Easy 40 minute hamburger buns

I need to update this at least once a month. It's not that I'm not cooking, it's that I'm not taking the time to photograph or record the recipes. And I've posted this one before, but as part of a different recipe by a more obscure title, so I thought I'd give it a go again, especially since summer and burgers just seem to go together. We ate ours dagwood style tonight, stacking burgers with onions, guacamole, and the first tomato from our garden.

Forty Minute Hamburger Buns

Yield: 10-12 buns
Prep Time: 20 min
Cooking Time: 10 min.
Inactive Prep Time: 10 min.
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:
  ● 2 tbsp. active dry yeast
  ● 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons warm water , (110° to 115°)
  ● 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  ● 1/4 cup sugar
  ● 1 egg
  ● 1 tsp. salt
  ● 3-3.5 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a large bowl (I don't even use my stand mixer for this one), dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water; let stand for 5 minutes. Add oil, egg, salt and mix, then and enough flour to form a soft dough.
Turn dough onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 3-5 minutes, adding flour as needed. Do not let rise. Divide into 8 pieces, shape into balls. Place on a greased baking sheet, cover, and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Press each ball down gently before putting in oven. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire racks for cooling.

Note: I have made this recipe without the egg on occasion (once by accident, and once because there were no eggs in the house) and it turns out fine as long as you don't add too much flour.

Tomato basil relish

We were having mozarella garlic chicken sausages at our tailgate, and I have tomatoes coming out my ears thanks to a very productive garden, plus a little basil left that is still struggling to make it in this heat. So rlish it was. Tomato, basil, garlic, onion, oil and vinegar relish.

Tomato basil relish

• 1 cup tomatoes, cored and seeded

• 1/4 cup (?) red onion
• 1/4 cup (?) fresh basil
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp olive oil

The biggest different between this and bruschetta is the size of the ingredients. I took the centers completely out of my tomatoes and diced them. I put the onion and basil (and I'm not sure about the amounts here because I just eye-balled it) into my food processor with the garlic cloves (I used two small cloves) and process until very fine before adding to the bowl of tomatoes. I stirred to mix well and eyeballed the ratios. The second biggest difference between this and bruschetta is the consistancy, because I think of bruschetta is wet, while I kept the relish moist to dry.

This was great on the chicken sausage dogs, but a little sweet. If you're not fond of slightly sweet relish you can add a little more garlic to make it even spicier, or use a different vinegar (or maybe even no vinegar—fresh ingredients speak for themselves!).

Summer salad with black eyed peas

I'm always looking for fun vegetarian meals to eat in the summer. In the winter we gobble up all kinds of vegetarian soups, stews, and casseroles, but that's not really summery, is it? So I did a few searches and found a few options, melded some, alterred others, and now I have a whole file of summer style veggie entrees. It looks like salad is the way to go! That makes sense to me, and the less time I can spend over a hot stove, or with the oven heating my already warm house, the better.

This recipe is a combo from several others scattered around the web. Some changes I'd make: next time I'd like to try the sun dried tomatoes not packed in oil, or maybe even fresh ones.

Summer Salad with black eyed peas

Serves 8-10

Ingredients:
  ● 2 cups dry black-eyed peas (or about 2 cans)
  ● feta cheese, about 1 cup, crumbled
  ● 1 jar of sun-dried tomatoes in oil, about 8 ounces
  ● 1 cup Kalamata olives
  ● 2 green onions, chopped
  ● 1 garlic clove, minced
  ● 1 large bunch of spinach, washed, dried, and torn
  ● 1 lemon, both zest and juice

Directions:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the black-eyed peas and turn heat down to below a simmer. Cook uncovered until done, about 45 minutes. When done, pour into a colander and  wash with cold water to stop the cooking and cool.

2 In a large bowl combine spinach, feta, olives, onion, tomatoes, lemon zest, and garlic, and cooled peas. Toss to mix well. Squeeze lemon over top, to taste, right before serving.

Whole wheat waffles with honey butter

For Calvin's birthday we let him choose his meals and breakfast for him was a really easy pick. I was surprised because although we have waffles maybe one weekend a month, we haven't made the honey butter in about a year, but this is exactly what he asked for.

Whole Wheat Waffles with Honey Butter

Yield: 12-14 waffles

Waffle ingredients:
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 3/4 cup milk
• 4 tbsp oil
• 2 eggs

Honey butter ingredients:
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup honey

Directions:

1. For waffles, mix dry ingredients well. In a separate bowl mix wet ingredients, then add to dry ingredients slowly and blend with a whisk until well mixed. We use 1/3 cup of batter for each waffle, but that will depend on the size of your waffle maker.

2. For the butter, whip ingredients together until fluffy. Serve drizzled over waffles or other yummy foods. We also serve fruit with our waffles and honey butter.

Play dough

There's recipes for this everywhere and ours isn't special, but in case you were looking, here it is.

Play dough

Ingredients:
  ● 2 cups of plain flour
  ● 2 cups of coloured water
  ● 1 Tbsp. of cooking oil
  ● 1 tsp. cream of tartar
  ● 1 cup of salt

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan. Cook over low heat and stir it until dough thickens. Remove from pan to wax paper for cooling. Store in air tight container.