told you, not cute... but they are not long for this world so no one shall care or remember this...

These are the rolls my grandma is always ask to make, and I am always asked for the recipe when I make them (which is much, much more rare I can assure you)… so when I posted them on the menu from the holiday/hurricane weekend, someone I have made them for before asked for the recipe… I thought I’d try to get a good picture of them (though it’s not that good) and I even made them in cloverleaf since that is how my grandmother does it… Her’s are infintely more cute than mine turned out, as yours probably will be if you make them, but I really am too impatient for yeast breads and it’s that impatience that you see… The title is not my claim, or hers, but rather the name they published them under in the 2 local cookbooks… While it has times, what we do rise them overnight, then shape them first thing before breakfast, let the rise again while we head off about the day (usually to church as this was often a Sunday staple at her house) and make them for lunchtime (bakes around 15-20 mins)…

Only make these for others if you think you can bear the clamour, otherwise you shall slave at this huge batch and be lucky to get 2 or 3 for yourself… They seem so humble and basic, they are the only non-store bought rolls I grew up on so I just assumed that was there charm…

But as a lady would bakes incessantly once enthusiastically asked me for the recipe I guess they could be different somehow, but they are and always have been the only homemade rolls I ever remember eating as everyone always used her recipe… and everyone always wants more of them so here, enjoy the much desired secret as I can assure you I won’t be easily cajoled into making them for anyone… I make them only once a year at either christmas or thanksgiving, the rest of the year I buy my bread… (And I usually eat them spread with jellied cranberry sauce instead of butter… and they are really good that way, one of my holiday favorites really…) I occassionally dip the balls in melted butter to shortcut having to grease the pans and the tops of the rolls (making the cloverleaf is painfully simple, put three balls of dough in the muffin cup) so it just gets recovered with a towel dampened with warm water and is ready for the oven… That is my only secret (and I didn’t do it this time, nor did I remember to butter the tops, but oh well), so go enjoy them if you’d like…

now this is not at all a necessary step, but I always flip them and let them cool upside down in the muffin pan... this lets the steam escape, no getting out the racks, and the tops rise out enough that you do not need to worry about them sinking back in the pan anyway... this is one of those helpful lazy times, you know the mother of invention type...

Best Rolls Ever – (my g-ma, Tylertown’s “Cooking With Friends” 1998, p 94)**
1/2 c sugar
1/2 oil
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1.25 c warm water
1 pkg dry yeast, dissolved in water
4 c all-purpose flour or 2 c white and 2 c whole-wheat flour

Mix sugar and oil. Add beaten eggs and salt. Dissolve yeast in water. Add to mixture. Then add flour until dough leaves the side of the pan. Let rise 4 hrs or overnight [with a wet towel over them--this is not a part of the printed version but a key part in how she taught me to do it so you don't get a dried skin on top]. Roll out in desired shapes. Place on greased cookies sheet or muffin pans. Let rise 4 more hrs or until double in bulk. Bake at 350 until brown as desired. Makes 2.5-3 dozen rolls.

** This is of course in the Tylertown UMW’s “A Book of Favorite Recipes” as well—and probably any T-town cookbook since she started making them–but I don’t have the page number…

Soooo, I made breakfast… the Hubster slept in until about 8 on Saturday while I was the one to get up with the boys and make breakfast. Now take a minute to pick your jaw up off the floor, I even fumbled my way thru french toast for them (this was actually a compromise since they had really asked for pancakes, HA!)… it’s been a long time since I made breakfast and I’m not a morning person so I was not interested in looking for or in a cookbook so I made it up and tried to make it look right… and for the bread, I did half whole wheat and half Sara Lee Blueberry crumble–the SL gets a bit too soft so you might want to dry it out some (quick way: pop in the oven at about 200 flipping once until both sides feel coarse and stale) before soaking to make it work nicer but hindsight and all…

French Toast
12 slices of bread
6 eggs
3/4 c milk
3 capfuls vanilla ext
1 T ea: sugar, maple syrup, and southern comfort (or frangelico, or just use another capful of vanilla and a couple more tsp of sugar if you want alcohol-free)
2 T ea: oil and butter (I used 1/2 T of ea to cook each batch of three, or could use a bigger pan I guess)

Mix eggs, milk, vanilla, sugar, syrup, and alcohol… pour over bread and let soak it all up… preheat you pan to MED, add your fat to the hot pan and fry them up in batches until they are good and golden on each side maybe a minute and a half a side (not sure I do this by smell… I can tell by the shift in the alcohol when to flip, but I reckon this is not a reliable technique for most… and I wasn’t wearing glasses so I can’t even backwards engineer how long from start and stop times, sorry… but then again everyone makes french toast if you need times someone is sure to have them somewhere… just google it…)

So, I’m not really a baker… I cheat on all my bread (and particularly favor biscuits and quick breads) but today I decided to make the bread from bought yeast dough rather than just a pop can… so this is a step up for me. Lots of shaping involved though, so I did a bunch of pics. Sorry if this is slow to load… I promise not to do it often, I just thought it’d be less confusing than trying to describe the shaping…

Hoagie Rolls
2 1-lb frozen logs of yeast bread dough
some butter or oil from greasing/handling

grease pan and dough and let thaw and rise, simultaneously, until fills a loaf pan (about 2 hrs)… split each loaf in half lengthwise and shape, then let rise 1 hr… punch down and split in half again and let rise another hr… preheat oven to 350… then (w/o punching) tighten up surface of dough by pinching and tucking under the bottom until it looks taut on top and sort of oval shaped… (I then spread out on two trays for more baking space betwixt and between) brush tops of the dough with melted butter (or oil) and bake for around 15-20 mins or until golden brown and done… [NB: during all the risings I covered the dough with a warm damp towel]

the visuals for the first few steps...

the visuals for the wrapping up...

Garlic Mushy Pea Panzanella
1/2 head of garlic (normally I’d roast it, but I didn’t have time or the inclination)
1 lb frozen peas
bread cubes (not sure how much, I used the top halves of an entire batch of pop can biscuits, maybe 10 I think, that we burned to death over the weekend…and I precut them days before to let them dry out)

Boil the cloves in about 1 c salted water for around 5 min. Remove and add peas for a few minutes.  Toss peeled garlic, peas and (Here’s where I’d normally have added some olive oil, if the fat content of the ziti hadn’t been so insane) some of the liquid in the blender. Blitz and add s/p to taste if needed and pour over and toss with the bread or croutons. And again if I weren’t chintzing on fat, I’d have garnished with a fair amount of parm.

Michael Chiarello makes a more involved pea panzanella if you want something more exciting and it’s good…but this night I wanted easy and needed to cut out all the good stuff to accomodate for the truckload of calories in the entree. I think he has another one as I thought I remembered eating two of his, but maybe not…as I’m not easily finding it.