Home Made Sandwich Rolls

What better way to spend a 'Snow Day' at home than making FRESH BREAD.

First: I apologize for the lack of tasty images to accompany this blog post. My laptop is on it's last leg and crashes whenever I try to access my memory card. Sorry...

   I recently acquired an iPad from Cash Converters (local 2nd hand shop) and discovered it's awesome for organizing my recipes. Better yet, it's easy to make corrections or keep track of experiments & tweaks.

   Here iz today’s recipe tweak...

A variation of mai 'New Years Bread' recipe. I used this bread for burgers on new years, and as tasty as it was, slices of bread don't always work for burgers. The recipe differs slightly, but essentially I made 8 large rolls instead of 2 small loaves. 

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The initial yeast mix remains the same:

1 cup warm water 

2 tsp sugar in water (mix till dissolved)

2 tsp yeast (one packet if you prefer these) sprinkled on top of water.

Ignore for 20 min.

 Wet Ingredients:

2 tbs Butter (melted)

2 tbs Coconut oil (melted)

1 Egg

1 tbs Olive Oil

Dry Ingredients:

4c Bread Flour

1 tsp Dill

1 tsp Thyme

1 tsp Caraway Seeds

1 tsp Onion Salt

1 tsp Minced Onions

Mix ingredients and knead the dough for at least 10 minutes. Sprinkle flour or spray with water as needed. 

Turn on oven for 1 minute.

Turn off oven.

Place ball of dough in a bowl in your slightly warm oven and allow to rise for at least 1:15. Dough will double in size.

Remove from oven and knead again for at least 10 minutes. Cut dough into 8-10 equal parts. Roll and flatten each ball. Remember these will 'Double' in size before you bake them. Space them accordingly. Circles for burgers or long for hot dogs.

Again turn oven on for 1 min, then turn off.

Place rolls in warm oven to rise for 1:15.

Set oven to 375* (after they have risen) and bake for 25 min. 

As they bake, brush tops with melted Butter or Coconut Oil (i use a 50/50 mix of both)

ENJOY!!!!!

The Coffee Weasel (recipe)

   There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those of us who drink Coffee and those who don't. It's a Love it or Hate it kinda thing. No one is really 'on the fence' on their opinion about this most sacred beverage.

   But even on this side of the fence, we have strongly divided lines as to what is the correct way to imbibe out beloved Java. Cream & Sugar, Splenda, Half/half, Hazelnut, Heavy Cream, Butter, Bacon (yea, think about that one) and the list of options goes on. On the other side we have those who believe that anyone adding anything whatsoever to his/her cup of 'Black Gold' should be tried for heresy and burnt at the stake.

   My parameters differ depending on the who/what/where of the cup of coffee in question. If I am Wawa-ing then Its a seconds worth of sugar (pouring 'one one-thousand), Hazelnut creamer (an inch or so) and the rest is Hazelnut coffee. My buddy Bob has a percolator so his Coffee is quite dark and tasty. (occasionally it's a bit TOO thick for my prefs, and it gets a bit of cream and sugar

  At home I have started roasting and grinding fresh coffee beans, and let me say that once you have roasted your own coffee, you will never look at store bought Coffee again. You can purchase a 'Hot air Popcorn Popper' for this. Takes less than 10 minutes to roast your own. For the quantity of Coffee I drink, this saves me allot of $$$. Do you like fresh Coffee, or do you prefer store bought that was roasted who knows how long ago and been getting stale on the shelf??

   I'm not a huge Creamer fan, but for all the baking I do, I tend to keep Coconut or Almond milk on hand as well as Heavy Cream. (for making my own Butter). So I occasionally will use one of these liquids in my Coffee just for so. Otherwise my home roasted brew is kept on the 'Dark Side'. I do however like some Sugar and Spice in my Dark Cup of Morning Happiness. For this I have my trusty Coffee Weasel. For those who love Futurama, you will understand this reference. If you don't...

BAM!!! ...and I've kicked it up a notch.

   The mix I normally use is:

-10 tsp Sugar

-2 tsp Cloves

-2 tsp Nutmeg

-1 tsp Cinnamon

 

Today I added 1 tsp Cocoa Powder to the mix just for so.

I keep this mix in a glass grated cheese shaker.

 

   I started off using more Cinnamon than the other spices (it's cheaper) but the Cinnamon seems to not mix well and sinks to the bottom of my mug. So I have upped the quantities of the other Spices.

...and that is my favourite cup of Coffee.