cinnamon

Pull-Apart Cinnamon Pecan Rolls

Store-bought frozen rolls make these super easy but delightfully delicious pull-apart cinnamon pecan rolls easy to make for any weekend or holiday brunch.

This post is in partnership with McCormick

I am a nut about Christmas traditions.

Even today, I still make sure the garish Christmas ornament I made in third grade from a paper plate wrapped with red and green yarn to look like a wreath and sporting a photo of my Brownie Scout-buck-toothed grin hangs in its place of glory, in the same spot, every year, on my mom’s elegantly decorated Christmas tree.

When it comes to holiday traditions, it’s the little things that count.

For our family, one of the most revered traditions is our Christmas morning breakfast. In fact it’s so special, we only serve it once a year, and this pecan cinnamon monkey bread is a favorite part of it. continue to the recipe… about Pull-Apart Cinnamon Pecan Rolls

Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Whiskey Cream Sauce

Skip the traditional pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving and make this decadent pumpkin bread pudding with whiskey cream sauce instead!

When it comes to Thanksgiving, my brother-in-law has the right idea. His take on dessert? “You need a little sweetness to take away the fullness.” Truer words may have never been said, especially when it comes to Thanksgiving day dessert.

But, I can almost see you shaking your head, “no. way.”

There’s no way you’re going to forego your favorite pecan pie for T-day dessert. And don’t even think about me suggesting you skip the classic pumpkin pie flavors that reel in childhood recollections of fall’s favorite holiday.

Take a deep breath. There’s no need to despair, you can have all of those flavors and more, because bread pudding is here.

But is bread soaked in drippy goodness really a worthy of this hallowed day dessert? You bet! I’ll take it in my favorite baked french toast, or baked in the bird’s turkey day stuffing, or even as a hot roll dipped in mashed potatoes and gravy.

Bread pudding always reminds me of cajun and creole flavors thanks to a waitressing job I had in college at a New Orleans flavored restaurant that served it for dessert. I’d never tried it before working there, and how I got to college without ever doing so is a shocking mystery to me. Because once I tried it, laced with a dripping whiskey sauce, I was a goner.

continue to the recipe… about Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Whiskey Cream Sauce

Easy Instant Pot Monkey Bread

This easy pull-apart bread starts with frozen dinner rolls that rise overnight and are then baked in the Instant Pot pressure cooker for a sweet and fast cinnamon sugared breakfast or brunch treat.

I’m not sure who made up the name for this sweet, sticky pull-apart bread, but whoever did nailed it on the head. Because just like monkeys who are known to pick, pick, pick at their favorite things, this cinnamon, brown sugar, and pecan-laced monkey bread is the perfect sweet breakfast or brunch finger food.

This overnight monkey bread is made with frozen yeast dinner rolls so be sure to plan ahead and allow time for the rolls to rise overnight.

The unique part of this recipe is that instead of being baked in the oven, this monkey bread is baked in the Instant Pot pressure cooker. Yes! You can bake in the Instant Pot, and successfully do so too.

The other part of this recipe I love so much is the “balls” of the monkey bread are cut in half before baking to make smaller bites, ensuring that every single nugget is lathered in that classic sticky, cinnamon and brown sugar goodness.

Half the size means you can enjoy them all year long, whether it’s Christmas breakfasst, or New Years brunch, or any time you’re craving that sweet treat any monkey would put his hat on and dance for.continue to the recipe… about Easy Instant Pot Monkey Bread

Cinnamon Raisin Baked French Toast Cups

Individual servings of french toast are an easy make-ahead breakfast, and this recipe can easily be doubled to feed a crowd!

Make-ahead breakfasts are my jam. And we aren’t talking jam on toast.

We’re talking about a lot more than that. So much so that you’ll probably find as many make-ahead breakfasts here as you will grilled cheese sandwich recipes.

And with my ever-professing love of cheese, that’s sayin’ somethin’.

Holiday visits are the perfect reason to break out the casserole dishes, the mini cocottes and even those mismatched, odd-ball ramekins rattling around in your cabinets to create individual breakfasts you can make the night before, then pop them in the oven.

This 5-ingredient breakfast is the perfect way to ease into your day.

continue to the recipe… about Cinnamon Raisin Baked French Toast Cups

Maple Buttered Sweet Potato Wedges

These wedge-cut sweet potatoes are seasoned with a touch of chili powder, cinnamon, fresh thyme, and a generous drip good maple syrup, and then they get caramelized as they roast in the oven, for a wonderfully sweet and savory side for your Thanksgiving table.

Yesterday I was all about the pie, pie, pie, pie, pie. Today I’m all about the sides, sides, sides, sides, sides. Let’s go T-swift style and Shake! It! Up! Shake! It! Up!

You can find sweet potatoes on pretty much every Thanksgiving table. Except for ours. Growing up we never had sweet potatoes for turkey day. Or yams for that matter. I guess nobody was much of a fan of cooked marshmallows on top of canned orange jewels.

This time around, I’ve turned to the wedge—the sweet potato wedge. Gone is the mush factor found in canned varieties. Instead one of my favorite fall seasonal veggies is partnered with Real® butter, sweet maple syrup and a pinch or two of cinnamon and another smidge of cayenne. Then off on a trip to the hot oven they go.

continue to the recipe… about Maple Buttered Sweet Potato Wedges

Cranberry Baklava Phyllo Cups

A new year calls for new tips in simplicity, especially in the kitchen.

Sometimes I’m a short-cut kinda gal, which makes for some interesting cooking challenges.

Because who wants to feel overwhelmed and overwrought at the mere thought of inviting friends over to enjoy some cheer in the new year? I say, bring the friends! But cut the complexity out of the cooking and let’s make an easy take on a classic fave.

Let’s pave the way for more merry making and party partaking.

continue to the recipe… about Cranberry Baklava Phyllo Cups

Currant Cookies and a Cookie Cravings eCookbook Flash Sale

Friendship is a funny thing.

You can be the best of friends. Totally inseparable for weeks, months, even years. Then life changes. New friends come into your life, old friends drift away. Often it’s not even a conscious decision, thought or action. It just happens.

I was first introduced to these Currant Cookies thanks to a friendship I’ve known all of my life, a friendship of my mother’s that has been passed down to the next generation. Life comes full circle and somehow these cookies have become a part of it.

Back a few more years than I’d care to have on my calendar, my mom was set to deliver my little sister when she met her best friend Pam. My mom and Pam were both in the same hospital about to give birth to daughters. For years they had run in similar circles, in the same city, but hadn’t met one another. Yet people would always mistake them for one another. Similar mannerisms, style, beauty and height. It was a wonder they hadn’t met before. I guess bringing their daughters into the world at the same time made it their time.

They both named their daughters Holly. Well, my mom didn’t initially. I did that. My mom and dad named her Heather, but I refused to call her anything but Holly. My mom said she never did look like a Heather. She said Heather’s are wispy. Holly was a tub. So at 4 months old, Holly had a name change.

I’ve always been a bossy older sister. I blame it on this first act of self righteousness.

continue to the recipe… about Currant Cookies and a Cookie Cravings eCookbook Flash Sale

Dessert Nachos with Strawberry, Mango and Avocado Salsa

This is the thing I like about nachos. If you agree, you’re invited to the party. If you don’t, I’ll be the first to pass along an elementary-style lunch tray to ensure all of your primary food groups stay at arm’s length of one another.

Nachos. They’re layers upon layers of my favorite tastes. A little bit of salt, a lot of spice, maybe a little bit of protein—if I’m feeling the urge to act like a well-rounded adult—all blanketed in cheese, aka the glue that melds this flavor bomb together.

Last week I asked my friends on Facebook for help on what recipe they wanted to see this week: spring pasta or salsa? By the looks of today’s post I think you can see which dish came out as the clear winner.

The confirmation that this recipe was the clear winner came from my Smudge who declared it would had judiciously been added to her birthday party menu. This is serious stuff folks. Maybe it received this exclusive validation because she had become invested in the recipe as my scribe, studiously practicing her cursive skills as I dictated the ingredients and portions. By the way, I DO know there is no “t” in avocado. Most of the time. Can you even tell the difference between my handwriting and a 3rd graders? Aye—yi—yi. Scary.

Cinco de Mayo is on the calendar for this weekend’s celebrations replete with menus full of chunky guacamole, tacos (you gotta try this fried avocado version), enchiladas and a serious round of salsa. I thought about adding to the Mexican madness by recreating a standard savory affair, but headed off on a bender, pointed South and conquered the sweeter side of the border, thanks to mangos in my refrigerator in dire need of a destination resulting in this Mango, Strawberry and Avocado Salsa.

continue to the recipe… about Dessert Nachos with Strawberry, Mango and Avocado Salsa

Sweet and Spicy Popcorn Recipe

Before making the change to a low-sodium diet, Jess Goldman Foung, the author of the popular blog Sodium Girl, was like a lot of Americans who ate fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, not nearly enough servings of vegetables and rarely strayed from her comfort zone of basic food groups.

With a degree from Stanford and a budding career as a Development Manager, Jess was becoming an expert at fundraising and grant writing, and loved it. Her body, however, did not.

“The autoimmune disease, Lupus, was aggresively attacking my brain and my kidneys and after three months of chemo, dialysis, and amazing medical care, I survived. My kidneys didn’t, ” she says.

After researching and educating herself, Jess realized she needed to take her health into her own hands, and she started with nutrition. “I swore I would do what I could with my own two hands to help stay strong and live a full life and that meant going on a strict low-sodium diet. But I also happened to be an extremely stubborn person, who refused to eat dull food or miss out on anything life had to offer. So that meant rewriting the low-sodium rules.”

“After a tough-love session with my mother, who asked, ‘Do you want to live five years or fifty years?” I realized I needed to quit my job and find a career that let me take care of myself,” Jess acknowledges. “It wasn’t until a fateful day when I watched two movies back-to-back —Julie and Julia and then Food, Inc.—that I realized what I should do: 1) blog and 2) write about the power of food.”

And that she does with the release of her new book Sodium Girl’s Limitless Low-Sodium Cookbook.continue to the recipe… about Sweet and Spicy Popcorn Recipe

Snickerdoodles with White Chocolate Chips

I don’t mean to brag, but eh-hem, I’m an award winner.

Yep, it’s true. A winner of a blue ribbon. Utah State Fair. 4th grade. Yes, I said a STATE FAIR BLUE RIBBON. For my Snickerdoodle recipe. Award winning baker I am.

Smudge and I were going through some old boxes over Christmas and she discovered the coveted contest winning ribbon. In her eyes my status jumped immediately into the stratosphere ie: the realms of iCarly and her beloved Big Time Rush. Yep, rock star status.

She’s been obsessing over why I was awarded the blue ribbon, my coveted Snickerdoodle recipe, and thus obsessing over us baking Snickerdoodles.

I have no idea where the recipe came from, maybe an easy-to-bake cookbook from 4-H, but it is seriously one of the best cookie recipes I’ve ever had. Light but moist, chewy and how easy is it to dump all of the ingredients into one bowl, mix and bake. It’s easier than buying store bought, pre-made, sausage-style cookie rolls.

Easy enough for a 4th grader (me), and now a 2nd grader (Smudge), to make.continue to the recipe… about Snickerdoodles with White Chocolate Chips

Yummy Yam Souffle

Smudge: “Mama, if you’re in a cooking contest, like the Iron Chef on T.V., this is what you should make because you would win.”

Win? With yams? Let’s just say that if I do ever get called into active Iron Chef duty, and the Chairman’s chiseled jaw exclaims that the surprise ingredient is “YAMS!” I will dom. in. ate. And then I’ll eat.

This is her FAVORITE recipe. And it will be the recipe that when she’s thirteen and her friends say, “YAAAAAMS, ooo grrrrrooosss” she will heartily agree and then slink away to the fridge and secretly steal tastes from the leftovers in the fridge at midnight. Atta girl. Just like Mama.

I couldn’t let the Thanksgiving holiday get past me without bringing out this recipe to share. It’s a recipe I cook each Thanksgiving along with my Green Beans and Shiitake Mushrooms and this year’s addition of Pumpkin Soup in shot glasses for a lighter, and festive, appetizer.continue to the recipe… about Yummy Yam Souffle

Baked Apple Cups

Our neighbor has an apple tree. My daughter covets that tree. Patiently waiting. Waiting since spring, when I cut down our apricot tree that I don’t think she’s yet forgiven me for.

So now that the apples have finally ripened for harvest, we nonchalantly wandered over to check out the tree, and borrow a few apples. Yes mom, she said we could.

What to do with them apples? My Smudge’s request has been apple pie—again with the pie! When will this girl’s pie obsession be satiated? Um, maybe when I bake her a pie?

If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.

But with no time to make a full blown crust, I pulled a puff pastry from the freezer and baked up an alternative that put her pleadings on the back burner, for now…

4.16 from 32 votes

Baked Apple Cups

Fun and creative treat that can be whipped up in just 30 minutes.

Ingredients

1 1/2 sheets frozen puff pastry
2 T melted butter
2 tsp sugar
3 apples cored and thinly sliced
2 T plus 1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp zested lemon rind

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Thaw puff pastry dough and cut into six pieces, discarding remaining two pieces. Brush with melted butter and place into greased 6 X 1 cup muffin tins. Sprinkle pastry with refined sugar. Combine remaining ingredients reserving 1 tsp brown sugar. Divide between tins and sprinkle with remaining brown sugar. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until pastry is golden. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Recipe Notes

adapted from Donna Hay's The Instant Cook

How about a few more apples that don’t fall far from the tree? Enjoy.

photo > Inspiring the Every Day

Michael shares his tidy parcels of goodness with his moist (thanks to the buttermilk) caramel-ey (thanks to the cream and sugar) and sinfully salty (thanks to the fleur de sal) Cinnamon Apple Cake, laced with salted caramel in Inspiring the Every Day‘s individual desserts. I’ll take two.

photo > Cookin’ Canuck

Dara, our favorite Cookin’ Canuck, has given her own spin to a recipe originating from Pam Anderson of Three Many Cooks, and created Apple Upside-Down Biscuits with Gala apples and complimentary nutmeg, cinnamon—plus the pièce_de_résistance, ice cream!

photo > From My Lemony Kitchen

Lisa’s secret to a crunchy, but light as air fritter is rice flour, which makes My Lemony Kitchen‘s Apple Fritters with Ice Cream a better than good, gluten-free dessert. And don’t forget the extra sweet topper of a piece of really good chocolate. Just for that extra gooey factor.

photo >Tiny Tea Room

Amy has a secret I too share, save yourself the headache and forget trying to make puff pastry from scratch. Tiny Tea Room‘s nuggets of Apple Almond Snail Pastries combine almond cream and an apple filling for the perfect pop-in-in-your-mouth dessert.

On another note, I am so excited to share with all of you the amazing talents that are contributing to the debut issue of FoodieCrush magazine. When will November 15 get here already? If you’re interested in advertising and partnership opportunities, contact me at heidi at foodiecrush dot com.

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Pull-Apart Cinnamon Pecan Rolls

Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Whiskey Cream Sauce

Easy Instant Pot Monkey Bread

Cinnamon Raisin Baked French Toast Cups

Maple Buttered Sweet Potato Wedges

Cranberry Baklava Phyllo Cups

Currant Cookies and a Cookie Cravings eCookbook Flash Sale

Dessert Nachos with Strawberry, Mango and Avocado Salsa

Sweet and Spicy Popcorn Recipe

Yummy Yam Souffle

Baked Apple Cups