Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

Thanks once again to Alton Brown, we had homemade cinnamon rolls this weekend.

Since we ran out of butter and had no cream cheese, we made a simple icing with two cups of powdered sugar and about 4 tablespoons of milk - goats milk from the neighbors. They were scrumptious!

A Lot of Cooking Going On

One of the best things about having fresh ingredients at home is all the fun you can have cooking. Here is a list of some of our recent cooking adventures:

1. Key lime pie with meringue topping (from Joy of Cooking)

2. Various hot sauces with our peppers. One of my favorites was made with our Trinidad Perfume peppers. They have a taste similar to habaneros, but are not hot. How amazing is that!

3. I finally found a recipe for pancakes that turn out nice and fluffy - Thanks Alton Brown!

4. Ron made some amazing rustic french bread that is light on the inside with a nice crust.

5. I made a homemade chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting. Note to self: do not use whipped cream frosting between the layers of a layer cake. The top may slide off...

Figs

Our fig tree had lost of ripe fruit and we managed to pick some of it before the birds ate it all. While delicious on their own, we had fun trying a couple easy recipes with them. The kids are still warming up to them. I think they just aren't quite used to the texture, because the flavor is amazing!

Our first recipe was very simple: figs cut in half, dipped in balsamic vinegar and topped with goat cheese. We put them in the toaster over for a few minutes and they were delicious.

Our second recipe was only slightly more complicated. Figs and pears sauteed in butter and brown sugar in home made crepes topped with cinnamon and home made whipped cream. Yummy!

Easter Eggs

We never got around to decorating out eggs, but we did lots of cooking with eggs on Easter. Our neighbor brought over some goat milk earlier in the week and I wanted to do something fun with that. I was surprised at how delicious the goat milk was. I remember trying some from the store before and thought that it tasted a little "grassy." The fresh milk was just sweet and creamy and yummy! We definitely have to get some goats soon.

I am still a little unsure about using unpasteurized goat milk however, so I decided to do something with cooked milk. I decided that with that milk and our eggs, we just had to make some gelato. There are a ton of recipes online, but I was looking for something very simple. I ended up mostly following the recipe at FoodNouveau because they had a nice simple base that you could add anything too:
2 1/2 cups of milk,
5 egg yolks and
1/2 a cup of sugar.

I used all goat milk for the cream and added about a tablespoon of vanilla to the milk. When it was time to heat the mixture including the eggs, I just put it all back in the pot that I was heating the milk in, I didn't use a double boiler. It came out delicious! It freezes much harder that regular ice cream. Strawberries and blueberries make it even better!

Since you only use egg yolks for the gelato, I had 5 egg whites left to do something with. The only thing I could think of was meringue cookies. I followed the recipe from my Joy of Cooking cookbook. Again a very simple recipe with just egg whites, cream of tartar and sugar, It calls for superfine sugar, but I just used regular granulated sugar. They came out perfect, nice and dry and crispy.