Refrigerated Potato Dinner Rolls

As everyone knows, the best way to eat a potato is raw. Fortunately, potatoes are also incredibly useful when it comes to cooking. You can boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew... the possibilities are probably limited. This recipe is going to do the first two and then stick them in to bread dough. Potato rolls are absolutely delicious.

I currently think my favorite part of making bread is the smell of the yeast and the dough puffing up.

Refrigerated Potato Dinner Rolls (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 C lukewarm mashed potatoes
1/2 C shortening
4 T sugar
3/4 C milk
1 packet dry active yeast (or one cake)
1/4 C warm water
2 eggs
5 C flour
1 1/2 t salt
butter

First, the mashed potatoes need to be made. You can be lazy and use instant mashed potatoes, but then you can't eat any of the raw potato during the preparation. Three potatoes should be enough for 1 cup of mashed. Peel them, cut them into cubes, and boil until soft. Don't forget to add salt to the water.

Mash the potatoes and measure out one cup. Set the remaining mashed potatoes aside or eat them. Up to you.

In the mixer, place 1 cup of mashed potatoes, shortening, sugar, and milk. Mix well.

Soften the yeast in the warm water. Beat the eggs.

Once the yeast is soft, add the eggs and yeast to the potato mixture. Add 4 cups of flour. Mix until combined.

Attach the dough hook to the mixer and knead the dough for 5 minutes. If you are lacking the nifty and expensive style of mixer, knead the dough with your hands. During the kneading process, slowly add flour until the dough loses most of its stickiness. I only had to add a few more tablespoons.

Place the dough in a greased bowl and spread a thick layer of butter on top of the dough. Cover the dough with wax paper.

Place a towel over the bowl and place the bowl in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours. This dough can stay in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Two hours before dinner, remove the dough from the refrigerator. Roll out on a well floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut with a biscuit cutter or large cookie cutter. Butter the tops of the rolls. Optionally fold in half and butter the top again. Most of mine unfolded during baking.

Cover and let rise for one hour before baking (or until dough is doubled. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

I think I will reduce the heat to 375 next time I make these. The bottom of the rolls started to burn and the tops were not browned at all! So check these after about 12 minutes or they may burn.

Easy Pumpkin Pie

For every holiday gathering my grandma made pies. Lots and lots of pies. Thanksgiving called for pumpkin pie and apple pie. Other pies were sometimes requested. This year my mother made the pie as I took pictures. She doesn't completely understand the part where she pauses between steps to allow pictures to be taken, so there aren't many pictures. One day she will learn!

The recipe for apple pie was posted back in July, so here is the recipe for pumpkin pie. This is a recipe that is slightly modified from the back of a can of pumpkin. Doubling the recipe results in two pies (obviously). We made two pies, so the pictures will reflect that.

Pumpkin Pie (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin
1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
3/4 C sugar
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
2 t pumpkin spice
2 eggs (beaten)
1 9" pie crust (unbaked)

Mix together the pumpkin and the evaporated milk in a sauce pan. Start to warm over medium heat.

Add the sugar, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin spice. Mix well. Add the eggs and mix well. Heat until warm.

Place the pie crust in a pie plate. Once the pumpkin goo is heated, pour it into the pie shell.

Bake the pie at 350 for 45 to 55 minutes. The pie is done when a knife can gently stab it and come out clean.

Apple Delight Cake

Apples are delicious. Cake is delicious. It seems rather clear that apples and cake combined would be delicious. I'm not sure how to bake a cake inside of an apple, so for now I'll have to settle with apples baked inside of a cake. The addition of ice cream, or even just a glass of milk, to the slice (or three) that you will eat would be acceptable.

This recipe produces an amazingly delicious cake with apples inside. The resulting cake is moist and cinnamon-y. The top and edges are a bit crusty and the inside is kind of gooey. The combination is perfect. I advise you bake this right away.

Apple Delight Cake (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2 C flour
1 t soda
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon
3 eggs
1 3/4 c sugar
1 C vegetable oil
2 C thinly sliced apples
Optional: 1 C chopped nuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 x 13 inch cake pan.

Sift the flour, soda, salt, and cinnamon together. Set aside.

Place the eggs, sugar, and vegetable oil in a mixing bowl. Beat together on medium power for 2 minutes.

Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and mix until combined.

Stir in the apples (and nuts if you are up to it). Spread the cake batter into the greased cake pan.

Bake the cake for 35 to 40 minutes. The cake is finished baking when a toothpick is stabbed into the cake and comes out clean.

Cool almost completely before cutting and eating. Enjoy!

Kolacky

These cookies seem to be a favorite for a lot of people. We usually make them filled with cherry, apricot, and poppy seed filling. The cookie dough created by this recipe is light and flaky, very much like pie crust but more moist. The recipe is also very easy to make!

Kolacky (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
4 C flour
1 pound butter (softened)
1 packet dry active yeast (or 1 cake yeast)
8 oz sour cream
3 egg yolks
2 jars of pie filling

Cut together the flour and butter as if you are making pie dough. If you aren't sure what that means, take a fork and cut through the butter and flour repeatedly until you feel your arm will fall off. The final form of the mixture will be crumbly.

Sprinkle the yeast over the flour mixture.Mix together the sour cream and the egg yolks.

Pour over the flour mixture. Mix together completely with hands. I'm told that you don't mix it at this point, but I usually do and it turns out great.

Cover with a towel and let set for 1 hour.

Mix again completely. If you forget to mix completely  here, no worries. It will still turn out fine.

Chill the dough completely (or overnight).

Roll out dough to desired thinness. This will vary depending on the cookie-to-filling ratio you prefer. Cut the dough into squares.

Place some filling in the middle of each square. Fold opposite edges over the filling and pinch together.

Bake at 375 for 15 to 20 minutes. This depends on the thickness of the dough, so keep an eye on them after 14 minutes.

Remove from pan and cool completely on cooling rack. Do let the cookies cool before eating one, the filling gets very hot.

Catnip Mouse Toy II

My cats loved the catnip heart toy that I made. I think the best part for them was that it was made from a wash cloth. My cats seem to love towels of any sort (even better when filled with catnip, I'm sure!).

Here is a catnip mouse toy made from the wash cloth. I did the sewing by hand. I couldn't find my pink felt, so no ears for this mouse!

Need:
paper
wash cloth
scissors
marker
needle and thread
pins
filling
catnip

Make a heart template or use this template for the catnip mouse toy (click to make larger).

I cut the washcloth into fourths. You can make the mouse any size.

Trace the template onto the washcloth with the marker. To save cutting time, I folded the template and the washcloth in half.

Cut out the heart and pin the edges together.

Sew the edges together, but leave about two inches open so you can flip the toy right-side out.

Flip the sewn together heart right-side out. Fill with a mixture of filling and catnip. Pin together the open edges. Sew the edges together.

Decorate the mouse. I used the thread to make a nose and used a fabric rope as a tail. You can also add ears and eyes. I wouldn't recommend adding too many details that can be ripped off. I doubt it would be good if your cat ate them!

Cinnamon Coffee Puffs

The fun thing about making food from recipes that are completely new to you is the chance of failure. This attempt resulted in failure. The failure ended up in the garbage. The recipe, if you follow it properly, should turn out fine. Just don't accidentally add too much flour or it won't rise.

When I get more yeast, I'll make these again and post a picture of the delicious outcome.

Cinnamon Coffee Puffs (Printer-friendly PDF Version of fixed recipe)
1 cake yeast (or packet dry active yeast)
1/4 C lukewarm water
1 C milk
2 T sugar
1/2 C butter
1 t salt
2 eggs
3 1/4 C flour
1/2 t vanilla
1/4 C sugar + 1/4 t cinnamon

Place the yeast in the warm water to soften.

Scald the milk over medium heat. Add the sugar, butter, and salt. Stir until dissolved. Cool to lukewarm.

Place the milk mixture in a mixing bowl. Add the flour, eggs, and yeast. Mix well. Add the vanilla and beat well. (You can see I forgot some of the flour at this point and added it. I actually added too much. Don't do that.)

Cover and let rise for an hour or so until it is light. Stir down and drop into greased muffin pans. Cover and let rise again. (By this point, nothing was rising. But I continued on and hoped for the best.)

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.

I made cinnamon muffin bricks instead of cinnamon puffs. Can't be successful every time!

These Muffins are Bananas (w/ Orange Juice Glaze)

There is almost no reason to ever throw away icky bananas. If a banana has a brown spotted peel, it is great for baking. Sometimes, the worse looking the banana is, the better the baked goods will taste. So don't throw away your bananas! If you have two icky bananas, make these muffins. They are delicious.

Banana Muffins (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

2 1/2 C flour

1 T baking powder

1 t salt

3/4 C brown sugar

1 C milk

1 egg

2 T butter (softened)

1 1/2 t vanilla

2 ripe bananas

In a bowl, place the flour, baking powder, salt, and brown sugar. In a separate bowl, smash the bananas. Set aside

Put the milk, egg, butter, and vanilla in yet another bowl. Beat these ingredients together until well combined.

With a fork, combine the ingredients in the flour bowl. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and mix together until blended.

Add the smashed bananas and mix well.

Put the batter in greased and floured muffin cups. You can also use paper liners.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely, or at least cool mostly before eating.

Orange Juice Glaze

1 C powdered sugar

1 T orange juice plus a bit more

Place the powdered sugar in a small bowl or glass measuring cup. Add the 1 T of orange juice. Mix well. Slowly add more orange juice to obtain the desired consistency. Drizzle over cooled muffins.

Peanut Butter Kisses

These cookies are terribly addicting. Every time that Christmas baking comes around, I have to make two batches of these cookies. The first one tends to disappear too quickly! At least these are easy to make. 

Peanut Butter Kisses (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

1/2 C sugar

1/2 C brown sugar (packed)

1/2 C peanut butter

1/4 C butter (softened)

1/4 C shortening

1 egg

1 1/2 C flour

3/4 t baking soda

1/2 t baking powder

sugar for rolling

Approximately 3 dozen unwrapped chocolate kisses

Unwrap all of the kisses and place them in a bowl or on a plate.

Place the sugars, peanut butter, butter, and shortening into a mixing bowl. Cream these ingredients together.

Add the egg and mix it in well.

Add the flour, soda, and powder. Stir these in until just blended.

Place some extra sugar into a small bowl. Roll the cookie dough into 1 inch balls. Roll the balls in the sugar. Place evenly spaced on a cookie sheet. These will spread some, but not a lot.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes, or until the edges turn slightly brown. Remove from oven and place the kisses on top of each cookie. Let set on the cookie sheet for a minute or so. Remove to a cooling rack and cool completely.

The kisses will take a long time to harden after they are placed on the cookies. To speed up this process, place the cookies in the refrigerator for a while.

Raisin Bread

I have always enjoyed store bought raisin bread. I had no idea how incredibly addicting homemade raisin bread is. I had difficulty restraining myself from eating the entire loaf. If you have the time, you should absolutely make this bread. A KitchenAid mixer with a dough hook is also a great thing to have. I'm going to be making this again very soon.

Raisin Bread (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2 cakes yeast (same as 2 packets active dry yeast)
1/4 C lukewarm water
1 C milk
1 1/2 t salt
1/4 C sugar
1/2 C shortening
3 eggs
5 C sifted flour
1 C (or more) raisins
6 T or so melted butter
1 C sugar mixed with 2 T cinnamon

Take the yeast and add it to the lukewarm water. Set it aside. Place the three eggs into a cup and beat them. Set this aside as well.

Sift plenty of flour, enough to give you more than 5 cups worth.

Place the milk into a small sauce pan. Heat the milk over medium heat. You will need to pay attention to the milk and stir it often. The milk is heated enough when it just starts to lightly boil. Small bubbles will appear  near the edge of the pan. Don't scorch the milk, just scald it. Remove from heat and add the salt, sugar, and shortening. Mix until blended.

Pour the milky mixture into a mixing bowl. Add 2 cups of sifted flour. Mix these together completely using low speed.

Add the yeast mixture and the eggs. Mix these in completely as well on low speed.

Add the remaining 3 cups of flour and mix until completely blended.

If you have a KitchenAid mixture (or a good mixture with a dough hook), replace the beater with the dough hook. (Optionally, spray the hook with cooking spray to prevent sticking). Mix/knead on low for 10 minutes, occasionally stopping the mixer to remove the dough from the hook. Otherwise, knead the dough until "satiny". Cover the dough with a clean dish towel and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk. This will take approximately 1 hour.

Punch down the dough (or mix with dough hook for a minute). Add the raisins and knead down. I used the mixer for another 4 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes.

Divide the dough into two equal(ish) sections. Roll out the sections of dough to about 3/4 inch thickness. Brush with melted butter. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar mixture.

Roll up the flattened dough. Place into greased loaf pan. Let rise until double in size. Again, this takes about an hour.

Bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes. Check at 35 minutes. I forgot to check and the top burned. Cool thoroughly. After 10 minutes, the loafs can be removed from the bread pans and placed on a cooling rack.