Barefoot Bloggers-Easy Sticky Buns and Craving Ellie- Chicken Cacciatore

This week's Barefoot Bloggers recipe, Easy Sticky Buns, was chosen by Melissa over at Made by Melissa and taken from The Barefoot Contessa's latest cookbook, Back to Basics. Since easy is in the name of the recipe- you expect it to be just that, easy. And it was. I made a couple of changes. I didn't want to buy puff pastry and I had a pkg of Pillsbury refrigerated pizza dough in the fridge, so I made the swap. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but I decided to go for it. I am glad I did too. It worked just fine. I just rolled out the dough and reduce the amount of butter by half and made it work. They tasted just great. Probably a little less sweet, but we saved some calories and still had a tasty breakfast sweet. Go see what the rest of the BBloggers thought by checking out the Blogroll.

This week's Craving Ellie recipe, Chicken Cacciatore, was chosen by Peggy over at Pantry Revisited. You can go to her blog to get the recipe. This is a simple, hearty dish that I threw together on a Saturday afternoon. It was good, nothing wowed me, but we enjoyed it. Chicken and veggies, with yummy seasonings and a little sauce is always good. Go check out the Craving Ellie site to see what everyone else thought about this dish!

Easy Sticky Buns adapted from the Barefoot Contessa

6 Tbls unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

1/3 cup pecans, chopped in very large pieces

1 package refrigerated pizza dough (such as Pillsbury)

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a 12-cup standard muffin tin on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (I used a fork), combine the 6 tablespoons butter and half of the brown sugar. Place 1 rounded teaspoon of the mixture in each of the 12 muffin cups. Distribute the pecans evenly among the 12 muffin cups on top of the butter and sugar mixture.

Melt the remaining butter/brown sugar mixture and brush it over the pizza dough. Sprinkle the remaining brown sugar over the dough and the cinnamon.

Starting with the end nearest you, roll the dough up snugly like a jelly roll around the filling, finishing the roll with the seam side down.
Slice the roll in 12 equal pieces, each about 1 inch wide. Place each piece, spiral side up, in the muffin cups.
Bake for 15 minutes, until the sticky buns are golden to dark brown on top and firm to the touch. Allow to cool for 5 minutes only and then turn them out onto a piece of parchment.

Come back tomorrow for Prudy's Fresh Corn Tamales and Black Bean Salad