Category Archives: Eating

Chomp it up.

The Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls are worth the effort

Daring Bakers KitchenLast month’s Daring Baker’s Challenge was to make Cinnamon Rolls, which finally gave me an excuse to make the The Pioneer Woman’s Cinnamon Rolls. They’ve been on my radar for literally years. I don’t know why it took me so long to try them, but now that I have? I’m pretty sure they’re what got the Food Network’s attention and launched the Pioneer Woman empire. They’re that good.

I wouldn’t call the recipe difficult, but it does take some time to come together so make sure you have time for rising and resting and rolling before you give these guys a go. Also, there’s a chance that you’re going to make a serious mess. If you enjoy cleaning as much as I do, you might want to tell your loved ones you’ll make them some cinnamon rolls if and only if they’ll clean up after you.

So the first thing I did was

making cinnamon rolls

And then I

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Finally, I took a bite. And I involuntarily did this:

Bill Cosby dancing

I’m 100 percent serious. Prepare your hearts, minds and funky sweaters for a Cosby dance.

The recipe calls for baking powder, baking soda and yeast, and it yields a terrifically rich and ridiculously soft cinnamon roll. I only ran into a few problems. The first was that I didn’t have any maple flavoring on hand, so I used vanilla in the icing instead. This turned out to be not-a-problem-at-all; the vanilla + coffee in the icing ended up tasting like a vanilla latte. Which is to say: It was scrumptious.

The other problem was that I’d looked at the recipe and thought, “Oh, that’s far too many cinnamon rolls! I’ll make a half-batch!” That’s how I learned that, in fact, there is no such thing as far too many cinnamon rolls. Even if you aren’t prepared to eat two dozen of them on your own, you’re certain to find friends who will help.

So I made them again.

This time I made a full batch. I put half of the dough in one big pan and sent it along with Rockford on his Father’s Day golf excursion. I split the other half of the dough between two pans — one for the kids and I and the other for my father-in-law. I left the coffee out of the icing on the kids’ pan, because Poppy asked me to, but I made up for that by using coffee almost exclusively in the pan for my father-in-law. All three pans were joyfully received and consumed.

This month the Daring Bakers kept our creativity rolling with cinnamon bun inspired treats. Shelley from C Mom Cook dared us to create our own dough and fill it with any filling we wanted to craft tasty rolled treats, cinnamon not required!

We traded dads for Father’s Day

We had sort of an odd Father’s Day. Rockford spent the day with my dad, my brother and my brother’s father-in-law at the US Open, and the kids and I had dinner with Rockford’s parents, his sister and our two nieces. It was a nice day, but it definitely wasn’t our standard FD celebration. So we’re going to be extending our celebration to today, with Rockford and my dad.

Monday: Chicken piccata
Rockford loves lemony chicken, and this Giada recipe is excellent. The last time I made it I dumped my bowl of fresh-squeezed lemon juice all over the floor and had to use the bottled stuff. I’m going to try to be more graceful tonight.

Tuesday: Cheeseburgers
Pete is leaving for a Big Adventure with my dad on Wednesday, so we’re making his favorite meal tomorrow night. He’s going to have a blast, but I’m going to miss that kid like crazy.

Wednesday: Spaghetti
It’s easy, and I’m going to be tired from all of the crying I’m going to be doing when Pete and my dad drive away.

Thursday: ?
I’m going out for the evening, so Rockford is in charge of dinner.

Friday: Pizza
We’ll probably DIY it this week.

Did you do anything special for Father’s Day?

I’m linking this up with OrgJunkie.com’s weekly Menu Plan Monday thing.

This was not the Pão de Queijo I sought

Imperfect paoI only realized this morning that today was the 27th, which is also known as Daring Bakers Reveal Day. This month’s challenge was a Brazilian cheese roll called pão de queijo. From what I understand, they’re supposed to be light and chewy and reminiscent of a gougère, which I’ve successfully made in the past. So I thought I’d make a batch of pão de queijo this evening to serve with our red beans and rice.

I used the pão de queijo recipe from Our Best Bites, which specifically said that there was no substitute for the tapioca flour for which it called. But because our local grocery store doesn’t have tapioca flour and I am a rebel without a clue, I bought a small box of gluten-free rice flour blend and hoped for the best.

The dough/batter was gluey, just as the recipe had said it would be. My final product, though, was neither light nor chewy nor particularly flavorful. It wouldn’t be fair to say I don’t care for pão de queijo, seeing as how what I made didn’t follow the recipe precisely. I think it is fair to say, though, that rice flour doesn’t do the job when you’re trying to make the dish. I know there are grocery stores around here that sell tapioca flour, so I might give this another shot sometime. This effort, though, was a bust.