Awesome Dinner Rolls

Lately, I've been trying to simplify my nutrition by making a big pot of something hearty to eat every week. That way, I can just ladle myself a bowl-full of goodness whenever I want. Three weeks ago, it was a chili-like minestrone soup with corn bread. Two weeks ago, it was a lentil soup with ground turkey and tofu, also with corn bread. It actually was pretty good, and I did eat multiple bowls of it, but there was just so much of it, that it lasted into this week, when my appetite fell through the cracks and I started eating this huge plate of mint brownies that the Bishop's wife gave me.

Thank you, Sister Wright! I am still eating those brownies ... and it's all in the name of, uh, ... overtraining recovery. Yeah, that's it! I NEEDED to eat all that sucrose because my body was depleted.

So, I had to throw the last few servings of the lentil soup away. I should just make less next time.

So, today, I made this big-ol' whoppin' pot of beef stew. Mmmmmmm.... As I was shopping at Food Lion tonight, I saw this stew meat that looked very nice and seemed reasonably priced, and I immediately thought, "Ah-HAH! There's my pot for this week." No, I'm not on pot.

Then I thought that the stew needed something to accompany it, but corn bread just didn't seem to fit the bill. Fortunately, I have my trusty Russia Yekaterinburg Mission Cookbook, with plenty of awesome recipes from my MTC comp, Elder Todd Tyler. Love that guy. Need to find his contact info.

Out of all his recipes, the one that I make the most is called "Rolls in 60 Minutes." I hope you don't need me to explain why the recipe has that title. This is the recipe that I make the most probably because I have never had the forethought to make other bread recipes that actually require you to let the dough sit and rise overnight or for several hours at a time. I like to think of it as being an expression of my spontanaity, rather than my laziness.

The thing about this recipe, however, is that it yields about 40 rolls. So, I made them in all sort of shapes and sizes. The pan that I am the most pleased with had six rolls in the shape of a pyramid, with a little crossed peak at the top, and the other six were spherical, also with a little crossed peak. It got me thinking, "Oh, cool. These are like hot cross buns, since they're hot, they have a cross on them, and they're buns," except that I have no idea what real hot cross buns are. Maybe mine qualify, maybe they don't.

But they look GREAT!!!
















They look kind of Tudor-like, as if they had come from the kitchen of King Henry the VIII himself.

And they taste good, too.

How's that for the most random blog entry you've ever read?