SpruceHill

Just in case you have not had enough to eat!

I thought I would post a recipe because it's cold out, and you know how you like to eat when it's cold out! I made these Christmas morning. The kids were tired of eating monkey bread so I whipped up something different. PW has an awesome cinnamon roll recipe but it involves yeast and rising and it just scares me. So this is a really easy alternative.

These are Amazing shortcut cinnamon rolls, and boy are they yummy and so easy. Here is what you need.

For the rolls

• 2 cans (8 Oz. Can) Prepared Buttermilk Biscuits
• ½ cups Softened Butter
• 1 Tablespoon Sprinkled Cinnamon
• ½ cups Brown Sugar

For the icing

• 1 cup Powdered Sugar
• 3 Tablespoons Heavy Cream Or Half-and-Half
• ½ teaspoons Vanilla

Arrange biscuits with sides touching, in rows on a lightly floured surface. Press edges together, then using a rolling pin, roll them out to make a nice-sized rectangle. Spread evenly with a nice layer of softened butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon, however much you like. Then sprinkle with brown sugar. (You can even add raisins or dried fruit or whatever you like, experiment!)

Roll up starting with one long end; cut into 8 (about 2 inches thick) slices. Place rolls into a lightly greased round cake pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. Stir together powdered sugar, cream and vanilla. Drizzle evenly over hot rolls.

So enjoy and if you are dieting like I am for the new year because you ate too much over the holidays I sincerely apologize!

I got to meet Pioneer Woman!

Yes that's right I got to meet Pioneer Woman last Sunday. My Sister-in-law, Pam and I headed up to West Chester PA where my brother and his family live. It is only an hour drive and we both decided it would be a fun thing to do on a Sunday. Who needs to shop, wrap and bake when PW is an hour away?

We headed out early in the morning around 8 am. We wanted to get to the book store when it opened to get a good number. On the way to PA we encountered a bit of dicey weather. It was raining pretty steadily and the temperatures hovered around freezing. As I pulled out of my road at 8 in the morning and saw that it was closed due to an accident I should have been a bit worried. I thought Maybe it would be slow going from there. We passed a total of 3 over turned cars on the drive up to PA. My Sisiter in law was at the wheel and delivered us safely. She did a great job driving and we had no problems getting there.

We hustled into the store and grabbed our books we wanted to purchase for signing and the kind woman at the counter told us that there were better numbers at the back counter so we ran back and got the number 16! I was so excited to have such a low number. We walked around the store for a bit. I had talked to one of my Bloggy friends Dot O about coming to the signing and it just so happened that she was planning on being there as well. While we walked around I found her eating at the little cafe attached to the store! Dot O is the first Bloggy friend I have met in person. It is strange knowing a lot about a person on-line and communicating through face book and twitter with someone and never really meeting them in person. Dot and I hit it off like we had met before. It was really cool!

We saved seats next to each other by the podium and were lucky enough to be in the second row. We took pictures of each other at the same time :)

It was amazing to me how many people were there.

I snapped a bunch of pictures of the crowd. I was giddy at this point and a little sweaty.

All I could think at this point was holy shmoly I am sitting this close to wear PW will sit! My heart was palpitating.

Then they announced her and she glided out from behind a book shelf and I almost passed out. Not really I clapped.

She looked so pretty and stylish and tall. She said her outfit was inspired by Stevie Nicks. She Rocked it.

She talked for a short time about her tour and the ranch and then answered some questions. Someone asked her to sing.

So she did! I'm working on getting the video from My Sister in law. She taped it.

 
Then she sat down like a southern lady and they called the first 20 numbers to line up and that was us. So we stood in line. I met some nice ladies standing in line that had traveled from Washington DC and Baltimore. They made PW a lovely T-shirt.

 
 As we got closer I got more nervous. I was hoping that I would not trip and fall or say something inappropriate.

Pam got to meet her first.

Then it was my turn, I leaned down to talk to her and tell her my name. I said "Hi Ree I am Spruce Hill!", and she said You are Spruce Hill? I said "Well yes I am!" I asked her to sign the book for my give away and then she signed my personal cookbook. She said "Your name is Sarah right?" And my jaw dropped to the ground and I felt a bit light headed. After all of the many people she has met on her tour I couldn't believe she knew who I was! I had sent her a few e-mails when she started her recipe site Tasty Kitchen and she helped me with my password, and was lucky enough to be a featured member and have had a few of my recipes featured too.

I handed Pam my camera and she snapped some pictures for me. Then Ree gave me a hug and told me it was nice to meet me.  She is so nice and gracious, I was so happy I got to meet her in person. It made my year!

Now my life is complete! I have met Pioneer Woman. Thanks Ree for traveling around the country, spending time away from your family to come out here to see your fans. It means a lot to us all.

Don't forget to visit my cookbook giveaway post. Leave a comment, I will be randomly choosing a winner on Thursday after 12:00 noon EST. The cookbook is beautiful and is filled with all your favorite PW recipes and some new ones too!

  

   

The Pioneer Woman Cooks, Cookbook Give Away

Congratulations to Eileen the winner of the signed Pioneer Woman Cookbook!

 

"I have made several pioneer woman recipes, we really enjoyed her cornbread stuffing recipe for turkey day, first break away from my mother's traditional sage stuffing recipe. It was great! Currently I am really into the baked pasta with shrimp recipe. I made it the day I read the post and again two days ago. I want to tweak it a bit for our tastes, but its fun and fast."

"Thanks for the book offer, I followed the link from your comment on pw's site. I like to do that to discover interesting new blogs, now I will take a better look at your blog...happy holidays!"

Yesterday was quite an adventure for me. I met Ree Drummond,in person! It was so exciting to meet her. She is just like you would think she would be. She is so down to earth, and kind and yes very pretty as well. I am going to do a post tomorrow more about my adventure but today I want to talk about her cookbook.

I can't tell you how exciting it is just to get my hands on a signed copy! So I thought when I was standing in line waiting to meet Ree herself, wouldn't it be a great idea to spread the love and get an extra book signed and give it away?

Yes that's right! I have a signed copy of Pioneer Woman Cooks for one lucky Spruce Hill reader. The winner will be selected randomly on Thursday. All you have to do is to leave a comment here at the bottom of this blog post by Thursday 12:00 PM Eastern Standard time. Tell me what your favorite recipe is and if you like leave it with your comment.

Not only is it a wonderful cookbook but Ree included lots of her photography in it as well. It is gorgeous!

 

Please only one entry per person! Good luck! I will mail this out as quickly as possible so you can enjoy it over the holidays.

  

Toffee Crunch Caramel Cheese Cake

Last week I asked Miss E what she would like for her birthday cake. I was really surprised when she said caramel cheese cake. One reason was that I have never made one before, the second is that she is my cake girl. She loves making cakes and decorating them. As soon as she said caramel cheese cake I was on-line trying to find a recipe. I didn't find one I liked so I made one up. Here it is

 The ingredients

• 32 ounces, weight Cream Cheese
• 4 whole Eggs
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 2 Tablespoons Whipping Cream
• ½ cups Brown Sugar
• ¾ cups Toffee Pieces
• ½ cups Caramel Ice Cream Topping
• 1-½ cups Graham Cracker Crumbs
• 4 Tablespoons Melted Butter
• 1 cup White Sugar Plus 2 Tablespoons For Crust

In a small bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs melted butter and 2 tablespoons of sugar. After mixing well, press into the bottom of a cheesecake pan; set aside

I have to say that I just love my cheese cake pan. I know I am such a food geek but I do. It is made by Calphalon. If you do not have a cheese cake pan go out and get one you will not regret it.

In a large bowl, combine room temperature cream cheese, eggs, vanilla, whipping cream, brown sugar, and remaining 1 cup white sugar.

 
Beat until smooth and creamy. Add toffee pieces and mix together on low speed until combined with the other ingredients.

 
Pour batter into the cheesecake pan and cook for 1 hour at 350F.

 
It turned out to be so good! After I let it cool I took it out of the spring pan and poured the caramel all over the top. I just bought a bottle of caramel ice cream topping in a squeeze bottle. It is the perfect consistency for the cake topping. If you like you can make home made caramel but this was quick and easy and very good.

After we sang happy birthday to Miss E I did a quick photo shoot of my piece. It was a very quick photo shoot. I could not wait to eat it. Cheese cake is one of the easiest desserts to make. Do not be intimidated by the cheese cake, embrace it, enjoy it, eat it, you will not regret it.  

Orange zested cranberry sauce

 
Thanksgiving is creeping up on us. I have been trying to prepare anything I can ahead of time. Yesterday I made my cranberry sauce. It is a very simple thing to make and beats the canned stuff any day.

Here is what you need.

1 bag of fresh cranberries

1 cup of Sugar

1 cup of Water

1/2 to 1 Teaspoon of orange zest (you can add as much or as little as you like, it is completely up to your tastes)

1 to 2 Tablespoons of fresh squeezed orange juice.

In a medium sized sauce pan add water and sugar. Bring to a boil and then add cranberries and orange zest and juice. Simmer for about 15 minutes over medium to low heat.

 
Pour into a bowl and allow to cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until needed or if you make it ahead like I did go ahead and put it into a storage container and put it in the freezer. Remove it from the freezer and put it in the fridge about 24 hours before you need to use it.