caramel apple rolls

told you i was going to do some scary things with trader joe’s 99-cent pizza crust…!

i started with two large apples (peeled)

and chopped one finely. (then i decided i only needed one. see? i do this so you don’t have to.)

next i mixed the apples with 1/3 cup brown sugar, some cinnamon and 2 tablespoons melted butter.

then i rolled out the dough, cut it into four rectangles and spread each with the filling.

and rolled them up, just like the cheesy rolls.

slice the rolls about an inch thick and lay them in a baking dish.

bake like pizza for about 25-30 minutes at 375 degrees, until the dough is done and caramel is bubbling.

one important note: these rolls MUST be served warm. if they are not warm, the caramel gets hard and they become absolutely cemented to the dish. so make sure you can whisk them directly out of the oven to your guests, or that you have way to reheat them. in my case, this meant on top of the toaster at work (because the pan was too big to fit inside) with the toaster on high. you know how the top of a toaster always gets hot? now you can put it to good use.

my coworkers didn’t seem to know or care how they were warmed… they just gobbled them right up!

sour cherry yogurt

once i had tackled cheese, i decided to mosey on through the dairy department to yogurt. the recipes i had read sounded easy enough, since (like cheese) most of the time you’re waiting for it to do it’s own thing. the tricky part was the temperature, because of course i don’t have a kitchen thermometer. (i don’t have a medical thermometer, either. i checked. not that it would have helped me, but just fyi.)

fortunately, my recipe offered handy tips.

1. begin by heating half a gallon of whole milk to 180-190 degrees (apparently this means “steaming and beginning to form bubbles”)

2. take it off the heat and let it cool to 115-120 degrees (“somewhere between very warm and hot” – you can imagine how many times he and i both stuck our fingers in it to test…)

3. for each quart of milk (in this case 2), stir in 2 tablespoons of plain yogurt thinned with a little of the warm milk. (this is known as tempering, and is also where i went wrong the first time.)

i just so happened to be on the phone at this stage of the process and skipped step 2. that is, i spooned some of the super hot (i can only assume 185-degree) milk into the cold yogurt. and what did that do? it killed the beasties.

the beasties, of course, are the probiotics – good bacteria that make yogurt yogurt and keep jamie lee curtis and activia in business. by adding them to the milk at the right temperature, they grow and mass reproduce. by adding them to the milk at the wrong temperature…

let’s just say 8 hours later i had to buy a new half gallon of milk.

4. keep your milk/beastie mixture warm for at least 6, but no more than 12, hours while the little buddies do their thing. to do so, i wrapped the pot and its lid in cloth towels and stored it in a warmed (but turned-off) oven with the oven light on (it adds heat… i’m not crazy). i waited 7.5 hours.

it was at this point that i confirmed what i already knew to be true the first go around, when the “yogurt” came out at the same consistency that it went in. the beasties had been boiled. to death.

5. repeat steps 1 through 4 (optional)

6. strain your now-yogurt through cheesecloth (yogurtcloth?)

and mix in flavors. i used chopped, jarred sour cherries. mmmm

at this point, my yogurt was still runnier than commercial yogurt, but tasted just right (like plain yogurt, but with a little sweetness from the cherries). after a night in the fridge it firmed up a little, but was still runny. i’m not sure if this is because i didn’t let it sit long enough in the oven, because i used greek yogurt instead of regular, or if that’s just the nature of homemade yogurt… but i definitely think this is a recipe i’m going to try again. not only is it cheaper to make your own yogurt, you know you’re avoiding fake sweeteners and preservatives, too.

applesauce

when life gives you apples… (and that’s just what life did the other day, in the form of my coworker who bought baking apples by mistake. when he realized that baking apples are harder and more tart than regular apples, they came to me.)

…make applesauce!

don’t be scared! getting from apples to applesauce is really not as hard as it sounds.

first, chop up a whole mess of apples into large chunks. (these were organic – never mind the brown spots.)

put them in a large pot with an inch or two of water, just a sprinkling of sugar and a pinch of salt. (salt, you say? in something sweet?! yes, my friend. salt brings out the flavor. salt in everything, please. never mind your cholesterol.)

cook on medium-high heat until the apples are the consistency you want. i like mine pretty smooth – longer cooking time – but my mom likes hers chunky – shorter cooking time and less liquid. (if they need more liquid, just add a little more. if there’s too much, it will cook off.)

now think of the apples as merely a canvas. a blank slate on which to paint your saucy picture.

this time, i added two chopped peaches because that was what i had around, but my mom adds finely chopped fresh ginger to hers. and in the fall, i like to add raisins and cinnamon. or what about a vanilla bean? or a few handfuls of fresh raspberries or dried cranberries? or something you thought of that i didn’t!

the possibilities are endless. and delicious at any time of the day.

jelly-filled muffins

in the tradition of my mother, i always keep a box of jiffy corn muffin mix in my pantry.

yes, i am secretly a 1940s housewife. you found me out.

this stuff is so quick and easy and makes a killer cornbread to go with chili or soup. but it also makes killer corn muffins. all you need is an egg, a splash of milk (or cream if you’re feeling decadent) and 15 minutes.

last weekend (since the girls had gotten yummy brunch the weekend before, i figured the boyfriend deserved something nice, right?)  i made up the batter with an extra tablespoon of sugar and the zest of one lemon. (okay, full disclosure, i used the juice of one lemon, but it wasn’t lemony enough and i wish i had used the zest instead. so let’s just pretend, k?)

the directions say for a better “dome” on your muffin, let the batter sit for a couple minutes, so that’s what it’s doing here. who doesn’t want a better dome?

so after waiting three minutes or so, i restirred and filled my muffin cups. then i added one spoonful of strawberry jelly on the top of each one. (you could use any kind, though. i bet blueberry rocks.)

after baking, the jelly ends up in the middle of the muffin. magic, huh?!

(and check out that dome…!)

need i say more?

bachelorette brunch: part IV

the final player in our game of brunch was quiche. i think it’s always good to have something savory at your brunch. it’s the -unch.

rather than making pie crust (back to our theme of quick and easy) i used large flour tortillas to line the baking dish. don’t bother greasing the dish, just lay it in there.

my filling was sauteed (in olive oil) onions, mushrooms, spinach and thinly sliced new potatoes (and salt and pepper, obvs)…

…mixed with five beaten eggs and a healthy splash of milk.

you could really use any veggies here – be creative! and even though i showed two crusts in the first picture, this amount of filling was perfect for one.

i baked the quiche at 375 for about 40 minutes. you can check it by shaking it (does it wiggle in the middle?) or sticking a knife in the middle to see if it comes out clean.

we were apparently too hungry to think clearly at this point, because there’s no picture of the finished quiche. but trust me, it looked fab and the “crust” worked like a charm.

the end!

i lied! apparently ::i:: was too hungry to take a picture of the final product, but someone else wasn’t!

bachelorette brunch: part deux

what better weapon with which to fight off a hangover than maple roasted bacon?

this is adapted from something i saw ina garten do, although instead of using regular bacon, i chose turkey bacon. but the joy of it is the little set up she suggests:

check it out! rather than doing your bacon in a frying pan on the stove (where it spatters fat everywhere and fills your kitchen with smoke that smells for days), ina wants you to roast it in the oven on a cooling rack on top of a jelly roll pan (which is just the technical term for a cookie sheet with sides, but i’m sure anything to catch the drips will do). how cool is that?

at 400 degrees, it took 15 minutes or so to brown. then brush the bacon with maple syrup and – my addition – freshly ground black pepper and pop it back in the oven for 3-5 minutes.

this second roasting caramelizes the syrup and makes the bacon crunchy and almost like candy.

hangover: solved.

more to come…