Burger Buns

First off a little blog update. Yesterday I spent a great deal of time categorizing my recipes in the Recipe Trove to make it easier to find something in there. You can see the categories in the sidebar over there, and that should help out a lot with searching. I also spent a ton of time taking recipe that were only on Tummy Treasure, and putting them into the Recipe Trove as well. I’ve gotten all the way through 2006, so there’s still some recipes to go, but I am going to do my best to make sure that all my recipes go into the Recipe Trove for reference, and some may end up here as well because I think they’re that good.

Secondly, those beans from the other day? Definitely better after sitting in the fridge overnight. The flavors had a chance to really come together, and they were even better.

Last night was ballet night, so we had a repeat of the sloppy joes from the other day. They reheat so well in the crock-pot, they were a perfect choice, and I was thrilled to have some leftover. But my buns left a little to be desired the last time. I just used my standard sandwich bread and shaped it into rolls… um, tasty, but they were really dense for a roll. And when you’re eating sloppy joes, you want something that will hold that sloppy mixture in while you are eating it- not squish it out the backside. So I flipped open my King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion, and I don’t know why, but I was surprised to find a recipe for burger buns.

They came together so easily. Seriously. This was a dump all the ingredients in a bowl recipe and let the stand mixer do the work if you want. I was all for that. It took no time at all before my dough was proofing. I was a little concerned because the dough didn’t really rise, it was more like swelling. I carried on though and in just a few hours, I had 8 golden hamburger buns. And they were good. They were still a little more dense than what I have in my mind, but they had an excellent flavor and texture. The all-purpose flour keeps them on the lighter side and keeps them from getting chewy. King Arthur Flour’s Beautiful Burger Buns are my go-to burger bun for now until I find the lighter one I’m looking for, but really, these are excellent and shouldn’t be ignored.

Today I am menu planning for the next week and I’ll be doing some grocery shopping later on. Can I stick to my tiny budget? I tell ya, I’m feeling much more confident this week. I did stick to my budget last week, but then we went way over on the miscellaneous stops at our very pricey local store (hate that place, btw). So this week I’m shopping in Green Bay with the goal to not go to our little local market this upcoming week. Can we do it? Come back and find out.