Every Christmas morning, my family gets up and makes cinnamon rolls and orange danishes. You know, the kind that you buy in a tube. I hate orange danishes. I really don’t like orange flavors added to other foods. But cinnamon rolls are lovely. I made some cinnamon rolls last December, soon after arriving in Aachen. I had some trouble with the sugar filling in the rolls, because all I had was granulated sugar. This year I have some soft brown sugar, so for Christmas I decided to make cinnamon rolls again. I’d say they turned out pretty well:
I have been having a lot of fun with baking lately. I made herb pull-apart dinner rolls last week on a whim. I craved that feeling of pulling a fresh, warm roll into pieces. The bread from the bakeries here is amazing, but there’s something amazingly satisfying about fresh bread from your own oven.
Another thing we enjoy around our house is roast chicken. My favorite recipe is from America’s Test Kitchen, a roast lemon chicken that is butterflied before being put in the oven. I save the chicken backs and freeze them, and then every once in a while I make homemade chicken broth. It’s so easy. Throw some veggies (carrot, celery, onion, garlic), peppercorns, and the chicken backs in a pot. Cover with water and simmer for several hours. Then strain it. That’s it! It makes a really flavorful, low-sodium broth that can be used for pretty much anything.
But lest you think that I only eat this lovely homemade food, here’s my best recent grocery store find. Yummy, satisfying junk food. They aren’t as cheesy as in the US, but they are so good:
Expat Linguist 