Cinnamon Rolls and Paranoia

I love cinnamon rolls.  I have to say it is one of my favorite breakfast foods.  While I was making them this morning, Colin asked me if that's what I was making, and I said "yes, is that ok with you?" to which he replied.  "Yes.  Because I love them."  I also have to say, that I have tried the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls now twice, because I made them wrong the first time (they were good both times), but my family and friends in town still prefer my recipe, which really isn't my recipe either.  I got it in the mail one day with one of those things that wants you to subscribe to their magazine.  I am so glad I did not throw it away, here it is:

2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 cup of vegetable oil
3/4 cup of buttermilk
1 stick of butter
1 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Now before I start with the directions I have to tell you that I don't follow them.  First of all, I don't use buttermilk.  It's not something I keep and I tried a shortcut one day because I didn't feel like mixing the lemon juice (or vinegar) and waiting for the milk to curdle, so I just used regular milk and they came out just dandy.  I also don't use a whole cup of sugar, I usually only use about 3/4 cup, and make up some of the flavor with putting some more cinnamon in.  I don't really measure the cinnamon, but I'm guessing it's closer to 2 teaspoons than 1.  I've also been running short on butter before and used some cream cheese to fill in the difference and that tasted great, too.

Ok, so what you do is mix the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda together, and then mix in the vegetable oil 'till it's a little grainy.  Then in with the milk and you should mix this together in a kitchenaid mixer until it looks a little doughy, just a few minutes.  You're supposed to knead it, but it is a really wet dough and I don't know how you would ever knead this stuff unless you added quite a bit more flour, which I have also done, but they don't come out as nice.  So after you get it all mixed up,  HEAVILY flour your countertop and roll this stuff out.  If you roll it too much it's going to get sticky, because it IS a pretty wet dough.  So if you use a whole lot of flour rolling it out then you'll be fine.  After you get it rolled out to about a 12X8 ish size, spread that stick of softened (or melted, but softened works a little better) butter out onto it.  Then sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon on top and roll it up into a long jelly roll.  The original recipe says that you should be able to cut this into 8 rolls, but I can get 10 or 12 out of it and then I don't feel guilty at all about having two of them, especially if you get 12. Bake them for about 15 - 20 minutes depending on how brown you like them (and your oven) at 400 degrees and enjoy.


Now for the paranoia part.  I have never claimed to be the most laid back person on the face of the earth, I did however think that I was relatively laid back.  Being pregnant with twins has made me realize just how laid back I am not. I worry about almost everything.  The most recent concern has been my varicose veins.  They actually get worse with every pregnancy, and so I was expecting that my entire left calf would be purple at some point, but I was not expecting it to spread to my thigh.  So, when I realized last night that that was what was happening, I of course, started to worry.  It's only one vein, right now, but I started thinking about how when people have heart surgery they take veins out of your thigh, and what if this was THAT vein, and how it was damaged, and maybe I needed to be worried about blood clots, and it just goes on and on from that point.  I finally just talked myself into going to sleep with the knowledge that I had a doctor's appointment in only 6 days, and I would just pray that I didn't die before I could get in there an ask him about it.  You're probably thinking that if I was really worried, I just would have gone in today, and you may be right.  I might just like torturing myself.  But at any rate I dreamt all night about having a miscarriage, partly due to the fact that Colin joined us as some point in bed and kept bumping into my belly.  So there you have it.