What says summer to you? Lemonade? Barbecue? Swimming pools? Gin and tonics? Our apartment doesn’t have sprinkler systems on the balconies so we can’t grill at home. After an awesome backyard cookout on my last night in Minneapolis (thanks, Spencers!) I had a hankering for more summer meals.
After a gray and cloudy start to the season in California it was nice to have a week in verdant, humid Minnesota to get me in that summer mood. We’re back to gray today, but yesterday was sunny and warm. It made for a perfect quick trip to the local farmer’s market where we bought ripe peaches for snacking and three ears of corn.
My husband isn’t as big a fan of corn on the cob as I am, so we had to negotiate a main dish to go with it. My original suggestion of veggie burgers was accepted until I realized that I didn’t have any cooked beans.
What we did have was a package of Light Life Italian-style veggie sausages in the freezer; they’re pretty good in the realm of fake meats. The sodium content is a bit high so I wouldn’t eat a lot of them, but it’s a nice treat once in a while. Veggie burgers I can handle, I’m not sure I’m ready to start making my own fake hot dogs… yet.
What wasn’t in the freezer, however, was hot dog buns.
Other than the buns this is a super quick meal, so I didn’t want to spend ages baking before we got to eat. The flip side is that I wanted to make them mostly whole wheat which generally takes more time to achieve properly. The compromise was using half whole wheat flour and half bread flour. The bread flour compensates for the whole wheat by adding some extra gluten to yield a nice pillowy bun. The other modification I made was to make the buns dairy-free.
We sat down to dinner just over 2 hours later: veggie sausages, corn, melon from the CSA, and a refreshing gin and tonic. That’s not bad considering I made the buns from scratch and they turned out delicious. When we had leftovers for lunch today the whole meal took 10 minutes total, and that included boiling the water for corn.
The whole meal tasted even better after reading all the amazing comments, emails, and Tweets I received yesterday. If I could hug you all, I would. Then I would feed you. Duh.
What’s your favorite summer meal? The night before this dinner we had my other summer staple: caprese salad. Tonight we’re having that same awesome combo on pizza. Yum.
Submitted to YeastSpotting, a weekly bread round up.
Whole Wheat Hot Dog Buns
Adapted from King Arthur Flour
Yields 8 buns
The buns were a little wide, so next time I might divide the dough into 10 pieces just to see how that works. For hamburger buns follow the shaping steps here.
Ingredients:
- 6-8 ounces (3/4-1 cup) lukewarm water
- 1 tablespoon instant yeast
- 1 ounce (2 tablespoons) granulated sugar
- 7 ounces (1 1/2 cups) whole wheat flour
- 7 3/4 ounces (2 cups) unbleached bread flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 ounce (2 tablespoons) vegetable or olive oil
- 1 large egg
Directions:
- Pour minimum amount of water in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle yeast on top. Add the rest of the ingredients in order listed and mix until combined. Knead with a dough hook or by hand until dough is smooth and supple. Dribble in more water as needed if dough feels stiff (this will depend on the humidity of where you live, but with this much wheat flour you will probably need to add more).
- Form dough into a smooth ball and cover. Let rise 45-60 minutes in a warm draft-free location until doubled in bulk.
- Gently deflate dough and divide it into 8 equal pieces. The easiest way to do this is to weigh the dough on a scale, divide the total by 8, and then weigh each piece (I recommend using grams if possible). Form each piece of dough into a torpedo and gently stretch to about 6 inches long. Place the dough on a parchment-lined or lightly-oiled baking sheet, each piece about 2 inches apart.
- Cover buns with a clean towel and let rise another 45-60 minutes until puffy. Preheat oven to 375F.
- Bake buns at 375F for 12-15 minutes until golden. Cool on a wire rack before slicing.
Keep up with Little Blue Hen: get updates via email, subscribe through an RSS feed, connect on Facebook, or say hello on Twitter.Comments? I love feedback and suggestions! Leave them below or email me.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for another recipe to try. I am starting my sourdough starter this weekend and am scared and excited. I want to make vegetarian sausages. I am thinking a lentil rice mix with the right spices and no one will be any the wiser (breakfast sausages). I can’t stomach breakfast sausage anymore, unless its the real kind, not the brown and serve that my family loves.
Go, sourdough, go! I’m intrigued by the lentil/rice patty idea. Some meats are easier to fake since it’s more spice combo than anything, like taco meat is all about the seasoning.
Shout out!!
Also, I made a caprese salad pizza last night! With homemade crust and everything, you would be so proud.
=D
I am so proud! That’s also what we had for dinner last night and it was pretty darn good.
I’m tres jealous of your bread making skills. To me, nothing says summer like grilled corn on the cob. Throw in some maple-soy glazed tempeh and grilled veggies and it’s the perfect meal to me. I’ve also been very into coleslaw lately, but only the kinds with non-mayo dressing.
Kate! Don’t you bake bread?
Agreed on all counts. I am also anti-mayo but digging vinegar-based slaws.
I *try* to bread bake, but my skillz are nowhere near yours…I don’t think I’d be ambitious enough to try hot dog buns, and if I did they wouldn’t look as good as yours! One of my goals is to find 2 or 3 recipes and start working on them over and over until I’ve mastered them.
Lady, you make beautiful quilts and things. You can totally make bread!
Favorite summer meal: BLTs with delicious tomatoes. Or pasta with fresh tomatoes (uncooked) and fresh mozzarella. Or gazpacho.
Tomatoes tomatoes tomatoes.
I was on my way to making hot dog buns last weekend when I remembered that I’d recently dropped my jar of yeast and it shattered. I ended up using a baguette I had in the freezer as a bun.
Boo for shattered jar, but that sounds like the fanciest hot dog ever. I finally found the SAF yeast which is a pound for half the price of the little jar. Win!
wow they look so delicious!
I’ve become fond of tacos. My tacos are even less Mexican than the ones Mom made. They have meat or beans (argh, need new spices, as our favorite taco seasoning has milk product in it!), salsa, cheese (for some of us), and whatever veggies are in the CSA box.
This is my meal to cook, since Lee hates all the chopping.
Hi, I was hoping to make this hotdog rolls today, except I dont have any ‘bread flour,’ should I try to substitute it with plain flour? Or would it not be worth it? Thankyouu!
{ 4 trackbacks }