Herbed Croutons

Before I start, don't forget to enter Saturday's giveaway for csnstores.com (see posting titled "Another Giveaway from CSN Stores!" dated January 8th!)

After making the Baked Apple French Toast  for our special breakfast guest, I had the ends of the French bread, as well as a slice from the middle, leftover and definitely did not want it to go to waste. These days I'm using the very last of everything to make sure I'm not wasting any money at all. I was able to get a good little pile of bread cubes from the bread ends and knew I could quickly make some croutons while getting ready to head out to run a few errands. These are so simple, quick, and adapt easily to suit your tastes. I used these in a big salad I'll show you tomorrow!

Herbed Croutons
Source: Me
Yields: about 1 1/2 cups of croutons

Ingredients:
2-4 slices day old French bread
pepper
garlic salt
dried thyme
olive oil for drizzling

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Arrange the bread cubes in a single layer on a metal baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil making sure you have enough to coat the cubes well. Toss the bread cubes so that all the sides receive olive oil. Sprinkle pepper, garlic salt, and dried thyme on to suit your tastes. Toss cubes together again to evenly distribute seasonings. Bake in oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the bread cubes are toasty golden and crunchy. Once they are done, transfer to a plate lined with paper towel to cool and store in a ziplock baggie for a couple of days!

Other good seasonings would be oregano, onion powder, Italian seasoning, parmesan cheese, or rosemary! Get creative!

Cinnamon Bread

One of my bestestest friends, Summer of The Wannabe Ranch Wife, called me up one evening and asked if I'd be interested in doing some late night baking. Um, hello, yes!!! We have spent more time in the kitchen together than I have with any one else and she's one of the few people I actually trust to help me get things done (read: do things for me when I don't want to). We were raised very similarly and have basically identical outlooks on life, so when we're in the kitchen together it's like I'm cooking with myself. Back to the late night bake-apalooza! We made a whole bunch of yummy treats that didn't get photographed because a) I forgot my camera, and b) they were eaten too quickly! Bah! These last couple of slices managed to survive a quick photo shoot before being scarfed down for my breakfast one morning. Toasted with a big scrape of butter on the top, this bread is heavenly! Summer totally gets the credit for putting this whole thing together, but I guess I'm posting it here because I did do the yeast for the bead. Again, the lines are blurred when it comes to dividing up my work and hers because we just piggyback off each other's tasks at hand. Love that girl!

Cinnamon Bread
Source: adapted from PioneerWoman
Yields: 1 glorious loaf of bread

Ingredients:
1 cup milk
6 T butter
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
2 eggs
1/3 cup suagar
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 T cinnamon
egg and milk mixed together for brushing
softened butter for greasing the the loaf pan

Directions:
Melt butter in a medium sized microwave safe glass bowl. Add milk to the melted butter and heat until very warm, but don't boil. It should be warm to the touch, but not hot. Once it's there, sprinkle the yeast over the top and stir gently; allow to sit for 10 minutes. There should be some foamy bubbles; if not, the yeast is dead and you gotta do it over.

Combine flour and salt.

In your mixer bowl, mix sugar and eggs until combined. Pour in milk/yeast mixture and combine. Add half the flour and beat on medium until combined. Add the other half and combine.

Switch to a dough hook and knead/beat for 10 minutes on medium. If dough is real sticky, add 1/4 cup flour and beat again for 5 minutes.

In a warm metal bowl (put it in a sink of hot water and dry right before you need it), drizzle in a little canola oil, then toss the dough in the oil to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm place for 2 hours. Note: we used rapid rise bread machine yeast, so it only took 1 hour to rise for us.

Turn dough out onto a floured work surface. Roll into a 18-24 inch long rectangle that is no wider than your loaf pan you plan to use. Smear with 2 T melted butter. Mix sugar and cinnamon together, and sprinkle it over the dough. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the cinnamon-sugar. Roll bread together starting at one end and rolling toward the other; keep it tight and contained. Pinch seam to seal.

Smear loaf pan with softened butter. Place seam side down in the pan and cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 2 hours (again, this didn't take but an hour because of the yeast we used).

Preheat oven to 350. Mix an egg with some milk and brush over the top of the bread. Bake for 40 minutes. Serve toasted with butter or as French toast!

Christmas Dinner (Kinda Sorta) Re-cap

I got to host Christmas dinner at our house this year which was a pretty big deal for me. I’ve done Easter Sunday, but never Christmas. We had a small crowd for dinner, but I still wanted to make sure that everyone was satisfied and full. Here is a run-down of some of what I made for Christmas. I say “some” because, well, I forgot to take pictures of everything before we ate it--hence the weird title of this post!

To accompany the pot roast, roasted chicken, green beans, sweet potato soufflé (which I am making again soon and will post pictures thereof!), and mashed red potatoes:

-Maple Oat Dinner Rolls

Found in the Taste of Home magazine, this recipe was a hit! Computer Man couldn't stop eating these! The saddest part of the whole deal was that I didn't realize I forgot to pass the bread basket around until we were done eating! My friends and family we had over politely agreed to eat a mercy roll after their plates were already cleaned and ready to be taken to the kitchen. I froze the leftovers and am looking forward to using them with Beef Stew some night!

Ingredients:

1 package (1/4 oz) active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 cup warm strong brewed coffee

1/2 cup old fashioned oats

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup real maple syrup

1 egg

3 T shortening

1 tsp salt

3 to 3 1/2 cups bread flour

1 T butter, melted

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast into 1/4 cup of the warm water. Add the coffee, oats, sugar, syrup, egg, shortening, salt, remaining water, and 2 cups of the flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough flour to form a soft dough--add the flour in 1/4 cup at a time. I needed a full cup, but yours might be different.

2. Turn onto a flour surface; knead until smooth and elastic about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about an hour.

3. Punch down dough. Turn onto a floured surface; divide into 4 portions. Divide each portion into 6 pieces; shape each into a ball. Place in a greased 9x13x2 baking pan. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.

4. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown. Brush warm rolls with melted butter. Remove from pan to a wire rack. 

To end the meal:

-Buttermilk Cake with Caramel Icing

Also a Taste of Home recipe, I had a bit of trouble with this cake. The first time around, I beat way too much air into the cake and when it baked it puffed up and then fell as soon as I took it out of the oven. Even after 10 extra minutes of baking, the center was totally raw and the whole thing was inedible. This was the first time I'd ever made a cake in the fluted tube pan, but I knew it shouldn't have been such a colossal disaster and I was determined to remedy the situation. I knew immediately that too much air had been beaten into it, but I felt like there had to be something else going on. I googled the recipe and found it on the Taste of Home website. I found out that the recipe I had was significantly different from the online version--of which everyone had raved! I tried the online version and had total success! I have provided you with the correct version as well as ways to avoid beating in too much air like my awesome self! 

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature 

2 1/3 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 cup buttermilk

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at time until they are just incorporated. Turn the mixer off after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Add to creamed butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating until just incorporated after each addition.

2. Pour into a greased and floured 10 inch fluted tube pan. Bake in a 350 preheated oven for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the enter comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

3. For icing, combine 1/4 cup cubed butter, 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, and 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; cool for 5-10 minutes. Whisk in 1 cup powdered sugar. Drizzle over cake. Enjoy with vanilla ice cream!

Monkey Bread

Hold on...I can't talk...my mouth is full of this monkey bread!!! I don't know what it is about Monkey Bread that makes me go bananas! {Cue cheesy joke drum solo: ba dump sh} I have to admit that I regularly purchase the frozen Monkey Bread and just do that as a quick dessert or in place of cinnamon rolls for breakfast. But, you can bet that after having made this Monkey Bread I solemnly swear to never purchase frozen Monkey Bread again!

Monkey Bread

Source: Adapted from EzraPoundCake.com (a new favorite blog)

Ingredients:

4 tubes regular sized homestyle refrigerated biscuits or 2 tubes jumbo biscuits

2 cups sugar

2 T cinnamon

2 sticks butter, melted

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

-Melt the butter in a glass dish in the microwave.

-Open all the tubes of refrigerated biscuits and put the biscuit rounds on a large cutting board.

-Mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl.

-Cut the biscuit rounds into quarters.

-Generously spray the entire inside of a deep, metal pan/bundt pan/tube pan with cooking spray.

-Dip the quarters of biscuit in the butter and then begin arranging them in the pan, stacking them on top of each other in no particular pattern.

-Bake for 40 minutes or until the top springs back when touched with your finger. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes (if you can wait that long!!) and then invert onto a plate to serve.

-Eat them for breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon pick-me-up, appetizer, dinner, dessert, and midnight snack.

Yeah. I know. Amazing.

Banana Bread

I love the smell of baking bread...at 11:00 p.m....on a school night...when I have to be up early in the morning! I picked up a bunch of bananas from a box at school--the lunchroom was giving away a ton of extra bananas that were past their serving dates! I knew they were the perfect ripeness for the best bread ever! I love how moist this bread turns out and spreading a little bit of butter on a warm piece makes it even better! Enjoy!

Banana Bread

Source: Mom

Yields: 3 small loaves, 2 medium loaves, or 1 large loaf (I like the 2 medium loaves option)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 large or 5 small ripe bananas (they should have a nice speckled brown peel)

2 eggs

1/2 cup sour milk (1 T lemon juice + enough milk to measure 1/2 cup)

1 tsp baking soda

2 cups flour (wheat flour would be good, too!)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions:

In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix in the order given. Pour into greased loaf pans. Bake for at least an hour (or until toothpick inserted comes out clean) at 325 degrees.