Mission Accomplished

The end of the month means the end of the latest assignment from my HBin5 baking group. Thank goodness, I finally got one right :)

Our mission if we chose to accept it:
Prepare 1 Full recipe Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread, from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, Pages 92-93.

Use this dough to create 1 Loaf of Sandwich Bread, 1 batch of Hamburger or Hotdog Buns, pages 94-95, and 1 Loaf of Apple Strudel Bread, pages 277-278.

The sandwich loaf was my favorite bread so far, a little sweet, super soft, and perfect for any type of sandwich we thought up in a few days. My favorite? Fried Elvis Presleys, aka peanut butter and banana sandwiches pan fried in a little butter until the peanut butter gets all gooey and warm and the bread is nicely toasted. Thanks Nigella for that inspiration! This sandwich, full of cheap ingredients and with even-cheaper-than-store-bought bread,  is definitely a budget buster.

I brought about half of the loaf over to my cousin Libby's house last weekend and her kiddos (ages 1 and 4) went to town on it. It made wonderful toast with homemade wild blueberry jam from her family in Maine.

One down, two to go! I was excited about the apple strudel bread (even though we all know, this really is not a strudel!) because I planned to bring it to Sunday's party to celebrate my Aunt Cynthia's 10 year anniversary of being cancer free! Woop woop! I'll admit, I was a little nervous, too. I didn't feel like transporting my huge tub of dough to Libby's house and I figured I'd be too busy playing with the kids (and drumming for Rock Band) to prep it! I decided to do it ahead of time. I know, big risk :) Friday afternoon I rolled the dough, filled it with raisins, walnuts, a chopped Granny Smith Apple and cinnamon sugar, rolled it up tight, and set it into the loaf pan lined with parchment paper. I drove from Jersey to Connecticut, stuck it in my cousin's fridge, and baked it Sunday morning. When we arrived at the party on Sunday afternoon, half of the bread disappeared with coffee before lunch was even served. Not surprising the way we are in my family. With all of the women together, it gets pretty loud, pretty hyper and pretty messy. We all talk at once and we all love food, so what can you expect? We had an amzing time and I've converted at least 2 people to the HBin5 cult :)

Last task, hot dog buns. I have had this package of NY System Hot Weiner Sauce Spice Mix in my spice cabinet for a long while, so I decided this was the perfect time to use it. I'm not the only one who thought of hot dogs, but I think I'm the only Rhode Islander in the group, so I am definitely the only one who made gaggiz (aka gaggers, or hot weiners, the real way to eat a hot dog :)). These are not your sloppy, wet Coney dogs like they make in Michigan (which honestly, I think are gross) nor are they overflowing with stuff like Chicago dogs (pickles on a hot dog? Really?).  These dogs feature a slathering of yellow mustard, a spoonful of meat sauce made of ground beef, onions, and spice mix (yes, I'm being vague, but I don't know what's in it!), a handful of chopped white onion, and a sprinkle of celery salt. Usually they are served on a steamed white hot dog bun, but obviously I used the whole wheat buns. I also used turkey instead of beef and used 2 Tbls. of  butter instead of lard, but don't tell anyone. I think that's probably considered a major sin in terms of hot weiners.

We ate ours too fast for me to take photos, but you can visit the Olneyville NY System website to see how they look and to order your own spice mix! You'll get the recipe on the back, although we used more than the required amount of spice mix to get the right taste. I think I even doubled it. The turkey was a good substitute, but if you want to mimic the real deal, go beef.

If you're looking for more inspiration, don't forget to visit the Bread Braid on Michelle's blog to see the rest of the groups' offerings and visit the I Heart Cooking Clubs blog to see what everyone else there brought to the table for the Budgets and Bargains theme!