Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

This summer I was fortunate enough to stumble across a cinnamon roll recipe that I have had since probably 2002 or so. It was from Vegetarian Times magazine, and I remember ripping it out and thinking "Wow, that's the only cinnamon roll recipe that has ever seemed easy enough for me to actually try making".

Apparently after saying that I never made it.

Until this summer.

And they are in face glorious, and easy cinnamon rolls.

However, since it's fall, I had to do them up Autumn-Style!

Honestly, at the moment I don't have the energy to type out the whole recipe, I promise I'll update that part soon.

But the important part is:

If you're making cinnamon rolls with any recipe, even pop-open-the-can, you can make the delicious pumpkin frosting that really makes these special.

Whisk together:

2 Tbsp canned pumpkin

2 Tbsp whipped cream cheese

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 - 1 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar

Spread over the rolls while they're still warm after they come out of the oven.

Heaven.

Gratuitous Outfit Shots

Ok, it's official.

I need a new location for my outfit shots.

I hate them.

They look so posed and ridiculous. Suggestions please!!

But I will share these with you because I love the outfit I wore today to showcase my zebra heels!

Cinnamon Sugar Butter...aka Stepha's Seven

I love my friends, I really do.

Until they do something evil like post a picture of Land O Lakes new Cinnamon Sugar Butter on their Facebook pages.

Then, I kind of hate them.

I present to you a super easy recipe to make the butter at home, with ingredients I bet you already have in the pantry.

I'm titling this recipe, Stepha's Seven in honor of the approximately 7 pounds I expect to gain this week from the butter.

In a bowl stir together:

1/2 stick of butter, softened (room temperature, not out on the counter for 5 minutes)

1 tsp olive oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp brown sugar

Mix it all together in the bowl using a regular metal spoon. You can try to get fancy and use silicone or some other snazzy utensil but it won't work as well as a regular soup spoon, because you can smush it, and meld it, and beat the bejesus out of the butter. Don't get fancy.

Yes, it tastes just like the butter at Texas Roadhouse.

Of course, I also had to make a batch of pumpkin muffins to go with this, which incidentally I highly recommend, great combo! Since the teaspoon of olive oil really makes this spreadable you don't abuse the muffin at all.

I also plan on mixing it in to some roasted sweet potatoes, and maybe trying it on a grilled cheese filled with brie and apple slices.

Stepha, I love you.....and I hate you.

Purple and white Zebra print shoes DIY!

The inspiration for this came from Pinterest, where I feel like 90% of my inspiration as of late has come from!

A friend tagged this fantastic pair of zebra shoes and I knew that it was a DIY waiting to happen.

First, I had these horrendous white pumps in my closet, I know, I know, why? If for some reason you don't have a shoe travesty of this nature lurking in the back of your closet I bet you can get them REAL cheap at a thrift store:

Step 1: I took painters tape and ripped it. I think that this is key. Most zebra print shoes are on dyed on to calfskin or a similar (albeit synthetic) material to make them look more like "hide". This cuts back on the super clean lines that could make zebra look like striped, which is not what you want. Painters tape (it turns out) tears in a really great asymmetrical way giving exactly the right look. I did NOT push down on my tape too hard on purpose, I wanted some random bleeding to soften the edges and give more of a water color look to the shoes. If this is not your style, then push hard on the tape to make sure it gives you a clean line.

Here is the taped off shoe:

Next I used acrylic paint (I prefer Martha Stewart's all purpose acrylic in this case I used the Pearl finish for a little shimmer), and painted two coats on the shoe. I would have gone with black for a more traditional look except I don't wear a lot of black, I wear a lot of grey, brown, green etc. Believe it or not I will get more wear from a purple shoe.

I only let the second coat dry for 15 minutes before removing the tape because I didn't want to fight the "dry-paint-clinging-to-tape" battle.

And Voila!

They aren't perfect, but I like them that way. Truly, if the water color trend wasn't in I might have done a touch up to sharpen them but I like the softer lines personally.

Outfit post coming Tuesday! I'm wearing these bad boys to WORK!

Wonderful Bookstore

I was given an amazing opportunity today.

8 Cousins Bookstore in Falmouth, MA hosted a local authors day with 24 authors represented.

It was absolutely packed to the gills, and an enormously wonderful experience.

Sure, we only sold one book.

Oh wait, I've never mentioned my book on here so just a touch of background, I wrote a children's book that my aunt was kind of enough to illustrate, titled Bellerina.

You can visit our website here if you're so inclined, and this is one of the lovely sketches:

So back to today, we only sold one book but I had so many lovely conversations with wonderful people who were genuinely nice, and informative.

I got some amazing tips from a guy who has written four adult novels on how to get moving with mine, and what to do about organization and follow through.

All in all I left there a few business cards shorter, and a thousand thoughts richer.

Alphabet Soup

Ok, so I unfortunately don't have my camera down the Cape with me at my grandfather's house so I can't do a picture of this...but if we have leftovers I will take one later to try to give a visual.

I made tomato soup tonight, super easy:

Sautee half an onion and 2 cloves of garlic in 2 tablespoons of butter.

Add 1 large can of diced tomatoes, 1 small can of tomato paste and 1 quart of vegetable stock.

Bring to a boil, let simmer for about 10 minutes.

Done.

I use a hand held blender to make it smooth because my daughter won't eat it if she sees chunks of tomato. She's on of those kids who eats with her eyes.

Tonight I decided to add some alphabet pasta to the soup to make it a little fun for her.

Wow.

Apparently I have never cooked with this stuff, though I have very fond memories of alphabet in my chicken soup as a kid.

I poured in about 1/3 of the box, and it basically took over the soup. It was huge, and unwieldy, and impossible to get a bit of soup without Supercalafragilistic in it.

I mean, it was still good soup, but it was way heavier on the pasta than I intended.

Any tips???

Take THAT wheat bread!

Ok, so, let me start this by saying, this is still not 100% the way that I want my wheat bread to come out.

I think I got a little too excited on the second rise and rushed things a teeny bit, it said 1-2 hours and I stopped promptly at 1 hour.

But, I did get a good crumb, relatively fluffy, though not as tall as desired, loaf of wheat bread that for the first time ever did NOT weigh 85.6 pounds. This loaf of bread could not kill a man, major accomplishment.

I started with this recipe, from King Arthur Flour, which has truly never failed me on a recipe, their testers must be working overtime because they crank out some amazing stuff!

I did make a few substitutions and changes (of course), first I couldn't find Baker's Special Dry Milk anywhere so I omitted it and I'm going to order it from the website.

Second, I only used 3 cups of flour, it didn't need the extra 1/2 cup for me, and I replaced 1/2 cup of the flour with bread flour to make it a little easier to knead.

Third, took the advice of the commenters on the website and added 3 tsps of vital wheat gluten, which is pretty much going in every loaf of bread I make now, because it was awesome-blossom.

This made fabulously crunchy grilled cheeses but still maintained the soft interior, I used a cheddar with scallions and shallots in it from Trader Joes that is amazing. And the husbando made us his famous Caesar salad, adapted from his father's even more famous recipe, and we threw some roasted tomatoes in there for a change of pace.

Yuuuummmmmy!