Kabocha Squash Cinnamon Rolls

I did a lot this week. 

I finished a book (while trying to ignore my messy apartment).

I officially switched from working at a winery (and occasionally a food truck) to working at a pasta restaurant. Glamour shots from my ride back from work below.

Last night, I made myself go out after work to shake out some worries and loosen up. I danced so much that my neck, shoulders, knees, and hamstrings all ached this morning. 

So I made cinnamon rolls and used up the last bit of squash in the fridge. 

This has happened before, if any of you remember this post from a while back. There's a definite correlation between how frequently I go dancing and how frequently I make cinnamon rolls. In any case, this time I remembered to take pictures during the actual mixing and rolling process. 

Hello, Pot. 

We start with the squash. In case you aren't familiar with Kabocha, here's a handy guide. I find the sweeter, orange kabocha the absolute best squash to puree because its flesh seems to have very few strings. 

Since we're making cinnamon rolls, I don't care how much butter goes into the greasing of the squash for the roasting. Not that I usually care how much butter I consume. That happens to be a weakness of mine.

Clean up the apartment while the squash is roasting. 

Gorgeously roasted, time to sieve it!

This is what happens when you mash roasted Kabocha through a fine sieve. How cool is that??

Okay. Squash sieved. Now the dough. 

I'm working from this recipe from Joy the Baker, and this one from the Sprouted Kitchen. JTB for the basic roll recipe, and SK for adjusted moisture amounts. 

First up, milk, butter, and sugar: heat on the stove until warm and sugar is dissolved.

Then yeast. 

Is that the milky way? No? Are you sure?

Then flour. (Wait - I need to talk about this flour.) 

I am so excited about this. For months I've been mixing store-bought all-purpose flour with the rougher, grainier soft and hard red wheat flours from Longspell Point Farms. BUT, now I've got my hands on their fine, lovely, red wheat pastry flour. I love buying local. 

Now squash! In!

And a little more flour! Possibly I didn't follow directions to the letter, but I needed a little more than four cups to get my dough to Joy's consistency in her recipe. This could also be due to the flour's lower water-retension capacity.

Find a warm spot... hmmm, this'll do. Now wait an hour. 

After an hour, it didn't really look too risen, but that's okay. I forged ahead anyway and mixed in the rest of the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Onto a surface, and knead, knead, knead!

Smack and roll flat, 

 butter up, 

and sugar that dough.

(1/2 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg)

Now roll!

And slice and place. Nobody slices in perfect rounds, don't worry.

If you want perfectly round rolls, I suggest putting individual slices in the cups of muffin tins. 

There's butter, brown sugar, and honey in the bottoms of these pans, by the way.

A sprinkle of chopped walnuts, and they're ready for some heat.

In the oven at 375F for 20ish minutes. 

Ta-daaaaa! 

Enjoy, folks. Have a piping hot roll, wrap up, go out, visit a vineyard, birdwatch, be merry.

Let's Talk About Stock

Well, it's here. Winter. Halloween was a perfect Fall day: all hard, bright sunlight and yellow leaves and purple shadows. And I didn't even have my camera. 

Now, the second of November, it's cold and rainy and the breeze is gusting from gentle to frantic every fifteen minutes. We are in the final season, and it's time to pare down, catch up on paperwork, and think about peace and quiet and this incredible view.

Or, you know, go dancing. 

Balkan style.

Occasionally everyone needs a good shake-up to jitter and jangle the cold-weather blues out of your bones. Sure, we'll be cozy and hibernating sometimes, but that's no reason to stop moving completely; you'll atrophy. 

Thanks to Oro! Orkestra (once again) and Winehardt (making their debut on this blog) for providing me an appropriate environment to throw my limbs everywhere, spin around in circles, and dance with complete strangers while getting a headache from smiling too much.

So, the stock talk. 

Remember Chicken Sofrito? Well, the inedible leftover bits have been in my freezer, just waiting for their moment. Never throw out the bones until they've given up every last molecule of flavour they possess. 

Chicken bits.*

*In the years since I originally posted this, I've started tossing these leftover chicken bits with cooking oil and roasting them at 400 for 20 - 30 minutes, stirring/flipping them halfway, just until they brown evenly. THEN they go in the stewpot.*

You can use this broth to make lots of things. If you're braising or stewing or making soup (souping?), this liquid is so much better to use than plain water. And a great thing about it is that you can personalize it. 

Below: juniper berries, salt, fennel seeds, coriander, peppercorns, mustard seeds. This is my preference. If you want, you could throw in chicken, onions, and salt and have done with it. However, I like a little spice. 

What flavours do you like? Pepper? Basil? Parsley? You can use those if you like them. I like fennel, and onion, and bay leaves. 

These are actually the leftovers of the veggies I used in the sofrito, frozen as well. It's good to add in a couple fresh veggies though, in case the frozen ones are just bits and pieces. 

Throw everything in the pot. 

Add water to cover.

Put this on the burner at medium heat, covered with the lid. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to a gentle simmer. This should ideally stay on the heat for three hours at least.

 If you have a slow cooker, this is a perfect recipe to throw together and leave on the counter all day on low heat. 

After simmering is done, and the broth tastes good to you (that's important!), strain the liquid using a  large colander and then a fine sieve, if you don't like particulates in your stock. 

You can freeze this in airtight containers, but I wouldn't recommend more than two months on ice. One thing you can also do is freeze the stock in ice cube trays overnight, and then dump the cubes into a ziplock bag, so you can have the stock on call in small amounts. 

You can also make vegetable stock, which is a little more complicated because you don't have bones to work from. But we'll get there another day. For now, pull on your warm socks and snuggle up to a woodstove (or go dancing); we've all earned it.