quarts and it can be used in the months to come.

Ingredients include:

4 large cans tomato sauce (ignore the tomato paste- I didn't use it.  You can use it though if you are running low on tomato sauce.  Just make sure you have enough tomato goodness to fill up your pot!)

2 reg. cans of diced tomatoes

4 packets of spaghetti sauce seasoning (I like Lawry's or McCormick's)

1 package of mild Italian sausage

1 pound of ground beef

1 small onion

1 tablespoon of minced garlic

oregano

basil

salt 

pepper

Dice up your onion and brown the ground beef and the Italian sausage in a large skillet.  Add garlic and let it all cook until the meat is completely done.

In a large pot, or dutch oven (I use a 7 quart Le Creuset and that is as small as I would go), pour all of the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and spaghetti seasoning into it.  Stir it all together.  At this point you can turn the burner on low/medium.  

Add 1 tablespoon of basil and 1 tablespoon of oregano to the tomato sauce.

Once the meat/onion/garlic mixture is finished cooking drain any excess fat from the meat mixture and add it to the dutch oven,  Stir.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Let your sauce simmer on the stove for an hour or so, stirring every so often. 

**tip**  If your children are opposed to "chunks" in their sauce (i.e. tomato chunks, meat chunks, etc...) grab an immersion blender and give the pot of sauce a good blend.

When you are all done you'll have 5 quarts of sauce that you can freeze for later use.

Fancy Grilled Cheese Sandwich

I'm not sure why I started calling these sandwiches "fancy grilled cheese", but whenever my kids ask me what we are having for dinner, and I say "fancy grilled cheese", they know exactly what I'm talking about and start reminding me of exactly how they like theirs to be made- sliced avocado, mushed up avocado, more ranch dressing, not too crispy, etc...

Even though I really do enjoy cooking and baking very much, there are days when I just don't have time in my schedule to spend more than 20 minutes on dinner.  And, it's those days that dinners often look more like sandwiches or spaghetti, than pot roasts or beef stroganoff.

Fancy Grilled Cheese:

Bread (any kind of bread will work, but I've got to suggest that a sturdier bread than sandwich bread is definitely my preference.  I usually have a loaf of Portland City Sour wheat bread (from Costco) on hand for making grilled cheese sandwiches, and it is perfect for this meal.)

Bacon- fry some up (usually 2 slices per sandwich) before you start constructing the sandwiches.

Avocado- one large avocado will be enough for 3-4 sandwiches

Cheese- I won't judge.  I love almost all cheeses (except American).  But, I strongly encourage the sharpest cheddar cheese you can handle for this sandwich.  If you have kids that only eat mild or medium cheddar, fine.  Make their's with that.  But, for you my friend, don't go any lower than sharp, and my recommendation is extra sharp.  Be a man.

Ranch dressing.

Salted butter.

Okay, you can grill these any way you'd like- in a frying pan, on your George Forman, on an electric griddle.  I do it on a cast iron griddle/fry pan that sits on two gas burners on my stove.  It looks like this:

I use the smooth side, not the grill side for these sandwiches. It works well and you can cook up to for sandwiches at time on it.

Construct sandwich by buttering first side of bread and lay it on warm/hot griddle.  Layer cheese, bacon, avocado and ranch dressing.  Then top to with another slice of bread, buttered on the outside.  Cook both sides until the bread is browned and the cheese it melted.  

Serve and enjoy!

Biscuits and Gravy

This meal is high on the rotation chart.  Biscuits are a quick bread, so they're quick and easy to make (although, if you accidentally substitute baking soda for baking powder they will be disastrous, trust me).

You may already have a favorite biscuit recipe that you are loyal to.  If you do, go ahead and use that.  We all have our favorite when it comes to baked goods.  If you don't have a favorite biscuit recipe, let me introduce you to mine.  It comes from a dear friend, Hildie, who is one of the best cooks I know.  She put it up on her blog years ago, and once I gave it a go I became a loyal fan of these biscuits.  Check it out here.

BTW, Hildie is totally hilarious, smart and talented.  IMO, her blog is a must read.  Also, she is as authentic and lovely in real life as she is online.

So, to go with the delicious biscuits, I make The Pioneer Woman's sausage gravy.  You can find that here.  Now, let me tell you that I do make two alterations to her recipe because it just tastes and works better that way.  First, I use whatever milk I have on hand (usually 1% or skim) because this household cannot have whole milk just sitting around.  A certain someone, who will remain nameless, has a crazy addiction to whole milk and we just don't buy it.  Second, her recipe calls for two teaspoons of black ground pepper.  That is a lot of pepper my friends.  I made it once this way and my non-spicy loving family couldn't handle the heat.  So, I cut it down to a 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and that is plenty.

This dinner can easily be served with a side of steamed veggies and you'll have rounded it out quite nicely.

Bacon, Egg and Cheese Quiche

Y'all, real men eat quiche.  Seriously, its so good, and easy to make.  I'm guessing a lot of you have never attempted making quiche because it is something you'd only eat at a fancy brunch or at your snobby aunt's house, but truly, it's not for the rich and famous, it's for the masses.  And, it's not "girl" food.  Geesh.

This recipe comes from King Arthur Flour.

First, make a pie crust.  Come on.  You can do it.

My favorite recipe is this:

In a food processor put the following:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

Pulse to combine

While on, add 1 stick of unsalted butter (cold and chopped into small cubes).

Combine until the mixture is crumbly and course.  Then, while food processor is on add:

2-3 tbsp ice water

mix until the dough forms into a ball almost.  It should come together and be a bit on the sticky side.  Take it out and flatten the dough into a disc shape.  Wrap in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Roll the pie crust out and form it to fit your pie pan.  No need to be overly fancy, but you can if you want!  Prick the crust with a fork 15 or so times and prebake the crust for 10 min at 375 degrees.

To make quiche filling:

3/4 pound bacon (I've used less before) precooked and chopped up

1 small onion

2 tbsp butter (or bacon fat)- this is for sauteing the onions

salt and pepper

3/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup milk

6 large eggs

1 1/2 cups sharp cheddar (or whatever kind of cheddar you like) grated

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Dice the onion finely and saute it until translucent.  Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl whisk together the cream, milk and eggs.  Add to it the bacon, onions, cheese, salt and pepper.  Pour it into your prebaked pie crust.  Don't over fill.  If you have too much filling place the excess into small custard cups and cook those along side the quiche.

Bake the quiche for 40 minutes.  The edges should become golden brown and the center should feel just set.

Remove quiche from oven and let it cool on a rack.  You can serve it warm or room temperature.  Refrigerate leftovers.

Lunch Lady Peanut Butter Bars

Recipe courtesy of Six Sisters' Stuff

These are so scrumptious.  The recipe makes a boatload, so if you want to half it you can use a half sheet baking pan instead.  

Cookie base:

1 cup sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 cup peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)

2 cups old fashioned oats

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

Middle layer:

1 1/2 cups peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)

Frosting:

1 stick of butter (1/2 cup) softened

1/4 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 tbsp cocoa powder

2-3 cups of powdered sugar

To make:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a mixing bowl with paddle attachment, cream the butter and two sugars together until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla, eggs, and 1 cup of peanut butter.  Mix until combined.  Add oats, flour, baking soda and salt.  Mix for 30-60 seconds or until well combined.

Spread base cookie batter onto a greased baking sheet (18x13x1).  Bake for 15 minutes.

Once the base cookie is done, remove it from the oven.  Wait 10 minutes or so and spread the 1 1/2 cups of peanut butter on top as the second layer.  You can do this a bit easier if you drop the peanut butter on by the spoonful over the top of the cookie layer and spread it once the peanut butter is warm.

Let cool.(I put it in the fridge to cool faster)

While cooling, make the frosting by mixing all ingredients in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or with a hand mixer.

Spread evenly over the cooled bars.

These cookie bars are delicious warm, room temp and straight out of the fridge.  You can also freeze them for up to a month.  And, since they have oats and peanut butter, you might even be able to consider them energy bars!