Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Another Guest Post! No, I'm not being lazy . . . I just have good friends!

This post is by my friend Nichol. Nichol and I met at Indiana University during graduate school.  We were in the same program and had almost every class together.  




Sunday, January 1, 2012

On a roll in 2012!

I am the mother of two toddlers. One of whom is allergic to eggs, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, and red dye 40. In addition to having a daughter with food allergies, I have a brother who shares my daughter’s peanut and tree nut allergies but is also allergic to soy.  It can be very challenging to come up with new recipes lacking egg, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, and red dye 40.  Let alone a new recipe lacking soy and milk products.

Finding a store bought bread or roll to accommodate my brother and daughter’s allergies is almost impossible.  Let’s not even talk about the taste of the products we have found. My brother sadly has resorted to rolling his hot dogs or hamburgers in what looked like a piece of paper in the shape of a tortilla. As his older sister, I needed to put a stop to this.  We have successfully been making Ava and Kyle friendly bread and pizza dough so I thought there must be a tasty way to make safe rolls. After experimenting for some time, last night, New Years Eve was a successful attempt in our roll making endeavor.

2012 will now bring many occasions to use this yummy roll recipe.  Bring on the family celebrations and Superbowl Sunday with hamburger sliders, meatball subs, and lunch meat subs!


Hamburger Rolls: Egg, Milk, Soy, Peanut, Tree Nut Free.
Recipe makes 6 Hamburger Rolls.
Approximate time to complete: 5 ½ hours by hand, 3 hours by bread machine

*Only you and your allergist know what ingredients are safe for you.  Please be sure to check all labels.  You never know where an allergen could be hiding.  Last year I purchased a different brand of cinnamon than our family typically uses.  As always I checked the label before pouring it into some cookie batter.  The label read “may contain traces of egg.”  Who would have thought traces of egg could be in cinnamon?!  

Ingredients:
2 cups flour divided
1 cup warm 100F water
2 ½ tsp active dry yeast
½ cup quick cooking oats
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 ½ tsp salt
2T canola oil

Directions:
  1. Combine 1 cup flour, water and yeast in a large glass bowl and stir well with a large plastic spoon.  
  2. Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let the mixture sit for 1 ½  hours.  
  3. Stir in the other cup of flour, oats, brown sugar, salt, and oil.
  4. Place dough on lightly floured cutting board and knead for approximately 6 minutes.  Adding extra flour as needed.  
  5. Place dough in a lightly greased glass bowl.  Cover with a clean kitchen towel until the dough doubles in size.  This will take approximately 2 hours.
  6. Roll out dough on lightly floured cutting board.
  7. Shape dough into 6 equal size rolls using a glass cup or cookie cutter.  
  8. Place all 6 rolls on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
  9. Cover the rolls with a clean kitchen towel for approximately 1 hour.
  10. Preheat the oven to 375F.
  11. Bake rolls 20 minutes.
  12. Cool.


*To make in the bread machine pour the water and canola oil in the bread pan first.  Then add the flour, oats, brown sugar, and salt.  Make a small indent with your finger and pour in the yeast making sure the yeast does not touch any of the liquid ingredients.  Press the dough setting on your machine.  Our bread machine dough setting runs for 1 ½ hours. Once the dough setting is complete follow above directions starting at step 6.