Monkey Bread!!!

 Was informed by the fabulous Roni that we HAD to make this wonderful monkey bread recipe that the Pioneer Woman posted. With revisions. Like using 2 Grands instead of 3 of the regular biscuits. And add chopped pecans. And add some of the dusting sugar to the butter. Zero-calorie treat, right? Holy moley...

Well, being sick in the head, I stayed out today. And quickly got bored. Since I wasn't contagious, I went shopping, quick-kine. And...they didn't have Grands! Oh no, stuck! But they did have those Cinnabon Grands. This recipe has cinnamon. And sugar. Instant recipe revision revision! And I decided to use chopped macadamia nuts instead of pecans. We're in Hawaii, right? And I have people that don't like pecans. Oh, well.

Anyway, put everything together as directed by everybody, and it came out like this:

Smelled so good! Waited the prescribed 30 minutes, and dumped it out on a plate. Required in-your-face shot:

Then I added a little of the cream cheese Cinnabon frosting to a quarter of the pile:

 Holy crap. That is some awesome stuff. Especially warm. The cream cheese frosting is really sweet, so definitely optional. Maybe on the side for dipping.

Thank yous to Ree Drummond  and Ms. Roni! Ono kau-kau!

An "easy" pizza roll, the hard way

A friend posted a recipe on my Facebook wall. Ostensibly because it had bacon in it. I seem to have a bacon reputation, for some reason. What got me intrigued was the 2 ingredient recipe for the dough.

This is the recipe she shared, via one of of those recipe sharing pages.

Bread Recipe: 2 Ingredient Bread

What is interesting in that it doesn't actually have the bread recipe in it. Haha. Perusing the page, I figured, I can do this. Enter roll of distant thunder...

First off, bacon. Wanted crispy bacon. Mushy bacon is a turn-off. Since it was to be baked in, I figured I should do it up enough so it would be crispy by the time it finished. So, I got my lard on...

Got that done and cooling. Commenced to the dough-making process. This one:

2-ingredient pizza dough recipe

Yes, pizza dough. I know, right? Anyway, turned to mixing and kneading. Forgot how sticky pizza dough was, dang it. In the end, I had a ball...

Worked it all out into something resembling a sheet. With lots of holes. Note to self; next time, double the recipe. And don't eat the yogurt before you make anything. And lots of bench flour; today was humid.

Covered it in the rendered almost crispy bacon and cheese. I chose cheddar, mixed mild and sharp. Lots of both. Yes, there are consequences to baking when hungry.

Rolled it up, and encountered consequence #1; no fit. Bacon and cheese falling out the voids in the dough that appeared all over. It was quite hilarious, or would have been if it wasn't happening to me. Lots of potholes being repaired as the rolling happened.

Then, the cutting step, and consequence #2. Dang bacon is hard to cut! Looks like something out of Monsters Inc. << This will so date the blog, haha.

Popped it in the oven for the prescribed time. Had to go another 5 minutes to get the color. The final calamitous product is at the top of the page.

How did it taste? Think pizza crust stuffed with cheese and bacon. Bacon needs a finer chop. The flavor balance was on the salty side. Next time, if there is a next time, use mozzarella in the mix. I can see pepper working, too.

Thank you for bearing with me on my catastrophic journey in the kitchen.