Roasted Vegetable Soup

This is absolutely perfect for Fall! My girls and I created our own holiday years ago. It's on October 1st and we make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, decorate the house for Halloween with Halloween music, go shopping for Halloween costumes, have soup for dinner and watch a Halloween movie with hot chocolate. Since we're in Idaho we get all 4 seasons and it is GORGEOUS here! We soak it up like you would not believe. The girls get more excited for this holiday than Christmas. It's absolutely hilarious.

Anyways, this soup just might be a strong possibility for soup of choice on our holiday! That's saying something, because they take it seriously and everything has to be perfect.

The original recipe doesn't call for tortellini pasta, but my kids have bottomless stomachs so I threw in a little more substance.

Recipe adapted from: Roasted Vegetable Soup- Pioneer Woman

What you will need:

• 1 large zucchini, sliced in half and then cut in half moons
• 1 yellow squash, sliced in half and then cut in half moons
• 1 yellow onion, sliced
• 1 red and yellow Bell pepper, cut in strips
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 c Olive oil
• 1 T Italian seasoning
• 1/2 T salt
• 1/2 T pepper
• 4 c chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
• 14 oz can stewed tomatoes
• 1 Bay leaf
• 1 c heavy cream

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 475*
• Spray baking sheet with nonstick spray
• Combine all veggies into a large bowl with olive oil and seasonings to toss to chat
• Arrange vegetables on baking sheet in an even layer and roast for 15 minutes
• Add vegetables into crock pot with stewed tomatoes, chicken stock, heavy cream and Bay leaf
• Cook on low for 3 hours
• Remove Bay leaf and blend soup until it's reached desired texture

Pretzel Bites

Okay these pretzels from The Slow Roasted Italian are the BOMB! They were unbelievably easy to make but have the quality of "mall pretzel bites.......but BETTER!" (as said by my kids) They don't feel or taste like you just cut up some dough and put them in the oven. They are amazing! My only regret is that I only made one batch. It was enough for our family of 4 ( and a half if you count the little guy who hate maybe 3 and then focused on his chips), but we all were kind of sad that they were gone so I would have loved to have some leftovers! Oh, the best part? You don't need to wait for the dough to rise.

I read a few recipes for pretzel bites and read through comments. I saw a lot of people complaining of their second or third batches coming out with a really bitter taste to them. Everyone seemed to conclude that it must have been because they put their pretzel bites into the baking soda bath, baked them in the oven, and then put the next round of pretzel bites into the baking soda bath (rather than having all of the bites in the baking soda bath without long waiting times between more being added into the bath).

So, in my directions I have you getting all of your pretzel bites in and out of the baking soda bath before you bake any of the them. They all turned out great, so who knows if waiting to put in other batches later on causes a bitter taste.

What you will need:

• 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
• 1 1/4 C warm milk (110*-120*)
• 2 T honey or sugar
• 3 1/4 C flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 C baking soda
• 8 quart pot of water
• 1 egg, beaten with 2 tsp. cold water

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 450*
• Warm your milk up and pour into the bowl of a stand mixer
• Sprinkle the yeast into the milk
• Add the sugar to feed the yeast
• Let the yeast get nice and foamy, about ten minutes
• Once the yeast is ready, add in the salt and mix together with the paddle attachment
• Add in the flour, one cup at a time. You want the dough to be tacky but not sticky. (I ended up with 3 cups and 3 tablespoons)
• Once your dough is ready, replace the paddle attachment with a dough hook and knead for about 3 minutes
• While that's kneading, spray your counter top lightly with some non stick spray. Using flour will make the dough too difficult to work with
• Turn your dough out onto the counter and divide (I just used a pizza cutter) into quarters. 
• Start boiling your 8 quart pot of water
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with non stick spray, set aside.
• Beat one egg with 2 tsp cold water, set aside
• Grab one of the dough quarters and divide that piece into 4 more pieces
• Roll out each of those 4 pieces gently until you can cut at least 4 pretzel bite size pieces from it
• Continue on with the rest of the dough, you should end up with at least 64 pretzel bites
• Carefully add the baking soda into the boiling water
• Dump a bunch of the pretzel bites into the boiling water and let it sit for about 20 seconds
• Remove with a spatula or slotted spoon of some kind and place onto the baking sheet
• Do this with all of the pretzel bites until they have all been in the baking soda bath 
• Brush pretzel bites with egg wash and add kosher salt
• Bake for about 15 minutes (mine were done after 10)

Banana Muffins

So these are preetttyy much exactly like my banana bread recipe. Except I've got this with a little less sugar, no cinnamon flavors and some baking powder thrown into the mix. I of course kept my brown sugar in there because once I started doing it that way I couldn't stop. :)

These are very frickin' delicious. I usually get around 14 muffins using a regular sized muffin tin. I've been reaching for this recipe more often than banana bread once my bananas are ready because they bake up in 15 minutes (13 minutes if it's my oven) instead of nearly an hour with the loaf of banana bread!

What you will need:

• 3 ripe bananas, mashed up
• 1/3 c butter, melted
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1/3 c brown sugar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 1/2 c all purpose flour

Directions:

•  Preheat oven to 350*
• Spray a muffin pan, or place cupcake liners
• Mix all wet ingredients together in a mixing bowl (mashed bananas, melted butter, egg and vanilla)
• Add in the sugars and mix well
• Add in the baking soda and baking powder and mix well
• Add in the flour a little at a time mixing well between each addition
• Scoop batter into each muffin tin about 3/4 of the way full (I use a large cookie scoop which makes it go by really fast and no mess!)

Olive Garden Bread Sticks Copycat

My family is no stranger to the Olive Garden. My husband worked there off and on for 8 years, including working as the culinary assistant. So he gave me a few pointers on these bread sticks, but part of it just wasn't going to happen (drenching them in "well it's not really butter....I think it's worse than margarine. It melts at room temperature so they just paint it on until it's completely saturated"), and some wasn't possible (being shipped to my doorstep so I can just pop them in the oven).

I feel like the flavor of these were super spot on and extremely delicious. They were all eaten in a few minutes! The texture was mostly there, but I think I kneaded my dough too long by accident so they weren't as soft! I also didn't portion out  or "roll" the dough at all. I chose a much easier way, which turned out to work perfect! So I'll write the recipe the way it originally is from Cooking Classy , but I'll include my notes at the bottom, too :).

PS- most of my pictures for the next few months will be sad to look at. I don't have any special lighting so once it's dark so early, I'm working with dark natural light and bright awkward artificial light. So it is what it is!

What you will need:

• 1 C + 2 T warm water
• 1 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
• 2 T sugar, divided
• 3-3 1/4 C flour*
• 1 3/4 tsp. salt
• 3 T vegetable oil
• salt*
• 2 T butter
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder*

Directions:

•  Using the whisk attachment (or just a whisk yourself), whisk together the warm water and yeast with 1/2 tsp sugar until the years is dissolved
• Let that sit for a good 10 minutes until it's nice and frothy
• Add in the reamining sugar (1 T+ 2 1/2 tsp)
• Add in the salt
• Add in the vegetable oil and, using the paddle attachment, blend until just combined
• Add in 1 1/2 C of the flour and blend until just combined
• Switch to the dough hook and add the last 1 1/2 C of flour while the dough hook kneads the dough until the dough is pulling away from the sides, smooth and elastic (still slightly sticky), adding in up to another 1/4 c of flour if needed*
• Place ball of dough into a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap to raise in a warm setting for about 1 1/2 hours
• Pinch down risen dough
• Divide dough into 12 equal pieces (2 oz. each by weight)*
• Roll each piece into a 9" rope*
• Place each rope onto a buttered baking sheet
• Cover and let them raise again for another hour
• Preheat oven to 425*
• Bake for 11-13 minutes*
• Run the end of a stick of butter over the top of the bread sticks straight out of the oven
• Sprinkle on the salt and garlic powder

My notes-
*It says you can add up to 1/4 C more of flour, but I found that after the initial 3 C it was plenty
*I would reccomend not using regular table salt. Something a big bigger or more crunchy is nice. I just used some Kosher salt with a tad bigger
*I didn't measure out the salt or the garlic powder, I just sprinkled them on until it looked right
*Instead of portioning everything out, I rolled out the dough into a large square. Using a pizza cutter, I trimmed off the edges so I had a nice straight sided square. After that I cut strips into the dough with the pizza cutter horizontally, and then one slice down the middle vertically, so I had strips of dough.
I put them on the baking sheet and kind of sculpted the ends just a little so they were a bit more "round" but it's not necessary. They'll still come out round once they've baked!
*Since my bread sticks were a little shorter, they were done after 8 minutes and I turned the broiler on the for the last few seconds to get the golden brown look

Cheddar Jalapeno Bread (3 Ingredients)

This stuff is crazy and addicting. My brother and sister in law made it years and years and years ago. My husband and I got a random craving for it the other day but no real memory of how to make it. We're pretty sure we got it right?! Because it was delicious.

My husband swears its perfect match is dipping it in bleu cheese dressing. I swear its Ranch. Either way, there's a match made in heaven here for all of you! It's so easy. Practically fool Proof!

What you will need:

• 1 loaf Rhodes Frozen bread dough, thawed
• 1 can diced jalapeno's & some of the juice
• Grated cheddar cheese

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 375* once the dough is thawed
• Roll out the dough. I'm not really sure what shape we ended up with before we started piling things on
• Dump the cheddar cheese on the dough
• Sprinkle the diced jalapeno's all over the dough
• Drizzle some of the jalapeno juice over everything
• Then just use your hands and roll it all together until everything is mixed in and you have some kind of ball type shape of a loaf
• Sprinkle the bottom of a baking dish with some more grated cheese
• Place the dough ball on top of the cheese
• Bake for about 20 minutes
• Let it sit for 10 minutes or so before slicing in
• DIP IN RANCH! OR BLEU CHEESE! OR BOTH! But only if you don't want to stop eating it

Garlic Bread (Garlic Butter)

A while back I wanted garlic bread but didn't want to go to the store to get some of that pre-made stuff you stick in the oven to warm up. But rubbing some raw garlic all over a piece of toast didn't sound great either (yeah, that's literally what I heard one time....on the FOOD NETWORK. WHAT?). I told myself to just suck it up and figure something out.

I took a pretty simple approach to the whole thing but really wanted the flavors to stand out. What I came up with is extremely fool proof and I have been using it on EVERYTHING. Including the Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks. I used it for my Baked Salmon and added in some other seasonings with some lemon juice. It's just so nice to have this recipe on hand!

What you will need:

• 1/2 tsp. butter
• 4 cloves garlic, grated
• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• Any seasonings you'd like. A safe bet would be some thyme or rosemary

Directions:

• Grate the garlic into the 1/2 tsp of butter while it's warming up in a pan
• When the butter is melted and the garlic has swam around for a tiny minute, pour (and scrape every last bit of the butter/garlic along with it) into a small bowl with the softened 1/2 stick of butter
• Mix in any seasonings you like
• Spread over bread slices
• Bake at 375 for about 10-15 minutes

Caramelized Almond French Toast

I had French toast on the dinner menu tonight, but I wasn't feeling very thrilled about it by the time dinner time rolled around. I remembered this caramel sauce I use with my cinnamon rolls and thought it might be yummy to incorporate into the french toast somehow!

I wasn't positive how it was going to turn out with the almond flavoring and the caramel but OOOOO it turned out GOOD! No syrup necessary! It has such an amazing deep flavor. Aah.

What you will need:

French Toast

• 8 slices bread
• 4 eggs
• 1 C milk
• 2 tsp Almond extract

Caramel sauce 

• 1/2 C packed brown sugar
• 5 T butter
• 1 tsp water

Directions:

French toast

• Whisk together eggs, milk and almond extract in a baking dish
• On medium high heat, butter a pan or griddle 
• Dip each side of each slice of bread into the egg mixture
• Cook each side until golden brown and cooked through

Caramel Sauce

• Stir all ingredients together and heat until creamy and smooth
• Dip one side of each bread piece into the caramel sauce
• Place that same side back onto the pan/griddle and cook for about one minute

Creamy Chicken Dumplings

They're technically called "Crescent Chicken" but I didn't feel like that had enough umph to it.

It all started when I had some chicken in the fridge ready to be used for Creamy Crock Pot Chicken and Broccoli. I went to get it in the crock pot and realized I had forgotten to get one of the ingredients at the store. No big deal except....

Except it was Sunday. 

I don't shop on Sundays. 

So here's my random thrown together dinner.

It was just me and my two daughters eating and we ate all of them between the three of us. So comfortee and delicious. Mmm! I wish I had more now that I'm writing about them! 

What you will need:

• Jumbo Crescent Rolls
• Chicken, chopped (I had about 6 small tenderloins but a couple breasts will be great!)
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1 empty can of cream of chicken soup filled with milk
• Grated cheese
• *Optional* Seasonings of your choice (I used salt, pepper and onion powder on my chicken and then added a bunch of pepper to the cream)

Directions:

• Season and bake your chicken and chop it up
• Turn oven to 350*
• Combing and heat up soup and milk until it's thickened a bit (season if you'd like)
• Fill your crescent rolls with the chicken and cheese and roll them up accordingly
• Place the dumplings into a baking dish (I used an 8x8 since I had the smaller sized crescent rolls)
• Pour the cream over the dumplings
• Bake for about 30 minutes

Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks

So I usually make garlic bread with some nice bread from the bakery and my own garlic butter spread. So when I found this recipe for dough to make bread sticks I had to try it out! She and I do our garlic spread a bit different but I'm sure either way will be delicious! My husband was going to be late for dinner and I literally had to bribe my kids to leave him some of these. They were extremely upset, but obliged and left him 3. He took one bite and "MMMMMMMM" with his eyes closed. They're good. Real good.

What you will need:

Bread Sticks (can also be used for pizza dough!)

• 1 C warm water (I aim for 110*)
• 2 1/4 Active Dry Yeast
• 1 T sugar
• 2 tsp. salt
• 2 T olive oil
• 3 C bread flour (I used all purpose and it still ended up amazing! I only ended up using 2 3/4 C)

Garlic Butter Spread (and cheeses)

• 6 T butter, softened
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 T seasonings of your choice ( I used a blend of some rosemary and thyme but get creative! Or skip this step, it won't matter :) )
• Grated Parmesan cheese to taste
• Grated Mozzarella cheese  to taste

Directions:

Bread Sticks

• In your mixing bowl, sprinkle the yeast and sugar over your warm water and let it activate and foam up
• Add salt, olive oil and half the flour to the mixing bowl and combine
• Add flour 1/2 C at a time until your dough is sticky but won't come off onto your fingers when you touch it
• Knead the dough for 6 minutes exactly 
• The dough will be able to scoop out of the bowl and not be stuck to the sides
• Scoop the dough out and mold it into a bowl
• Spray your mixing bowl with non stick spray and put the ball of dough back in
• Cover with plastic wrap or cover with a towel and place somewhere warm to rise for 1-2 hours
•  Preheat the oven to 500*
• Roll out the dough out into a nice big circle
• Spread the garlic butter all over on top
• Sprinkle both your cheeses on top (I also added a little parsley to mine)
• Bake in the oven for 9 minutes

Garlic Butter Spread

• Grate garlic into the softened butter and mix together
• Add your seasonings (optional) and combine
• Spread over dough
• Top with cheese

Pizza Dough

So once upon a time I swore off baking anything with yeast for 3 1/2 years. Not because of some superior knowledge of how deadly it is (because literally every food in existence is apparently trying to kill us according to the internet), but because I couldn't figure out how to bake with it in Portland. :(

To be fair, I only tried maybe 5 or 6 times before giving up. No matter what I did it was always really dense and awkward. I hated it. So I avoided it.

Back in Idaho and I'm celebrating by baking everything I can think of with yeast. Pizza dough included.

What better recipe to try than....*gasp*...Pioneer Woman? So unlike me....;)

This was beyond easy to make. I'm angry at how easy it was to be honest. It was easier than driving to the store to buy premade, or waiting at home for delivery. Plus my girls loved every second of it. They're on a dough kick like me. It's basically like Christmas around here when they find out I'm making more dough for them to play with.

Anyways. Fun, delicious, easy.  

This recipe also makes two crusts.

So don't go using all the dough for one pizza and then yelling at me for it coming out skiwompus.
Refrigerate the other half if you plan on using it in the next few days. Or freeze it!

Enjoy!

What you will need:

• 1 tsp. active dry or instant yeast
• 1 1/2 C warm water (I stick with 110*)
• 4 C all purpose flour
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/3 C extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

• In the bowl you plan on mixing in, combine the flour and the salt
• In a separate bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and let it get all foamy
• Slowly add in the olive oil to the flour in your mixing bowl and combine
• Add your foamy yeasty water to the flour mixture and combine
• Grab another mixing bowl and spray some non stick spray in there
• Form your dough into a ball and roll it around a bit in the non stick spray bowl
• Cover the dough with plastic wrap and keep in the fridge until you're ready to use it (I made mine the night before and pulled it out the next evening. Made things go really fast and easy! I also plopped my dough into a large ziploc....it seemed to be just fine that way!) 
• When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 500*
• Use your hands and fingers to press the dough out to the shape you want
• Add your toppings
• Bake for 12-15 minutes!

Sweet Mini Monkey Rolls

So I had been wanting to try this recipe for over a year and just now got around to it. I feel like I didn't coat them in as much of the cinnamon/brown sugar as I wanted AND I overbaked them :(. But they were still good and I will definitely be making them again!

I found a lot of different ways to make these, but ultimately felt that the Rhodes Blog had it best! And their step by step pictures are awesome.

Umm, I couldn't wait for them to cool at all before I glazed them so thus, the pool of glaze at the bottom. I'm not even mad.

 

What you will need:

Mini Monkey Rolls

• 12 Rhodes rolls, thawed but still cold
• 6 T butter, melted
• 2 T corn syrup
• 1/2 Brown sugar
• 2 tsp. cinnamon

Icing

• 1 C powdered sugar
• 1 T butter, melted
• 2 T milk
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Mini Monkey Rolls

• Follow the directions on the back of the Rhodes rolls package for thawing (you don't want them to be puffy and rising yet when you start to use them. They need to be cold, but still able to press down into them.)
• Once they've reached their thawed state, melt your butter and add the karo syrup to it in a small bowl
• In another shallow dish, mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon
• Take a roll and use a pizza cutter to cut each roll into 6 pieces (I only did 4 pieces, 6 would be better)
• Drop all the pieces into the butter and then plop them into the cinnamon/sugar mixture
• Coat each ball with the cinnamon/sugar (like..a lot)
• Place the balls in a greased muffin tin or greased muffin tin cupcake liner
• Repeat with other balls of dough
• Cover with greased plastic wrap and let them rise until double in size
• Preheat over to 350*
• Bake for 15-20 minutes

Icing

• Combine ingredients and drizzle over monkey rolls

Sandwich Bread

Is there really anything better than freshly baked bread? (yes, there is, but go with it) The puffy and fluffy warmth smeared with butter and homemade strawberry jam. Mmmm. 

I was thinking about being annoyed that I was out of sandwich bread on Sunday (we don't shop on Sundays), and then I thought myself, self, just make some. Like, duh.

And so I did. I found this recipe and with quite literally zero negative comments about it I decided to try it out.

This is not that pillowy delicate kind of bread. This is soft and delicious on the inside with a browned crust on the outside, but the crust isn't hard or crunchy. So to me, that was perfect for sandwich bread!

I was right. It was good right out of the oven with the butter and jam, too of course. But that wasn't my purpose. The girls fell in love with it and it holds up well for sandwiches just like I wanted. And trust me, if I can make it and have it turn out right the first time, you can, too.

Let's talk about my loaves for a second. The directions in the recipe confused me a little about how to make it "loaf" looking (first timer with sandwich bread here). The first one I made was the one you see the most in this picture. The one on the left kinda went wooop in the middle because I had it rolled up all nice and then I remembered that I promised my girls I'd give them some dough to play with. So I pulled off some of it and threw it in the pan without much more attention to it. And so....I just kind of pretending like it wasn't there for the showy pictures ;).

My point is that it was surprisingly easy to get this "bread look." If my first loaf can turn out looking like this, then it isn't hard. I'm sure all of you already knew this, though.

 

What you will need:

•  2 packets active dry yeast (or 4 1/2 tsp. )
• 3/4 C warm water (I try to get mine right at 110* but I think anywhere between 110*-115* works)
• 1/4 C granulated sugar
• 1 T salt
• 3 T unsalted butter, room temperature and cut into chunks
• 2 2/3 C additional warm water (I assumed this meant the same type of warm for the yeast so I aimed for 110*)
• 9-10 C all purpose flour (I got to 9 and wondered if I'd put too much in so I stopped there. I continued to worry about that all the way until I ate the bread haha. It was fine!)
• More butter to run on the loaves after they're out of the oven (important!)

Directions:

•  In your mixing bowl, add the warm water and sprinkle yeast on top
• Let the yeast activate for a few minutes (about 10 minutes)
• With your paddle attachment, add sugar, salt and butter and mix
• Add in the extra 2 2/3 C water and mix
• Add 5 C flour at once and mix
• Add the rest of the flour 1 C at a time 
• If you have a smaller mixing bowl, split the dough into two equal parts and place one part in a large greased bowl
• Keep the other part in the mixing bowl and switch to your dough hook attachment
• Kneed the dough for about 10 minutes and place dough into a large grease bowl
• Take the other part of dough and kneed it for 10 minutes, placing back into the large greased bowl (if you have a larger mixing bowl, just kneed the dough all at once. I didn't want to burn out my motor so I split them up)
• Cover both bowls with a cloth and place in warm area to rise for about an hour
• Punch the dough down and roll out to 12x12 square
• Roll the dough up like you would a cinnamon roll dough and pinch together along the side
• Tuck the ends of the loaf underneath the dough and place in a greased 9" bread loaf pan
• Cover the dough and let it rise in a warm place again for another hour
• Preheat oven to 425* and lower your oven rack so the bread will have room to puff up 
• Bake your loaves for 15 minutes uncovered
• Cover the dough with tin foil and bake for another 15 minutes
• As soon as loaves are out of the oven, butter all over the tops
• Take loaves out of the pans and let them cool on a cooling rack

Banana Bread

So this is my banana bread recipe. It's pretty standard with just a couple specials. I will never make banana bread without brown sugar again! It is my husbands faaavorite. The ingredients need extremely minimal muscle power to mix by hand, so no need to bust out the kitchen-aid (I love this when I am making banana bread and some other goodies on the side).

I accidentally left this loaf in the oven for too long when I saw my daughter trying to bust through the sliding screen door, you know, "for fun."

What you will need:

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/3 C butter, melted
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1/2 C brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 C flour

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degree's
• Mix the mashed banana's and butter until blended
• Mix in the sugar, egg and vanilla one at a time
• Add in the cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, baking soda, salt and flour and mix well
• Pour batter into bread loaf pan and bake for about 40-50 minutes

Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Toast

WHY HAS NO ONE EVER TOLD ME ABOUT THIS?!

Why? Seriously why? I am actually feeling mad about it. It isn't fair.

Call me stupid, but I literally had no idea there was ever any other way to make cinnamon toast aside from putting it in the toaster, spreading butter on it and sprinkling it with cinnamon sugar.

Then I check out Pioneer Woman's recipe (I was like seriously? A recipe for this? How dumb...boy was I wrong) and she's basically begging me to never ever ever do it my way again. 

I get it! I totally get it now, Ree. I promise I will never ever ever make it the toaster way again! EVER. My life has changed because of this. I only made enough for me and possibly for my youngest if she wanted some. I'm not even sure how much time passed by while I ate these. I went into a happy food land where angels from heaven were singing and fluffy bunnies bounced by me in a large sunny meadow. With the most beautiful flowers anyone has ever seen. 

It does not even taste like typical cinnamon toast. It tastes more like a cinnamon roll/cinnamon monkey bread. Probably because she uses VANILLA in this recipe.

Pioneer Woman warns to keep a close eye on it after you've turned the broiler on. She wasn't kidding. I turned for a second and the edges went black! You can imagine how amazing these are if I still ended up in happy food land even with burned edges?

This is the recipe Pioneer Woman has on her site, though I quartered the recipe and still had plenty for about 4 slices.

What you will need:

• 2 sticks butter, softened 
• 1 C sugar
• 2-3 tsp. cinnamon
• 2-3 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degree's
• Smash the butter down with a fork
• Pour sugar, cinnamon and vanilla over butter
• Smash and mix all ingredients together to form a creamy paste-like texture
• Spread a good tablespoon (or more) onto each slice, bringing it all the way to the edges
• Line bread slices up on baking sheet
• Bake for 10 minutes
• Turn on the broiler and broil for a couple minutes (seriously stand by the oven and peak in every 10 seconds!)
• The cinnamon butter will be all bubbly and yummy looking when ya take it out
• EAT IT ALL

Crack Bread

My sister in law made this for me once and I got a little obsessed. I've tried it a few different ways and you can too, but these are the basics of how I like it.

You will need:

• 1/4 C. melted butter
• 1 T ranch dressing mix
• 1 round sourdough bread loaf (I buy mine at Albertsons and I've used different kinds of bread but the sourdough tastes better for some reason even though I don't like sourdough bread in general)
• 1 C. grated cheese
• 1 T bacon bits (I put these on half of mine)

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
• Line a baking dish with tin foil and place your sourdough bread ontop of it
• Using a bread knife, slice your bread into a "grid," starting by cutting vertically first, then horizontally across the vertical lines-

• Using your hands, try and spread apart the newly formed bread squares to separate it a little and set the bread in/on your baking dish
• In a small bowl with the melted butter, mix in the ranch dressing mix
• Pour the mixture inside the bread first, then use the rest to coat the top of the bread and add bacon bits if desired-

• Bake the bread at 350 degrees for 15 minutes
• Grate your cheese while the bread is baking
• Pull out the bread and put the grated cheese in the crevases and a layer of cheese ontop. I added a little mozerella cheese I had leftover from this recipe as well.
• Place the bread back into the oven for an additional 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted how you prefer

**I've been wanting to try this with Garlic oil and various seasonings rather than butter and ranch mix but haven't tried yet! I love recipe's that you can build on wherever your imagination takes you!**

Homemade Rolls

I grew up with these rolls. Everyone who has had them loves them, so I made sure I'd know how to make them. I always called them "My mom's rolls," but I am proud to say I have graduated to having people call them "Kira's rolls." It feels weird. But I'll take it.

They are definitely soft and fluffy. My kids can't get enough of them. My husband likes to eat them with jam in the mornings and my girls will take them as-is or slathered in butter. My oldest insisted I put one in her lunch bag for school. They are so buttery and yummy!

Excuse my picture. It's the only one of I have right now! Changing that soon :).

What you will need:

• 3/4 C. warm water
• 2 packets active dry yeast
• tsp. sugar
• 1 C. milk
• 1 egg
• 4 T butter
• 1/3 C. sugar
• 1 T salt
• 5 C. flour (I usually use 4C so I don't over-flour when I roll out the dough)
• Small bowl of melted butter

Directions:

• In small bowl or large glass, combine water, 1 tsp. sugar and yeast
• In small pan, melt butter with milk and egg on low heat
• In a large bowl, add 1/3 C sugar and salt
• Once butter is melted, add the mixture into the large bowl
• Making sure the mixture in the large bowl isn't too warm, add in your yeast mixture
• Mix together and add flour in 1 C at a time (your dough will still be very sticky! It will not be totally able to form into a ball. Don't worry about this)
• Cover bowl with a towel and let the dough raise for about 45 minutes (should raise about 2")
• When your dough has risen, flour a hard surface and your rolling pin very well
• Roll it out to about 1" thick (again, even after it has risen, you will need to scoop out the dough from how sticky it is but it should pull from the bowl just fine. The dough will get less sticky the more it's rolled out with all that flour)
• Use a large round cookie cutter or the top of a glass to cut out circles of the dough
• When you're holding one of the dough circles, let the bottom half of it stretch out a little
• Dip the bottom half each dough circle into some melted butter
• Fold dough circle in half (making sure the butter is on the inside)
• Pinch it at the ends so it doesn't come undone
• Lay each one close together side by side in rows on a cookie sheet
• Cook at 375 degrees for about 10 mins. or until golden brown on the top
• Rub some butter all over them after they're out of the oven (important)

Strombolli

What you will need:

• 2-3 loaves Roads frozen bread
• 2 lbs. Italian sausage
• 1 tsp. Italian seasoning
• 1/2 lb. Romano Cheese
• 1/2 lb. Mozerella Cheese
• Marinara sauce of choice for dipping (I just use Prego spaghetti sauce honestly)

Directions:

• Thaw bread according to their instructions (approximately 4-7 hours)
• Brown the Italian sausage with Italian seasoning
• Roll out your dough into somewhat of a rectangular shape
• Layer the dough with the meat and cheeses
• Roll the dough up
• Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes
• Cut into slices
• Serve with sauce