Once A Month Cooking:Brown & Serve Dinner Rolls

Once a month cooking is the process of being your own personal chef. Just like a personal chef would come into your home and prepare food for a week, or two weeks, or even a month, in once a month cooking you make your dinners ahead of time so that one busy days you just heat and eat!

You can bake rolls ahead of time and freeze them, but somehow they are never the same as fresh baked. Freezing yeast dough is an iffy process at best, so how can you have hot rolls on the dinner table?

Easy. Make your own, delicious brown and serve rolls. This is an easy recipe for anyone experienced with yeast baking or a beginner. They are fun, inexpensive, and best of all...they taste fabulous, hot and buttered, next to your homemade dinner!

• 1/4 c lukewarm water
• 2 packages active dry yeast

• 1 tsp sugar

• 1/2 c dry milk

• 1/2 c unsalted butter,melted and cooled to lukewarm

• 1/3 c honey

• 1 Tbs salt

• 6 1/2-8c flour (white, whole wheat, or a mix)

• 2 c lukewarm water

Sprinkle the yeast in 1/4 cup of lukewarm water. Add sugar and stir.

Combine 4 cups of the flour, dry milk and salt in a bowl. Mix well.

Add the rest of the water, honey, butter, and the yeast mixture. Add to the flour mixture in the bowl and mix well. Add as much of the rest of the flour as you need to make a soft dough that pulls away from the bowl. Do not add too much flour because that will make the rolls tough.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Put into an oiled bowl and oil the top of the dough. Cover with a tea towel. Let rise until doubled in bulk., about one to one and a half hours.

Gently punch dough down and divide it into 36 equal pieces. Roll into balls and place on a parchment covered, or oiled, baking sheet. Dust the tops with flour if desired. Allow to rise for 45 minutes.

For Brown and Serve Rolls:

Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes, or until done but not brown. Let the dinner rolls cool to room temperature before placing the whole tray in the freezer to freeze quickly. When the rolls are frozen, about 2 hours, remove them from the baking sheet and place in freezer containers.

To bake from frozen- bake frozen rolls at 375 until brown.

To Serve Immediately:

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes until golden brown.

Serve steaming hot.