Kingly Rescue

I leaped beyond Prince Charming to rescue me, and went straight for the King, but no ordinary king. King Arthur to be exact. I needed bread! A call for bread! Rice, potatoes or other starches just wouldn't do. It was not so much that sandwich meat doesn't go quite right layered on top of a bowl of rice. Rather I was putting together a picnic meal where the main object of consumption was a pile of flaky-tender meat. Not quite pulled pork, but similar enough. Yes, rice would be perfect with this dish, but it's a minimalist picnic! Fingers as utensils don't require major washing afterwards nor produce additional waste. Just wash up and you're good to go!

I didn't want just any bread, but something that would acceptably complement the dish like plain white rolls of some sort versus say cornbread or biscuits. Heck, I really wanted something soft like potato rolls but the recipes I had required potato starch. Fortunately, I found this recipe from King Arthur Flour for Amish Rolls that use a cooked potato instead. It also seemed relatively easy to make particularly since I could have the bread machine do all the work for me while I prepped the other dishes.

As it turns out, the recipe was a huge amount that overflowed the bread machine's bucket. Either that or my yeast were throwing a party. In shaping the dough into rounds, I found my dough to be quite sticky. I floured heavily as a result. When the rounds poofed up again, they had overtaken every last inch on the baking sheet as I liked the idea of having them be 'pull apart' rolls (a suggested option in the recipe). I was quite worried I had a disgusting, inedible mess on my hands as I threw them in the oven. Checking on them at regular worry-induced intervals, they looked tasty enough but would they be? Towards the end of the baking time, they looked downright lovely with their golden-brown tops. With much salivation and haste, I took them out, buttered their tops and popped one in my mouth burning my tongue along the way. Ouch! But mmm! A tad on the yeasty side but otherwise, good. Slather enough butter on, or pair it with food (sandwich, etc...) and you'd never notice. Hooray! As long as I remember to take everything along, this picnic should be just fine...as long as I don't give anyone food poisoning...At some point, I will try to remake these to see if I did something wrong the first time. Even if so, it was still a tasty mistake. ;)