Sunday, June 12, 2011

Absolutely the best Cinnamon Rolls ever!

I'll be working on making these over to be allergy friendly but if you don't have allergies you'll have to give the original recipe a shot!

Mock Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls

These are THE BEST cinnamon rolls! The recipe is from Todd Wilbur's MORE TOP SECRET RECIPES. Ooooey, goooey and rich! The dough can easily be prepared in your bread machine, just follow your manufacturer's order of ingredients. I put the ingredients in the night before to make my dough, and then refrigerate it over night and roll out and bake in the morning.

12 servings

1¼ hours 1 hour prep

1 (1/4

ounce) package dry yeast

1

cup warm milk

1/2

cup granulated sugar

1/3

cup margarine

1

teaspoon salt

2

eggs

4

cups flour

FILLING

1

cup packed brown sugar

2 1/2

tablespoons cinnamon

1/3

cup margarine, softened

ICING

8

tablespoons margarine

1 1/2

cups powdered sugar

1/4

cup cream cheese

1/2

teaspoon vanilla

1/8

teaspoon salt


  1. For the rolls, dissolve the yeast in the warm milk in a large bowl.
  2. Add sugar, margarine salt, eggs, and flour, mix well.
  3. Knead the dough into a large ball, using your hands dusted lightly with flour.
  4. Put in a bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
  5. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface, until it is approx 21 inches long by 16 inches wide.
  6. It should be approx 1/4 thick.
  7. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  8. To make filling, combine the brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl.
  9. Spread the softened margarine over the surface of the dough, then sprinkle the brown sugar and cinnamon evenly over the surface.
  10. Working carefully, from the long edge, roll the dough down to the bottom edge.
  11. Cut the dough into 1 3/4 inch slices, and place in a lightly greased baking pan.
  12. Bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown.
  13. While the rolls are baking combine the icing ingredients.
  14. Beat well with an electric mixer until fluffy.
  15. When the rolls are done, spread generously with icing.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

June Allergy Friendly Meals

I found a cool new reciepe site when I was surfing through some PCOS blogs and I'm starting to fill up my June calendar with meal ideas.

Don't these look divine!
I love experimenting in the kitchen and luckily I've got a pretty good taste testing audience (at least they eat it whether they like it or not LOL). So some new additions to our regulars this month will be Bombay Sweet Potatoes and grilled chicken, Chicken in Tomato Peanut Sauce which is a crockpot meal and will go perfect with a light side salad,Grilled Shrimp over Bean Salad, Spicy Broccoli with Beef served over brown rice, Coq-au-vin-Nouveau, Black Pepper Beef with Green Beans.

Eric is not nearly the fan of Quinoa that I am so I'll probably whip up some of these either when he's not around or for lunches. I love quinoa and the protein punch it packs!

Shrimp Sausage and Quinoa Jambayla (Yum), Toasted Quinoa Salad with Scallops and Snow Peas and since Eric can't have corn this yummy dish is all mine Chilequiles Verde ... well as much as I can wrestle away from the kiddos anyway.

And no meal planning is complete without something sweet! I saw these and thought I would try the brownies at some point for Eric and the Mocha meringues will be a sweet addition to the first birthday party we have planned this month.

Gluten free chocolate peanut butter brownies
Double chocolate mocha meringues


Cheers and happy cooking!
Traci

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Happy Memorial Day! Gluten Free, Egg Free and Corn Free Style

What's on your menu? We've got a roasted pork loin, roasted sweet potatoes and sauteed kale on the menu. I started a produce delivery service last week and I am truly loving the push that it's giving me to get out of my comfort cooking zone. Now to find something yummy to make with purple basil! :)

Gotta run Tyrant Number 1 is ready to put on a puppet show and I need to make him a stage to do it from!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

April Meal Plans - Week 3 ...the clean eating continues

It has been a crazy week...hmmm those words are nowhere near strong enough to describe the insane chaos that has surrounded this week. Livi still has awful allergies which has thrown her schedule into the black hole of early mornings and she is currently boycotting naps. These are not fun times people, but they will pass. To ride out the storm some extra indepth planning was called for.

So I'm sitting here today to plot out the next week worth of meals and snacks for everyone so that at least one thing will run like clockwork in this house.


Sunday, April 10, 2011

April Meal Plans - Week 2

This week is all about trying to use up what I've got and clean out the pantry and freezer.

Monday: Crockpot Port Tenderloin and Cinnamon Apples, served with quinoa
Tuesday: Grilled Chicken and Butternut Risotto with sauteed baby spinach
Wednesday: Crockpot meatballs, mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli
Thursday: Tosca's Tilapia, steamed brown rice and sauteed lima beans.
Friday: Clean Eating Broiled Round Steak, roasted potatoes and squash

In an ongoing effort to trick the testosterone infested members of my household into healthier eating there are a few random veggies that have snuck in here and there throughout these meals. I also want to take this week to start really going through the stuff in our pantry that seems to outlast the month. Some are random ingredients we just never seem to use and I'm not quite sure how they made our shopping list at one point but nevertheless I need the prime real estate they are taking up.

Off to grab some coupons and hit the store! Happy Sunday!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

April Week 1 Meal Plans - Allergen friendly, PCOS friendly, Calorie friendly

Whoops I forgot to post last week's recipes. We did eat out one night so here's the rest. More to come later today for this week's meal plans. After last week's craziness it's going to be crockpot central around here!

April Week 1 Meal Plans (many from PCOS Diva's new blog)
One Pot Kale and Quinoa Pilaf
Raspberry Balsamic Chicken
Cincinnati Spaghetti
Baked Potato Casserole (Recipe Below)

Baked Potato Casserole

It's super easy!
Slice 4-5 good size butter gold potatoes thick au-gratin style, drizzle with EVOO, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake at 425 for 30 mins.

Top with 1 lb of browned & cooked ground beef, sprinkle with a few pats of butter, top with 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese, cover with foil and bake for 20 mins.

Take out and serve topped with chopped green onions and sour cream. Delish but it took way to long for this busy momma! I'll be making it in the crock pot next time.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Social media as a customer service tool

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBase Finally a lazy Sunday to catch up...well as lazy as a Sunday can be around here. Kids are up before dawn, husband is spending the three day weekend finishing up our landscaping, I'm playing online working on the dining room re-design and then there is the usual cooking, cleaning and never ending "will you play with me" questions that I hate saying no to. :)

I've been pretty MIA from cyber space lately. My sister in law is now a Mrs. and weekends are now no longer dedicated to wedding plans, Alex is officially not in preschool any longer (OMG how did my baby turn into a Kindergartener??) and Liv is walking...plenty to keep me busy. It's funny how attached we become to our information sources. I use Twitter to stay up on news and to interact with friends, and lately also as a venting outlet for crappy customer service issues.

I hate dealing with customer service numbers. It never works out well for me. I end up in a never ending loop of hold music and lack of answers. Boy does that make me mad...enough that I had pretty much given up on calling anymore. Instead I got mad and shot my mouth off on Twitter. I had a rough day, McDonalds screwed up my coffee, Target wouldn't let me enter a prescription online (well they would, just at the end of the process they kicked it out since the person it was for was 9 months old and needed an adult...seriously like my prodigy 9 month old was entering it herself), Lumber Liquidators wouldn't refund half my money for a product I had never picked up for some unknown reason, and Sam's Club had double charged me and messed my order up and I was stuck in an endless loop of them insisting both issues were fixed because they refunded the overcharge. Not my best day and perhaps I can be forgiven for getting a little testy and shouting off on Twitter.

Imagine my surprise when I almostly immediately got direct messages back from Sam's Club, McDonalds and Lumber Liquidators. Direct messages asking me why I was frustrated (kind of hard to explain in 140 characters but I did my best). Direct messages flew back and forth and ended with me giving them my phone number. Within minutes my phone rang and without a minute on hold I was speaking with an awesome customer service rep based here locally. To keep this post out of the novella range suffice it to say that the morning ended with all my refunds being processed (plus some! Rock on Sam's Club for offering a 200% money back guarentee on flowers LOVE THAT), and McDonalds sending me out a coupon for free coffee.

Who knew how powerful venting on Twitter could be and closely some stores watch their brand. Target was the only store to never respond at all and believe me, I'll call 3 out of 4 a win win!
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