Dinner Rolls

With Thanksgiving only a few days away I thought it appropriate to share my all time favorite dinner roll recipe. I have always been known to just buy my rolls because I am just not a good baker, but I finally came across an amazing recipe that even I haven't been able to mess up! These rolls are pure heaven and I can say that with a lot of confidence because even my husband who doesn't care for much bready stuff LOVES these rolls.
This recipe makes 24 rolls, so keep that in mind when making them. The nice thing is, if you make a full batch for one meal, you can stick the leftover rolls in the freezer for another time. Rolls freeze so amazingly well!

Aebleskivers

Not sure how to say the name of these babies? That's okay, my husband calls them Eberskeebers because it sounds funnier and knows it bugs me. The correct way to say these though is able-ski-vers. Still not sure?? Just call them Pancake Puffs, it makes life more simple :)
Unfortunately, you do need a special type of pan for these babies, but Amazon saves the day if you don't have one. THIS is the style of pan that I have and have been using it for years.
These babies are delicious! If you like pancakes, then you HAVE to give them a try. They puff up to be about the size of a golf ball. At our house, we like to eat them dipped in plain old syrup but I have stuffed them before with nutella, jams, and chocolate.

Grilled Zucchini

This is a side dish that I have recently fallen in love with and have made many times during the past few weeks. Growing up, pretty much the only way we ever had zucchini was dredge it in egg and flour and fry it in butter. Which don't get me wrong is wonderful...but full of extra calories that you don't need...all the time :).
Keeping things simple in my kitchen is the best way for me to get a healthier meal on the table. These go with any main dish, but especially work great if you are already cooking something out on the grill. Last night we did these up with some grilled corn on the cob and some grilled pork chops and it was amazing! My husband has become quite the grilling master. This side dish is not only healthy but comes together in a matter of minutes. Enjoy!

Buttermilk Pancakes

We love breakfast food at our house so I like to have an assortment of different recipes on hand at all times for those mornings or nights when we need something full of carbs and sugar :)
This is BY FAR the best buttermilk pancake recipe I have ever had. I tend to like buttermilk pancakes better then plain ol' pancakes because you get that different flavor from the milk, which shakes things up a bit.
What I like to do with these is make a triple batch and store them in our freezer for quick breakfasts for my kids. 
These babies go AMAZINGLY well with Buttermilk Syrup. Which is great because you can use up your extra buttermilk making this.

Basic Quinoa

Its time to jump on the quinoa bandwagon. Quinoa seems to be a cooking fad that has been going around for the past couple of years. I tried it a while back and thought it was so nasty and couldn't understand why anybody would want to eat this. The health benefits were enough to try it again, still wasn't my favorite. Then when I started eating more anti-inflammatory foods, I had to learn to like it. It is definitely an acquired taste, but now I use it ALLLLL the time. I rarely use rice anymore and use this in place of it. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. YOU HAVE TO RINSE IT!!! Who would have thought that by not rinsing it well enough it would totally change the flavor?! Well it does. So before you attempt to cook it make sure that you rinse and rinse and rinse it otherwise it will have this bitter flavor that just isn't good at all. You basically cook it exactly like rice, only it shouldn't take as long.

Gnocchi Alla Sorrentina

Don't be scared off by the fancy title. In our house it is known as the "yummy red sauce". This is my husbands favorite way to eat gnocchi hands down. This sauce is filled with two different types of cheese which makes it incredibly delicious. The flavors are simple, which is what I like best about it because you really get to taste each ingredient.
You can either use this sauce alone with some boxed gnocchi or you can try making your own homemade gnocchi. I shared a great gnocchi recipe yesterday on the blog and it can be found here.

Gnocchi

Gnocchi brings back some good memories for me. About 8 years ago my sister and I decided to have a girls weekend in Las Vegas. It was one of the most memorable weekends of my life. We spent our time being silly and eating the best food ever. For one brunch we stopped at this little Italian restaurant by our hotel where my sister decided to order gnocchi because she had always wanted to try it. It was literally one of the best things I have ever eaten. Ever since then I became obsessed with ordering gnocchi every place I could and never could find anything that tasted quite as good as that. This is when I turned to trying to find a good recipe to use at home. I used to use the boxed kind that you find next to the pasta in the grocery store. It's alright in a pinch but I highly recommend taking the extra time to make it from scratch. It really isn't that hard, just a little time consuming, but I promise it's worth it.

Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice

You guys!! Cauliflower rice is so stinking easy I may just switch over to this instead of making real rice. This came together so quick and tasted so good. If you are looking for an alternative to rice this is it. It's weird how different you can make cauliflower taste. I have made it mashed before and it seriously tasted just like mashed potatoes. Same goes for this recipe. It tasted just as good to me as real cilantro lime rice. I paired this with some Crockpot Black Beans and Cilantro Lime Chicken.

Kettle Corn Popcorn

One thing I love about going to the zoo down here is the heavy smell of Kettle corn in the air. It makes me salivate so much every time we go, but who wants to pay $8 for a bag of it when you know it costs less then $1 to make. Not me. So our new tradition when we visit is for me to whip up a batch and bring it in bags. I'll tell you what I don't know if it really does taste better or not but saving that much money sure does make it taste better to me :)

I never knew how simple making kettle corn was. The hardest part is making sure it doesn't burn. Which if you keep an eye and an ear on it you won't have any problems at all.

Alfredo Sauce

I have had this recipe for a long time, written on a napkin in my recipe box. I have made it many times and can't believe that I haven't posted about it. Homemade sauce is a million, no...A BILLION times better then that store bought kind. (Although maybe I have just never had a good store bought kind). It really doesn't take that much longer to make because you throw the ingredients in a blender and then heat them up and add cheese. NOT DIFFICULT and so much better!
I am a lover of everything smothered in Alfredo sauce! My husband loves it as well. In fact, every week while I am planning out my menu for the following week I ask him one meal that he would like to have that week and every time it is "oh I don't know, maybe some chicken with some penne and some alfredo sauce?" LOL. (Does anybody else's spouse offer the same opinion every time on food when asking what they want each week?! I have begun wondering if they do this on purpose so you will stop asking or if they really just like the same thing to eat??)
*BTW sauce is REALLY hard to photograph**

Spaghetti Meat Sauce

On my way to church yesterday for some reason I started thinking about spaghetti. Kinda strange since it was 9:00 AM, but I couldn't get spaghetti out of my head all day. I just happened to have some ground turkey sitting in my fridge that I WAS going to make some stuffed peppers with but instead decided to whip up a homemade meat sauce instead. It turned out great! It involved ingredients that I had in my pantry and fridge, throw it all on the stove and let it simmer together to make a fantastic flavorful sauce!
Enjoy!

Hard Boiled Eggs

You know, I've been asked many times in my years of being alive how do you boil the perfect hard boiled egg and my response was always, "You have to boil them?"
I grew up with an egg cooker where you just poke a little hole in the egg throw it in the cooker with some water turn it on and wait till the timer goes off. Then when I got married my mom gave me an egg cooker which was awesome. It came with this little measuring cup for the liquid to say how much liquid you needed for how you like your eggs. It was great, although I found myself never using it for some reason. Since I never used it I decided to just give it to old DI. Well long story short, after we moved here I found myself wanting to eat a lot of hard boiled eggs so I had to learn pretty fast how to make a good hard boiled egg the old fashioned way.
For those of you like me, or just don't usually do it, here is a great method on how to get a perfect hard boiled egg. I know there are about a billion methods out there...but here is the one we use in our household.

French Bread Pizza

So your craving homemade pizza but don't have the time to make some dough or want to mess with any store bought dough....well here is your answer. French, Bread, Pizza. I love these things. Just go grab a loaf of french bread, it in half, and load it up with whatever toppings your little heart desires. Its crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, which to me makes the perfect bite.

Classic Tinfoil Dinner

You know, tinfoil dinners are one of my favorites. There are a few reasons why I absolutely love them
1- EASY
2- No dishes to clean up
3- scrumptious!
These are my favorite thing to make when we are camping but they are also one of my favorite things to just have at home. You don't have to have a big fire or a tent pitched to eat these babies. I love that these dinners are so versatile. Not only can you throw whatever sounds good in a packet and it will almost always come out amazing, but you can cook it so many different ways as well.
Here is how I did my basic basic classic tinfoil dinner last night!
(Oh and I apologize for the REALLY bad photo. I forgot to snap a couple pictures last night since I wasn't here to eat it when it came out of the oven so I took a photo of what the leftovers looked like lol...sorry!)

Carne Asada

I realize this picture isn't the best of quality but my camera on my phone was all I had around when I made these the other night.
I could eat beef tacos every day of the week. While living in Southern California and working at the mall I grew accustomed to being able to have fantastic carne asada tacos whenever my little heart desired.
Since we are still fairly new to Arizona I haven't found a place yet that sells fantastic tacos for a good price so I had to resort to making my own. This recipe is fantastic. Its nice and zingy from all the citrus you put in the marinade but has all the wonderful classic flavors of a true Mexican taco. I served mine up on a white corn tortilla with some fresh made Pico De Gallo and avocado.

Whole Roasted Chicken

Yesterday I decided that I was going to make a roasted chicken. IT WAS FANTASTIC!! My husband could not resist making mm mm mm sounds during dinner. It made me think to that part in that movie "What About Bob" when Bob is eating dinner with the family and he keeps moaning and groaning over how wonderful everything tastes and the rest of the family is giggling, yep that's about how my dinner was last night and it was great.
Roasting whole chickens isn't an art. It just takes the right temperatures and right times. Seriously. You could probably rub tar all over one and if it is cooked properly it won't matter (okay please don't actually rub tar on a chicken).
Roasting whole chickens is not only budget friendly but if cooked right can be much more flavorful and moist then chicken pieces.
I know I have said this a lot but man, THIS is my all time favorite comfort food. Give me a plate of roast chicken mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn and I am one happy girl.

Roasted Chicken Breasts

Last night I had a complete recipe fail on a recipe that looked and sounded absolutely fabulous! I had such high hopes for it and honestly couldn't wait to post it because the pictures looked sooooo beautiful and delicious. I'm glad I can always rely on this recipe to turn out good :)
I have really been enjoying going back to basics with my cooking. When I first started this blog I posted a lot of the recipes I used to have when I was younger that had a lot of "pantry" items in them and really didn't have anything fresh. I used to think that you couldn't eat a chicken breast unless it was coated and deep fried, or covered in soupy goodness, or don't forget the trusty marinade. Now don't get me wrong, I love recipes that use all of those different ways of cooking, in fact I have many recipes on this very blog that use those same techniques, but I will tell you what. When I take a piece of chicken, and leave it alone with the bare minimum of seasonings, it always turns out to be the best chicken ever. Its all in how you cook it. This recipe is more of a method of cooking because I have started using this method on pretty much everything; fish, vegetables, etc.

Give it a try. It won't let you down. You will be amazed at how incredibly juicy and flavorful it is just by keeping it simple! 

Roasted Spaghetti Squash

Yes another side dish my friends. OR a great replacement for spaghetti noodles or really any other kind of pasta.
I absolutely love spaghetti squash. Growing up I never liked squash at all, and even now I'm not a huge super fan....BUT spaghetti squash has always been a squash that I do enjoy. Its kind of funny how many people have no idea how to cook a good vegetable side dish. Growing up I learned that you boil everything, not that that is bad, but it sucks all the flavor out of your food. Here is a secret to amazing vegetable sides...
ROASTING! Roasting vegetables adds so much amazing flavor.
Now, back to the squash. I really think you should give it a try even if you say you don't like squash. Spaghetti squash has such a different flavor then other squashes because it isn't mushy like others when you cook it. It pulls apart into strands, which not only is fun to do, but makes it have more texture.

Grilled Corn on the Cob

Oh corn! Sweet delicious corn. I love living in Arizona. Why you may ask....because I can get corn all summer and fall  for a fairly decent price. Where I grew up, I swear you could only buy corn on the cob in September and then it would only be available for like a month.
As I was looking through the corn at the grocery store I was contemplating which method of corn on the cob I would be using. Boiled, baked, steamed, or grilled! DING DING...grilled!
I LOVE grilled corn on the cob! I have come to realize that it isn't as scary as I always thought it was. Grilling the corn adds so much flavor to it. Getting those nice char marks...mmm. I have found that there are three typical methods of grilling corn on the cob, in foil, in the husk, and directly on the grill itself. So here is a mini tutorial on how to grill corn on the cob all three ways! Enjoy!

Roasted Salmon

As of the past few months I have been trying to make foods more basic...you know? Take it back to how they used to prepare food. Simple. Clean. Delish! I used to always think you had to marinade everything or cover everything up with some sauce, but lately I've been sticking to plain old olive oil, salt, and pepper and roasting and everything comes out amazing. Not only is keeping things simple less expensive, but its also healthier. Last night I made the most amazing mouth watering salmon and it was fantastic. I've made it a few times this way and it has never failed me yet.
I don't usually go out and buy fresh fish. Its to expensive for me right now, so the closest thing I have found that has a really good flavor is the frozen Atlantic Salmon from Costco. The pieces are nice and thick and have that REAL fish flavor, instead of the other bags of fish you buy at most grocery stores that are thin and...well only slightly resemble fish. Anyway, the Costco kind is what I happened to be using this time.