Homemade Rolls! Yummy!!

One of our most favorite parts of a special meal is the homemade rolls! When Matthew was coming home for Thanksgiving, his request was homemade rolls. This is an easy recipe to follow and I've never had them fail.

Basic Roll Dough

7 cups of flour

2 packages active dry yeast

2 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup of sugar

1 stick of margarine (=1/2 cup)

2 tsp. salt

2 eggs

In a mixing bowl combine 3 c. flour and yeast. In a pot, constantly stirring, heat milk, sugar, margarine, and salt until margarine is almost melted (115 degrees on thermometer). Add quickly to flour mixture and add eggs. Beat for a couple of minutes on high speed. Stir remaining flour in by hand.

Place into bowl that has been oiled. Dough should not be too sticky.

Cover bowl with a towel and put in warm place.

Let rise until double in size, about 1 1/2 hours.

The dough is now doubled. Punch the dough, or punch down the dough. Cover again with towel and let rest for 10 minutes.

Pour dough out onto floured surface. Shape into rolls. We simply take a ball of dough about the size of a golf ball. Be sure your fingers are floured. Stretch out the sides a little, folding under, and making a smooth round top. You can shape however you want.

Spray pans with Pam. After the ball is formed, I dob the dough onto the spot where the roll will go in the pan. This puts a bit of oil on top. Turn it over and place down in that spot. Repeat, keeping fingers floured, until dough is gone. Cover again with a towel for 30-45 minutes, allowing to raise again.

When the second rising is done, your rolls are ready to go into the oven. Place into a preheated 350 degree oven. Set a timer for 10-11 minutes.

Rolls should be lightly brown on top. Take out of oven and glaze the tops with butter! We take a stick of butter, roll down about 1/2 inch of the paper, and roll the butter across the tops! Cool for 15 minutes--then eat!

This roll dough is also good to make cinnamon rolls. After the first rising, roll out on floured board with rolling pin into a rectangle. Brush with melted butter; sprinkle on sugar and cinnamon. You may add nuts or raisins at this time. Roll the rectangle starting with one edge until it is in a roll. Cut the dough into 1 inch pieces. I use a piece of thread. Scoot the thread under the dough, gather the two ends up, cross them over, and pull. This should cut right through. Allow to raise again. Bake as above for regular rolls. After they cool a bit, you may top with a powdered sugar glaze.

Fresno BBQ Chicken with Funeral Potatoes

On the Championship weekend in Fresno, we served bbq chicken with funeral Potatoes. I try to make a nicer meal on our last weekend. The menu: bbq chicken, funeral (cheesy) potatoes, rolls, variety of salad, and always fruit.

The bbq chicken is simply done by putting chicken tenders into a baking dish, slice two large onions into rings and toss on top of meat. Cover with foil and bake for an hour. At this time, raise the foil, drain off the liquid, and pour on your preferred bbq sauce until it covers the meat. Do not dilute the sauce. I used Cattleman's brand that Costco carries. Bake for another 20-30 minutes. Have extra sauce on the side.

The funeral potatoes, yes, funeral potatoes, are a cheesy potato casserole. Why are they called funeral potatoes? Well, the casserole is a great comfort food with the potatoes and cheese. This casserole is taken to a family who has just lost a loved one, hence funeral, to help them with a meal. It comes to the family with love and kindness and helps the family at this time of sadness.

The recipe is posted at the bottom of this post.

Kids can wait a long time in a line to get food.

For dessert, I had Sarah bake and decorate a cake from the bakery where she works. One cake was chocolate, and one white. Both had white butter-cream frosting. Very tasty!

Here is the recipe:

2 2-pound bags of frozen hash brown potatoes, (Shredded or Southern Style)

2 cans of cream of chicken soup, I use the 98% fat free

4 cups of sour cream (I use 2 c. light sour cream and 2 c. of plain yogurt)

4-5 cups grated cheddar cheese

5-6 green onions, sliced

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix everything together until well blended. Put in 9x13 inch pan; cover with foil. Bake for one hour. Take foil off and stir mixture; outside to inside, inside to outside. This will even out the baking. Keep foil off and put back into oven for about 20 minutes, or light brown on top, or heated all the way through.

Enjoy!

Logan Competition Meal

I didn't have my camera with me at Logan, so I don't have any photos from that night. However, I think most anyone can imagine our meal.

We had baked potatoes with butter, sour cream, bacon chunks, cheese, green onions as toppings. There was hot chile to go with the potatoes. You could have the chile in a bowl or on top of your potato.

Also on the menu was caesar salad. Ingredients are romaine lettuce, large croutons, and parmesan cheese. Toss with a bottle of Smart and Final brand caesar salad dressing. The kids love this salad.

I discovered that the kids look forward to the baked potato night. It is one of their favorite meals. The observation that I made that night was when I was talking to one of my food mom helpers. She is Asian and she said that she never made baked potatoes at home. I'm guessing that most of the Asian moms cook asian food at home. The baked potatoes are just really different and hit the spot!

Fresno Hawaiian Haystacks

Today, we are headed to the Logan competition and I just realized that I did not post from Fresno State, October 30! It was threatening rain, and there was a downpour on our way, but we didn't have to put up the canopies. The evening ended up being a beautiful night.

I offered a new menu that night to the kids. . . The jury is still out if they liked it enough to have it again. The parent were amazingly surprised that the meal was tasty! I did hear several kids say that it was good, but Jonathan is convinced that most didn't like it. I have to do a bit more research.

Shopping, Shopping, and More Shopping!

I have spent the last two days shopping for food that will be served to the kids this weekend! I do all the shopping myself, and there is so much to buy, but I don't mind. I usually hit Costco, Smart & Final, Safeway, and sometimes Target. Sometimes I order things to go with dinner that I don't want to confuse my helpers with cooking. I also pick up items during the week that I know I will be needing. I can get the strangest looks by others in the stores when I have a flatbed cart loaded--heaping--with all this food! There is at least one person each shopping trip that asks, "what are you doing"?

We are having a new dinner item this week. I am calling this my "experimental dinner". We'll see if the kids like it and if I figured out the right amount of stuff. We are having "Hawaiian Haystacks" or some might call them "Chicken Sundaes".

I ordered 20 trays of steamed rice from Panda Express tonight. I will pick it up in the morning, just before noon. The haystacks are made by first a scoop of rice. Next, toppings are added to your flavor: chicken, cheese, green onions, pineapple, celery, tomatoes, chow mein noodles, coconut, almonds and then a scoop of "gravy"--which is cream of chicken soup thinned out with chicken broth.

Also on the menu is my asian salad. I make it different than my original recipe, but the modification is best for feeding a large crowd. I mix up the salad as needed. Otherwise, if it sits for too long, it gets soggy and isn't good. Here is my original recipe:

Chinese Cabbage Salad

1/2 head cabbage, sliced

4-5 green onions, chopped

1 pkg. chicken flavor ramen noodles

2 T. sesame seeds

chopped almonds (toasted)

1/2 c. salad oil

1 T. vinegar

1 T. sugar

Salt and pepper

**chicken, optional

Toss together cabbage, onions, sesame seeds, almonds, and broken up ramen noodles. Put together in a jar with lid, the oil, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper to taste, and the contents of chicken flavor packet. shake until blended. Pour over cabbage mixture. Serve immediately. This salad does not keep well.

**add chicken pieces and make a meal

Gilroy Taco Night!

Last night was the Gilroy competition! The kids did great, even though they didn't win first place! It was taco night. One of the best dinners to provide. The kids can make it how they like it, to their taste. But before we can serve a meal, there is setting up to do. It was really raining last night, so we set up a couple of canopies for some protection. There were many wet moments though when the water would collect on the canopy and then over flow down over the edge. There were a couple of doozies I got! The wetness, not so much a problem, but the water was COLD!

We pushed the canopies right up over the two mini vans that had the back door raised. Working from the back end of the cars was actually very convenient.

All the supplies were very handy in the back of the van. This van got really messy. But this was where all the small things were.

This van was neat and tidy. It only held the coolers with food.

It was very cold. . . . Thus, all the jackets and hoods.

Many parents are willing to help get the food out.

Plenty of toppings! Lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, olives, green onions, salsa, guacamole. Yummy carrots with ranch dressing.

But first, there was a tortilla, ground taco turkey, and refried beans.

Tortilla chips if desired.

Plenty of watermelon and bananas. I'm sorry that the bananas were so green. But that's what Costco had.

The kids ate alot! Must have been hungry.

Next week: Hawaiian Haystacks

(but don't tell the kids)

First Competition Meal for 2010

Today, I went shopping for the food to be prepared for this weekend's competition. The competition will be held at Gilroy High School, in Gilroy. We are having "taco night", or "burrito night". It's about the same. The best meals to serve this large a group of kids, are the ones that they can customize to their own tastes. They can start with a tortilla or tortilla chips. The main portion is seasoned ground turkey, refried beans (vegetarian, of course), lettuce, cheese and tomatoes. I always use ground turkey instead of beef. Some kids don't like to eat red meat, but all will eat the turkey. We have a few vegetarians, so making the refried beans all veg., there is no question. The toppings on the meal will be sour cream, guacamole, olives, green onions, salsa. Watermelon and bananas will be on the menu and baby carrots with ranch dressing. I will be making rice cereal treats tomorrow for the dessert.

Some people ask about recipes. This meal is pretty simple to prepare: cook the turkey with taco season, heat the beans, chop just about everything else, and get toppings from a bag or plastic container.

The recipe I will include today is for the rice cereal treats.

Rice Cereal Treats -- Makes 24 treats

1 Cube Margarine

1 16oz. Bags Marshmallows

6 cups crisp rice cereal

Melt margarine in large pot. Add marshmallows, stir and melt together. Add cereal; only half at first, or it is difficult to stir and mix. Add and stir; add and stir until completely coated. Pour into 9 x 13 pan that has been sprayed with Pam. Let stand to cool and firm up. Cut into 24 pieces.

2010 Marching Band Season Begins!

On Saturday, the band had their informance for the parents and community. It was really fun to see how much these kids accomplish in just two weeks! At the informance, we also have sign ups for volunteer stuff during the season. I have many enthusiastic parents who are coming back to help another year! Such a relief. . . . .

We don't have a competition until October 23, so I have quite awhile to prepare. There is usually a competition starting the beginning of October, but there are only 4 events scheduled and will end November 21.

Jonathan

Some of the staff.

A quick glimpse of the field. Hard to get in everyone in one shot!

It will be a great year!

The Band Food Mom

What is a "Band Food Mom"? Well, I have been organizing and delivering dinner and lunch meals to the Saratoga High School marching band for the past 11 years! The marching band is an award winning group and travels to many places. I have been doing this for so long because I have 6 children, and the first 5 have been part of the band. My 6th child will be joining as a freshman this coming year. Many people have asked for the recipes that we make for the kids and thought this would be a great way to share something delicious! Along the way, I will also share some of my favorite recipes that I do not make for the band. Pictures will be added so you can "visualize" what happens when we deliver a meal.

I start with making a menu that is well balanced and nutritious for these very talented teenagers. I organize the items on a grocery list and make assignments to other parents to help with the preparation. I shop almost all day on Friday and on Friday evening, the food items get picked from my house. The parents leave my house with everything they need and pretty detailed instructions. The food returns on Saturday at a designated time. We load up all the food and supplies into 4-5 cars and we are off!

We arrive an hour before the band and color guard. Boundaries are established, tables are set up and preparation to serve the meal begins! When the kids arrive, they are very hungry!! If there wasn't some sort of leadership taking charge, I'm pretty sure the tables would be charged at when they get off the bus. The meal is served by several parent volunteers. Dirty dishes are put away, garbage is collected and we set up for the "after snack" which is usually Cup of Noodles and Hot Chocolate. This snack is eaten after performance and after they change out of their uniforms. You NEVER eat in your uniform!

After the snack if finished off, and I mean finished, garbage is again collected, the area is cleaned up and tables are put back into the truck. Back home we go. Usually arriving back at the school between 11:30pm-2:00am.

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