rolls and spice rubs...

We're getting into the swing of things with summer vacation. Our mornings are lazy, and I think that Seth has completely forgotten that he ever used to do math worksheets, and that's the way it should be in early June. I've bought a pass for our city pool, and the boys are taking swim lessons once a week. We've even pulled out the fire pit for s'mores already!

I'm enjoying the summer menu options. It seems like all I ever want to make these days is stuff that involves flatbread, hot dog buns, hamburger buns, etc. It's the season, right? So I thought I'd pull out my trusty bread maker and start making rolls and buns for us on weeks when bread is on the menu.

This week, I have planned to have BBQ chicken sandwiches and philly cheesesteak sandwiches, so I made this recipe this morning. I made half of the recipe into these buns. (Really, watch her on the video. My buns look so much fancier now, and its easy.) And I made the other half into hoagie rolls. And I think it might've cost me about $.35 or less and a little time.

I think this recipe is a good all purpose one for bread. I could shape it into a loaf and bake it to go with dinner. And I'm wondering if I could make it into flatbread if I omitted the first rise in the bread maker. I substituted 1 cup of the bread flour with white whole wheat. It doesn't change the flavor at all in that small of an amount.

As usual, I've now got bags of the dry mix in my pantry. :) If I could convince all of you to try that once, you might not go back. It's worth the few minutes it takes... It's why I could load the bread maker this morning while refereeing boy play time.

Summer is a great time to try rubs and spice mixes, too. I rubbed the chicken breasts with this spicy chicken rub before I put them in the crockpot with some BBQ sauce. They smell fantastic right now. And I used this hamburger rub when I made burgers last week. It was great! (Oh, the picture for the spice rub is the buns made with the twisty method, though mine don't usually look that good because I don't remember to wash them with egg white.)

Happy Summer Menu Planning to you!