Feta Rosemary Beer Bread

I baked up a loaf of this beer bread to go with a dinner of tomato basil bisque the oth

er night. It actually stole the show! I borrowed the recipe the wonderful Farmgirl Fare blog, a blog full of beautiful farm pictures and hearty recipes. Susan, the author, describes herself as

"a 42-year-old former cultured California chick happily turned manure mucking Missouri farm girl."

You should definitely check her blog out, you can find more of her beer bread ideas here. The bread I made is "Beyond Easy Beer Bread." And it really is ridiculously easy, not only that, but it baked up crusty and flavorful with a moist crumb studded with melty chunks of feta and flavorful bursts of rosemary. Oh, and the hearty beer flavor, fantastic! Perfect for dipping in a bowl of your favorite soup. Enjoy!

Easy Beer Bread

from Farmgirl Flare

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tablespoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon baking powder (make sure it's fresh!)

12 ounces beer

1 tablespoon dried rosemary or 2 tablespoons fresh (chopped)

3/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled

Heat oven to 375°.

Combine flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, rosemary, and feta in a large mixing bowl.

Slowly stir in beer and mix just until combined.

Batter will be thick. Spread in a greased 8 inch loaf pan, and bake until golden brown and a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes.

Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool 10 more minutes.

Serve warm or at room temperature. With beer ☺

Linking up at tatertots and jello!

Pie Crust Cinnamon Roll

I love pie crust as evidenced here and here. I also love cinnamon rolls. So, naturally, I wanted to try and combine the two into a giant pie crust cinnamon roll. Flaky, buttery, cinnamon, brown sugar, raisins, no kneading, easy peasy. I love when experiments work out so well! You could cut this up and split it with a few lucky friends, or you could do what I did and tear off a piece, slowly unrolling it over a period of a few days and enjoy all that cinnamony buttery goodness yourself! I guess when it comes to pie crust cinnamon rolls I'm a bit stingy... sorry friends!

Pie Crust Cinnamon Roll

Inspired by this recipe

Ingredients

1 recipe your favorite pie crust (enough for a single crust, nine-inch pie)

Filling:

1/2 cup raisins

3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) butter

1/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon

Topping

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup butter, melted

More brown sugar for sprinkling (if desired)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a pie pan, mix three tablespoons melted butter and four tablespoons brown sugar. Set aside.

Roll out pie crust. Spread with 3/4 cup butter, sprinkle on sugar, cinnamon, and raisins. Cut into even strips.

Now, take one strip and start rolling it up, set roll on the next strip, pinch dough together at seam, and keep rolling, continue with the other strips of dough until the roll gets too big to roll.

Transfer roll to pie pan, continue adding on strips of dough by rolling them around the already formed roll. Finally, you will have one big cinnamon roll.

Sprinkle with more brown sugar (optional, depends how sugary you want it!) Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until light brown (very light brown).

Remove from oven, let sit for about five minutes.

Flip over onto a plate or serving tray. Yum.

Afreakingmazing

I will be linking up at these parties.. Tasty Tuesdays, Rook #17, Trendy Treehouse and Sugar and Dots, this week, check them out!

Perfect Drop Sugar Cookies

This is my go-to sugar cookie recipe. I don't enjoy rolling and such ,so I love that this recipe produces beautiful delicious sugar cookies with less work. Yes, I'm lazy, let us move on... The cookies come out of the oven with lovely cracked tops and you can easily make them holiday ready by rolling them in colored sugar or sprinkles before baking (as I did with these). I wanted to make the cookies with a valentines theme so I rolled them in red sugar and topped them with caramel filled chocolate heart candy. Chocolate and caramel and sugar cookie. Yes please.

Cracked Sugar Cookies

From allrecipes.com

1 1/4 cups white sugar

1 cup butter

3 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

24 Caramel Filled Chocolate Heart Candies (I used Palmers)

1/3 cup red sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper .

Cream together sugar and butter. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla.

Add flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

Stir, use hands if necessary to get dough to hold together.

Form dough into walnut size balls, roll in colored sugar and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Don't flatten. Bake 10 to 11 minutes, until tops are cracked and just turning color.

Remove from oven and gently press a candy into each cookie.

These cookies make me happy!

Happy Weekending!

Butterflake Rolls

Today I am sharing one of my absolute favorite recipes. Butterflake Rolls. I first made these for Christmas dinner this year, and although a bit labor intensive, they are some of the best rolls I have ever had, heck they are one of the best foods I have ever had. Flaky, yeasty bread, layers of butter and a melt in your mouth texture. This recipe makes a large batch but they are easy to freeze and defrost later. The amount of flour that goes into these will really depend on the climate you're in. If it is a humid day you will need to add more, if it is a dry day, less. The trick is to add enough so that the dough doesn't stick to everything. I do it little by little and when I can poke the dough and it doesn't stick to my fingers, I figure that it's enough (a little trick my older sis taught me). I also vary the number of layers depending on how buttery I want them, so feel free to play around with the recipe and find what works for you. That's part of the fun of cooking, right? Taking a recipe and making it your own. I hope you all love these as much as me and my family do, and have a beautiful day!

Butterflake Rolls

From Jean Groberg, the Family Cookbook Project

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons instant/fast acting yeast

3/4 cup lukewarm water

3 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

2 1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups hot water (NOT boiling)

6 to 8 cups flour

1 can evaporated milk (1 1/2 cups)

1 stick soft butter (more or less depending on how much butter you like)

Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water, set aside.

Beat eggs with a mixer until fluffy, add sugar, salt, milk and hot water.

Add yeast mixture. Slowly add up to 5 cups of the flour (if it is too goopy to form a dough, add more flour until it is wet, but workable).

Turn out on floured board (or oiled counter top) and knead in the remaining flour (be sure to flour your hands first!). Knead gently, keeping dough light, add more flour as needed to create a wet but not sticky dough.

Using a floured rolling pin, roll out to about 1/2 inch thickness. Using your hands, spread dough with soft butter (like I said, however much you would like, for me more butter is always better so I use about two tablespoons). Cut dough in half and stack together. Roll again, adding more soft butter as needed on each layer.

Do this several times (I do this four times, cause I like butter).

On final time roll out until 3/4 inch thick.

Cut in circles, using a small glass about 2 inches across. The dough should be quite light.

Place each circle of cut layered dough on its side in a muffin tin cup. Cover dough with a damp towel and set aside to rise for two or three hours, until nicely puffed up. When ready to bake, brush tops of rolls with more butter, a pastry brush works well here. Bake at 375º for 8 to 10 minutes.

Makes about 4 dozen rolls.

I would love to know some of your favorite recipes! If you have a link to one of em feel free to leave it in the comment section and I will check it out.

Valentines Cookie Pie

• Need a yummy valentines dessert? How about a Pookie? Yup, a cookie pie! And fully customizable! If your hunny is a peanut butter person, throw in some peanut butter chips. Health nut? Add some granola, nuts, and coconut (ok so that doesn't make it healthy but still, at least you get more protein). As you can see, you've got options. I baked mine in a heart shaped pie pan to make it extra festive. The crust I used was super easy too, you basically just press it into your pie pan, pour the delicious cookie filling into/over it and bake it up. Plenty of time left over to cook up a spectacular V-Day dinner. Here are some delicious looking options for your valentines dinner: some Pad Thai from Wives With Knives (a really fantastic Oregon based blog, AND I met the author at a farmers market and she is lovely). Maybe a Vegetable Cobbler from Indigo's Sugar Spectrum (one of my favorite blogs, hilarious writing AND awesome recipes), or my big sis's go to recipe for Chicken Parmesan (check out her blog for updates on my precious nephew and her adventures dog sledding in Canada with her Canadian hockey playing hubby). Maybe you should just try all three, it IS a holiday after all!

Cookie Pie

Adapted from cooks.com

Ingredients

1 pastry for a single-crust 9-inch pie, at room temperature (see the recipe I used below)

3/4 cup melted butter or margarine, cooled *Note if you use the crust recipe I used use just 3/4 cup melted butter. If you use your own recipe or a store bought crust, use 1 cup.

2 large eggs

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup (6 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup white chocolate chips

Line a 9-inch pie pan with pie dough, set aside. In a bowl, beat butter, eggs, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until well blended.

Add flour and mix well.

Stir in chocolate and white chocolate chips (at this point you could add nuts, butterscotch chips, whatever strikes your fancy).

Pour filling into pastry. Bake on the lowest rack in a 325° oven until top is a rich golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes (about 30 minutes in a convection oven).

Cool on rack at least 20 minutes.

Flip pan over on a baking tray or plate to remove pie. Drizzle with melted white chocolate if desired.

Serve warm or cool, cut into wedges, with ice cream.

Now for the crust, thanks to allrecipes

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 tablespoons milk

Place all ingredients in 9 inch pie pan. Stir together with fork. Pat mixture into bottom and up the sides of the pan. Poke holes in bottom and side of crust.

I doubled this recipe and stored the extra in the fridge to use in another pie.

Happy weekend!

Linking up to Tasty Tuesdays and Rook #17 and Its a Blog Party