Giving Thanks Even More and Lots of Food!

I know, lame title! You already know about the highlight of last week: Boyce Avenue Concert! If you missed that post from earlier today, you can check it out HERE!

This weekend was Thanksgiving weekend in Canada! YAY! Long weekend means so much more time to do lots of stuff! I did talk about doing some stuff on my Pinterest post on Friday night! Guess what? Apparently, whenever I post about doing something, I end up actually doing it more than when I just write it up on my notebook or post it on my fridge or something.

Friday night was nothing special but consisted mostly of watching Pretty Little Liars! I’m on Season 3 now! Its getting more than relaxing intense but intense intense! Other than Pretty Little Liars, my guilt of sitting around doing nothing kicked in some time around 10pm and I got straight to work and did a ton of chores for the next two hours.  Nothing to really post about there..unless you want to see my wonderful laundry hanging skills 😉

Saturday was pretty cool.  I actually got in a lot of sleep.  One of the 10 things I wanted to do! It doesn’t make up for the past 2 weeks of not sleeping a lot but its getting there.  My boyfriend and I got woke up earlier than usual and we managed to do a shopping run.  I picked up 2 horror movies at Walmart for $5 each: The Descent Original Uncut (my review HERE of it with US ending) and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. I also got a indie horror film called Frozen, which I did manage to watch yesterday night as well.  The review goes up next week 🙂 I’m still processing it a little.

I promised you food, right? Last night, I went all out and decided to make a crazy meal, which my boyfriend had to step in to help out nearing the end since I have this weird frustration that sets in when I cook for a while longer and things start going crazy.  Panic, I guess….he never understands why I’m a completely different person when I bake…I’m sure some of you do, right?

Here it goes!

First up, I made an Autumn Sangria in the afternoon to let it sit and soak up the fruits a bit.

Prep for Autumn Sangria

The recipe that I used is this one HERE! This is how it turned out 🙂

Autumn Sangria!

This was really strong in my Chinese alcohol intolerance level.  For one, the bourbon tastes very strong and its what soaked into the fruits mostly, so the fruits were delicious, especially the apples.  Second, if you expect citrus like the normal sangria, this one hits the spicy level a little more.  Definitely more autumn with more fruits from this season and a cinnamon sticks (preferably), I only had ground cinnamon so I added a hint of that to the mix.

Moving on, for the main meal, we made a little twist of the Avocado Basil Pasta featured HERE!

Avocado Basil Pasta

We cooked a bit of topping since I’m not really good with raw foods.  Also, we added in some leftover italian sausages and made a side of potatoes. As much as it may not look that great, it tasted pretty awesome 🙂

Sunday morning came around and I was in an extremely happy mood to make some pancakes.  I mixed the batter and my boyfriend helped make it. They were these Pumpkin Pancakes right HERE!

Pumpkin Pancakes!

I’ve never made pancakes non-Bisquick style so this was a pretty good trial.  Plus, they tasted SO GOOD! Whats Halloween or Autumn recipes without pumpkins, right?

After that, we headed off for a nature trail in the Eastern Townships for the afternoon.  I have to sort through about 200 pictures from that but the post will be going up soon.  Here’s a picture to give you an idea!

Marais de la Riviere aux Cerises

I already remember to be thankful everyday for the great things in life that I have but its also a weekend for me to reflect how to be better at being thankful and grateful for all that I have. So far, this weekend’s been pretty epic.

One more day to go! Before I leave you, here’s a nice video about What to Eat for Happiness from Popsugar Fitness! Enjoy!

Just in case you ever need this, with Halloween around the corner! Lets train in case we get hit by a zombie apocalyse (and to insert a bit more Halloween in here)!

I’ll definitely try it soon 🙂 Tell me how it went if you try it out!

Stay happy and healthy! Thats what I’m grateful for: just being alive, being blessed with what I have, and especially meeting all of you in the blogosphere! Thank you for all the love: likes, comments, follows and just simply visiting! Its been a great year so far on Tranquil Dreams and there isn’t enough thank yous to express how grateful I am and how much I appreciate all of you! 🙂

Hope you all had a great weekend! Drop by again! I have a lot prepped for next week 🙂

Double Baking: Cherry Coffee Cake & Cinnamon Rolls

This weekend was absolutely awesome.  Yesterday, I had promised to post up the recipe for the dessert I made for the BBQ with friends.  You can read that post HERE.  However, I felt like baking again and I ended up making something I’ve been planning all month, Cinnamon Rolls.

The Cherry Coffee Cake was actually a slight modification of a dessert I posted a few weeks ago called the Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake.

Cherry Coffee Cake fresh out of the oven!

Check it out HERE to get the original recipe.

The modifications I made were the following:

• 1 cup of Bisquick mix (ran out)
• no yogurt or grated lemon-zest
• replace milk with unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• replace fresh blueberries with fresh cherries. Remember to remove pits
• No streusel topping but sprinkled with brown sugar before putting in the oven

Its straight forward and delicious! The change in fruits made for a refreshing taste.  Some  of my friends ate it with ice cream and found it was a good match. Still a very worthy recipe!

Next up, my first attempt at making CINNAMON ROLLS! There were super successful! 🙂

Cinnamon Rolls! Fresh out of the oven!

This is a long and time consuming recipe.  Its two times of waiting 30 minutes to wait for the dough and the rolls to rise, but then the actual baking time is only 25 minutes.  However, if you want your house to smell sweet and delicious with cinnamon aromas, this is the perfect choice 🙂

I found the recipe in my Looneyspoons cookbook called Rolls Royce!

Makes 12

Ingredients:

Dough

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup ground flaxseed

2 1/4 tsp quick-rising yeast

1 tsp salt

1 cup 1% milk

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg, lightly beaten

Filling

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

2 tbsp butter, at room temperature

Glaze

2 tbsp light cream cheese, at room temperature

1 tbsp butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Goes great with Maple Soy Ice Cream 🙂

How to make it:

1. To make dough, combine both flours, flaxseed, yeast, and salt in a medium bowl.  Mix well and set aside.

2. Add milk, sugar, butter and vanilla to a small pot.  Heat over medium heat, stirring often, just until milk is warmed, butter is melted and sugar is dissolved.  Do not simmer or boil.  Remove from heat and carefully pour into a large mixing bowl.  Add half of the flour mixture and egg.  Stir using a wooden spoon until well blended.  Add remaining flour mixture and stir until soft ball forms.  Turn dough out on a lightly floured surface.  Add a bit more flour if dough is too sticky.  Knead dough until smooth and elastic, about 1 minute.  Place dough in a clean bowl that has been lightly oiled.  Cover with a tea towel and let rise in warm place for 30 minutes or until double in size.

3. Meanwhile, make the filling.  Mix brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside.

4. Line a 9×13 inch baking pan with parchment paper and set aside.

5. When dough has risen, turn out onto a lightly floured surface.  Roll out dough to a 12×14 inch rectangle. Using a butter knife, spread 2 tbsp butter evenly over dough.  Sprinkle with brown sugar-cinnamon mixture and spread evenly to edges.  Roll up dough jelly-roll style.  This should be 12 inch long.  Using a very sharp knife, slice roll into 12 equal pieces.  Arrange rolls in a single layer in prepared pan.  Cover with a tea towel and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

6. Preheat oven to 350F.  Bake rolls for 25 minutes, puffed and light golden brown.  Remove from oven and let cool slightly while you prepare the glaze.  Using an electric mixer, beat together all glaze ingredients in a small bowl until smooth.  Spread evenly over warm rolls.

Close up texture

Of course, I made some modifications and here they are:

• Omit flaxseed (didn’t have any)
• Replace 1% milk with unsweetened almond vanilla milk
• No glaze

Not so many changes but that dough is extra hard to roll into a rectangle.  Mine was slightly lopsided.  That made for two of the rolls to be a bit funky looking. However, I’d say that it was a successful first time trial and I’d definitely try it again.  This recipe was delicious.  I removed the glaze because even without, it was sweet enough.  Plus, the glaze has cream cheese and I can’t eat that.

If you want to make your house into a delicious smelling place (if you like the smell of cinnamon), then this one is a sure fire.  It may be time consuming but its a really fun experience (even when I was cursing the dough for not turning into a rectangle 😉

Happy Monday Morning! Cinnamon rolls anyone?

Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake!

This week, I wanted to switch it up a bit and seeing as blueberries were on special, I went ahead and bought some.  I adore coffee cakes and I’ve had my eye on this recipe to make a Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake for a while.

Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake

 

Like most of my recipes, I found this from Looneyspoons Collection.  Don’t worry, I will be doing something else from other books.  Its just this one has super high success rates (even when I replace and modify).  This one is called A Bundt in the Oven.

Here is the recipe:

Makes 16 servings

Ingredients:

Streusel Topping:

1/4 cup chopped pecans

3 tbsp all purpose flour

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp butter, melted

Cake:

2 cups Bisquick baking mix

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 cup lemon-flavored yogurt

2 eggs

1/3 cup 1% milk

1/4 cup high quality vegetable oil

2 tsp grated lemon zest

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups fresh blueberries

Fresh out of the oven!

1) Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray a bundt cake pan with cooking spray and dust lightly with flour.  Set aside.

2) To prepare streusel topping, combine all streusel ingredients in a small bowl and mix well using a fork.  Set aside.

3) Combine baking mix, flour, sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl.  In a medium bowl, whisk together yogurt, eggs, milk, oil, lemon zest and vanilla.  Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix just until dry ingredients are moistened.  Batter will be thick.  Gently fold in blueberries.

4) Spoon batter evenly into prepared cake pan.  Sprinkle streusel topping evenly over batter.  Bake for 40-45 minutes.  Cool cake in pan on a wire rack.  Loosen edges using a knife and carefully transfer cake into a serving plate.

Would you like a slice of Blueberry Explosion? 😉

This recipe was relatively straightforward and thats pretty much why I love baking any forms of cakes.  Its just a hassle to pour the batter evenly into the cake pan, but luckily I have a fantastic assistant (my boyfriend) who helps me out.  Lets look at the ingredients that I’ve modified:

– For the topping, I didn’t use pecans but almonds with some bits of hazelnut

– I removed lemon-flavored yogurt and grated lemon zest because the first I can’t eat and the second I ran out

– Replaced 1% milk with unsweetened vanilla almond milk

These little modifications didn’t change much for the recipe, I don’t think.  The coffee cake was very delicious.  It wasn’t too sweet and on top of that, there was a crazy amount of blueberries in comparison to the batter so it kept it very moist and fruity.  Every bite was so addictive.  I ended up cutting another small slice to eat 🙂

If you are into coffee cakes and especially blueberries, you have to give this one a shot. Its light, moist and fruity yumminess! 🙂

Have an awesome Thursday everyone! Keep it up! One more day to go this week then its long weekend (in Canada)!