Southern New Year's

Since my husband and I spent New Year's with his mother and step-dad in northern Alabama, we were treated to an authentic Southern New Year's dinner!  I was thrilled!
My mother-in-law prepared us a delicious meal in her lovely home - and it was so good, I think I'm going to make this a Northern tradition too.
We had the black eyed peas, turnip greens, and ham, sweet potatoes, green onions, rice, and cornbread.  I didn't know where to start - the ham was beckoning - there's a reason they say bacon is boss! 
We ate the green onions as you would a carrot stick - I had never done that before, but I sure enjoyed it! 
I read later on that the peas are supposed to signify coins, and the greens - either the turnip greens or the green onions, signify green paper money.  I like the symbolism and the hope and good wishes it bestows on a new year.

Cinnamon Roll Redux; Startin' the New Year Out Right!

So I took it upon myself to make the cinnamon rolls again, from the recipe in last year's "Taste of the South" (note: they do have another receipe in this year's iron skillet issue for orange cinnamon rolls, but I wanted to stick to these).  Also, I had to address the taunts, snide remarks, sarcasm, etc. about how poorly those last rolls turned out.
I made these mostly according to the recipe; 4 cups of flour, 1 packet of yeast, 4 tablespoons of sugar, 1 egg, canola oil, salt and vanilla extract, all mixed together in my trusty mixer, "Ice"(thank you again Aunt Marge!).  The dough endures three risings; after being mixed, it rises in a buttered bowl for an hour; it gets punched down, then rises for another 15 minutes; then rolled out and buttered and sugared and sliced up and then it lays in the pan for another hour before being placed in the oven.
Tonight though, the last rising turned out to be about 3 hours, because I had to step out, and I figured, it should be ok to let them rise a bit more.

 

Well, when I got  home, I scurried to the kitchen to check on them - they had risen a bit more than expected, but it wasn't like they had strong-armed their way out of the pan! 
So I popped them into the oven at 350 degrees, and 25 minutes later, they were browned and ready!
I had the glaze ready; the recipe calls for 1/2 cup of whipping cream, 2 cups of confectioners sugar, and 3 tablespoons of light corn syrup; my version was 1/2 cup of half and half (because it has 1 gram less of fat per serving), and the 2 cups of confectioners sugar, and then 2 tablespoons of agave syrup.  I think it tastes great - and my husband agrees!  It smelled like Cinnabon in here while they were baking, and he was dancing around as I pulled them out of the oven and lifted them from the pan. 



May I just back up a moment here - I just want to point out something that I skimmed over - right before the last rising of the dough, when I said I had "rolled out and buttered and sugared and sliced  up...", the buttered in this case is a brown butter that the recipe recommends - it is simply melting the butter until way past simply melting it - it is letting the butter burn, so that it is a nice caramel color and scent.  I think that really adds to the caramelly sweetness of the whole cinnamon roll endeavor!