Copycat "Subway" Rolls

In New Hampshire, Sweetie Pie had a favorite sub shop called Moe's and they have several scattered locations throughout the state and they're well-known and loved for their famous Moe's Italian sandwiches.  It's like a cult following; generations of families are avid fans of the Moe's Italian sandwich.  Sweetie Pie and I could never drive by one of their locations where he didn't buy at least two of them, one for now and one for later.  He said when he worked at the local shipyard, on Fridays, the guys would order from their local Moe's, 200 at a time!  And Moe's would ship to servicemen just about everywhere, I guess way back when, for those who missed that special hometown sandwich.  Even now, living in Arizona, when we meet people from New Hampshire, and we ask about Moe's, a moment of nostalgic silence sweeps over us.  You can feel the longing.  Yep, they're that good.

I don't know their secret as to what makes them better than other Italian sub sandwiches, but they are pretty darned good, and I've tried to duplicate them at home, with limited success.  One thing for sure is, they have good sub rolls.

I debated on sharing this recipe, because in full disclosure, in my opinion, the dough was a stinker to work with.  I've made a fair amount of homemade bread and rolls throughout my lifetime and feel I have a little bit of a knack for working with yeasted bread dough and so I proceeded with smug confidence.  But boy, I'll tell you what, this was a bit of a challenge.

Recipe is easy enough to follow, grins.  What confounded me was the final steps where the dough had to be shaped into the "sub" shape.  It just would not cooperate the way I wanted it to.  I wanted a nice long, slender cylinder of bread, and instead I would ended up with these squat, chubby mini loaves.  Well, after working and rolling, and a bit of stretching and praying, the shape was acceptable.  Not perfect, but acceptable.

And if I didn't cause myself enough angst, after the second rising I noticed that two of the loaves were touching.  And I thought, if I'm careful, I should be able, ever so gently to move it.  Big huge, deflating mistake.  Nothing I could do.  I went ahead and baked three nicely risen sub loaves and one pathetically deflated one.  A lesson in humility, sigh.  And I swore never to make this recipe again.  Ever.  Never.  Until I ate one.

There is a step at the end of the recipe that calls for buttering the top of the hot-from-the-oven loaves and then covering with a clean tea towel.  I was going to skip this step, but let assure you, I think it makes all the difference in the world to the quality of these.  Rolls turned out better any commercially made sub roll I ever had.  Oh my word.  Tender, fluffy, flavorful, and substantial.  In spite of all the challenges, I would definitely make these again because the flavor was so worth it.

Sweetie-Pie loved these so much he ate just the bread the following morning for breakfast, grins.

Can you see the deflated roll in the back?  In spite being the ugly duckling it still tasted good.

COPYCAT SUBWAY ROLLS
(Makes 4 hearty loaves)

1 cup warm water (110* Fahrenheit)
1/2 tablespoon yeast ( 1  1/2 teaspoons)
1 tablespoon sugar
1  1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons olive oil
2  1/2 to 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1. In a stand mixer with dough hook already attached, combine the water, yeast, sugar, salt, and olive oil.  Let the mixture stand for about 5 minutes, allowing the yeast to foam and proof.
2. Add 1 cup of flour and mix on slow speed for 3 to 5 minutes.  add an additional cup of flour and mix until well combined.  continue to add 1/4 cup of flour at a time until a soft dough is formed.  the dough will stick to the bottom of the bowl but pull away from the sides.  You may have to scrape the dough from the hook time to time.  All this should take about 8 to 10 minutes.
3. Remove the dough hook set aside.  Remove the bowl and dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and continue kneading by hand until the dough is soft and supple.  Shape into a ball and return to the bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap or a clean towel, and place in a warm, draft free area, allowing the dough to rise for about 30 minutes.
4. After the dough has risen, turn it out onto a clean surface and divide it until four.  Roll each piece into a long skinny loaf that is about 9 to 10 inches long.
5. Place the rolled loaves onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (or baking mat), about two inches apart, across the short way on the pan. Spray plastic wrap with a cooking spray and lightly place across the loaves so it won't stick when you remove it.  Allow the loaves to rise until doubled, about one hour.
6. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat your oven to 350* Fahrenheit.  Remove the plastic wrap or tea towel, and place the loaves in the oven and bake for 25 minutes or until the loaves sound hollow when lightly thumped with the back of your knuckle.
7. Remove the loaves from the oven.  rub the tops with a stick of butter and cover them with a tea towel to finish cooling.

COOK'S NOTES:  All right, I will make these again, the flavor and overall character of this bread warrants another try.  I'm thinking of pizza dough, you know how it's supposed to rest before shaping it into a pan to give the gluten time to relax to make the dough more manageable?  I'm thinking it's the same with this.  Needs to rest a few minutes before being shaped into loaves.  And I need to remember to give it the space it needs to rise properly and if I misjudge, not to be all confident and deflate them.

Also, the recipe says to let it rise a second time for an hour.  Well, I suppose that's true for a lot of kitchens, but here in Arizona the house is always warm.  We are cooling our house to 75 degrees.  If  I remember correctly, dough doubled in about 40 minutes, so keep that in mind.

The other thing I'm thinking, perhaps I could've used a tad more water.  Living in arid conditions I think affects the humidity of my flour and perhaps it was a little parched for water.  The dough seemed to work okay, but maybe a couple extra tablespoons of water would've been in order.

Anyway, live and learn, grins.  I'm looking forward to next time.

Now to figure out their olive oil dressing.  Hmm... 

Cheers!

Italian Pot Roast

Have you ever made something in something in your slow cooker that the aroma had you salivating for hours?  Have you ever made something sooooo good that when you finally ate it  you amazed yourself at its sheer deliciousness?  And it was so good that you thought about it for hours and days afterwards?  And the leftovers were squabbled over?  Well, this Italian pot roast was just that for us.  Steel yourself.  This was fabulous.

I had bought a just-under-three-pound chuck roast and then didn't know what to do with it.  It was on sale for half price and I just can't resist a good sale when it comes to meat.  I was expecting to fall back on my favorite New England pot roast, toyed with the idea of trying a homemade steak ranchero (we had just gone out for Mexican and my Sweet Pie had ordered it out so that was a no) so at the last minute I decided to venture out and try something new.  This may have been new to us but it will soon become an old favorite.

I made a couple of substitutions based on what I had on hand, but they are substitutions I would've done anyway.  I'll share my changes in COOK'S NOTES.

ITALIAN POT ROAST

1 three-to-four pound boneless chuck roast, excess fat removed
1 eight-ounce package fresh mushrooms, coarsely chopped  **
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1 14-ounce can low-sodium beef broth
1 one-ounce envelope dried onion soup mix **
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 eight-ounce can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning **
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil

Place mushrooms and onion in the bottom of a 5-to-6 quart slow cooker.

Heat a fry pan over medium-high heat and add the oil.  Sprinkle pepper on the pot roast and then sear the beef on all sides.  Remove meat to the slow cooker.

Pour beef broth and tomato sauce over the beef .  Add the dried onion soup packet.   Cook on LOW for 5 to 6 hours or until meat shreds easily with a fork.

Somewhere in that time frame you're going to have to use your good judgment.  About thirty minutes or so before you think it's going to be done, remove the meat to your serving platter.  Add the tomato paste and the dried Italian seasoning to the gravy fixings that are in the slow cooker.  Make a slurry with the cornstarch and two tablespoons of water and stir into the gravy.  Continue cooking the remaining amount of time on high, until gravy is thickened.  You can add the roast back to the pot for a couple of minutes to reheat it, if you want.  Serve roast on a platter with some gravy; additional gravy can go in a separate bowl.

COOK'S NOTES:  Rarely do I ever have packaged dried onion soup mix on the pantry shelf.  I have way too many spices, herbs, and dried vegetables on my shelf not to make the best dried onion soup mix from what I have on hand. It is far superior to the prepackaged mix, in my opinion, and a couple minutes of my time is worth the result and big flavor.

I think white mushrooms would be nice in this, but I bought a package of cremini mushrooms.  They have a bolder flavor, in my opinion, and just stand up better with the rest of the ingredients in this recipe.

Dried Italian seasoning--nope, not happening.  All that is is a mix of Italian herbs expensively mixed and sold in a bottle for your convenience.  For this recipe, I added a good pinch of oregano, basil and thyme, and a bit of garlic.  Done.

I did NOT remove the meat to a separate platter while I made the gravy.  I like a thicker gravy so I know that two tablespoons of cornstarch is not nearly going to be enough, especially when I saw how much liquid there was in my slow cooker.  I made a slurry of 1/4 cup of cornstarch and 1/4 cup of water and just dumped it all in and it worked perfectly for me.  Of course, if you are timid about such things, you cook the roast until fall apart tender, remove all the liquid to a sauce pan and make gravy from there.  Add the meat back and serve.  No judgment from me, smiles.  You have to do what's right and comfortable for you.

Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Oh, boy, this is sweet, sweet, sweet but good, good, good.  If you want something a little extra special to go with your morning coffee, this is a good choice. This looks like a lot of work, but really with an electric mixer and a couple of quick washes in between, it goes pretty quickly. And I'll think you'll note several of the ingredients are used are used in each layer, so the ingredient list really isn't as long as it might appear.  Simple pantry items combine to make a company and holiday worthy treat.

CREAM CHEESE COFFEE CAKE

Grease and flour a 9"x 13" baking pan.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

For the cake:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt  (I use salted butter so added only a pinch of salt)

Cream butter and sugar.
Add eggs and beat well.
Add remaining dry ingredients gradually to wet mixture and mix well.
Batter is thick and heavy, almost like a sugar-cookie dough consistency.
Spread a little more than half the batter into a 9"x13" baking pan and reserve remaining batter to the side.

Filling:
2 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, softened
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients and spread upon the bottom crust.
Spoon reserved batter over filling, just dropping it over the filling.

Topping:
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 stick butter

Combine sugar and flour and cut in butter until crumbly, either using two knives in a scissor motion, a pastry blender, or rubbing between the fingers of your impeccably clean hands.  Scatter the topping over the coffee cake.

Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick tests done.

When slightly cooled, top with a little simple glaze.

GLAZE
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 to 4 tablespoons milk or water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combined all ingredients and stir until smooth.

COOK'S NOTES: The batter for the bottom crust is pretty thick and doesn't like to spread with a knife or spatula. I spooned several gobs of batter evenly about the bottom of the pan and then used my fingers to spread it evenly to form a bottom crust.