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!