recipe: pumpkin pie crescent rolls

Yeah, my snacks normally look this good. 

Kyle and I just moved from two separate, fully-functional apartments into one (very small) coach house apartment.  It has been a very trying experience to find places for everything we own, but I think it will be good for us.  In the unpacking process, I found a can of pumpkin pie filling that I accidentally purchased while trying to buy pumpkin purée. Nearly all pumpkin recipes call for pumpkin pie purée and specifically NOT pie filling, so I have been at a loss with what to do with it (yes I know: pie is the obvious answer, but I'm not a huge fan so I wanted something else). So it sat on the shelf, and was eventually moved to this new apartment. I refuse to let it take up space here, so I vowed to find something to do with it.

After a few days of staring at the can (I had it sitting on the back of my stove, next to my Tetley tea bags - essential for my morning routine), and after moving the bread machine from place to place to place, I had the 'brilliant' idea to combine bread machine dough with pumpkin pie filling. But in what form?  Perhaps crescent rolls, inspired by that apple dumpling recipe I tried last fall?  Would it work? Crescent roll dough + pumpkin pie filling? Could it be so simple?

The day after this flash of inspiration, I saw a friend's Pin for pumpkin croissants. I'm not crazy! It's been done! Alas, the recipe called for purée.  But I blundered forward anyway in my quest to use the pie filling, and thus I made pumpkin pie crescent rolls. Overall it was a success, I'd say. They're very tasty, with a good balance of sweet and savoury without being too sweet. They're quite doughy, which is a result of this dough recipe, and they'd be fluffier (and probably sweeter?) if you used Pillsbury dough.

Straight out of the oven...

Recipe notes: I changed the croissant recipe by omitting cream cheese (because I loathe cream cheese). I changed the dough recipe by subbing in some whole wheat flour and by using brown sugar instead of white. Also, I added a tsp of vanilla which made the dough smell really good but I'm not sure that I can taste it once baked. I split the dough into three uneven balls to roll out and cut triangles. Only after the first bunch did I realize that rolling a giant circle and cutting pizza slices would be better than trying to make a big rectangle... And then on the last tiny bit of dough I realized that cinnamon bun-style rolls would be way easier - roll a rectangle, smother the whole thing with pie filling, roll up and slice. And they taste the same as crescent rolls so... go with whatever you prefer. Oh and lastly, I still didn't use up the whole can of pumpkin filling... even with 37 crescent rolls!

I couldn't resist and ate a few while they cooled...

Pumpkin Pie Crescent Rolls

Ease: 1 very easy
Time: 3 somewhat quick
Ingredients: 2 easy
Source: Loosely based on Shaken Together's pumpkin croissants. And I used Food.com's bread machine roll dough, with some modifications.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup warm milk (70 to 80 degrees F.)
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1/4 cup golden sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 3 cups all-purpose white flour
• ~2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (I spilled some from an old opened packet + 2 tsp from a new packet)
• 1 540mL can of pumpkin pie filling
• ~ 1 Tbsp white sugar
• ~ 1 tsp cinnamon

Dough - ready to go in the oven

Directions:

1. Combine dough ingredients (from milk to yeast) in bread machine in this order. 
2. Set dough setting and let the machine do its thing.
3. When dough is done, turn it onto a lightly floured surface and roll (you may want to divide it into two pieces for this).
4. Cut into triangles of approximately the same shape and dimensions. See recipe notes for tips. (My batch made 33 triangles and 4 cinnamon bun style rolls.) 
5. Spread some pumpkin pie filling (straight from the can) onto each triangle and roll it up.
6. Grease a baking dish. 
7. Place the rolls in the dish with 1" spacing between each one.  
8. Sprinkle them with a mixture of cinnamon & sugar. 
9. Let them sit for 30-45 min.
10. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

recipe: spice cookies

I bought some molasses cookies from Dollarama the other day and was so addicted to them it hurt. They have iron, so that's a plus... but they also have sugar and of course preservatives. I decided to try baking some at home to see if it's possible to make yummy ones. Then I will try to make a healthier version.

I found a recipe off Allrecipes and modified it as per the comments/reviews and tried it out this past Sunday. It's not terribly original on my part since I'm just copying... but they turned out SO WELL that I am posting the recipe anyway. I'm also changing the name because "molasses cookies" just sounds lame.

Spice Cookies
Ease: 1 very easy
Time: 3 somewhat quick (all baking takes long!)
Ingredients: easy to get
Source: Inspiration from AllRecipes.com

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup margarine, partially melted
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 c molasses
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 3/4 tsp ground ginger (1/2 tsp + "some more")
• 1 Tbsp white sugar extra

Directions:

1. Mix wet ingredients: Mix margarine, sugar, egg until smooth. Add molasses and stir.
2. Mix dry ingredients: Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and ginger.
   
3. Blend dry mix into wet mix.
   
4. Cover and chill at least 1/2 hour (original recipe recommended 1 hour).
5. Preheat oven to 375 F. Roll dough into walnut sized balls and then roll in sugar (note that I only rolled one side of the balls to reduce sugar). Place cookies ~ 2" apart on ungreased cookie trays.
6. Bake 7 minutes until tops are starting to crack. Watch closely because the longer they cook, the harder they get. 7 minutes yields a soft cookie that stays soft at least one day (speaking from experience)

recipe: breakfast rice pudding

pudding

I enjoy hot grain cereals, and I sometimes miss rice pudding. My mom's recipe, however, uses eggs and takes hours to bake. I find it a bit to "eggy", and I don't like the idea of running an oven for 1 hour just for pudding. I've therefore been searching for rice pudding recipes that don't involve the oven, and preferably don't involve eggs either. One day, a bit of inspiration struck me and I figured that I could probably add rice to my cream of wheat and have it be somewhat ricepudding-like. Here's the result. Very simple, and uses up some leftover rice, which is always nice.

I wonder if there's anything I could have done to make this look more appetizing...

Breakfast Rice Pudding
Effort: 1 very easy
Time: 1 very quick
Ingredients: easy to get
Source: me

ingredients

Ingredients:

• ~1 cup soy milk (I prefer Sensational Soy vanilla)
  
• ~1/3-1/2 cup rice
  
• ~2 1/2 Tbsp dry cream of wheat
  
• couple of pinches of cinnamon
  
• maple syrup (optional topping - the soymilk is quite sweet enough)

rice

1. Add soymilk to small pot. Put heat on medium.
   
2. Mix rice into soymilk (if it was cold, break it up first).
   
3. Add dry cream of wheat one tablespoon at a time. Very slowly sprinkle it into the soymilk while stirring constantly. This helps prevent lumps.
   
4. Stir frequently, if not constantly.
   
5. As soon as bubbles start regularly appearing & the pudding looks a bit thicker, turn the burner off but leave the pot on the burner.
   
6. Stir frequently ~2 minutes or until it's as thick as you want. Note that it will still thicken a little bit once you pour it in your bowl.

this one was just for fun - woo, swirly...