Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting

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Even before you are in front of a Cinnabon outlet in a mall, you know its near you with the cinnamon aroma hovering all around it. When that cinnamon air hits you, there is no looking back. You are already opening your wallet, taking your credit card or cash out, and in a trance, walking towards the origin of the smell of cinnamon mixed with yeasty goodness.

Now, Cinnabon did not come to India till a little over two years back. Had it not been for my friend the Pious Hippie from college I would not have been introduced to Cinnabon’s cinnamon rolls for a long time. I would have for long still been unaware of their ooey, gooey, incredible cinnamon buns with the most addictive smothering of frosting.

Once I was hooked, there was no return. Since there was no place in India then, where we could get cinnabon style cinnamon rolls, I took to making them at home. This was more than 4 years back. I think I found a recipe on allrecipes.com. Not sure though, because I just noted down the recipe in my diary; back then The Novice Housewife did not exist, it was just a diary with recipes scribbled in it.

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Home Alone making paranthas, salad & pizza and thinking of all things sweet & scary!

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So I am home alone for three nights.

V had to go for some office stuff to Texas, and I am left home alone.

This is the first time I am staying alone in our house. And I was very nervous about it. Our town is quite safe. So I was not scared of somebody breaking in (although, I made sure all my windows were closed and do not laugh, but I also put a chair/stool in front of the front and back doors. Just in case someone does decide to break in, I will be warned by the noise. Too much of CSI does that to you!)

Like I mentioned, I am not scared of someone breaking in (you are rolling your eyes, aren’t ya?), but all the horror movies I have seen have made me a little scared of the paranormal- ghosts to be more precise. So that you are sure, yes, I am an adult. But I have an overactive imagination. A very overactive imagination.

I remember after watching the movie The Ring , I slept with my lights on for a month, imagining the girl ghost in the movie standing next to my bed every time I switched off the lights off and then even when the image of the ghost left after a month, I continued sleeping with the lights on, thinking the ghost would get pissed off that I wasn’t sacred anymore, and would be tempted to scare me off.

Yes. Overactive. Imagination. Mine is.

So, how I always do when I am alone, the first night I slept with the lights in my room on. And with the TV on. And the bathroom lights on. And the hallway light on. And the living room light on. With the phone in my hand every time. I felt really bad that I was wasting so much electricity, but honestly I could not help it. This is how I slept last night as well. Today though, my protector, my husband, will be back home, and I should live in a world less scared of the evils it possesses. (I repeat- do not roll your eyes! or laugh! Please?)

Besides being scared at night, the other thing that was bothering me about being home alone for three days was the food situation. With V gone, I knew I would not feel like cooking for one. I knew I would be cooking Maggi noodles for lunch, dinner, and well, even breakfast. But, I did not want that. So, instead, as soon as V left I made it a point to pre-make things. I made the tomato feta pasta salad. I made the topping for the artichoke spinach pizza and also had the necessary leftovers for the chicken paranthas I had packed for V before he left. The maggi packets are left to be eaten some other week.

This post has no recipes. It has links to some of my previous recipes though. And all of them are good. Some are quite old, some not so much.

Chicken Paranthas

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March SRC: Spinach Artichoke Whole Wheat Pizza

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My SRC assignment for the month of March was to make something from the site Baking & Boys.

Baking and Boys is a blog managed by the talented Katrina. Katrina has been blogging since Feb, 2008- that means she has been blogging for more than 4 years now. This is how Katrina describes why she started this blog and how it turned out to be what it is today.

I started my blog just thinking I was going to keep my family and friends up-to-date with the boys. I’ve said it before, I just put some cake pictures of Sam’s first birthday party on here and then for some reason my favorite cinnamon rolls. Next thing I knew, this whole wonderful world of food blogging opened up before my eyes. I often say that baking and sharing and blogging are my sanity—which with this house full of boys I often find necessary! Keeps them fed and me sane. Sounds like a good combination. 😉 And here I am, four years later with just noticing yesterday that I now have 400 followers on my blog and 200 “likers” on Facebook.

I am glad she changed from just a daily journal to much more.
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