Easy Potato Rolls

I haven’t done many bread recipes and I don’t know why, because I love bread. But when I saw this recipe for potato rolls on Rasa Malaysia’s website, I just had to try them. Omgoodness, they are to die for! So soft and delicious and really not that hard to make. I changed nothing in this recipe, by the way.

So, let’s get cooking!

Place the flour into a large mixing bowl. In a smallish saucepan, scald the milk. You don’t want it to boil, but to start to bubble on the bottom. Take it off the heat and stir in the sugar, 6 Tbl butter, potato flakes, and salt. Let cool until tepid and stir in the yeast and the beaten eggs, mixing well.

Pour the milk mixture into the bowl of flour and stir well until it forms a somewhat sticky dough. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise in a slightly warm place for an hour.

Sprinkle flour onto your work surface and knead into dough until not quite so sticky. Cut into fourths. Take two of the portions of dough and on a floured surface, roll out each into circles about 10” in diameter. Spread half the softened butter on top of one circle, then place the other circle of dough on top of it. Press down the edges to seal. Do the same to the other 2 portions of dough.

Cut each doubled circle of dough into 8 triangles by halving until you have eight. Take each triangle and, starting at the wide end, roll up towards the point. Curve slightly to form a crescent shape.

Place the crescents on a sheetpan. Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled, about an hour. See how nice and plump they are? Bake in a 350° oven for around 15-18 minutes, until lightly browned on top. Brush with the melted butter and serve. 

Enjoy! ~TMMF

Easy Potato Rolls

1 ½ c scalded milk

½ c + 2 Tbl sugar

6 Tbl butter

½ c potato flakes

1 ½ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp yeast

2 eggs, beaten

3 ½ c flour

2 ½ Tbl butter, softened

2 Tbl butter melted for brushing

Cookie Dough Dip

I’ve often wanted to try a cookie dough dip, but there are so many recipes out there, I didn’t know which to pick. After much research, I decided to use this one that was from Add A Pinch. It boasts to being the best out there, and I have to say it’s pretty dang good! Being an easy enough recipe, I actually had my lovely assistant chef Miss Megan make it under my guiding hand. We both gave it a thumbs up and brought it to a potluck event. Instead of regular chocolate chips, I used minis and I believe this made it better as far as the texture.

So, let’s get cooking with Megan!

With an electric mixer, cream together the cream cheese and softened butter. Mix in the powdered sugar and brown sugar, then the vanilla, beating well. You can see how satiny smooth this is!

Stir in the mini chocolate chips.

Serve with any of these: Teddy grahams, honey grahams, chocolate grahams, animal crackers, ‘Nilla wafers. 

Enjoy! ~TMMF

Cookie Dough Dip

1 8 oz pkg cream cheese

½ c butter, softened

1 c confectioner’s sugar

2 Tbl brown sugar

1 ½ tsp vanilla

1 c mini chocolate chips

Kahlua White & Black Pops

Ah, here we are with a Summer treat for the grown ups. ;) You don’t know how many times my kids asked if they could have these. And then asked why not. ;) These are nice enough to serve at a summertime party, and fine for a treat after a long hot day.

So, let’s get cooking!

In a medium bowl, mix the vanilla pudding mix and milk with a whisk. Add the Kahlua, vodka, and Irish crème liqueur, mixing well.

Pour into frozen pop molds. All I could find were these smallish ones. Use whatever you’d like.

Make sure you don’t put the mixture all the way to the top, or you won’t have room for the tops.

Mix up the Black Pops the same way, using the chocolate pudding mix, and adding the Kahlua and vodka.

Pour into frozen pop molds and add the top. Now freeze. I did mine overnight.

Enjoy! ~TMMF

Kahlua White Pops

1 pkg instant vanilla pudding mix

1 ¾ c milk

1 oz Kahlua

2 oz vodka

1 oz Irish crème liqueur

Kahlua Black Pops

1 pkg instant chocolate pudding mix

1 ¾ c milk

2 oz Kahlua

2 oz vodka

*1 oz is 2 Tbl.

General Tsao's Tofu

I am not a vegan or a vegetarian, but I absolutely LOVE this recipe, adapted from one on Food.com! My daughter made it for me once and I was hooked. You know I love just about any Chinese food, anything with an Asian flair, but this recipe is at the top of my list. I change nothing about it; just make, eat, and enjoy!

So, let’s get cooking!

Mince the ginger root and garlic and set aside. 

Slice the tofu into rectangles about 1” long. 

In a bowl, beat egg and add in the water. Dip each piece of tofu in the egg mixture, then dredge in the cornstarch, shaking off any excess.

Heat about 2 inches oil in a deep skillet. Fry the tofu pieces a few minutes until golden brown. Set aside on a plate. 

To make the sauce, in a new skillet, mix the ginger, garlic, veggie stock, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, and red pepper flakes together, stirring while simmering. Mix together 1 Tbl cornstarch with 2 Tbl water and whisk into sauce mixture to thicken. 

Add the tofu and stir to coat.

Enjoy! ~TMMF

General Tsao’s Tofu

Caity gives it a thumbs up! 

1 lb firm tofu, drained

1 egg

3 Tbl water

¾ c cornstarch

1 Tbl ginger, minced

1 Tbl garlic, minced

2/3 c vegetable stock

2 Tbl soy sauce

¼ c sugar

1 Tbl vinegar

1 – 1 ½ tsp red pepper flakes

Ice Cream in a Bag

This recipe was fun to make because the kids got to make it in an unusual way. The recipe said it takes only 5 minutes to make, but we all agreed that was underestimating. For each child you’ll need Ziploc bags in gallon size and pint or quart size and enough ice to fill the gallon bag halfway. We added some chocolate chips, about ¼ c each child. Add whatever you’d like.

So, let’s get cooking!

Fill the gallon bags halfway with ice and add the rock salt. Add the half and half, sugar, vanilla, and any fruit or extras you want to the pint or quart size bags. Seal tightly. Check the kids’ bags; my Megan’s ingredients bag wasn’t sealed all the way and before I realized it, some of the ingredients had squeezed out.

Make sure the gallon bags are sealed tightly too. Have the children shake, shake, shake the bags! My kids’ hands got cold so after a couple of minutes they got cloth napkins and kitchen towels to hold the bags.

After maybe 4 minutes you can take one of the bags out so the kids can see how it’s doing and how much thicker or how slushy it is. Ryan showed us his.

Here is the frozen result. This was Megan’s; she shook hers the slowest and hers got done first, after about 7 or 8 minutes. Ryan and Timmy were shaking theirs like maniacs and theirs got done maybe 5 minutes later.

Inside the bag, it looks just like ice cream you buy.

The children can eat this ice cream right out of the bag!

Enjoy! ~TMMF

Ice Cream in a Bag

(Per Child:)

Ziploc bags: gallon and quart sizes

½ c rock salt

1 c half & half

2 Tbl sugar

½ tsp vanilla

¼ c mini chocolate chips

Fruit & Yogurt Frozen Pops

Well, Summer is in full swing here with hot weather and thirsty, hungry children! What’s a mom to do about this? Make ice cream! And frozen pops of all kinds! Coming up are some very simple recipes for ice cream and a variety of frozen pops that are easy enough for even smaller children to make, with your help. My kids loved doing these, and they loved eating the results even better.

These healthy pops are made with vanilla yogurt and fresh fruit, although frozen could be used also. You also can obviously use light non-fat yogurt. The original recipe calls for 2 Tbl honey. We used a little more yogurt and excluded the honey completely, and the kids loved them. We made both strawberry ones and mango ones.

So, let’s get cooking!

Wash the fruit and take off anything like leaves, or peel, etc. Cut the fruit into chunks.

Measure out the yogurt.

Place the fruit and yogurt into a blender and blend until well mixed. We stopped when the fruit was almost totally crushed up but there were tiny pieces of it still.

Pour into paper cups.

Add the popsicle sticks. This recipe is thick enough that they do stand up in the middle.

You can also use a hand blender like we did with the mango pops. 

Freeze. We let them go overnight. Enjoy! ~TMMF

Fruit & Yogurt Frozen Pops

12 oz vanilla yogurt

2 c fresh fruit

Egg Roll Bowls

Egg Roll Bowl, an egg roll in a bowl! Omgoodness, this is a wonderful recipe from Taste of Home that takes the work out of egg rolls. The rolling part, at least. I only added one thing to this: I got the idea to cut wonton wrappers into strips and fry them, then put them atop the bowl of egg roll. The taste: yummilicious!!

So, let’s get cooking!

In a large deep skillet, sauté the ground pork until cooked through.

While that is cooking, shred (chop) the cabbage….

….and grate the carrots.

Add to the browned meat the cabbage, carrots, sesame oil, soy sauce, minced garlic, and ground ginger, mixing thoroughly. Sauté 4 to 6 minutes.

Heat up about 2” of oil in a skillet. Take a stack of the wonton wrappers and slice into strips about 3/8 inch wide. 

When the oil is hot enough to sizzle, fry the wonton strips until browned, just a minute or so.

Drain on paper towels.

Serve the egg roll mixture in a bowl, topped with the fried wonton strips.

Enjoy! ~TMMF

Egg Roll Bowls

½ pound ground pork

2 Tbl sesame oil

1 Tbl soy sauce

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp ground ginger

6 c shredded cabbage

2 large carrots

1 pk wonton wrappers