Meal Planning Monday

I know I've been away for a while, the holidays were extremely busy. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year. But now I am back and ready to share some great recipes with you, along with some new things I learned. For the next few weeks I will be sharing some great vegetarian recipes to kick the year off right. To start things off here is what my family will be having this week.

Monday


Breakfast- Cereal or Oatmeal
Lunch- Leftover Pho with Kimchi/Veggie Dumplings
Dinner- Veggie Stir-fry with Brown Fried Rice

Tuesday

Breakfast- Oatmeal or Smoothie
Lunch- Leftover Stir-fry and Fried Rice
Dinner- Black Bean Soup

Wednesday


Breakfast- Cereal or Oatmeal
Lunch- Leftover Black Bean Soup
Dinner- Corn and Black Bean Empanadas

Thursday


Breakfast- Cereal or Smoothie
Lunch- Spinach and Strawberry Salad
Dinner- Leftover Corn and Black Bean Empanadas

Friday


Breakfast- Cereal or Oatmeal
Lunch- Mixed Green Salad with Pomergrante and Raspberry Vinaigrette
Dinner- Lentil Soup

Saturday


Breakfast- Cereal or Oatmeal
Lunch- Leftover Lentil Soup
Dinner- Vegetable Fajitas

Sunday


Breakfast- Cereal or Smoothie
Lunch- Leftover Fajitas
Dinner- Vegetable and Sun-dried Tomato Pasta

I will be posting some of these recipes this week, so follow along if you like. Be blessed and enjoy.

Apple Cinnamon Rolls with Apple Cider Glaze

I love cinnamon rolls, I’ve blogged before about my obsession with Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls. There aren’t many things better than a cinnamon roll with cup of coffee or for me tea. So, with all these great apples and cider around I decided to play with my cinnamon roll recipe a bit. That’s what baking is all about, right? Taking regular recipes and changing them up to make them even better.

Now, when I am baking with apples I like to use McIntosh, Fuji, Honey Crisp, Golden Delicious and of course Granny Smiths. They are great for baking, because they hold up well when baking and don’t turn to mush. You can use whatever you favorite is, these are mine. Also I combined the idea of sticky buns with the caramel in the bottom of the baking dish. And being that I had a jug of apple cider in the fridge, I used that to make the caramel sauce.

 Cinnamon rolls

1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)

2 eggs, room temperature

1/3 cup butter, melted

4 1/2 cups bread flour

1 teas salt

1/2 cup white sugar

1 pkg yeast (1/4 ounce or 2 ½ tsp if you buy in bulk like me)

For the Filling:

1 cup dark brown sugar, packed

2 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 medium to large apples peeled, cored and diced

For the Glaze:

1 cup of powdered sugar

2 tbsp butter, softened

A splash or 2 of apple cider

Apple Cider Caramel Sauce:

2 cups apple cider

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp butter

1tsp vanilla

Directions

Dissolve, yeast in warm milk in a large bowl. Add sugar, butter, salt, eggs, and flour. Mix well. Knead dough into a large ball, using your hands dusted lightly with flour otherwise you will be pick dough off your hands for hours. Put in a bowl and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour or until dough has doubled in size. Now here is the great thing about making any kind of dough. If you aren’t ready to use it, go and let out some aggression and punch down the dough. I call it dough therapy. Do this until you are ready to move to the next step.

In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon. And peel and chop apples.

Spray work surface, whatever it may be (counter top or grandma’s antique table) with cooking spray or sprinkle flour on it otherwise get out your chisel to get the dried dough up. Roll dough into a 16x21 inch rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Spread dough with 1/2 cup butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar/cinnamon mixture and pat it down. Then sprinkle on apples.

To make the Apple Cider Caramel Sauce; put apple cider in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Continue to cook until reduced by about half. Add sugar, butter and vanilla. Then cook until thicken. Let cool and pour in the bottom of baking dish.

Roll up dough and cut into 12 rolls (or smaller rolls). Place rolls in 9x13 inch glass baking dish with caramel sauce. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled. This should take about 30 minutes. 

                            

Meanwhile, pre heat oven to 350 degrees. Bake rolls in pre heated oven until golden brown, about 20–30 minutes.

While cinnamon rolls are in the oven make the glaze. Mix butter and powdered sugar together, and then add apple cider until you get a nice yummy glaze. When the cinnamon rolls come out of the oven, drizzle the glaze over the rolls. Be blessed and enjoy.

“Come join the fun at the My Baking Addiction and GoodLife Eats Holiday Recipe Swap sponsored by Red Star Yeast.”