Cinnamon Rolls

These cinnamon rolls are so quick and easy to prepare. You can make them up before the kids go to school or first thing on a Saturday or Sunday morning.  The smell of them baking will be sure to get your family up!  Cinnamon rolls are one of my all time favorites.  I am the oldest of three and growing up my siblings and I would take "turns" to see who would get the center roll because it always had the most icing! Just in the past couple of years I have started baking with unsalted butter.  I love to bake, but never paid too much attention as to whether I was buying unsalted or salted butter.  Try unsalted butter the next time you bake and see if you notice a difference - I have!

Ingredients:
2 cans (8 ounce each) refrigerated crescent dinner rolls - any brand

Filling:

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup powdered sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine (softened)
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon

Icing:

3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter or margarine (melted)
2 tablespoons milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Lightly grease a 9-inch round pan.  Open each can of crescent rolls and take each square of four and place them next to each other on the counter (no need to flour the counter). Seal the seams until you have a large rectangle. In a medium bowl, mix the brown sugar, powdered sugar, cinnamon and butter or margarine, until well combined.  Spread the filling over the entire rectangle, leaving about 1/4 inch around the edges.  Roll up tightly, like a jelly roll.  Slice into eight equal pieces and place in pan.  Bake about 20-25 minutes or until brown.  Let cool about 10-15 minutes.  For the icing - in small bowl,  mix the powdered sugar, butter or margarine and milk until smooth.  Drizzle on top of cinnamon rolls.

Lasagna

My 7-year old son would eat this every night of the week if he could.  Lasagna is very popular in our house and makes it onto the "menu" about once every three weeks. I have tried cottage cheese instead of ricotta cheese to make it more lower fat, but it really doesn't taste the same. You can change the flavors of pasta sauce each time if you want.  My personal favorite flavor lately has been tomato/basil.  I buy the generic kind my grocery store sells, I can usually get a jar for about a buck on sale.  I also switch back and forth between using ground turkey and ground chuck each time I make it.
 
Ingredients:

1 ½ pounds ground turkey or ground chuck

9 uncooked lasagna noodles

26 -ounce jar pasta sauce (your choice of flavor)

8-ounce can tomato sauce

15 ounces ricotta cheese

8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions: 

Brown ground turkey or ground chuck until no longer pink.  Drain the fat and remove from heat.  Cook lasagna noodles according to instructions on box.  Drain into colander and set aside.  Add pasta sauce and tomato sauce to meat mixture.   In a 9 x 13 inch baking pan take about ¼ of the sauce and cover the bottom of the pan.   Next put three of the noodles lengthwise. The next layer put a third of the ricotta and mozzarella cheeses. Repeat 2 more times ending with sauce.  Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 45 minutes.  Remove from oven and let sit 10-15 minutes. 

"Edible" Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

When you're making chocolate chip cookies isn't the best part tasting the little scraps clinging to the sides of the bowl and licking the spoon?? Growing up, I probably ate a pound of cookie dough! These days the thinking is NOT to eat the cookie dough because of the raw egg included in standard chocolate chip cookie recipes. Since this dough contains no egg, it is completely 100% safe to eat.  This dough cannot be made into cookies that are baked in the oven and it must be kept in the fridge. Be careful though, it's addictive!!!

 

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups white flour

½ cup white sugar

½ cup light or dark brown sugar

½ cup margarine (softened)

½ cup unsalted  butter (softened)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 teaspoons water

1 ½ cups miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions: Mix all ingredients together in the order given in a large bowl with a metal or wooden spoon  until  the dough is smooth.  Chill dough at least one hour. Enjoy one or more spoonfuls at a time!

Pumpkin Muffins

This is the most requested muffin on the "menu" by my 15-year old daughter. If you see a good deal on canned pumpkin - stock up.  Sometimes it's hard to find in the stores after the holidays!

Ingredients:

15 ounce can pure pumpkin

3 cups white flour

1 ¾ cups white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup canola or vegetable oil

½ cup water

4 large eggs

Directions:  Preheat oven to 375.   Put all ingredients into a large mixing bowl in the order above  and mix well either by hand or with hand mixer until smooth.  Use a 12 cup standard size muffin pan and put paper liners into each cup.  Put about ¾ of the pumpkin mixture into each.  Bake in the oven about 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the muffins comes out clean.  Let cool on a wire rack about 15 minutes and then remove muffins.  Makes 24 muffins.  For a variation you can add 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. 

Minestrone Soup

In honor of January being National Soup Month I created this new recipe.  My oven was out of commission for almost two weeks and since I do about 75% of my cooking in it I had to get creative.

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery

2 cups chopped carrots

28-ounce can stewed and sliced tomatoes (undrained)

6 cups water

14-ounce can chicken broth

15.5-ounce can light or dark red kidney beans  (drained)

1 tablespoon butter or margarine

1 teaspoon basil

½ teaspoon marjoram

1 teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup uncooked elbow macaroni

Melt one tablespoon of butter or margarine in the bottom of a large stockpot.  Add the chopped onion and celery and cook until almost soft.  Add the carrots, tomatoes, water and broth.  Drain the liquid from the kidney beans and add to the soup.  Add the basil, marjoram, pepper and salt.   Cover with lid and simmer for 30 minutes.   Add elbow macaroni and simmer an additional 10 minutes.