Christmas Morning Cinnamon Rolls

We don't have a lot of food-based traditions in my family apart from Thanksgiving, and even those are mostly the same ones that everybody has: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, the souls of children, that sort of thing. But one that we do have is that my mom always makes cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. She usually gets the Pillsbury rolls in a can, and that's fine, I don't judge, but for the man-panion & I's first Christmas as a married couple, I decided I wanted to try from-scratch cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

(Then I woke up Christmas morning and realized I was out of flour, so we had cereal and I made Boxing Day cinnamon rolls instead. But no matter, they were still tasty.)

I started out where so many of my culinary adventures start, in the Red Plaid Cookbook. It yielded a fairly straightforward recipe for cinnamon rolls, which I followed pretty closely, with the exception of halving it and omitting the raisins (raisins are delicious, and they belong in many baked goods, but not cinnamon rolls).

If you've never made any sort of yeast bread before, it might seem a little intimidating, but I promise, it's not. It helps to have an electric mixer with a dough hook...

Not least of all so you can play pirates in the kitchen.

...but with only slightly more effort, you can make these suckers by hand, and it's still totally worth it.

Homemade Yogurt

Confession: around the time Brittany created this brilliant blog, I developed some serious stomach/nausea issues. Thus, I have been unable to cook for the past few months (unless you consider cooking to be combining a can of condensed soup with water in the microwave, then hey! I've become a pro at that!). This recipe is for creating homemade yogurt, something I had been doing on a monthly basis.

So although I didn't make something specifically for this first blog post, I’m still excited to share this with you because it’s been a part of my repertoire for a very long time. Sadly, I only have a few photos of the yogurt-making process to share (and apologies in advance to Facebook/Instagram friends…you've probably seen these photos before!) My fingers are crossed that by my next post, things will have resolved and I will have something new (with way more awesome pictures) to share.

So why make your own yogurt? Because it’s insanely easy and tastes about a million times better than the store bought stuff. And (ok, here’s my real reason) making it yourself is cheaper than buying it pre-made. Even when I use organic, grass-fed, local milk it is still cheaper, per quart, than the generic brand stuff available at Wal-Mart. For a family like mine, that loves its yogurt, that money saved can make a difference in the grocery bill.

Pumpkin Pie for Breakfast: All Those Others Were Imposters Edition

So I didn't really have any intent to do an immediate follow-up to yesterday's post, but HOLD THE PHONE, I JUST MADE THE MOST DELICIOUS BREAKFAST EVER. And I had to share immediately. As in, I'm still eating it as I type this post.

I had a flash of inspiration this morning as I was getting ready to make a Pumpkin Breakfast Mug. I didn't feel like oatmeal, but I did feel like pumpkin pie for breakfast. (Let's be real, though, when don't I?) And I remembered a few years ago when I was having a pancake breakfast, but had a co-worker with a gluten allergy coming. My general approach to cooking gluten-free is to just make things that don't have gluten in them naturally rather than fuss around with flour substitutes.

So I found this recipe for bananacakes (I'd link it, but can't find it at the moment) that just had a mashed banana, scope of almond butter, and an egg. The texture was a little glomy, but they were delicious! They're my go-to for gluten-free breakfasts for friends, and I eat them myself all the time, despite loving gluten and its happy puffy formation in my baked goods.

Anyway, my flash of inspiration was to make this recipe with pumpkin instead. And OH, MY GOODNESS, I CAN'T EVEN HANDLE THE DELICIOUS. Be careful with this one, folks--you may never want to eat anything else ever again.

Welcome! + Pumpkin Pie for Breakfast

Welcome to the launch of Until We Meat Again, a collaborative food project. To learn more about us, click here. To learn more about my desire to eat pumpkin pie for breakfast every day, keep reading...

So last week was American Thanksgiving. Even though I don't currently live in America, I do love any excuse to make a tremendous amount of food and foist it on guests until they beg for mercy. (You can take the girl outta the Midwest, but you can't take the Midwest outta the girl....) So I threw a big feast for some friends here, although I did give a nod to the fact that roasting meat is completely weather-inappropriate for Sydney in November and did my turkey on the barbeque!

Feast! Also: Photo-bombed by of jack-o-lantern.

But everyone knows the real meaning of Thanksgiving is having an excuse to eat endless amount of pie. (These people know what I'm talking about.) And every year, I set out on a brave experiment to challenge the assumption that woman cannot live on pie alone. And every year, I eventually am thwarted by three silly factors:

• I run out of pie. 
• I am too lazy to make more pie. 
• I finally admit to myself that eating that much sugar, particularly for breakfast, starts to make me feel a bit ill. Because apparently, I'm old now.

Then I get a little heart-broken that I can't eat pumpkin pie for breakfast every day. Why, cruel world, why?

Pumpkin Pie: The Best Breakfast Pie. Seriously, just look at it. I want that in my belly NOW.
Oh, wait, I already put all that in my belly, which is why there is no more of it.

So this year, I decided to fight back. I was inspired to turn my love of pumpkin pie into a breakfast food appropriate for everyday breakfast.