Buttery Garlic Parmesan Rolls

Buttery Garlic Parmesan Rolls

I believe the name of these delicious rolls speaks for itself! These buttery, garlicky, parmesan cheesy, carb-olicious rolls are perfect to eat with your next Italian dinner or just by themselves, because yes, they are that good. Slather on some extra butter, melt some provolone cheese on top, or just eat them plain, you can t go wrong I promise!

The real reason I baked these delicious babies up is because my son has a complex about his bread at school now. Yes, the

3rd grade pressure is really getting to him! I asked him if he wanted a sandwich in his lunchbox and his first question was Well what bread are you using? We pretty much only eat Food for Life Ezekiel bread because it is the best store bought bread I have found. I totally love the Ezekiel bread because it is loaded with natural nutrients and tastes great. It doesn t include any ingredients that I can t pronounce and it doesn t contain any preservatives. My son is more of a processed, packaged bread lover (because I can t shield him from everything!) so I ve resorted to making my own breads and skipping the processed, unnecessary ingredients in store bought white breads and rolls (I also add in whole wheat flour).

Did you know that some brands of shelf stable breads can even include hidden trans fats??? I KNOW! Ridiculous! The hidden

source will be labeled as mono-and-diglycerides, which can be found in a ton of processed foods. I ve seen it in everything from dips, to ice creams, to most processed breads. I have even seen it in grocery store bakery breads, also know as We are just pretending to bake this but in fact it came in frozen and isn t really the fresh product you thought you were buying. Those bakery breads can be super misleading because they look homemade but if you take a gander at the ingredients sometimes they are even worse then the pre-packaged stuff. I have looked and looked for a grocery store that carried a bread that doesn t contain anything weird and I have only found ONE option at Wegman s, their organic sourdough bread. I ve noticed that it has been sold out every week so maybe Wegman s will take the hint and come out with more options! That would be awesome! With that being said, I wanted my son to be able to take something he wasn t embarrassed about and would actually eat so here it is. I settled for using mostly bread flour (King Arthur s brand) and stone ground whole wheat flour which created a really nice end result. Bread flour has never failed me to create the perfect roll, so I highly recommend using it in this recipe. I baked the rolls in pie pans (10 per pan) right next to each other because I like that pull apart aspect I get from doing it like that, but you could certainly separate them and bake them on a sheet tray or in a rectangular pan. *Recipe adapted Foodnetwork.com from Almost Famous Breadsticks by

Beef and Veggie Macaroni The school year is officially in full swing! I have to say, getting my son ready on the first day was a tad stressful thanks to a meltdown in the morning by my usually

happy 2 year old. Boy, did he ever decide to throw a wrench in all picture plans by flipping out, throwing himself down into some rocks, and refusing to let me strap him into his car seat! Sound familiar to anyone? Good, I m not alone!! I thought for sure my neighbors were going to call the cops on me for child abuse because he was screaming at the top of his lungs. They surely think I m insane by now because it seems that someone is always screaming. I promise, we are normal, whatever that means.

Now that I ve vented about the terrible twos, let s talk about this delicious and lunchbox-friendly meal! This one is perfect for sending a hot lunch to school that your kids will actually eat, or just getting dinner on the table relatively quickly after school. There is not much for your kids not to love about this one. and if they are on the fence about the

carrots/peppers I would suggest dicing them super small and pretending they aren t even there. I m not a fan of hiding veggies in food, however I do have a slightly picky 3rd grader who changes his mind on a weekly basis about what is acceptable to put in his lunchbox. I feel you, I do! Just because I have a blog about food does not mean all of my boys will eat everything I make without complaining. Every week last school year my son would complain about certain foods that I sent in his lunchbox that he previously loved to take. Eventually I just ran out of ideas and started making meals like this one so I could send the leftovers in his LunchBots thermos and be done with it! Most of his hot lunches would come home eaten, so I had to settle for putting veggies in creations like this one instead of sending them raw. You win some, you loose some!

Recipe Tips I used a colander to drain the grease from the meat/veggies. I tried draining the way I normally do and realized it was going to be an epic disaster if I proceeded, so I placed a colander in the sink (or over a

bowl if you do it that way) and it was so much easier! You can absolutely switch up the veggies here, and get creative! I can see peas and green beans working really well! I didn t know whether to call this a soup or a stew because it is kind of in between. At first it was thinner but the pasta will continue to soak up the broth and it becomes thicker. I really enjoyed the consistency because it was right in the middle. Yes, this recipe contains cheese because cheese is my friend, and has really never failed me. You can certainly omit the cheese if you would like, however I really loved it with just a slight hint of cheddar. It isn t overpowering at all, just bumps up the taste a bit. I always use no salt added Bionaturae strained tomatoes when cooking a dish like this. If you substitute a product that contains salt, you will have to adjust how much additional salt you add. I prefer this product over canned because I feel it is safer and has a better taste. Three Cheese Tortellini Soup

Well.I m just going to go right ahead and say this recipe is a certified cheese-bomb! Shall I shamelessly explain myself or

blame it on the pregnancy? Ok, now that the cheese-bomb cat is out of the bag, let s talk about why I needed this in my life today You know because it was 85 degrees here in Central Pennsylvania and I needed a bowl of hot, creamy, comfort-food style soup. Obviously. Again, the baby. The hormones. The cheese. Oh my! But then I realized this soup was so deliciously dreamy, creamy, and oh-so cheesy that everyone needs this in their life once in a while. You know, like when your friend gets dumped and she is not that into chocolate Or when you realize one of your kids just peed all over the bathroom (Oh, I m sorry.. Is that just MY kids??) Or that time you realized your cheat day just turned into a cheat month and you must have one final Hoo-RAH before getting back on track. And let s not forget this soup contains tomatoes and tomatoes = healthy fruit/vegetable or whatever you classify a tomato as. So there it s not that bad after all. Now let s review. TOMATOES = HEALTHY. MY KIDS = PEE EVERYWHERE. The End.

AND Moving On Not only is this soup a cheesy-hot-mess, it is also really versatile. A versatile dinner is a great thing in

my world because let s face it Taking 3 (soon to be 4) kids to the grocery store before dinner to pick up ingredients is basically a tantrum roulette. Maybe someone will have a meltdown, maybe we will all pretend to be normal. Who knows? And better yet, WHY risk it? If you are missing one or two ingredients, chances are you can make a simple sub and all will be well in tantrum land. Plus you won t have to fight the after word crowds at the grocery store. Just a few quick substitution suggestions: Sub tortellini for 100% whole wheat elbow macaroni (If you are wondering about my stance on the tortellini, check out my Spinach and Tortellini Salad post). I would go with 1 cup of macaroni. Omit beef, sub 4 Tablespoons butter. Melt butter in saucepan, add flour, then slowly add liquids. Sub freshly grated parmesan cheese for asiago cheese. If you decide to go the powdered parmesan route, I would suggest cutting back a little because it may turn out a bit salty.

*For reference, here are the tomatoes I always use for soup. FYI, this is a bulk listing so the price looks very inflated.