Homemade Hawaiian Rolls

I haven't been sulking after Denver's Super Bowl loss.  All that much.  Actually, if you've been a Denver fan long enough to remember the heartbreak of Denver's Super Bowl losses in the late 80s and early 90s, well you've probably learned to effectively cope with the grief.  It's really all about compartmentalizing.   After you get past the initial shock that the team has lost it within the first 12 seconds of the game, you begin to the road to acceptance that it's going to be another one of those.  It get's easier with each blowout.

So homemade Hawaiian rolls.

There are a bazillion recipes out there for Hawaiian rolls--I found this recipe that the blogger said were the fluffiest rolls she'd ever made.  That's just a recipe begging to be made in my book.  Seriously, these are the fluffiest, softest rolls I've ever made as well.  They are not as sweet as the store bought ones but that's a plus in my opinion.  

The sweetness in these comes from brown sugar and pineapple. That's definitely a good start to any recipe. 

I adapted the recipe to use coconut oil instead of olive oil because I am swimming in Costco sized coconut oil over here.  Knowing that there's dough rising on the counter almost ready to bake makes be absolutely giddy.  Is there any kitchen smell that's better? Okay, maybe cinnamon rolls.

When I make rolls I pull the dough around and pinch tightly at the bottom to make a ball shape.  I think I learned once that this forms a tension on the top of the rolls that helps them keep their shape (as opposed to just rolling them like you are rolling cookie dough).  

You can already tell just from the rising that these are going to be super soft and fluffy right?

These rolls are pretty fantastic filled with Hawaiian pulled chicken, but really, they're pretty fantastic straight out of the pan as well.  Try to eat just one. 

Homemade Hawaiian Rolls

adapted from Yammie's Noshery

Ingredients:
1/3 cup milk warm milk
1 packet instant dry yeast
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup melted coconut oil, plus additional 2 tsp for bowl and pan
4 tbsp butter, melted and slightly cooled
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup pineapple in juice
4 cups bread flour (all-purpose would also work)
1 teaspoon salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

For the tops:
1 egg
1/4 cup water

Directions:

1. Heat milk in a small saucepan until warm to the touch or about 100-105 degrees.  Add yeast and let rest for 5 minutes. 
2. Add the oil, butter, pineapple, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt and milk mixture to a mixing bowl and mix on low until combined. 
3. Add flour and knead for 10 minutes on medium speed and using dough hook. This dough should be  a bit sticky.   
4. Grease a large bowl with melted 1 tsp of coconut oil.  Add dough and turn to coat dough with oil. Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled (about 45-60 minutes depending upon your kitchen temp). Punch the dough down and divide into twelve equal balls. 
5. Grease  9x13 inch pan with 1 tsp coconut oil, roll dough into balls and let rise again until doubled (45-60 minutes). 
6. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Beat together the egg and water for the top and brush the tops of the risen rolls with the egg wash. Bake for about 25 minutes or until the tops are golden browned.

Super Bowl Sunday Orange Super Smoothie

Brooklyn's ready, are you?  Super Bowl Sunday is always happy but today is a day that makes a girl squeal with delight.  

The Super Bowl is a lot like Thanksgiving and Christmas in that it's just so much food and eating.  I haven't recovered from all of the Holiday baking so the blue and orange baking, while so much fun, has left me less than excited to eat any of it.  I bake the sweets and force them on others.  

What I can definitely get on board with is an Orange Super smoothie in honor of the game of games (and let's face it, the team of teams) tonight.  

This smoothie starts off innocently enough...1 orange peeled and chopped in half, one large handful of pineapple,  and a handful of mango.  The standard unit of measure for smoothies is indeed the "handful."

To get that orange though,  you need something extra orange.  Enter 2 handfuls of carrots and.........eeek.....deliciously beautiful orange beets.   You can leave the beets out of course.  I often add red beets to my smoothies if I'm using spinach because spinach and berries makes an ugly brown color, but a bit of beets keeps it all looking red and fresh.  I'm not going to lie to you here though, while spinach doesn't taste like spinach in a smoothie, beets do taste like beets.  Use sparingly or if you don't like beets, leave them out.  For this smoothie I also added a glop of honey, a quick pour (2-3 tbsps) of red cherry juice concentrate, 1 tsp chia seeds and 1 cup of ice cubes.  

I used about a quarter of an orange beet to get a kick of color...love those natural produce colors. 

If you are not so much on board with the Super Bowl smoothie and need some sugary goodies for your festive orange and blue table, it's not too late if you have a box of cake mix and some food coloring. 

Homemade Broncos whoopie pies are of course phenomenal,  but more time consuming.  The ones I made earlier in the season are more cookie like but if you want it fast and quick and more cake like,  you can make them with cake mix...this version worked well for me when I made these a few weeks ago.  I bake faster than I blog it seems. 

I couldn't bring myself to smoosh that much canned frosting between such little cakes though so I made a marshmallow buttercream instead (recipe below). 

Whew.  And thus comes the end of orange and blue food for another 7-8 months.   Unless you are this kid. 

Marshmallow Buttercream

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter room temp

1-2 tbsp milk
1 small container of Marshmallow Fluff
2 cups powdered sugar

Directions

1. Beat together butter and Fluff  on med until smooth 
2. Slowly add in powdered sugar with mixer on low.
3. Add in 1 tbsp milk and beat until combined, add additional milk if needed. 
4. Spoon into piping bag, cut tip and fill one half of whoopie pie on flat side and top with additional cake/cookie. 

Broncos Cake Batter Puppy Chow

There's something about all those food dye concerns that goes straight out the window when it comes to food during football season.  Call me a hypocrite, but during the football season and especially during January football, I need food in Broncos colors.  If you are watching January football and see your team, I think food coloring is understandable. 

I made the funfetti cake mix puppy chow last year which was a pretty big hit with the group I served it up to, but who doesn't love puppy chow really?  

In truth this is just one batch of regular cake mix puppy chow with orange sprinkles and one batch using blue candy melts and blue powdered sugar.  I received quite a few e-mails from readers of the Broncos cake pops and Broncos popcorn post asking where to find navy blue candy melts and I have to tell you, I feel your pain.  These are Make'N Mold brand which I purchase from Hobby Lobby.  During the year I was in Vegas, I only found them once and proceeded to buy all three remaining bags.  I've had better luck here in Denver but it's still hit or miss.  You can also buy them directly via Make'N Mold's site but as of now, they are the only makers of navy candy melts that I've seen.  I guess that makes them the official supplier of candy melts for Super Bowl XLVIII foodie needs. 

I used white chocolate for this but you can also use almond bark.  My anti-white chocolate mind doesn't really differentiate.  I think it's really just the glue to hold the cake mix and powdered sugar on. 

I added orange sprinkles here, because when I made the funfetti cake mix version, I found that sprinkles didn't stick so well to the puppy chow when they were in the cake mix.  Turns out, sprinkles really don't stick all that well regardless.  They are fine here but fall off when mixed into the cake batter mix.  

Coloring powdered sugar and dry cake mix is kind of a funny thing.  It worked well here but next time I think I'll take my chances with regular white cake mix and powdered sugar.  While the coloring dries, I was forever concerned that fingers would turn blue if people licked their fingers. I left out the colored cake mix in the recipe below but it's really just adding the cake mix and powdered sugar to a mini food processor and slowly adding food coloring by drops and processing until you get the color you want.  I've found the Americolor food coloring (Hobby Lobby of course) dries faster and more thoroughly for this purpose than the Wilton gels. 

Crazy stuff right?  I would contend that this is more of a Denver blue than a Seattle blue. 

Since the sprinkles didn't stick all that well, I called an audible here and added orange Reeses Pieces.  This was definitely one of the easiest ways to get team colors on the party table.   And I'm guessing I don't have to tell you how addictive puppy chow can be. 

Broncos Cake Batter Puppy Chow

8 c Chex cereal

1.5 c chopped almond bark or white chocolate, melted

1.5 c navy blue candy melts

1 1/3 c dry cake mix

2/3 cup powdered sugar

1 cup orange Reeses Pieces

Directions:

1. Pour 2/3 c. cake mix and 1/3 c powdered sugar into gallon size baggie and mix well
2. Measure out 4 c Chex into a large bowl
3. Pour melted white chocolate over Chex mix and gently stir well to coat all cereal. 
4. Add cereal to gallon baggie, seal and shake well to coat.  
5. Spoon out coated Puppy Chow onto a baking sheet and allow white chocolate to fully harden
6. Repeat above steps with remaining ingredients and using the blue candy melts in place of the white chocolate.
7. When Puppy Chow is fully dry/hardened, combine in large bowl and mix in Reeses Pieces.

Cottage Cheese Pancakes with Coconut Berry Topping

You thought I'd have another Game Day Broncos recipe today right?  :) :) :)  I'll give you a bit of a break but SuperBowl countdown has already started.   It's been a very long time since we've been in the big one so you betcha, there's more Broncos themed foodie stuff coming up. 

Today though,  I'm sharing the world's easiest pancakes batter and piggybacking off yesterday's  healthier eats theme.  In the blender is oatmeal, coconut flour, cottage cheese, baking powder and vanilla.  I don't add any sugar but if you like your pancakes a bit sweetened, you can add it at this point.  Just a couple of eggs and a couple of minutes blending and the batter is ready to go.  

Yep, easy peasy.  For this recipe, most of the effort is in the topping. 

The topping itself isn't all that time consuming either.  I added a 6oz container each of blueberries and blackberries to a pan along with 2 tbsp of honey and 1/4 cup coconut milk.  I freeze mine in ice cube trays for smoothies when I open a can.  

Cook berries on med-low heat until it forms a thickened syrup. Remove from heat and add one additional 6oz container of fresh blackberries and serve warm.  Or eat it by the spoonful warm.  Either way it's good stuff.  

Next post up isn't quite so healthy but who can say no to any Broncos colored party food? :)  I almost never make puppy chow but when I do, it's shockingly blue.

Cottage Cheese Pancakes with Coconut Berry Topping

Pancake Ingredients
1 cup cottage cheese
2/3 cup oatmeal

2/3 cup coconut flour (or you can increase oatmeal to 1 cup) 

1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla 

Coconut Berry Topping Ingredients

2 6oz containers of blackberries

1 6oz container of blueberries

2 tbsp honey

1/4 cup coconut milk

Coconut oil for greasing skillet

Directions

1. Add all pancake ingredients to blender and mix for 2-3 minutes or until smooth.
2. Lightly grease a skillet with coconut oil and heat over medium heat.  
3. Pour desired size pancakes into heated skillet.  Cook until golden on the bottom and bubbles form and begin to pop. Flip and cook until golden on other side.
4. Top with your warm coconut berry topping and serve immediately.

Not So Cheese Buffalo Chicken Dip

I didn't make up the name, Vitamix did.  I recently made Vitamix's Not So Cheese Sauce and I have to say, I've been a little bit addicted.  I've used the base recipe to make a not so cheese queso and even mac and not so cheese.  While I love me some cheese sauce, I think I'm just in awe that you can throw cashews, roasted peppers and nutritional yeast and some spices into a blender, and have a creamy cheese-like sauce. 

The most recent experiment was turning this into a buffalo chicken dip and I have to say it was love.  Not just, "this is healthy so I guess I should love it" love but more like the  "I love the volleyball scene in Top Gun" love.  The fact that the ingredient list makes you feel a lot less guilty does contribute to this, but it tastes good as well.  Throw this on the table as game day eats and you might have a few people ask what's a bit different about your version, but I doubt it.  I served it up (with full disclosures that it contained nuts) and peeps thought it was just as good as the 45 packets of cream cheese version.  

What is nutritional yeast you ask?  I don't really know much except that it's full of Vitamin B, protein and is  popular amongst vegans as a cheese substitute.  I'm sure its unfortunate name precludes many from even trying it, but it's quite tasty.  It definitely doesn't taste like white cheddar on your popcorn but it's strangely addictive.  I actually prefer my popcorn with nutritional yeast these days.  

Blended with other ingredients, it definitely has that tangy cheese-like flavor.

I have to admit that when blended, the color was eerily so similar to nacho cheez with a "z" that I hesitated before tasting it.   Turns out it was pretty yum poured over broccoli.  Does it taste exactly like Nacho Cheez?  Probably not but that's not necessarily a bad thing in my eyes.  I've been eating a lot more broccoli recently.

To turn it into buffalo dip I reduced the salt, added a bit of garlic powder,  Ranch dry dressing mix, Franks Red Hot Sauce (you could use wing sauce but adjust amount to taste since pre made sauce usually has oil/butter/margarine as well) and of course shredded chicken.  

This dip definitely taste best served up in a platter like this.  

I topped it with blue cheese crumbles.  You can leave that off (and omit the ranch dressing)of course and the dip stays dairy free.  

Even though it's not a  identical to the version with the packets of cream cheese and cheddar, it's still super creamy, and full of tangy buffalo sauce.  Since buffalo sauce is the shining star, you don't miss the cream cheese.  And given that most of my Game Day Eats posts are hardly nutritional superstars, it feels good to get something healthier on the game day table.  This dip makes even celery palatable.  

This town is ready for a little football tomorrow.  Time to Ride folks.

Not So Cheese Buffalo Chicken Dip

Ingredients
2 c water
1/4 c  lemon juice
1/2 c chopped roasted red peppers (if you use jarred make sure they are not pickled)
1 1/3 cup  whole raw cashews (or almonds)
1 1/4 teaspoons onion powder
1/2 c  nutritional yeast
1 tsp sea salt

1/3--1/2 c Frank's Red Hot Sauce

2 tbsp Ranch dressing dry mix

1 tsp garlic powder

3 c shredded cooked chicken
blue cheese crumbles for topping (optional)

Directions

1. Place all ingredients except Chicken into the Vitamix container in the order listed and secure lid.
2. Blend for 2-3 minutes until sauce is fully blended. 
3. Pour into pan, add chicken and heat through
4. Serve hot with celery sticks, tortilla chips and/or pita chips.
5. Top with blue cheese crumbles if desired.