Potato Rolls ...

So, yesterday I made some potato rolls (as I said I would).  They came out pretty good. I need to adjust the cooking time a little since some of them got a little darker than I wanted them to be.

Here's how they turned out:

I found a recipe that I liked the looks of and then tweaked it a little ... here's the updated version.

Ingredients:
 
1 potato, peeled and diced
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 pkg active dry yeast
5-6.5 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons shortening
1 tablespoon salt

Directions:

In a medium saucepan, cook potato cubes in milk and water mixture for about 12 minutes, or until tender.  Do not drain.  Let mixture cool until 110-120 degrees (to not kill the yeast).  Set aside 1/2 cup of cooking liquid.  Mash the potato and remaining liquid.  If necessary, add warm water to make 2 cups of potato mixture.

In a large mixing bowl (or in my case, the kitchen aid mixer bowl), sprinkle the yeast on reserved 1/2 cup potato water/milk.  Add mashed potatoes.  Beat with mixer until smooth.  Add 2 cups of flour, sugar, shortening and salt.  Beat with mixer on low for 1/2 minute, scraping sides of bowl constantly.  Beat 3 minutes on high. 

Switch to the dough hook and continue to add as much as the remaining flour as needed for the dough to pull away from the sides of the bowl.  Continue to knead the dough until smooth and elastic (about 6-8 minutes).

Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning to grease surface.  Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk.  I actually put mine outside to rise since it was cool in my apartment.  It worked fairly well.

Punch dough down and divide into 16 equal balls.  Pull each ball of dough into a 6" x 4" rectangle and roll into a 6" log.  Pinch seams and place in a prepared 9 x 13 cake pan.  I fit 10 rolls in the pan and placed the remaining 6 on a flat pan.  Cover and let rise again.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Bake for 20-30 minutes or until done.  Rotate pans half way through for even browning.  If necessary, cover rolls with foil during the last 10 minutes to prevent over browning.  (I did not follow my own advice and some of mine came out a little dark as you can see in the next picture.)

The important part is that they taste good, and as I posted on Facebook.... We have achieved good meat to bread ratio.  So, I'll be making these again rather than buying expensive rolls at the grocery store.

I haven't forgotten about this...

There has been something rather big going on in my life and I wanted to wait a bit before posting it online.  This thing has been time consuming and I have also been working a lot of evenings and nights, so I haven't had much time to cook.

I found out about a month ago that I am pregnant.  So far it hasn't really affected my appetite in regards to making me sick or strange cravings.  I hope it stays that way.

I have the next two days off and I have two things on the list to try.  I am going to chop some cucumbers and onions and do a cucumber salad (with a vinegar based dressing).  I'm also going to try to make potato bread in hot dog roll sizes.  One of the things that I can't seem to get down is making rolls for sausages or hot dogs.  I think this time I'm going to bake them in a cake pan so they'll be more like the lobster roll bread shape...

Like this:

My thoughts are that if I let them rise in the pan and they squish together, that they won't get too bulky and it won't feel like you have to put four hot dogs in the bun to have a nice bread to meat ratio.  We'll see if it works. 

I'm going to go get started on that now and hopefully update you all on whether it worked tomorrow.