Yummm... sweet potatoes....

It seems if I'm not busy cleaning, I'm busy cooking or crafting! I seem to get into a groove with one and slack off on the others. Right now I'm cooking. I saw a box of sweet potatoes at Costco and decided to challenge myself.

Last night was this great maple syrup & pecans recipe off pinterest (I mean, seriously, is there any better way to eat sweet potatoes?) tonight we made a hashbrown recipe using them that had red pepper and bacon. Called for Canadian bacon, I used some super-awesome bacon I got on $5 Friday at Safeway last week and left out the chile flakes so the kids would at least try it.  It was so good, Paul even asked for seconds.

I also made a freezer biscuit recipe my mom found when she was cleaning out her recipe drawer so I have no idea where it came from, but it works, the entire family loved them. I'm going to include them with a ham & bean soup dinner swap.  You pop them in the oven straight from the freezer and they were really fast and easy to make. I did roll them too thin, next time, I'll make sure I have a ruler to make sure they are thick enough, but they were still yummy.  The heavy cream is pretty expensive, though I think I spent almost $7 on cream. I probably would wait for a dairy sale next time...

6 cups all-purpose flour, plus some for rolling out
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 1/2 cups heavy cream (you could just use 1 quart, I had to add a lot of flour as they were pretty sticky)

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper OR use Pampered Chef stoneware like I did a skip the parchment paper.  Set aside.  Whisk the dry ingredients in a large bowl, stir in the cream wiht a wood spoon until dough forms, about 30 seconds. Turn dough out onto floured counter and gather into a ball, knead briefly until smooth, about 60 seconds, adding flour if necessary.
2. Pat dough to 3/4 inch thick. Cut out biscuits using a 2 1/2 inch round biscuit cutter (or go old-school like my mom used to and use a drinking glass-I actually used a scallopped circle cutter and it looked nice.  Set them out on to the baking sheets with plastic wrap around them adn freeze until frozen solid about 6 hours (probably fine with 4 hours)Transfer to a Ziplock (or wrap really well in the plastic wrap you used to cover the pans) and freeze for up to 1 month. DO NOT THAW BEFORE BAKING.
3. Bake from frozen at 450 degrees until puffed and golden brown-20 to 25 minutes. Serve hot with butter and jam or honey.

Changing the way I make bread

So I've been trying multi-grain  bread and white bread and it was just too dense for my family's tastes and I had to be home most of the time for the kneading, rising, etc. So I pulled out my breadmaker that had been gathering dust in the bottom of the pantry (ok, not really, I've been making Hawaiian sweet rolls in it (recipe at the bottom of this post)).  And started having it do the dough tough work. It takes 1.5 hours and I use only enough ingredients to make one loaf (many recipes call for enough ingredients to make two) then I bake it in the oven in my regular Pampered Chef stone pan so it looks like a loaf of bread, though I'm looking into Pullman pans which make bread look more like the kind you get from the store.

Anyways, my bread is coming out much fluffier and I don't have to watch it as closely. I can throw the ingredients into the maker and get everyone ready for the day and off to school, come home and pop it in the oven for 35-45 minutes depending on the type of bread.

Here's that recipe for Hawaiian sweet bread I got from a friend of a friend on Facebook-I use it to make rolls for dinner:

1 cup water; 1/2 cup sweet condensed milk (1/2 of a regular sized can); 1 tsp salt; 1 Tbsp butter, 3 1/3 cups BREAD flour (you could use all-purpose, it just will be less fluffy); 2 tsp yeast. Put all the ingredients in the breadmaker and set for dough cycle. Original directions suggest spearating into 3 sections, rolling each out like a snake, mesh ends together and braid, place in baking dish. Rise 25-30 minutes, brush melted butter on top after rising Bake at 250 for 30-45 minute until top is golden brown.  I roll them into 2 inch balls and put them in a greased 9x13 pan evenly spaced, then raise and brush with butter and bake about 30 minutes.