Food, Glorious Food
Now, I’m not going to pretend like the pictures of the following food were taken any time remotely recently. In fact, I think all this food was made sometime in April or maybe even March. That was a long time ago. Back then, I didn’t even have the Eurotrip planned! That was forever ago!! But, I was recently organizing all my pictures (by me, I mean Blake), and found these pictures and HEY! A blog entry was formed.
So, when people come to visit, I typically like to prepare elaborate food and snacks, etc. that I know they will like. You see, I don’t like to prepare all the really good stuff (meaning: fattening) without any reason….so I usually try to come up with as many reasons as I can. Therefore, when Austin and Leigh came into town, I just knew my cooking fantasies were made. Leigh (at the time) was about 5 months pregnant, and craving all things orange. If there is one thing I know, its how to take a theme and freaking run with it.
I began with this recipe for “orangettes” from the smitten kitchen (an awesome cooking blog, and probably my favorite that I have ever read…all her recipes I have tried are beyond delicious.)
I began by mutilating some oranges:
Poor little oranges. They have no skin.
You see, this recipe somehow transforms bitter, disgusting orange peels by the magical powers of sugar and water (and multiple boilings) into delicious candy!
Sugar coatings make everything delicious!
I also dipped some in chocolate, but those pictures came out pretty terribly, so you will just have to imagine how delicious those came out.
Continuing on my “Everything Orange” theme, I then made some Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies, which also required some orange mutilation:
Help us! We have no insides or bottoms! - Orange Tops
I ended up with these, which were tasty both in dough-form AND in cookie form:
MMMMmmmmmMMMMMmmmmmMMMMMMMmmmmm (times one million more M's)
Leigh and Austin dutifully ate a sugared orange peel and an orange/chocolate chip cookie and Mmmmmmm-ed in response to my incessant staring. My ego bursting, I began the next day with another Smitten Kitchen recipe – THIS TIME for breakfast pizza!
You might be thinking to yourself (as I was), “EW. Eggs on a pizza? Eggs don’t belong on a pizza! That sounds disgusting!” but you would be wrong. Very wrong. Turns out, eggs on a pizza covered in cooked bacon, mozzarella, and green onions is delicious! See for yourself:
Bacon, Bacon, Bacon, Bacon.
I also decided that now seemed like as good a time as any to try some homemade cinnamon rolls. And boy am I glad I did. I don’t know that I will ever go back (except for in the airport, when I am feeling especially fat. Those cinnamon rolls are goooood.)
I ate all of these. I wish.
Porky decided she would help out by setting the table:
Oh yeah. And orange juice. Can't forget the ORANGE juice!
By the time we finished, the four of us were about 20 pounds heavier and 500 times happier.
Clone of a Cinnabon
taken from All Recipes.com
Ingredients
- 1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C) – I used 2%
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
- 4 1/2 cups bread flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2 1/2 teaspoons yeast
- 1 cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
- 1/4 cup butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
Directions
- Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk in a large bowl. Mix in the sugar, butter, salt, and eggs. Add flour and mix well. Knead the dough into a large ball, using your hands dusted lightly with flour. Put in a bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour, or until doubled in size. Then pick up with rolling out the dough.
- In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon.
- Roll dough into a 16×21 inch rectangle. Spread dough with 1/3 cup butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar/cinnamon mixture. Roll up dough and cut into 12 rolls. Place rolls in a lightly greased 9×13 inch baking pan. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
- Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes. While rolls are baking, beat together cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Spread frosting on warm rolls before serving.
- Get fat and happy.
The rest of the recipes mentioned can be found in the links. They are all worth it.
Comments
Yum yum yum this brings back some good memories. It still makes me happy that you went through all of this for us with no selfish intentions whatsoever.
None at all.
ECHO Austin’s sentiment: YUM! Thanks again, Aunt Kristi (from baby Reed who really enjoyed all of the delectable foods).