Last month I mentioned this little kitchen gadget

As you can tell from the title, I don’t know what the crap to call this.  As you can probably tell, I haven’t been doing a tremendous amount of cooking recently. At least nothing fun.  (definition of fun would be high calorie, high fat, full of chocolate deliciousness)  So…this is just some of the normal stuff we’ve had around here.  Normal being relative 😉  As many of you know, my husband is a diet-controlled diabetic.  To maintain his blood sugars, he eats a very low carb diet.  For someone like me, who is a carb-aholic, it makes life a little difficult.  Well, at least life in the kitchen at meal time.  I want lots of bread, potatoes and pasta, whereas, if he is going to be able to eat it, it has to have none of those fun things.  Therefore, I’ve learned to compromise.  I try to come up with dishes the entire family can enjoy.  Hence, the I’m-not-really-pizza-or-a-casserole dish….

If you have been on , you’ve probably seen these cookies floating around.  The cookie that has no butter, no eggs and is called a ‘healthy cookie’.  Well, obviously I had to try it immediately.  Obviously.
This recipe comes from .  I had to make a few alterations due to allergies and ingredients I had on hand, and I’m sure the substitutions affected the flavor and texture a little.

I love oatmeal.  I eat it in some form almost daily (overnight oats, pumpkin spiced oatmeal, oats in my yogurt, or added to muffins and cookies!)  But did you know it’s also good for lots of different skin conditions?  Before we figured out my son had food allergies, he had really bad eczema.  Poor baby would wake up in the middle of the night scratching away, so often I would use the Aveeno Baby Oatmeal Bath. It always worked pretty well and I’ve been using the Aveeno Baby Soothing Relief Wash since he was very young.  Thankfully, his eczema is much improved so I no longer keep the oatmeal bath on hand.  *Aveeno has no idea I’m writing this post, these are products I use on a regular basis.  Unfortunately Therefore no compensation was received.

Ever since Joanne over at posted , it’s been on my bucket list. It’s probably what gave me the idea to make Zucchini Yeast Bread when I was drowning in zucchini this summer. (which was delicious by the way).  So, when  introduced September’s Iron Chef Challenge as , I knew exactly what I was going to make!

Of course, you know what they say about ‘best laid plans’ and all.  I got a terrible upper respiratory infection which pretty much put my baking on the back burner-so to speak.  But, . had been so kind as to send me packets of yeast provided by Red Star, so as soon as I was feeling a better, I got into the kitchen.  Besides, I needed this pumpkin bread, it was necessary for my full recovery 😉  What?  There are lots of health benefits to pumpkin.  Okay, so that’s just an excuse to make this delicious bread.

However, I needed to make a few changes to the original recipe I coveted.  One, I needed to take out the eggs so Mr. Little Man could eat it.  Two, I really was lazy tired, and wanted to make this in my bread machine.  I took a gamble, b/c when I go making up recipes, it usually doesn’t turn out well.  This however….

Pumpkin Yeast Bread

Cinnamon rolls have been one of those things that just seemed like a little too much trouble.  I mean, who wants to spend half the morning trying to prepare breakfast (an unhealthy one at that. I like my fat and calories quick, fast and in a hurry!)  I’m talking, of course, about those cinnamon rolls requiring yeast.  The proofing and rising and waiting.  Then I saw this recipe (on Pinterest of course) for .  No yeast required.

I put my children to work in the kitchen again, and we made them a few weekends ago.  (Before we made these! I just forgot to post them.)

Buttermilk Cinnamon Rolls slightly adapted from epicurean escapism

1. Preheat oven to 425°F 
2. In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients for the dough (flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt).
3. Stir in the butter, applesauce and buttermilk.
4. At this point, the dough will be sticky, so just spoon it on top of a heavily floured surface, and add a bit more flour to the top.
5. With floured hands, gently knead the flour into the dough (adding more flour if necessary) until the dough is manageable and is fairly smooth.
6. With a rolling pin, roll the dough out into a rectangle/square of approximately 1⁄2 inch thick.
7. Spread the surface of the dough with 2 tbsp melted butter, then sprinkle on the cinnamon and sugar.
8. Roll the dough from the longer side, and cut the dough to about 2 inches thick.
9. Place the rolls in a lightly greased pan, and bake at 425 for about 20mins, or until the edges have turned golden brown.
10. To prepare the glaze, mix the water and powdered sugar, and pour onto the rolls while they’re still hot.

Verdict – These reminded me of the store-bought Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls.  Not great, but not terrible.  My kids liked them, and like I mentioned, they are much quicker than the yeast variety.  Also, they probably would have been better with the full amount of butter 🙂  I’m always trying to skimp out on the butter, and let’s face it, baked goods neeeed buttahh!  However, I am thinking next time I might sub the butter in the filling with applesauce.  I think it would give it a good flavor, and would cut some of the fat too.  I think adding a little cinnamon and nutmeg to the dough would be yummy too!