Cinnamon Rolls

It's shameful that I have not blogged this yet, since I've been making variations on it for years. We made these again today, and Claire remembered not liking the recipe. I told her she was creating false memories, and what she didn't like was our variations (particularly when we tried to add raisins). Turns out: I was right. Still an awesome recipe. It's basically from this recipe, though we have our own version of frosting and some minor edits.

Ingredients

• Rolls
• 4.5c all purpose unbleached flour
• 1/2c granulated sugar
• 2.25tsp yeast
• 4tbsp butter (half a stick), melted
• 1c milk, warmed in the microwave
• 1tsp salt (we didn't add this the last go-round, and it wasn't as good as it could be. Next time I think we'll do this, though).
• Filling
• 4tbsp butter (the other half of that stick), melted
• 3/4c (packed) brown sugar
• 2tbsp cinnamon
• Frosting
• 4tbsp butter
• 4oz cream cheese
• 1.33c powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Make the rolls. Basically, combine all the ingredients and knead into a dough. Turn out onto a floured counter and knead until smooth. Return to the (now liberally greased) bowl and cover to rise for two hours. THE FULL two hours. Don't skimp.

Now make the filling. Melt the butter. Mix in the other things. DONE.

After two hours have elapsed, take the dough out of the bowl and put on the counter. DON'T PUNCH IT DOWN. Just roll the dough out into a huge rectangle, like 18" wide and maybe 14" deep? As big as you can manage, keeping the dough about 1cm thick. Spread the filling across the whole dough using a spatula. Or your hands, or whatever. Now starting at the wide end, roll the dough up. Cut into 12 pieces (cut into fourths, then each fourth into thirds). Stand these up in a 9x13 casserole pan.

Now preheat the oven to 400 and cover the cinnamon rolls (loosely) to rise for another 30 minutes. When they've risen and the oven has preheated, bake for 15-20 minutes. We did exactly 15 this last time, and they were a LITTLE doughy, but who's complaining? Next time, 18-20, though.

While those go, you can make the frosting. Bring the butter and cream cheese to room temperature. Using an electric mixer of some kind, cream together the butter and cream cheese, then add the powdered sugar by 1/3 cups until you've got it all mixed. Then add the vanilla.

We recommend not frosting the cinnamon rolls until you're ready to eat them. Although this recipe has a lot of steps, it's actually not harder than making a loaf of bread. Once you do it the first time, it'll be easy from then on.

Thoughts: Just what I needed: diabetes.

Disaster Index: 1/10

B'Stilla

We went off the beaten path for this one, I guess. B'stilla is a chicken almond filo (or phyllo) pie from Morocco. Some recipes incorporate apricots. When I saw the recipe, I was reminded of a dish they serve at Medcaf in Madison, WI, that they call "chicken apricot pie". I think theirs is the same IDEA, but maybe different execution. Nevertheless, this was really delicious. We have some tweaks for next time, though.

This recipe makes TWO small pie-sized dishes.

Ingredients

• Ras El Hanout
• 1/2 tsp aniseed
• 1 tsp fennel
• 8 allspice berries (or, I guess, like 1/2 tsp)
• seeds from 8 cardamom pods
• 8 whole cloves
• 15 black peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• pinch of red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp dried ground ginger
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• Almond Sugar (seriously)
• 1/2c almonds
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• Apricot Compote
• 8oz dried apricots
• water
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• Filling
• Filo dough
• 2 smallish onions, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 3/4 tsp grated ginger (fresh)
• 1/2 tsp black pepper (or to taste)
• 2 tsp Ras El Hanout
• 2c chicken stock
• 1.5-2 lbs chicken thighs
• 1c bulgur (Could maybe use rice in place of it? Or maybe even oatmeal?)
• olive oil
• salt

So first grind together that huge list of spices to make the Ras El Hanout. You'll be left with quite a lot. If you can figure out how to get the right mixture but with less extra left over, by all means. But it's REALLY interesting, so I'm sure we'll use it in other stuff. It might be good in a bechamel.

Now, do the compote. This takes forever, so you can do it ahead of time. Chop the apricots finely and throw them in a sauce pan with water to cover (generously) and the lemon juice. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer until they're really soft and you basically have jam. It takes like 30-45 minutes. You will probably have to add water part way through a couple times.

NEXT, throw the onions and garlic in a stock pot with some olive oil. Cook until onions are translucent, then add the ginger, pepper, ras el hanout, stock, and chicken thighs. Bring to a boil, stirring, and then reduce to a simmer and cover until the chicken is very tender. Remove the chicken and shred using two forks (or whatever you want, I guess), then return to the pot with the bulgur. (Now would be a good time to set the Filo out to thaw!) Bring BACK to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, then turn off and leave covered for another 10 minutes or so. Use your judgement on this one.

While that's sitting, preheat the oven to 425. Grind the almonds with the sugar and cinnamon. Take about three sheets of filo and lay them across a pie tin. Brush the bottom with olive oil, then sprinkle with 1/4 of the almond mixture. On top of it, add 1/2 the chicken mixture. Then another 1/4 the almond mixture. Top with 1/2 the apricot compote, then fold the filo over to form a top crust. Or just use more sheets of filo. Brush those with olive oil (generously). Repeat the process with a SECOND pie tin. You could probably actually do this whole thing in a 9x13 casserole pan and do a couple layers of filo, etc. ANYWAY, bake the suckers for 20 minutes, until the filo is browned. Enjoy! IT TOOK LONG ENOUGH.

Thoughts: This was really delicious, but incredibly time consuming. Or I'm just grumpy because I'm cutting back on my caffeine this week. But next time we thought maybe more layers of filo and stuff. Claire thought a little more salt in the chicken. What else? Parsley. Probably a lot of that could go in here. Claire thought maybe incorporate pieces of dried apricot when you do the chicken, rather than doing apricot jam like we did. I think that is probably wise.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - despite our minor complaints, this really killed it. We accidentally AN ENTIRE PIE IN ONE SITTING. So.

Ginger Beer (syrup)

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Ingredients

• about 1/2c of ginger, minced. Don't bother peeling it.
• 1 small lime, sliced thin
• 1/2c brown sugar*
• water to cover, plus a little

For ginger, I used about $1 worth of fresh ginger. I don't know how to measure this. It must have been about a 6" long piece with two branches? I don't know. The more ginger the better for this.

Toss the ginger and lime into a saucepan with the water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes. Pour through a cheesecloth, then (here's the important part) squeeze out the ginger and lime that's in the cheesecloth. There is a LOT of liquid in there.

Add 1/2c brown sugar for each cup of liquid. Or, if you're like me, add 1/2c at a time until it tastes about right. Mix with soda water in a ratio of 1:3.

Thoughts: This is slightly different from brewing ginger beer, but much faster and much easier. I discovered that the secret to a good syrup for mixing with carbonated water is to filter out as much of the particulate matter as you can from the syrup so the bubbles don't all come out of solution at once. Anyway, I think this recipe worked pretty well. Ginger beer can never be ginger-y enough to be satisfying to me, so I wonder how I could improve that. Maybe if you cook ginger less, it's more punchy? To test this theory, next time I will use less water. I will grate the ginger FINELY, then cook for 2 minutes and (again) wring the ginger dry afterward. We'll see what that does? HOWEVER, this WAS fairly potent. One good option would be to use less sugar and then just use more ginger syrup to water.

Disaster Index: 1/10, good show.

Cola

Or, "Dan gets bored of studying insurance accounting."

Ingredients

• 2c water
• 1 tbsp dried lemon zest
• 2 tbsp dried clementine zest
• 1 fairly dry vanilla bean pod, snapped into five pieces
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
• 1 star anise pod thing
• 1/2 tsp lavender flowers
• 2 tsp minced ginger
• 1 cardamom pod
• 1/4 tsp fenugreek
• 1/4 tsp citric acid
• 1tsp instant coffee
• about 1/2c sugar

Add all the aromatics to the water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 20 minutes. Strain through a cheesecloth, then a coffee filter. Then add the citric acid, coffee, and sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then refrigerate. Mix in a ratio of 1:4 with soda water. Drink while watching Portlandia. Cry about what a hipster you've become. Cry your ironic hipster tears.

Thoughts: This is VERY CLOSE. We're not quite there yet - in the future, we may switch to dark brown sugar instead of granulated. Maybe a splash of dark rum would do the trick? Another idea I had was to throw a half teaspoon of Russian Caravan or Lapsang Souchong tea in with the water. This reminds me very much of "china cola" that we used to get at woodman's. Do they still sell that stuff? Apparently.

Disaster Index: 1/10