Well, it’s been a few days since my first yeast-based bread attempt – and ultimate fail. We planned on having pork tenderloin for dinner and so I felt like some nice, freshly-baked rolls would be an exciting fit to go with the pork. I went back to Pinterest and found some rolls that looked pretty yummy. They claimed that they were pretty easy – yeah, well, we’ll see about that!
The recipe for “Easy Buttery Yeast Rolls” didn’t call for anything out of the ordinary when it comes to baking things like these: the yeast in warm water, honey, one egg, all purpose flour, salt, water, and butter. But in reading the recipe and notes before I began getting my ingredients together, one note that the author of this recipe included was to make sure that your water wasn’t too hot before adding the yeast to the water. If the water is too hot, it kills the yeast. Well, look-y there! That’s what happened with my breadsticks; my water was too hot! Lesson learned.
So I followed the instructions, and did everything as they said. Everything was going just fine, the dough, the process and creating my little golf ball-sized dough balls. I put my little dough balls in front of my roaring soapstone oven that heats our house and I let them rise there for about an hour and a half, rotating every 15 mins or so. I took pictures of the rising rolls, so check them out here below. I then baked them in my soapstone oven – which I found to be a little tricky because I can’t control the temperature as well as in a traditional oven. So in a quick time they went from looking not quite done to a little beyond the point where you want to take them out. But they came out pretty well – not my prettiest or best baked bread product, but they tasted good.
And while I set the rolls aside to rise (yes, I’m rewinding a few steps from the story that I shared above), I was inspired to make scalloped potatoes with the pork tenderloin. I’ve never really made scalloped potatoes before so I turned to Pinterest again, and I found a good recipe. But it called for a few ingredients that I didn’t have, like heavy cream and two cheeses. Well, that didn’t stop me. I just adjust the recipe to my specifications and abilities.
The second thing that I needed, after the potatoes, were onions… somehow I didn’t have any. But I had some small little leeks that I had used for something else a few days prior, so I chopped those up and made due with what I had. Instead of heavy cream, I just used whole milk. And instead of five layers of four different cheeses, I did two layers of two cheeses. That’s plenty anyway. We have to try to keep things a little on the healthier side anyway, right? Well, the potatoes were a nice surprise to the family and they tasted pretty good. Although, with all of the cheese and the high cooking temperature, when they came out of the oven they weren’t quite as pretty as in the Pinterest picture – story of my life! The oils had separated a bit and it was a little liquid-y. But you know what, they tasted damn good! So don’t judge the finished product in the accompanying photo too harshly! This is real life – not a blog from some expert chef / baker.
Needless to say, my pork tenderloin with scalloped potatoes, baked asparagus, and freshly baked bread was a smashing success… but boy is this cooking and baking stuff hard work! Until next time / attempt.
