Cranberry Orange Pecan Sticky Buns

I haven't blogged in forever, and I've wanted to throughout the entire christmas break but have had only intermittent internet access.

I created these sticky buns on Christmas Eve in 2013 when I made breakfast for Christmas morning.  They're fairly simple.  They are just a sweet dinner roll recipe, rolled out, filled with goodies, rolled up, cut, baked, and slathered with a yummy topping.  Here's what I did.

I used a simple sweet dinner roll recipe from a Betty Crocker Cookbook (bonus edition) that my mom gave me when we first moved to KC. The filling is my own concoction, and the topping I got from Mom.

Ingredient List:

Dinner Roll:
3 1/2 to 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour or bread flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter (don't cut and use margarine...it's just not as good)
1 teaspoon salt
1 package regular or quick active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/2 cup very warm water
1/2 cup very warm milk
1 large egg

Sticky Bun Filling:
1 1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup brown sugar
1-2 oranges
1/2 - 1 tsp ground cloves
1/2 - 1 tsp ground all-spice
1/2 tablespoon vanilla
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Cream Cheese Topping:
1 package philadelphia cream cheese
1-1/2 cup powdered sugar (or more for desired thickness)
1/2 cup butter
1-2 Tablespoons Milk
1 Tablespoon Vanilla


Directions:

In a large bowl, stir 2 cups of lour the sugar, 1/4 cup butter, salt and yeast until well mixed.  Add warm water warm milk and egg.  Beat with electric mixer on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently.  Beat on medium speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently.  Stir in enough remaining flour to make the dough easily to handle.

Place dough on a lightly floured surface.  Knead about 5 minutes or until dough is smooth and springy.  Grease a large bowl with shortening.  Place dough in the bowl, turning dough to grease all sides.  Cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour or until dough has doubled in size.  Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.

While the dough is rising, place dried cranberries in a glass bowl and cover with boiling water.  Let sit until cranberries are soft and plump (approximately 10 minutes). When cranberries have soaked enough water, drain the excess.  Add chopped pecans, vanilla, brown sugar, cloves, and all spice to the cranberries.  Zest 1-2 oranges into the bowl.  Cut the oranges in half and juice the oranges into the bowl, allowing as much pulp as possible to be included in the bowl.  This is is a very orangey recipe! Add a tablespoon of corn starch for thickness. Mix ingredients well and let sit.

When dough is ready remove and split into two equal halves.  Roll halves into rectangles about 1/3-1/4 inch thick.  spread half of the stuffing mixture onto the dough leaving a 1-1/2 inch wide strip on one long side clean.  Roll from the spread side to the clean side pinching the clean strip into the roll to create a seal.  (think making cinnamon rolls)  Take a piece of sewing thread or baking twine and slide under the roll.  Cross the string over the top and pull.  This makes beautiful even cuts.  Feel free to make the rolls as thick or thin as you like.  I do about an inch to 1 1/2 inches thick.  Place the rolls flat into a buttered dish as close together as possible.  This will give you soft buns.  If you want a little stiffer buns then space the.

Allow buns to rise for 30 minutes until doubled in size.  Place in a 375 degree oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

While the rolls are baking, mix together your softened cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, and melted butter until smooth.  Add milk to gain desired thickness.  Allow the rolls to cool for 5 minutes and apply the cream cheese topping.  Serve warm!!!

Hope you enjoy these.  My family sure did!!

(Later edit:  Can add some rum to the fruit concoction and simmer until alcohol is cooked off.  Makes it extra yummy!!)

Low Cal Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:

2.5 Lbs of Boneless skinless chicken
2 medium onions chopped
4 cloves of garlic chopped
4 cups of chopped carrots
3 cups of chopped celery
32 oz bag of frozen peas
¾ cups of all purpose flour
7 cups of milk
Phyllo dough
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Sage
Rosemary
Red Pepper Flakes


Assembly:

1. In a skillet add olive oil and chicken.  Season and cook until cooked through.

2. In a soup pan over medium heat, add olive oil, the onions, and garlic.  Sweat off.  Add carrots and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until carrots are softening.

3. Add flour and seasonings.  Stir constantly, cooking for 1-2 minutes.  Then add the milk gradually, stirring until smooth.  Bring to a simmer and continue stirring until thickened.

4. Remove from heat and add frozen peas.  Stir well and taste for seasoning.  Chop chicken and stir into vegetables and gravy.  Put half into a large casserole dish and half into another (for freezing).
Add 5 sheets of phyllo dough to the top of each pan, brushing with olive oil in between each layer.

5. Cook at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes.  Top should be golden brown and sauce should be bubbling.  Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.  Makes 16 servings total.  8 for each casserole dish.  206 calories per serving.  Freeze one casserole dish for future use!

(Sorry there are no specifics on seasoning.  I usually just season as I go and then taste it all at the end.  Check the seasoning of the filling after stirring in the chicken and peas and add seasoning as needed.)

Curry Chicken and Dumplings

Every now and then I like to experiment in the kitchen and sometimes I even come out of it with something especially tasty.  These dumplings are no exception.  They're tasty, comforting, and addictive!! Most importantly, if you make your own dumplings, they're actually pretty healthy.

Hope you like them!

Chicken and Dumplings

Ingredients:

12 oz chicken breast* 

1 med. sliced onion

2 cups sliced carrots

1 1/2 cups sliced celery

Chicken Broth

Dumplings**

Curry***

Garlic powder***

Salt ***

Pepper***

Rosemary***

Instructions:

In a large pot, cook onions on medium until translucent.  Add carrots and celery and cook for 10 minutes on medium.  Cut chicken into small chunks and add to the vegetables.  Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, rosemary, and curry and cook until chicken is cooked through.  When chicken is cooked through add water and bouillon cubes or chicken broth.  Leave room in the top of the pot for the dumplings.  Bring to a boil for 2 minutes.  Add biscuits (in pieces) or dumpling mix to boiling water, cover and let boil for 2 minutes, turn down and simmer for 10 minutes.  Biscuits will puff up and then shrink again.  Dumplings will puff up and stay big.  At this point the soup is basically done.  I usually taste and season some more at this point.  There's no real science to it, I just add til it tastes good.  I use quite a bit of curry and garlic powder.  The curry and garlic are what make this dish taste so good.  

*I have done the chicken in this recipe many different ways.  Legs and thighs boiled and then pulled apart, chicken breasts chopped up, tenders chopped up.  The best is either the tenders or breasts chopped up.  I have found that the boiled legs and thighs tend to get stringy...it's good but some people have texture issues.  The breast stays in pieces and makes for a better soup.

**I prefer the taste of the butter flavored biscuits to the plain ones.  And the dumplings I make are basic ones that I found on line.  They could have used some more flavor in the dough, so make sure you find a dough that has plenty of salt and seasoning.  

*** Don't stress over how much seasoning you use.  It's going to depend on a lot of factors, the most important of which is your own personal taste.  I like my dumplings with lots of curry and garlic powder and pretty spicy.  If you dont like it that warm then use more salt, pepper, rosemary, and other herbs.  Most of all, just keep tasting and add a little here and there til it's perfect.

A final thought:

Change the recipe up!!  I never go strictly off of a recipe.  I always make it my own, either because of what I have in my pantry or fridge, or because I just want it to taste a certain way.  Have fun with it though!!

Let me know if there are any questions.  I'll try to be more clear.

Learning to be a Follower

Lately, James and I haven't been able to do much running or walking because we've both been adjusting to new schedules at school, work, and church.  But tonight he felt motivated to go for a jog and I was more than happy to throw on some ratty sweats and move out!!

  We did the first week of the C25K series and it felt really good to be running a little again.  I was breathing hard, my feet hurt, and I had a nagging stitch in my side most of the time, but it was great!! As I ran I was able to focus on my breathing, clear my mind, and just run for the sake of running.

  When James and I run together I tell him not to hold back and run with me because he can push harder than I can right now.  He is always great about walking, or even running, back to me during the walking portion of our outing, though.  During our running segments I enjoy watching him run and spending time alone with God.

Tonight, I asked Him specifically to show me something to help me through this rough patch of the last few weeks...I needed something I could learn from and apply to my life.  It didn't come like a lightening bolt, a light bulb, or even along with any light at all, for that matter.  

It came at the end of our run and it was getting dark.  We had just finished our last jogging portion and were doing a 5 min. cool down/walk back to the house.  James reached out and grabbed my hand and we tried to walk this way for a bit, but when you've just been running it's hard to get your gates matched up and arms swinging in unison so that it is comfortable.  

James has a shorter, faster gate while mine is longer and slower.  In order to walk together comfortably we need to match our inner hips/feet to be stepping at the same time so that our arms can swing in unison.  

As I did a little skip and worked my gate to match his it hit me.  I needed to be a good follower.  We didn't talk, we just walked together on the way home.  I concentrated hard on matching our gates and holding on to him.  It was lovely...

Sometimes we just need to sit back, slow down, and concentrate on someone else.  Especially in a marriage, it's important that we know our roles.  James is a leader, and in our marriage I wouldn't have it any other way.  I want to follow him because I trust him, but I don't want to just be drug along.  I want to follow well, concentrate and focus on him, and do what I can to be a help and not a hindrance.  

I want to apply the same principals to my relationship with God.  He has a plan, I don't need to go my own way and do my own thing, I need to concentrate on Him, study his movements and teachings, and follow as closely and harmoniously as possible to create the most good.  

It's like breathing....

Have you ever been still...just quiet and still...and listened to the music? 

My life has been permeated with music throughout its entirety.  One of my earliest memories of music is sitting on my grandpa's lap in the choir seating while he sang a swinging tenor and pointed out the words and notes for me to follow along.  I would beg my mom to let me sit in the choir seating with him on Sundays while the choir sang just so I could be up front and singing with my Dee-boy.  My parents and grand parents encouraged me from a young age to sing in church and my mom taught us songs that little ones remember easily during sunday school that I would repeat during church, with no fear of rejection by my church family.  They were always delighted to see the curly haired little girl, standing on the stage, singing about Jesus.  

In my teenage years I had aspirations of being a famous country music singer, and believe me, I had the twang to go with it.  When I was older my voice coach would cringe and tell me to, "Stop with the Tammy," referring to Tammy Wynette, a beautiful singer in my opinion, but definitely without the training my coach was trying to instill in me.  

Throughout high school and college I sang in Latin, Italian, German, Spanish, and occasionally in English, though it is not viewed as "high brow" as foreign languages in the competitive settings.  My coach would sing the assigned songs or play the CD of the demonstrations and I would always try my absolute hardest to mirror their every inflection, facial expression, and movement to convey the feeling of the songs.  

Now that I am older (a whole whopping 24) I am a worship leader in my church.  I am given the responsibility of picking out the songs for our Sunday Worship service, making sure we practice as a band, and then working with the band to lead our congregation in worship.  Think it's simple?  Cuz it's not....

You see, throughout my ENTIRE life of music I have been merely a reflection.  Nothing even close to the real thing. I have always been dissatisfied with it too.  I have been told before to "find my own voice" and make a song my own, but I have never been able to truly let the images and sounds of what a song is "supposed" to sound like leave me long enough to make it my own.  

While I have always seen this as a terrible curse and that something is wrong with me I have come to realize why I have been made this way...and I am no longer fighting it.  

My job is not to break the mold.  My job is not to blaze new trails, create my own music, and be different.  My job is to be a mirror.  My job is to be the moon. My problem in life has not been that I am only a reflection, my problem is that I have been pointed in the wrong direction.  I have been pointed at an artist, a song, a style of music, and all of these things fall incredibly short of what I am supposed to be pointed at.  

I have a great desire to be pointed in the right direction.  I want to reflect what God is.  I want to show people what God looks like.   Music is a gift to us all.  There is power in music, as though the God has given humanity an inner pulse that beats only with the rhythmic cadence of a song.  It's a force that flows through us to other people.

I have said that Sundays are exhausting because God's presence is more that a body should endure.  Our bodies were not made for such glory.  But something I heard the other day stays with me.  We are not bodies with a soul.  We are a soul with a body. Our souls are all given a gift when we become Children but I really think that God gives it to us as infants - we're just not able to truly tap into it until we can truly tap into Him.  My gift was music.  It is not only His gift to me, but my gift to Him.  I want to sing for One who loves me, the greatest love song I can give - the song of my own life.  I only hope that it pleases Him.  

Dani
DV

"I want to sit at Your feet/ Drink from the cup in Your hand/ Lay back against You and breathe/ Feel Your heart beat./ This love is so deep/ It's more than I can stand./ I melt in Your peace/ It's overwhelming." -Kari Jobe

Something I'm the BEST At

I am the BEST procrastinator in the world.  

I will put anything off, at anytime, just so I don't have to do it right now.  I never understood why I had this huge flaw, but now I think I know.

I heard someone the other day say that some people are DREAMERS and some people are LIVERS....not like the organ but...well, you get it.

Dreamers are people who have all these hopes, dreams, big aspirations, and plans, but they never seem to actually get anything done towards those dreams.  They know their goals, but they can't seem to grasp how to get to them.  When that happens they just....dream.  They dream instead of doing!!!  

Livers are ones who can say, "This is my life. That is where I want to go. This is how I get there," and then they do it!  Livers are people who get things done, they see that you only get places in live through your own hard work and perseverance.  

I am a dreamer.  I want to be a doer.  I'm not even sure if a person can change that about themselves, but I'm going to try.  Starting today I am going to do.  

I heard a quote by an anonymous author yesterday that says,

LIVE by the SUN, 

Love by the MOON.

It means that you should be living your life while the sun is up.  Be like the elderly who get up at the crack of dawn and DO while they can.  And then do your dreaming while you have to sleep!!! Don't waste your sunlight doing time on your dreaming!!

My Momentary Anthem

I have been a worship leader at my church now for almost two years.  Through my many days and nights of trying to find the songs that best fit the service I find myself being drawn to certain songs because of their words, feeling, or even just the ideas that it presents to my heart. 

Recently we've sang the song "God of This City" in worship a lot.  I have said that I feel that that song is the anthem for North Lake Church, what we're about, and what we believe.  We believe that "You're the God of this city, You're the King of these people, You're the Lord of this Nation.  You are."  What greater phrase describes exactly what God is to us?  

While being on this journey of finding myself and where I stand as a worship leader I find that there are many days where I go to worship service and I am just not feeling it.  I don't feel like singing, I don't feel like praising, I just don't think I can make it through a song set.  You see, leading worship for me is exhausting.  NOT IN A BAD WAY!!  

I'll explain.  I put my whole self into worship.  I feel that when leading worship that my job is to lead others to the throne of God and show them His face through songs and let them just bask in all that glory.  But I put my whole self into it.  It's like when Moses wanted to see God, God wouldn't even allow him to see His face because he would have been struck dead.  He was only allowed to see His back as He walked away and even then when Moses went down to the Israelites his face was shining so bright from being in God's presence that Moses had to cover his face!!  It's that sort of absolute exhaustion that I feel, and I love every moment.

The Flyleaf song "All Around Me" is my anthem most of the time during worship.  I get it.  In those moments of worship "I'm alive....So I cry, the light is white." I encourage you to click the link and listen to the words and the song. It's beautiful.  

Other times, and more often lately, my anthem is Sanctus Real's "I'm Not Alright."  I think that in always having enough I have taken for granted that I have been taken care of.  In being brought up in church I have felt the need to constantly say, "God will provide. I have faith." But I haven't ever had to put the belief behind it.  It's dogma, it's repetitive speech.  As a worship leader I have felt the pressure to always answer the question, "How are you doing?" with "I'm alright."  I should be alright.  I want to be alright.  The first line of that song says, "If weakness is a wound that no one wants to speak of, then cool is just how far we have to fall.  I AM NOT IMMUNE.  I only want to be loved.  But I feel safe behind the firewall."  For the first time last night and tonight I have not been able to lie.  My husband says it's a good thing, but it is so awful to admit to myself that I've been lying.  

Here's the truth.  I'm not alright.....I'm broken inside and out.  Being able to say that in a group of people who I know love me deeply and not have those feelings changed is a HUGE relief.  The next lines of the song say, "Can I lose my need to impress? If you want the truth, I need to confess, I'm not alright."  I am truly not alright at this time.  I don't love God any less, I trust Him and I know that he will either heal me or be my strength to bear whatever my life hands me, I just haven't found that strength yet.  And you know?  It's alright to be broken.  It's alright to be honest and say you're not doing okay, you're hurt, you're angry, sad, depressed, addicted, in a dark place that no one would want to be....It's okay.

We are not expected to be alright.  If we were expected to be alright then there would have been no reason for Jesus.  If there was a way for me to be good enough, then I wouldn't NEED Him.  If there was a way...I'd have found it by now.  

In the song "I'm not alright" it starts out as a bursting scream of no longer being able to hold in the grueling, terrible truth.  But by the end it is a soft belief and relief that, "I'm not alright. That's why I need You....That's why I need You."