Yeast-free Cinnamon Rolls

This recipe was given to me by a friend. During that time, we were on a yeast free diet but this recipe has remained a favorite due to it's simplicity and the speed in which we get a hot cinnamony treat. The recipe calls for a baking mix. It works fine with any baking mix from gluten free to homemade to Bisquick. We've made it dairy free and with butter instead of the shortening. It's a great recipe that holds up to changes easily.
Omit the frosting and it's a not so sweet afterschool snack. You'll notice I didn't include a frosting recipe but mention it. That's because we rarely eat these with anything else. They are great with extra butter or dunked in cocoa.

Cinnamon Rolls
2 cups baking mix
1/4 cup shortening
3/4 cup milk
½ cup melted butter
1 cup sugar and ½ cup cinnamon combined
oven to 450. Grease 9x12 baking pan.
Cut shortening into mix. Add milk to make dough. Roll into ½ inch thick rectangle on a dusted surface. Baste with melted butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Roll tightly lengthwise into a long roll. Slice 1" thick and place in pan. Bake 12-15 minutes or until done.
If adding icing - do so while still warm so it melts.

Chex Mix

Figured I'd round out my Thanksgiving week with a holiday favorite - chex mix. I know the recipe is often included on the box and easy to access but I hate the whole multiple open box problem so I figured out a recipe using the entire box (just 1 box) of cereal. Growing up my parents made chex mix the "proper" way with 1/3 wheat, 1/3 corn and 1/3 rice cereals. We always picked out the wheat because it was harder than the corn or rice. Eventually my mom stopped using the wheat chex. Now I just buy rice chex (or a generic version like crispy hexagons). I make it in the oven. I tried the microwave version once and didn't like the way it cooked.
Often times I skip the nuts and when we were gluten free I found this a great way to stretch a bag of pretzals (a bag of GF pretzals makes 2 batches of chex mix).

Chex Mix
1 box chex cereal
1 stick butter
2-3 cups pretzels
2-3 cups nuts
2 T Worcheshire sauce
1 ½ teas seasoning salt
¾ teas garlic powder
½ teas onion powder
Melt butter in glass measuring cup. In large bowl, combine chex cereal with pretzels and nuts. Add remaining ingredients to butter and pour over cereal and pretzels. Spread out in baking dish. Bake at 250 for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

Highrollers

With the summer heat in full swing, cooking becomes an undesirable act. Every Sunday we gather together for a big meal and entertainment. Yesterday, the temperature was the low 90's. We had planned on sandwiches and mac and cheese. Too hot. But we went with highrollers and macaroni salad (we cheated and bought the salad while enjoying the stores air conditioning).
Highrollers are a type of sandwich but they are so much cooler than a normal sandwich (I mean temperature). They are easy to make but look like you spent ages making them. Pop them in the fridge before serving and you have a rather nice summer dinner.

Highrollers
Burrito sized flour tortillas
Deli meat
Cream Cheese, mayo, mustard
cheese
lettuce (or salad mix)
tomato or other sandwich veggies

* You really can make these any way you want which makes a recipe difficult. I love cream cheese and turkey so that's the instructions I will give you. If you use tomatoes, slice as thin as possible because they will inhibit rolling and they will make the roller wetter.

Lay out tortilla. Spread a thin layer of cream cheese over the tortilla. Layer with slices of turkey. Sprinkle on salad mix. be sure to leave a rim of cream cheese around the edge of tortilla without other toppings. Starting at the side nearest you, roll the tortilla into a tube, using the cream cheese to seal the edges. Slice into 1" pieces.
Refrigerate if you want them to be extra cold or serve immediately.
I like to dip my slices in Italian dressing.
The sky is the limit with these sandwiches, just rememeber dry is better and then dip into sauces.

Mixchief Jello

I was wandering the Walmart grocery area to price what it costs for us to make our own marshmallows. There are so many varieties of marshmallows that I want to do lots of experiments. For us, homemade marshmallows are about ingredient control over cost but I wondered if it was really one of those things I could promote as being economical as well. If I had to guess: it costs about $3.25 to make a batch of homemade marshmallows which is about 1 1/2 pounds of marshmallows (equivilent to 3 bags of marshmallows at $1.25 each) so it's slightly less.
But that's not what I wanted to share with you. I was looking at the unflavored gelatin (and really disappointed that all the stores in my area only carry 4 packs of unflavored gelatin instead of my favorite 32 pack) when I found a new Jello product called Mixchief.
The first box was a color-changing instant pudding, the next a juice Jello, followed by a soda Jello and finally a color changing Jello. All 4 varieties sold for $.88. Not a bad price (I guess) but I don't buy Jello because of the artificial flavors and colors but I was a little interested in the juice and soda varietys - well more curious. I was furious to discover that what those two $.88 boxes housed was a single packet of unflavored gelation (you can buy 4 for $1.25 in the Knox brand).
I want to play with this idea but meanwhile, I'm going to share the recipe with you.

1 packet unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup boiling water (or boiling soda/juice for more flavor)
1 1/2 cup chilled juice or soda

Dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Add chilled juice/soda. Refrigerate for 4 hours or until set.

Be careful adding fruit, some fruits will prevent a good set-up.

Graham Crackers

I used the recipe from a King Arthur Flour cookbook with some slight alterations. I will say that if you have plans to use these crackers for s'mores then omit the spices. The crackers have great flavor but my family didn't quite care for the cinnamon cracker with chocolate and marshmallow. (BTW - the marshmallows toast really nice on a fork over a candle but for the s'mores we broiled them in the oven.)

Graham Crackers
1 cup graham flour (can use any whole wheat flour)
1 cup AP flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 teas baking powder
1 teas cinnamon
1/4 teas gd cloves
1/2 cup or 1 stick butter, chilled
1/4 cup milk
Mix together all the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter, can use a pastry cutter or a fork. I found it worked best to cut the butter until it was little bits and then use my fingers to mix the remaining butter into the flour. Work until it resembles corn meal (no lumps of any kind). Working with my fingers also allowed me to find any brown sugar lumps.
Add the milk and combine. The dough will be very crumbly and using your hands to squeeze the dough into balls works better than trying to stir the dough, just be sure to break up the balls and repeat until there is no dry flour left. Form two balls and flatten. Wrap in plastic wrap or foil and refrigerate for 1 hour (minimum). Mine ended up staying overnight because I got busy with other things.
Remove 1 section of the dough. The instructions have you roll the dough out and transfer it to a baking sheet. I found it worked better just to work in the baking sheet. I had to remove the handles to my rolling pin to make it fit in the 9x12-13 baking sheet.
Break up the dough into your baking sheet that you have lightly oiled (I used oil for the first and butter for the second - the butter is harder to work with but makes a better tasting cracker). Mash the dough into the baking sheet and work it until it is solid and flat. Roll the dough until it is even and smooth. Using a pizza cutter or knife, cut the dough into the size crackers you wish to use - I aimed for about a 3 inch square cracker. Use a fork to put holes in the crackers so they don't puff up.
Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes or until the crackers brown and are crisp. Let cool before removing from the pan.
Repeat with the second ball of dough.

Kettle Corn

I apologize for not posting yesterday. My husband and I made a nearly fatal error (not exactly but it sure felt like it) by leaving a cake with cream cheese frosting out on the counter. It made us horribly ill. My poor digestive system is not really ready to forgive me yet but it's healing nicely. Food poisoning is never fun. It doesn't happen often for us even though we are not overly cautious when it comes to food sanitation. I believe in good healthy habits but I am not over the top. The cake we had did not say it had cream cheese frosting and since we purchased it we thought nothing of leaving it on the counter over night. Anyway, this leaves me terribly behind with recipes. I am really having to think this through. I have decided, however, that June will be the month of pies. My husband and I have set aside a few days to experiment with pie crusts and will need a fair amount of fillings to try them with. I figure it's a good time to share pie recipes - sweet and savory.
For today, I thought I'd share a simple recipe. Kettle corn is a fair favorite - who can resist those large metal bowls swirling with sweet popping corn. It's an easy thing to make at home and so simple you'll wonder why you ever bought it in the first place. Using a popcorn oil will give you a buttery flavor but a plain cooking oil will let the sweetness take center stage.

Kettle Corn
1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernels
3 TBS white sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
Place the popcorn and sugar in a large pot with vegetable oil. Over a medium heat, begin to pop the popcorn. Constantly shake the pot to ensure that the popcorn kernels and oil do not burn. Once the popping has slowed, remove the pot from heat.

Indian Chicken Bites

I love Indian food. The food is so rich in texture and flavor that one falls in love with it. This recipe is an Indian inspired chicken nugget. There is no breading and can easily be made gluten free. The sauce does not and did not sound appealing to me but it complimented the chicken nicely. Here is the recipe as it was written, my changes are after.

Indian Chicken Bites
2 tablespoons molasses
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 tablespoon Sesame Seed Oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 teaspoons Cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
3 boneless chicken breasts (8 ounces each), trimmed and cut
into 36 cubes
1/4 cup Sun Butter
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 – 2 teaspoons hot sauce
Combine molasses, soy sauce, garlic powder, sesame oil, vinegar, cumin and coriander in a small bowl. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the marinade in a medium bowl. Place chicken in a large sealable plastic bag. Pour the remaining marinade into the bag. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight. Add Sun Butter, water, ketchup and hot sauce to taste to the reserved marinade and whisk to combine. Refrigerate until ready to use. After chicken is done marinating, place them on a broiler pan that has been lined with tinfoil or on a non-stick cookie sheet. Position an oven rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the broiler. Broil the chicken bites until the chicken is cooked through and no longer pink in the middle, 4 to 6 minutes per side. Remove from oven and place a toothpick in each piece. Serve with the reserved Sun Butter sauce for dipping and your favorite raw vegetables.

2 tablespoons molasses
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 tablespoon Sesame Seed Oil
1 tablespoon rice wine (still out of rice vinegar at the house)
1 tbs. garam masala
3 boneless chicken breasts (8 ounces each), trimmed and cut
into 36 cubes
1/4 cup Peanut butter
2 tablespoons ketchup

I created the marinade in a gallon zip-lock back and dropped in all the chicken without reserving any marinade. I let the chicken set for about 30 minutes, turning the chicken every so often. Using a slotted spoon, I removed the chicken and put it on my baking sheet. While the chicken was baking, I poured the marinade into a saucepan and let it come to a boil. I, then, added the peanut butter and let melt. After removing the sauce from the heat I added the ketchup to taste. I had actually scooped out a spoonful of the sauce and added a drop of ketchup for everyone to taste before I added the ketchup - everyone preferred the ketchup added.
I served the chicken with rice and hot veggies.

Cinnamon Snails

Years ago, we saw this recipe on an episode of Zoom. I made it several times for maybe a year or two and then completely forgot about it. Recently, I came across it in my files and thought what a fun recipe. It's super easy. I made it with margarine this weekend and the thing about margarine to remember - when you melt it, it becomes fat sitting on water. I used all the liquid from the margarine and my family could not tell which pieces had been dipped in the fat and which were in the water which goes to show that you could use a different liquid.
It is time consuming to make these "snails" so I suggest making them for special occasions or just because instead of making them a daily snack (unless you have the eaters make their own).
I have only used white bread to make these but I think they could be good with a wheat bread. Homemade bread may not hold up to the rolling (mine wouldn't).

Cinnamon Snails
slice of bread with the crusts removed
cream cheese - leave it out of the refrigerator for a little while so that it gets soft.
three tablespoons melted butter
some sugar mixed with a little bit of cinnamon
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Flatten the slice of bread by rolling over it with a rolling pin. Spread a thin layer of cream cheese over the flattened bread. Roll up the bread and seal the seam with more cream cheese. Slice the roll into three pieces. Dip each piece into the melted butter and then into the cinnamon and sugar. Put them on a cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil. Put the snails in the oven and bake them for 8-10 minutes or until they are crisp and brown. Let your snails cool a bit before eating.

Radish Dip

In one of the e-newsletters I get was a recipe for Radish Dip. I knew that radishes were one of the vegetables often in our bountiful basket so I saved the recipe and tucked it away in my brain. This weekend I discovered a bunch of radishes in my rotter (name my mother gave the crisper when I was young). The radishes, themselves, were still good but the greens attached had grown very slimy. I scrubbed the green slime off the radishes and set them aside to realize that the only ingredient I had for the dip was the radishes (well and some salt).
I have misplaced my flash drive so I can't give you the original recipe's exacts but it was radishes, green onions, sour cream and salt.
I used spanish onion in place of the green onion and I have to say it made the dish very oniony (and more so as the weekend wore on). We ate it on toasted baguette slices which accompanied the dip really well. I may try doing something with the remaining dip since we are now out of toast (like add it to chicken).

Radish Dip
1 bunch radishes, cleaned and diced
1 inch of small spanish onion, minced as finely as possible
1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 teas salt (I used kosher and it was a little salty so start with less and add as needed)
Mix all the ingredients together and serve on toast or crackers.

If I served this with crackers I would have left out the salt due to the saltiness of the crackers. It's a nice fun way to use up radishes.
My husband and father really liked the dip. My son said it wasn't very good and way too hot. Spanish onions are hotter onions than I normally use - I prefer Walla Walla Sweets (they are native to Washington) but Texas Sweets are rather good as well. If you have picky eaters or those who are sensitive to hot onions - switch to the sweet onions or use chives to give it a hint of onion flavor. Don't use more than about 2 tablespoons of minced onion.

Note* After my revelation on Friday about needing food to be a creative experience, I spent the weekend making some amazing dishes. I feel like a new woman. Food not only nurtures the body but it feeds the soul and I think mine has been starving. Stay tuned for several new recipes coming this way - Stuffed chicken breast, lemon cheese, ricotta cheese cookies (made with lemon cheese instead of ricotta), vegetable cakes and indian chicken bites (there may be more that I am forgetting).

Granola Bars

I found a recipe that I love for granola bars. It's simple and just a little bit junky to make it taste good. The original recipe called for rice krispies and oatmeal - along with some other gluten foods. I have omitted everything but the oatmeal and made a new yummy easy to manipulate recipe. If you are oatmeal free - any small cereal will work, experiment on your own.

Granola Bars
20 oz marshmallows (you can use flavored marshmallows but I didn't notice a difference)
3/4 cup Nucoa
1/4 cup honey (if using raw, cook it a little before adding marshmallows)
1/4 cup peanut butter (any nut butter works nicely - we did use sun butter but haven't tried tahini yet)
9 cups oatmeal
1 cup coconut, unsweetened (omit if you can't use coconut)
1-2 cups dried fruit or nuts
2 cups chocolate chips

In large saucepan (heavy bottom preferred) melt butter, honey, peanut butter and marshmallows. Stir often to prevent burning. Remove from heat and add oatmeal and nuts and fruit. Stir until everything is mixed together. Add chocolate chips. (Wait 10 minutes or so if you don't want the chips to melt). Scrape everything out into a jellyroll pan or cookie sheet with sides. Press to make top smooth (may need to oil hands or tools). Let cool. Cut into bars.
I love to play with this recipe and add all sorts of things.