Fun with Yeast Dough

I'm on a new kick now, making things with yeast dough. It's a lot of fun for me and a bit of an arm workout when I get to kneed the dough. The dough smells so good while it's rising and even better while it's baking. I think I'm going to start making my own bread from now on. It's less expensive that way and I know exactly what's in it. I've looked up quite a lot of whole wheat bread recipes but I haven't found one that really caught my eye yet. If anyone has a recipe, I'd love to hear about it.

My first "fun with yeast dough" adventure was

making a meat roll. I got the idea from watching "Diners, Drive-In's, and Dives." It's basically the same idea as a cinnamon roll, only with pesto sauce, sausage and hamburger, and cheese. My sister, Melissa, and her husband, Michael, came over and we got to try the experiment together.

It was a little messy to make, but nothing that wasn't difficult to clean up. I found a cinnamon roll recipe for the dough and just replaced all the sweet

fillings for the savory ones. We decided th

at it would be really good with an extra sauce of some kind to go over the top. I was thinking a cheesy sauce, but I bet a tomato sauce would be really good too if you didn't want it as heavy.

The next adventure was making pretzels. This was insanely easy. I do believe there were only 4 ingredients for the dough. If found the recipe on allrecipes.com. I didn't attempt to do the cute twist that pretzels have. That took a bit too much thinking at 9 pm. They definitely need salt on top. Probably more than I put on there.

I tried to make a beer cheese sauce to go with the soft pretzels. That was a huge flop. I didn't follow a recipe. I just tried to wing it.

It didn't work. Next time, I'll be sure to look at a recipe to get some ideas before I try that one again. I do know that canned nacho cheese would have been great with the pretzels.

The last adventure took place last weekend. I made a oxtail stew and wanted fresh bread to go with it. I found the great recipe for egg bread in one of my cookbooks. And one of the great things about it was that I

had all the ingredients already. It came out nice and dense and moist. It looked pretty too :). I had to stop and think about braiding again. (I haven't braided in a long time).

It's really been a blast trying out these yeast dough recipes. It's neat to kinda do things the way they used to be done a long time ago. It also makes me appreciate the things I make more, because I put effort into it instead of just going to the store and buying a loaf of bread. It's fun thinking about what I could make with the ingredients I have in my pantry. It's awesome to realize how blessed by God we are to be able to enjoy our kitchen and the bounty He has given us.