Cinnamon Rolls? Yes. Blueberry Rolls? Also Yes!

There's something about the hearty decadence of breakfast pastries. Breakfast is the one meal where sweets are a standard part of the menu, and yet (pace Bill Cosby) you wouldn't want just to eat a piece of cake for breakfast. So you need something more substantial. Something like candy, but in bread form. As far as pastries are concerned, I'm very happy to let someone else make them for me and pay them for their efforts. It's extremely unlikely that I've ever attempt anything as involved as these in my own home. Cinnamon rolls are about as ambitious as I get in the morning.
The other week I came across this recipe after a link to the site from Bitch Ph.D. No, my rolls wouldn't look as nice as hers, and even if they did, our camera isn't good enough to capture it, but still I could try.
So, Sunday before last, after having made the dough the night before and letting it rise over night, I got up early in the morning to roll out my rolls. I divided the dough in half, freezing half for later rolls, rolled out what was left, slathered it with butter and then cinnamon sugar (the red bits you see below are cinnamon candies that got mixed in with the cinnamon sugar after a recipe I can no longer remember), rolled it up, cut it into eight parts, covered it and went back to bed to let it rise. When the timer went off in the kitchen, I came back out and put it in the oven then crawled back into bed to await the cinnamon rolly goodness.

And there it is. They were tasty and flaky and sweet but not too sweet (per Nabeela's suggestion, I upped the sugar in the dough to 3/4 C). Fresh baked bread and cinnamon is a truly wonderful combination of smells, but I wondered if there wasn't something else that we could try. Then I noticed that the our blueberry jam was especially thick...

So we used butter, sugar, and jam for the filling, and Julie decided to be more aggressive with the icing. And it worked! The jam was thick enough that it didn't run and the blueberry came across as a distinct flavor, rather than just being swallowed up by the sweet. They're enough advance work that I'd save them for special occasions, but I'd definitely make them again.

Potato Vegetable Gratin

Julie and I were talking about it, and while we both certainly grew up with plenty of potato dishes, au gratin potatoes (not even the Franglaise term, potatoes au gratin) came from one of two places: from a red box that seemed to live indefinitely in the pantry, or, later, in all their orangey congealed glory, in the chafing dish of some slightly exotic buffet. They did not look or taste like this:

Ignore the burnt bits at the side. Those wash right off the pan (it's amazing that way), and the gratin itself was not at all burnt or dry. On the contrary, it was tender and soft and full of rich complex nutty goodness. Sigh...

I've mentioned the gratin thing before. I started making them at the end of last year as a way to use up aging potatoes, and whatever else sounded delicious. Prep for this is actually quite easy, once you get the hang of not bleeding profusely with the mandolin slicer. I use a variation of this recipe. You could use raw portabelo slices, like the recipe say, but you can also substitute whatever you have or is in season. This time I caramelized some onions, sauteed sliced criminis with them and then sprinkled them in between the layers along with some sliced Brussels sprouts.

I know that this is usually thought of as a side dish, but, if you do it up right, a piece of this, a simple salad and maybe a glass of red wine can be an amazingly satisfying meal.