Thanksgiving. We had a TON of food.
The highlight? These Honey Potato Rolls. Soooooo good. I’ve made these every year, without fail. Now, these rolls are so heavy in potato and honey that they have a hard time raising. But that’s okay. They’re totally worth it.
You boil potatoes and use the warm potato water to proof your yeast. Then, you add yeast and sugar to get the yeast to bloom.
You add a TON of honey and some of the mashed potatoes to the dough. Then, you let it raise again.
It takes FOREVER to rasie the second time, but since they’re totally worth it, it’s okay.
We had these, plus roasted brussels sprouts with pecans and cranberries. We also had my favorite Sweet Potato Casserole, Stovetop stuffing is easy, and we all like it. Don’t judge. We rotisseried our turkey, so I used turkey gravy packets. I know. It’s not gourmet. Sue me.
We like whole berry cranberries instead of the jelly. Because I made this amazing Cranberry Pudding, which I’ll showcase later, it was unnecessary to worry about any special cranberry sauce. Besides, I really like the normal Ocean Spray whole berry sauce. It’s really good. Why mess with it?
We keep all the food on the island, so that we have more room on the table. We had plenty of room this year. OMG, it was sooo much food.
I actually ate two of these plates. Two.
I kept thinking I’d only go back and get my favorites on the second plate, but then they were ALL my favorites and I got pretty much the same plate.
And it was good.
The green bean casserole? I made the normal recipe, but I added a half a package of cream cheese, which made it really thick and rich. It was really the best green bean casserole I’d ever had.
But if you want to try some good rolls, you should really try these Honey Potato Rolls. They really are rich, heavy, dense, sweet, soft. Everything you can want in a roll. Oh, baby.
Honey Potato Rolls
2 Tbl active dry yeast 1 cup warm potato water 1 Tbl sugar 3/4 cup butter or margerine 1 1/2 up honey 2 eggs 2 tsp salt 1 cup warm mashed potatoes 7 cups flour (I used whole white wheat) Proof yeast in 1/2 cup warm potato water, with 1 Tbl sugar. Melt butter, cool, add remaining 1/2 cup warm potato water, butter, honey, eggs, salt and mashed potatoes to the yeast and beat together. Add 1 1/2 cup flour, beat 2 minutes. Gradually add 3 1/2 – 4 1/2 cups flour till stiff. Turn out and knead remaining flour in until smooth and elastic. Exercise restraint and expect to be clingy. Or, just use your dough hook and let it beat for another few minutes. Place in greased bowl and rise 1 1/2 to 2 hours til double. Punch down dough and knead. Cut into 36 pieces, cover, rest 10-15 minutes, shape into balls, spray with oil, cover with a clean towel, let raise til nearly double. It will take 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Bake 10-15 minutes at 400. Brush with melted butter. These rolls don’t get super fluffy, they’re pretty dense, but sooo good.
