Oatmeal Dinner Rolls

Last Thanksgiving, we went to a friend's house for dinner and had oatmeal dinner rolls for the first time. They were SO good, and I just had to ask for the recipe. I didn't get the exact recipe from the girl who brought the rolls because she didn't have it with her at the time, but she did tell me the secret was the oatmeal. So I did some searching on the Internet and found a recipe on Taste of Home's website. They are so soft and fluffy and yummy! The oatmeal really does make a huge difference!

Take a look at my tips for working with yeast before you begin!

Ingredients:
2 cups water
1 cup quick-cooking oats
3 tablespoons butter
1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
1/3 cup warm water
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
4-3/4 to 5-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

In a sauce pan, bring the 2 cups water to a boil. Add oats and butter, and cook and stir for 1 minute. Remove from the heat, and cool to lukewarm. Meanwhile, in the bowl of your mixer, dissolve the yeast in the 1/3 cup warm water. Add the oat mixture, sugars, salt, and 4 cups of flour. Beat with a dough hook until smooth. Add enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Turn onto a lightly floured counter, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, and turn to grease top. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Punch down dough and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Then form into 18 balls. Place in 2 greased 9-inch round baking pans. Cover and allow to rise until doubled, about 45 minutes. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

What's your favorite dinner roll recipe?

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Herbed Monkey Bread

This recipe came from my Taste of Home magazine. I've had it for probably 7-8 months or so but haven't ever tried it until recently. It sounded too scary to attempt, but it's really very easy and was super good!

This is a good one to make for holidays or when you've got company. It looks very impressive!

Ingredients:
3 to 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups milk
2 tablespoons canola oil
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 egg
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon each dried parsley flakes, thyme, and rosemary, crushed

In a large mixing bowl, combine 2 cups flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. In a small saucepan, heat the milk, oil, and 2 tablespoons butter to 120*-130*. Add to dry ingredients. Beat just until moistened. Add egg, and beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. Turn onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a bowl coated with cooking spray, turning once to coat the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

In a small bowl, combine the cheese, sesame seeds, garlic salt, paprika, and herbs. Punch down dough. Divide into 32 pieces, and roll each into a ball. Drizzle 2 teaspoons butter into a 10 inch tube pan coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with a third of the cheese mixture. Top with 16 balls. Repeat layers. Drizzle with remaining butter and sprinkle with remaining cheese mixture.

Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 30 minutes.

Bake at 350* for 30-35 minutes, or until golden brown.

Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.


Slather with some extra butter, and enjoy!

Have you made something that impressed your family/guests?
Tell us about it!

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Bagel Pizzas

Is summer going by crazy fast for anyone else? My hubby has summers off (he's a school psychologist), so we've been really busy almost every second. He goes back to work at the end of next week (BOO!), so things will start to settle down a bit after that. Come August, I'll have 2 of my 3 kids in school, so I'll have much more time for this little blog of mine!

So anyway, the other night we were late getting home from the pool and were starving. I had some bagels and pepperoni about ready to go bad and needed to use them up. Thus, this idea popped into my head. My kids scoffed at me ("Bagel pizzas? Are you sure, Mom?") at first, but then I reminded them that we always see those pre-made frozen ones at the store. They still were skeptical because we've never purchased the ones at the store before, but everyone loved these.

You could totally make them ahead of time and keep them in the freezer for quick meals. I plan on doing that and then popping them in the fridge to defrost to send with my kids to school that week. Pizza is so versatile (you can eat it hot or cold), so I think it'll be perfect for their lunches to change things up a bit.

Lastly, this is a perfect meal to let your kids prepare! My kids were fighting over who got to spread the sauce, and they loved spreading on the cheese and pepperoni. :)

Ingredients:
plain bagels
pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce
shredded mozzarella
pizza toppings

Break bagels in half, and lay them out on a foil-lined baking sheet. Top with a few spoonfuls of sauce, then cheese, then toppings. Sprinkle a little extra cheese on top before baking.

Bake at 375* for about 15 minutes, or until cheese is melted and pepperoni starts to get crispy around the edges.

I served ours with some fresh, sliced cantaloupe and a salad. It was a really yummy summer supper!

What meals do you throw together in a pinch?

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The Absolute BEST Sandwich Bread

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend and are expriencing some great weather this time of year! As for us, I finally caved and turned on the a/c for the first time this year. In April. We're doomed! ;-)

We only need 5 more followers until we can start the giveaway!!! I see that we have 97 Facebook followers and only 95 blog followers, so those of you following us on Facebook need to make sure you follow the blog, too! :)

A year ago, I found a recipe for white bread. And that's the recipe I used for the last year. Until I got my new cookbook, that is. I was extremely excited to see a recipe for sandwich bread in my cookbook! Don't get me wrong, the old white bread recipe is still good, but it's just not good for slicing thinly for sandwiches because it's pretty crumbly. This sandwich bread recipe is AMAZING. And it has a million variations. You can do buttermilk instead of the whole milk. You can make cinnamon raisin bread. You can use whole wheat flour instead of white. You could turn it into all kinds of snazzy types of bread by adding cheese, herbs, etc. I've got several variations I'm going to try, so I'll make sure to post recipes!

This recipe only makes 1 loaf, so I always double it. If you do double it, make sure the bowl you let it rise in has enough room to accommodate a double batch once it's risen. You may want to divide the dough in half and put each half into a separate bowl to rise.

And if you're new here and/or new to bread-making, here are my tips for working with yeast. Making bread can be tricky at first. But I promise you that it gets easier! You just have to keep at it. My loaves when I first started turned out pretty goofy sometimes, but now I have no problem making fantastic bread.

Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk, warm
1/3 cup water, warm
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 tablespoons honey
3 3/4 cups bread flour, plus extra for kneading
2 1/4 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast
2 teaspoons salt

Whisk the milk, water, 3 tablespoons of the butter and honey together in a large measuring cup. Mix 3 1/2 cups of the flour, yeast and salt together in a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook. With the mixer on low speed, add the milk mixture and mix until the dough comes together, about 1 minute.

Increase the speed to medium-low and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. If after 5 minutes more flour is needed, add the remaining 1/4 cup of flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough clears the side of the bowl but sticks to the bottom.

Turn the dough onto a clean counter and knead by hand to form a smooth, round ball, about 1 minute.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and wrap tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured counter and gently press it into a 9 inch square. Roll the dough into a tight cylinder and pinch the seam closed. Place the loaf seam-side down in a 9 inch loaf pan. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until it has nearly doubled in size and springs back slowly when indented with a finger, about 1 to 1/2 hours.

Adjust oven rack to the middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Bring a kettle of water to a boil. Brush the loaf with the remaining 1 tablespoon butter. Set the loaf pan on the oven rack and place an empty metal loaf pan next to it. Fill the empty loaf pan half full with boiling water. Bake until golden and the center of the bread registers 200 degrees, about 40 to 50 minutes. Flip the bread out onto a wire rack and let cool to room temperature before slicing, about 2 hours.

Perfect texture!!!

And just look at how thinly I was able to slice it!
It's not crumbly at all! Perfect, perfect sandwich bread!

How often do you make your own bread?

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Cream Biscuits

Christmas is coming! I can't believe it's this Friday. Crazy how fast this year has gone! In honor of Christmas being this week, I thought I'd post recipes that will make your holiday entertaining easier. There's almost nothing worse than having a house full of guests and not knowing what to feed them that is quick, easy and cheap!

These cream biscuits are quick, easy AND cheap. They come together in a flash and are really tasty. I love biscuits but never thought I could make them. My mom always told me it's tricky to make biscuits, so now I'm wondering what recipe she uses because this is seriously easy!

There are only 2 things to remember when making biscuits. First, don't over-knead the dough. Knead it as little as possible, otherwise the biscuits will be tough. And secondly, if you use a biscuit cutter, DO NOT (I repeat DO NOT!) twist the cutter. Just push it straight down, then pull it straight up. If you twist it, your biscuits will rise all wonky and will look really lopsided.

If you want to make these ahead, you can. But they'll only be good in the fridge for up to 2 hours. Just prepare the dough, cut out the biscuits, put them on the parchment-lined baking sheet and then cover with plastic wrap before refrigerating.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

**This recipe will make about 10 biscuits.**

Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Stir in the cream with a wooden spoon until the dough forms, about 30 seconds. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and gather into a ball. Knead until the dough becomes smooth, about 30 seconds.

Roll the dough into a 3/4 inch circle. Cut the biscuits into rounds using a biscuit cutter or into wedges using a knife.

Place the biscuits on the parchment-lined baking sheet.

Then bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Serve with butter, jam, honey butter or sausage gravy!

Do you have company coming for Christmas?
Any special holiday meals you like to make?

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Cheesy Pinwheel Rolls

This recipe was inspired by a friend of mine. Her blog is private, but she posted about how she'd taken her dinner roll recipe and made a loaf of garlic bread out of it. I always have tons of garlic on hand, and at that time I also had some leftover cheese I needed to use up, so that's how this recipe was born. I just used my regular dinner roll recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book (which I thought I'd already posted, but I guess not!), then added a couple extras to make it more spiffy.

If you're reading this, thanks for the inspiration, Jenn!

Ingredients:
4 1/2 - 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter, plus extra for spreading on rolls
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
garlic, minced
mozzarella, shredded

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together 2 cups of the flour and the yeast. In a medium saucepan, heat and stir milk, sugar, butter and salt just until warm and butter almost melts (120-130 degrees). Add milk mixture to dry mixture along with eggs. Beat with an electric mixer on low to medium speed for 30 seconds, scraping sides of bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Stir in as much remaining flour as you can. Then knead dough on counter, adding remaining flour until you get a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic. Shape into a ball, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size (about 1 hour).

Roll out the dough into a large rectangle (or as close to one as you can get -- you're going to roll it up and then slice it, so it doesn't need to be perfect by any means), getting it as thin as you can. Spread a generous layer of butter all over the rolled out dough. Then sprinkle the minced garlic as evenly as you can. Then top with cheese. The more, the merrier! Face it, this is not diet friendly, and you will gain a few pounds. So you might as well go all out. ;) This picture I took the first time I made it, and I didn't put nearly enough cheese. So if yours looks like mine, add more cheese! Keep going. Little more. Titch more. There! That should do it.

Roll it up.

Slice it up. I just used my pizza cutter, but you could use a really sharp knife or even dental floss (I've never tried that, but I've heard it works great). I cut mine into 1.5-2 inch pieces. Place on a baking sheet a couple inches apart.

Cover and allow to rise for 30 minutes. Then bake at 375 for about 12 minutes, or until golden brown.

Uhhh, YUM?!

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Blueberry Muffins

I got a pretty good deal for blueberries at the store last week, so we've been eating lots of them the past few days. After a few days of blueberry buttermilk pancakes, the fam was getting a bit tired of them, so I decided to make some into muffins. You know, to change things up a bit. I'm daring like that.

Making muffins is super easy! Okay, not quite as easy as opening a box of Jiffy, but it's definitely easy. And it tastes way better. And you can actually tell there are blueberries in these muffins, and not just some weird, tiny blue dots that are supposedly blueberries.

STEP AWAY FROM THE JIFFY BOXES!!!!!

I got this recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. There are all kinds of variations to this basic recipe listed in here. You can do banana muffins, cheese muffins, cranberry muffins, oatmeal muffins, poppy seed muffins......just to give you a few ideas. ;)

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil
3/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Grease your muffin tins with butter or cooking spray, or line with baking cups. Set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center of the mixture. In another mixing bowl, combine egg, milk and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to the flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy and very thick).

Gently fold in blueberries.

Pour batter into muffin tins, filling each one about 2/3 of the way full (makes 10-12 muffins).

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool in muffin tin on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and serve. With honey butter is best.

Do you tend to use pre-measured box mixes, like Jiffy? Or are you a cook-it-from-scratch kind of person?

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Cinnamon Raisin Bites

It's spring break this week and next, so I've had to come up with some activities to keep my 7 year old busy during the day. She loves to help me in the kitchen, so I was really excited to find this recipe because it was perfect for us to do together. And all these ingredients are things we always have on hand, so I wasn't rushing out to buy forgotten ingredients.

She did the whole thing almost entirely by herself. The only tricky thing was that the dough for this recipe is super sticky, so she had some trouble spooning it onto the baking sheets. Some of them ended up without any raisins and they pretty much look like little gerbils after being baked, but hey, she had a great time, and I had a great time watching her. :)

This is another one from Taste of Home. I don't think I've ever come across an easier recipe than this one. These are really tasty. They're like a cross between a scone and a muffin in texture, I'd say. My kids have been eating them by the handful. I keep finding crumbs all over the house. :)

I didn't really change anything this time. Surprise, surprise. All I did was to use parchment paper on my baking sheets to avoid using extra oil for greasing the pans. Next time I make them, I think I'll throw in some chopped nuts, though -- walnuts, peanuts or pecans.

These are perfect to make for quick breakfasts throughout the week, and they make wonderful, healthy snacks throughout the day, too.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup raisins

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

In a small bowl, combine the milk, oil and honey. Then add to the dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened. Gently fold in raisins. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray (or parchment lined).

Bake at 425 for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Place on wire racks to completely cool. Or don't. They're really yummy when they're warm, so you may not have any left over.
See, I told you they look like gerbils (or some type of rodent). :)

What are your favorite things to make with your kids?

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Banana Bread

When my husband and I got married, my mother-in-law gave us the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. Some of our favorite recipes come from this cookbook, and this recipe is one of them. I know at least one newer version of this cook book has come out since we got married, but I can't bring myself to upgrade. I love my worn-in, sentimental cook book, ripped pages and all. :) If I told my husband that I was attached to a cook book from our wedding day, I think he'd have me committed.....

Seriously, though, I do have attachment issues. On our first date, we sat and talked while drinking some Coke in glass bottles. Yeah, I still have those. And one night, we were eating at this Italian restaurant, and my husband composed a song for me on the paper tablecloth with the crayons they give the kids. Still have that, too.

Okay, so apparently I'm feeling a wee bit sentimental considering it's nearing V-Day. :)

Enough sap. On to banana bread.

I've made the recipe with nuts and without nuts. I've also made it with the lemon juice and without. And I suggest making it with both of those ingredients. It's much higher on the Yumminess Scale that way.

To make banana bread, your bananas need to be really ripe. They need to be starting to turn dark to get the most sweetness and flavor out of them. Like this:

This recipe makes one loaf of banana bread. My family inhales this stuff, so I always double the recipe. It's fabulous to serve as a quick, healthy breakfast in the morning, unless your 2 year old is like mine and screams, "More butter!!!!!" as you're fixing her slice....

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 medium)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Grease the bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of a loaf pan; set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture. In another bowl, combine the egg, bananas, sugar, cooking oil and lemon juice. Add egg mixture all at once to dry mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy). Stir in nuts.

Pour batter into your prepared pan. Bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove loaf from pan and continue to cool on wire rack until completely cooled.

The original recipe says to wrap the loaf in plastic wrap and store overnight before slicing. We can't exercise enough self-control to do that. But if you can, more power to you.

M'mmmmmm! Good thing I still have some left!

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Super Soft White Bread

I've tried several bread recipes over the last few months, trying to lower my grocery budget. I found some yummy recipes, but the bread was so dense and had a pretty hard crust, no matter what I tried -- so it was great for garlic bread but not so great for sandwiches or toast. So I found myself still buying bread at the store, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid by making my own bread in the first place.

And then I found this recipe. It's another recipe that I found online on THIS website.

When I make these loaves of bread, my family will eat the entire batch in one sitting, if I let them. I don't let them. :) It is so extremely soft and is also very easy to make. It makes amazing French toast, and even just toasting it and slathering it with butter is perfection.

I think one of the main reasons this bread is so much better is because it uses bread flour instead of all-purpose flour. I'll admit I hadn't even heard of bread flour before -- every other bread recipe I've ever made just called for all-purpose flour. That's what makes the biggest difference in this recipe!

FYI -- bread flour is high in gluten. It has a few additives - like malted barley flour, vitamin C or potassium - that really help the yeast to work to its fullest potential. It's the extra gluten that provides the chewy-ness. If your recipe calls for bread flour, you can substitute all-purpose flour if you really need to (try your best not to need to, though!), but you won't get the same fabulous results. However, if a recipe calls for all-purpose flour, like a cake recipe, for example, don't substitute bread flour.

As always, you may want to read my tips on working with yeast and bread making before you begin!

Enough chit-chat.

Ingredients:
2 cups hot water (about 110 degrees)
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
6 cups bread flour

Dissolve sugar in water. Add yeast and let stand until yeast is very foamy and bubbly, about 5 minutes.

Add salt and oil. Mix in flour, 1 cup at a time. (You may need to use a bit more flour. I've had to use 6.5-7 cups in the past -- it really depends on the humidity.) Knead dough, either by hand or in your mixer, for about 5 minutes. Place dough in a well-oiled metal bowl, cover with a damp cloth and let rise until double in size, about 1 hour.

Punch down dough, divide in half and place into well-oiled 9x5 loaf pans. Let rise about 30 minutes.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. (Depending on your oven, you may need to cover loaves with foil and then remove the foil the last few minutes, to prevent over-browning.)

I dare you not to eat it all in one sitting!

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