Apple Cinnamon Roll Cobbler

There are changes coming in the next few months and this blog will be moving. I don't know if I have shared this before, I apologize if this is a repeat, but I recently re-opened my business. Years ago, I started making soaps and home made bath products. I eventually turned it into a business I called Sara's Soaks. Life constantly changes and soon Sara's Soaks was gone. This year I decided to bring it back from the dead. I opened an Etsy store and started doing some promotions. My life has often felt pulled in so many directions. I didn't feel like I had focus or a real dream to work towards. The reason I felt this way is because I didn't really believe that my big dream was something I could do. It was too big, too unrealistic, too expensive and so on. So I broke it up into little easy bits. I think it made it harder because I felt like I was being divided and I couldn't focus on anything. I had no clear goal any more. This blog shows that more than anything because every few months I announce how I am changing my focus on the blog. It's not because I am wishy washy (okay maybe I am, just a little) but because I can't seem to figure out how to make this blog work. It goes back to my being divided. I'm in the learning stages of my dream but the real focus has always stayed there in the back of my mind. This week, a friend of mine asked for a few volunteers because she wanted to experiment with helping artists with branding (marketing sort of branding not hot iron branding). I jumped up and said "pick me, pick me" because I am struggling. She sent me a questionnaire which asked me what I wanted in the big picture, what I wanted from her and where do I want to go. My first response was "I don't know" and then I proceeded to tell her exactly what I wanted. I didn't know I had a clear picture, it wasn't until she wrote back to say that starting with "I don't know" holds me back because what she saw was someone with a clear picture of what she wanted. I was shocked, I cried. I was the one holding my self back - I'm the one who didn't feel like my dream was feasible so I sabotaged my dream. She said she gave me permission to dream but what she did was allow me to accept what I want as something I allowed to want. I can't say for certain that I will live my dream but I won't know until I try. As part of the work she is doing for me, she is going to help me build a website that allows me to consolidate all the parts of my dream which will include this blog. I love this blog and now that I have a clearer picture of where I want to go, I should be able to be more clear with this blog. Not much will change but the blogs location. I will still share recipes and my foraging experiments. I will still work on offering natural, inexpensive alternatives. However, I will change from trying to come up with a plan for where this blog is going to knowing where this blog is going. My ultimate goal in life is to have a small sustainable farm, to live off of the food I grow or find in nature and to teach others how to do that. I'm going to go back to herbology and maybe even work towards some certifications but I will share that with you. I will share more failed experiments (there are so many that I keep to myself but could be a good lesson for others). More importantly, I will share more of me with you and my dreams. You'll discover that I am absolutely nuts about highland cattle and had a heartbreaking affair with two beautiful nubian goats (and I can't wait to do it again). I currently live in an apartment but I keep trying to figure out how to convince our manager that chickens can be pets or at least beneficial to our complex. I'm a terrible gardener with dreams of having acres of gardens (I think I have some sort of disorder). With all that said, I did have a recipe and some experiments I want to share. I've been working on making my own chocolate chips. They are not working. I found a recipe which made me so happy but the chips are too soft and when I made cookies all the chocolate melted. The cookies looked severely burnt and there were puddles of unsweetened chocolate left behind. My first batch I tried making with sugar to have the sugar sink to the bottom of the pan leaving really bitter chips. I loved them but my family was not impressed. I made a second batch with corn syrup but they are still not very sweet and too soft for chocolate chip cookies. I don't really like the idea of corn syrup and I think I need to add some wax. I will share the recipe once I get it to where my family will eat them. I have been dehydrating fruit. I saw a blog post about dehydrating fruit and the woman dehydrated beautiful slices of orange. I wasn't sure about that but we had some oranges that no one was eating so I dried them. They are amazing. I cut the oranges in half because I didn't think anyone wanted to eat through the rind before getting to the dried pulp. They are really tasty. I figure they would make a fun treat but also would be great for cooking with. I also made a batch of granny smith apples (half sprinkled with cinnamon). My remaining granny smiths went into this cobbler. I saw a peach cobbler that was covered in cinnamon rolls made from biscuit mix. Since we already make our own biscuit mix and have made cinnamon rolls from it before, this seemed like a no brainer. It's so good and we have no whipped cream (or Cool Whip). Apple Cinnamon Roll Cobbler 5 granny smith apples, cored and sliced (because I used the leftovers from the apples I put in the dehydrator this is just a guess, the apple parts filled a 9x13 pan) lemon juice 1 cup sugar 2 Tablespoons flour 2 cups baking mix (with shortening like Bisquick, if none add 1/4 cup shortening) 3/4 cup milk 1/2 cup butter 1-2 teaspoons cinnamon 1-2 teaspoons sugar After cutting apples soak in water with lemon juice while prepping the dough. Mix together the flour and sugar in a small bowl and set aside. In a larger bowl dump the baking mix (cut in shortening if needed). Pour in the milk about 1/4 cup at a time until you have a stiff rollable dough. If the dough gets too wet sprinkle in a little extra baking mix. Roll the dough out into a large rectangle (about 9 x 13). You want it as rectangular as possible and it no more than 1/4 inch thick. Melt the butter. Brush butter on rolled dough until it has a nice smooth layer. Sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar until a nice thin crust forms. Roll the dough along the long edge until cinnamon roll like. Cut into 1/2 inch disks. Drain apples and layer in a 9x13 pan. Sprinkle over sugar and flour mix. Pour over remaining butter. Top with cinnamon rolls. Bake at 350 for up to an hour, checking every 15-20 minutes. The cobbler is done with the cinnamon rolls are fully cooked and the apples are soft.

Chicken and dumplings

We've been experimenting with MSG. I know it has a bad reputation but I have since discovered that, like all "bad' foods, it's just misunderstood. MSG offers a flavor boost with less sodium than salt. It also has nutritents that salt doesn't offer and we can't get from many foods. There's a reason it's popular in Asian cooking but like soy it might now be something our bodies are used to. I'm sharing this because our chicken and dumplings were seasoned with MSG. If it makes you uncomfortable or you don't want to use it - use salt, no big deal. Just note it might take more salt than MSG.

Chicken and Dumplings
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 pound package of frozen mixed veggies (we choose carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli)
water
1 1/2 tsp msg
2 1/4 cups baking mix (homemade unsalted, if not homemade omit msg for dumplings)
2/3 cup milk
3/4 tsp msg
Chop chicken into bite sized pieces. Add to dutch oven or equally sized pot. Fill pot halfway with water. Bring to boil, let simmer for up to an hour. Taste stock, if not very chickeny you can add 1 tsp or so of chicken bouillion. Add veggies and 1 1/2 tsp msg. Let simmer for an additional 30 minutes, adding water as necessary to keep pot half full. Make dumplings - add baking mix and msg to a large bowl. Add milk, slowly, until the dough just comes together. Drop by spoonfuls into soup until all the dough is used up. It's okay if the dumplings touch or crowd. Cook for 10-15 minutes and flip over the dumplings. Let cook an additional 10 minutes. Serve soup with 2-3 dumplings.

Orange and Walnut Scones

I finally took some time last night to play with the bisquick mix I made this past weekend. I started with making biscuits. The recipe is easy - 2 1/4 cups mix to 2/3 cups milk. I used my homemade yogurt because we are out of milk and I was feeling too lazy to make up a batch of powdered milk. The biscuits came out nicely. I don't roll out my biscuits so I let the dough stay sticky (bake at 450 for 8-10 minutes). The texture of the biscuits was probably the best I have ever made. They crumbled just a little bit but held up to buttering and adding honey. My only complaint is they were a little bland. Of course, that made them perfect for toppings but eating just a plan biscuit was boring. I think that comes from not adding salt and plain shortening to the mix.
However, this boring mix was the perfect vessel for making an amazing scone. I had gone on the bisquick site to get the biscuit recipe and there were a number of scone recipes. I took the basic information and created my own scone. The only difference with my recipe and the plain recipe is the addition of orange extract and walnuts. (I did add yogurt instead of heavy cream.) Feel free to change the recipe to suit your needs and your cupboards. I plan on playing with it lots more.

Orange Walnut Scones
2 cups baking mix
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1 egg
1 teas orange extract
1/2 chopped walnuts
Combine baking mix and sugar. Make a well in the center. Add the yogurt and the egg. Mix well until the dry ingredients are wet, adding in the extract as you go. Mix in walnuts and stir to evenly incorporate them. Pat the dough into a large flat round (dust with additional mix to prevent sticking). Lay on baking sheet and pat flat (to about 3/4 inch to 1 inch thick). Cut into 8 wedges but do not seperate. Bake at 425 for 12 minutes.

Dinner Party Chicken

I swear even when my plan is to make a recipe exactly as it's written I just can't do it. I wanted to try this recipe from Mystery Lover's Kitchen using the lemon cheese in my freezer from our summer of fresh goat's milk. It was the only substitute I had planned until I realized that recipe needed the bones and skin left on the chicken (I always buy boneless skinless in the bag because of convienence). I told myself I could still deal with that and would just pound the chicken flat and roll the breasts around the stuffing. Then I realized that I didn't have any dried cranberries. Dried cranberries is a staple in our house and early that day I had passed over buying some because I knew I had a ton left in the house (apparently we used them up with baking at some point in time). So when all was said and done I didn't have any of the ingredients for this recipe.
Here is the original recipe:
Dinner Party Chicken
6 bone-in chicken breasts (with skin)
¾ cup ricotta cheese
1/3 cup sweetened dried cranberries
¼ cup dried bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten
2 tsp dried thyme
Salt and pepper to suit yourself
2 tsp butter and 2 tsp of oil
Combine cheese, cranberries, bread crumbs, egg, time and seasonings in a bowl.
Make a 2 – 3 inch slit on the side of each chicken breast, deep enough to put filling. Stuff 3 or 4 tablespoons of the filling into each chicken breast. You can prepare the recipe to this point and refrigerate the chicken until an hour before you plan to serve it. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat the oil and butter in a non-stick pan and brown the top of the chicken breasts. Transfer to a baking dish lined with aluminum foil. I use a jelly roll pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until cooked through. Don’t over bake! It will smell wonderful while cooking. If there's any left over, it will be great - hot or cold - the next day.

Now here is what I did:
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
3/4 cup lemon cheese (next week I will provide a recipe for this fresh cheese)
5 fresh strawberries, chopped
1/4 cup bread crumbs
2 eggs (ours were quite small)
dried thyme
Pound the chicken flat and even. Mix together the remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Set a portion of the filling on top of the chicken and roll it closed (I stuffed them so that only the far ends touched and did not overlap). Bake at 350 until the chicken is fully cooked. Because the chicken was so thin this only took about 20 minutes but I may have overcooked it slightly. The chicken was still juicy and tender and so tasty.

I had leftover filling and because of the raw eggs and contact with the raw chicken I opted to turn it into biscuits by adding 2 cups bisquick and the necessesary liquid. From there I followed the instructions on the box.

Chicken Biscuits

I try to plan meals before going grocery shopping so I know that I have everything I need, somehow last week I forgot what I was planning to make when I opted to not get certain things at the store. It happens - I change plans due to prices and sales. The Chicken Cresent Rolls I had planned to make turned out to be a more expensive dish than I had originally planned for. When I passed on the cream cheese I thought it was part of breakfast because I had planned on getting bagels (I wrote bagels down so we'd have something to go with the leftover cream cheese). Anyway, last night when I started to pull out the ingredients for this recipe - I realized that I didn't have anything but the chicken. Not one to be deterred, I made up a new recipe and we found a new family favorite. I will post the original recipe at the end of this post. Canned biscuits were on a great sale last week (3 for $1) so I had picked some up to replace the cresent rolls because those were nearly $3 for 1. Over the weekend my husband baked a 3 pound bag of boneless, skinless chicken breasts to prepare for a couple of dishes for the week.
So I had chicken and biscuits but I really wanted those special rolls. Okay enough with the build-up and on to the recipe

Chicken Biscuits
3 chicken breasts baked, cooled (preferrably heavily seasoned with flavored pepper and a mix seasoning - we used Mrs. Dash Feista Lime Seasoning and Citrus pepper) and chopped
1 small onion, minced (I really think 1/2 would have been better - it was too oniony for my taste but no one else felt that way)
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
1 lemon
1 cup plain yogurt
1 tin canned biscuits
Mix chicken, onion and celery. Juice lemon over meat and stir in yogurt. Roll biscuits flat. Top with a generous spoonful of "salad" and pinch closed. Bake on cookie sheet for 10-15 minutes at 350. Eat and enjoy.

Chicken Crescent Rolls
6 oz cooked, chopped chicken
4 oz light cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup chopped mushroom
2 T diced green onion
1 pkg crescent rolls (can of 8)
1 T melted butter
3/4 cup seasoned croutons, crushed
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine chopped chicken, chopped mushroom, green onion, and softened cream cheese in a bowl. Unfold crescent rolls into rectangles. Separate until there are 2 rectangles (perforations pinched together) to form a larger rectangle (there will be 4 rectangles, total). Add a 1/2 cup dollop of the chicken mixture to the center of each of the 4 rectangles. Pull the dough up over the mixture and pinch the dough closed. Drizzle with melted butter and sprinkle with crushed croutons. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes at 375, covering loosely with aluminum foil until the last five minutes.