Great Aunt Florence's Easter Orange Roll

Happy Almost Easter everyone!  Eating these orange rolls warm out of the oven on Easter morning has been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember.

Basically it takes the idea of monkey bread and replaces brown sugar and cinnamon with white sugar and orange peel.  I use this homemade dough recipe for the bread, but you could easily just use a package of Rhodes unbaked dinner rolls.  My dough can be completely formed and finished the day before, you can wait 24 hours before you finally bake it, a nice plus for a busy morning.

4 & 1/2 cups flour (you may need closer to 5 cups)
4 tsp. active yeast
1/3 cup sugar
1 & 1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk, warmed to about 125 degrees F
6 TB. butter, room temp
3 large eggs, room temp
Pam for greasing the bundt pan

1 cup white sugar, in a small bowl
1 stick butter, melted, in another small bowl
the zest from a large orange

In a heavy duty mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine 2 cups flour, the yeast, the 1/3 cup sugar and salt.  Add the hot milk and beat on medium speed for 1 minute.  Add the butter, eggs, and 1/4 cup of the flour; beat for 1 minute.  Switch to a dough hook.  Beat in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough pulls away from the bowl's sides.  Knead on low speed until soft, smooth, and springy, about 5 minutes.

Scrap the dough away from the sides of the mixing bowl, cover with a dish towel and allow to rise at room temp until doubled in bulk, 1-2 hours.

Melt the butter in the bowl.  Add the orange zest to the sugar and mix well, until thoroughly combined and the sugar smells deliciously orange-y.  Spray a bundt pan well with Pam or grease well with butter.

Tear off walnut sized pieces of dough, roll it into a ball and roll it quickly through the butter, then the orange sugar.  Layer the round pieces evenly throughout the pan until you run out of dough.  Cover really well with plastic wrap and allow it to finish rising in the fridge, up to 24 hours.  Or, if you want it the same day, let it finish rising at room temp for another hour or two, until doubled yet again in size.

Pull it out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before baking and allow the dough to come to room temperature.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake for about 25-30 min.  Keep a close eye on it and cover with tin foil if it browns too fast.

Loosen the rolls from the mold when done and flip gently onto a plate, rounded side up.  Serve with butter or the good old Betty Crocker orange frosting.  (1 & 1/2 cups powdered sugar, 3 TB. softened butter, 2 TB. fresh orange juice, 1 TB. orange zest, a splash of vanilla and a pinch of salt-- cream together until smooth)

Amy from our Bible Study gives them two thumbs up!

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

So we've been fighting off colds and sinus infections for the past month or so, really since Christmas now that I think about it.  No wonder I haven't posted.  I broke down and made this for a friend who was also sick, and left some for our own family.  It is a GREAT recipe, based off my brother in law's, Matt.  This is not the quick and easy one, it's a soup that's purely a bowl full of simple love.  Everything is from scratch, and using homemade stock really raises it to something special.

If you are thinking ahead, throw together a loaf of Jim Lahey's 18 hour No Knead Bread to serve alongside.  It's the easiest bread I've ever made, and the best.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

4 quarts of warmed chicken stock (homemade is best, I used 2 quarts Whole Foods 365 organic broth, 2 quarts of my own homemade because that was all I had)
8 stalks celery, diced (a note about the chopping, you want everything small enough to fit nicely on a spoon, a large dice is about right)
8 carrots, sliced small or diced
1 large onion, small diced
1 TB olive oil
meat from a roasted chicken, or roast four, bone in, skin on, breasts yourself in olive oil, salt and pepper
noodles (recipe following)
1 tsp. dried thyme, or 1 TB. fresh thyme leaves
1 dried bay leaf
At least 2 tsp. kosher salt, and 2 tsp. freshly ground pepper.  More, to your taste, at the end
1 & 1/4 cup whole milk (or whatever you have)
3 TB corn starch
the juice from half a lemon, or more, see what you think at the end
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley

Warm the stock.  Cut all your veggies.  Prep the chicken meat.  Make the noodles.  Then, saute the onions in olive oil until translucent, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the carrots and celery, saute for about 5 minutes.  Add in the warmed stock, salt and pepper, bay leaf and dried thyme (don't add the fresh thyme until the end, if you're using that instead).  Bring to a boil, then turn heat down to a simmer.  Simmer for 15 minutes, until carrots are crisp-tender.  Meanwhile, mix the cornstarch with 1/4 cup of the milk in a separate small bowl.  Add that to the soup when the carrots etc. are finished, followed by the remaining 1 cup of milk.  Raise heat to medium and bring soup to a boil, add the noodles and cook them for about five minutes.  Add the chicken pieces, lemon juice, and minced parsley (and the fresh thyme, if you used it).  Taste for salt and add more, it will probably need it.  Keep adding salt until all the flavors come into focus, you should taste the veggies and a little lemon.

Homemade Egg Noodles
 2 large eggs
1/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 tsp. table salt
2 cups flour

In a kitchen aid mixer (or by hand, but it'll be a PAIN) beat the eggs.  Slowly add cream and salt.  Add the flour in about 1/2 cup at a time, mixing on low until it is completely incorporated.  Divide the dough into two balls.  Roll each ball out on a floured surface until it is very thin.  Slice the dough into tiny strips with a pizza cutter, no longer then 1 inch, as narrow as you can make it.  Keep in mind you want the noodles to sit on a spoon, they will get really fat as they cook.

Sprinkle the noodles on a piece of wax paper and let them dry for about 30 minutes.  I make the noodles before I start the soup, after prepping the veggies and meat.  That way it all comes together pretty quickly once you actually start cooking.

New Favorite Discoveries

...this year.  The following items have brought my family and I (as well as a few friends) much joy.  I thought I'd make a list to share with some others.  Credit goes to Alison Chino for the FANTASTIC recommendation of item #1.

1. Slugs and Bugs Lullabies CD
Don't question this, just buy it if you have children under the age of 12 in your home.  I cannot think of another music CD where I both laughed out loud, spitting my coffee all over the car, (Tractor, Tractor; Beans) and cried with a lump in my throat (Hey Beautiful Girl) from the same record.  Alison says it's her favorite baby gift.  Be forewarned, it is now mine as well.
They're coming out with a Christmas CD this year too...

2. Smitten Kitchen's Apple and Cheddar scones
Need I say more?  Made them on Monday, froze them shaped, in dough form, then baked them right before Bible Study on Thursday morning.  Awesome.  Absolutely awesome.  I did not eat three.

3. And another food item of Smitten Kitchen's, her Sour Cream Cheddar Biscuits and the Beef Chili that went with them.  I diced the carrots small, how she recommends, and added ketchup to taste.  Added about a 1/4 cup of sugar to the biscuits, because we like things sweet in our house.

4. Stacey Kent's music.
Got her name from our fabulous friend Anthony, who is in tune with so much more pop culture and great music then I am.  She is my favorite artist discovery of this year, and we've bought three albums.  Listen to Ice Hotel on her Breakfast Tram one, it reminds me of a lighter, more cool and lyrical-french, Diana Krall.  If you like the sound and feel of Diana Krall, you will love Stacey Kent.

5. Bearpaw Boots for kids.
Thanks to my friend Katie P, I bought these boots for Sam this year and spent about half as much as what Ugg boots would have cost us.  They have a nice rugged sole, great for traipsing over ice and through Chicago snow, and are made of sheepskin, just like Uggs.

6. Intelligentsia's Black Cat Espresso Coffee Beans
Have I written about these coffee beans before?  I feel like I have.  They are a local Chicago roaster, and Rick Bayless uses these beans for making the espresso in his restaurants, Frontera and XOCO.  I love them as well, and it has been a saving grace on many a morning here, when getting in the car and driving to Starbucks (and shelling out $3.78 for a latte) is not an option.  I buy them at Whole Foods.

7. "Baked" Cookbook
This fabulous little bakery in Brooklyn came out with their first cookbook in 2008 and just released their second one this year, which is on my Christmas list.  (Ahem, Scott.)  I've noticed that this cookbook is the first one I've reached for this year when needing to make a dessert or breakfast goody.  Items that I could not live without, having now tasted them: the Baked Brownie, their chocolate chip cookie, Sweet and Salty Cake, and the Sour Cream Coffee Cake with chocolate cinnamon swirl.  Amazon sells it for $19.77 right now.

8. Lastly, (completely unrelated to music, food or clothing) How GREAT Clean Baby Peach-Fuzz Smells in the Sunshine.

Apple Bread

I've had two requests for this recipe this week, and only felt like typing it up once, so I'll post it here.  This apple bread is DELICIOUS, and freezes really well.  I made a loaf the morning of our bible study and froze the second one... defrosted it, then reheated it the oven at 350 degrees until warmed through, no one knew the difference at our small group the following Tuesday.

Apple Bread
4 cups apples, peeled, cored and chopped into large chunks, about 1/2 inch-1 inch sized
4 large eggs, beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. table salt
2 tsp. good cinnamon
3 cups all purpose flour

For the topping:
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup white sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, cool but not hard

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly spray two 9 inch loaf pans with Pam.  In your mixing bowl, beat the 4 eggs until fluffy.  Add the oil, vanilla and sugar, beat until combined.  In a smaller bowl combine the dry ingredients: flour, soda, salt and cinnamon, set aside.  Peel and chop all the apples.  Then, add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture, mixing on low just until combined.  Fold in the apples by hand to keep the chunks intact.  Divide the mixture evenly into two pans.

To prepare the topping, combine all the ingredients in one bowl (to save on dishes, just use the same one that the dry ingredients were in), squeezing the butter through the flour etc. until it is combined, using your clean fingers (fastest) or a fork (neatest :).  Sprinkle the topping over the batter evenly in both pans.

Bake for about 1 hour on the center rack, rotating once.  Bread should feel fairly firm when touched in the middle.  Let cool and then remove from the pans.  It is easiest to slice when cool, but so hard to wait...