Dilly Cheese Dinner Rolls

Do the grocery stores get together and have meetings about what sales to try next? For a while double and triple coupon sales were big. Seems like the coupon people are wising up though because lately the coupons have been less than stellar. Then it was 4 for $10 or 5 for $10 deals. Now I'm seeing BOGO sales all over the place. Not that I'm complaining. I like to save money. But sometimes I get sucked into sales that aren't really great deals. Like BOGO cottage cheese. I don't even eat cottage cheese. Well, I didn't when I bought two 16 oz containers for the price of one. But I was bound and determined that for that price someone in my family sure as heck was going to. That someone turned out to be me as my three boys (including one man) turned up their noses and left me with 32 oz of low fat, small curd cottage cheese. Oh yeah, and less than two weeks before it expired

Allrecipes.com came to my rescue with this lovely little recipe for Dilly Rolls. (Apparently from the reviews this recipe is originally from Taste of Home magazine/cookbooks.) I know, not more yeast dough recipes! This time it didn't take me 2 days to get it to work. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this rise and knead and punch down and rise again stuff. Best of all, the rolls are healthy and they freeze and reheat great. I assume everyone else is as paranoid as I am about working with yeast dough, and so I included lots of step-by-step photos and instructions here.

Dilly Rolls
Makes 24


16 oz (2 cups) small curd cottage cheese
2 Tb butter
2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (110'-115' F)
2 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons dried minced onion
1 tablespoon dill weed
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
plus more flour (see #4, #9)
cream or half-n-half for brushing on top

1.) Heat the cottage cheese and butter in a saucepan on medium heat. Set aside to cool to around 110'.

2.) In a separate container proof the yeast in the warm water.

3.) Add cottage cheese, yeast, and the eggs through the baking soda. I didn't have dill or dehydrated onions on hand so I used 2 heaping Tbs of a Penzey's Spices mix called Sunny Paris with dill, shallots, chives, pepper and terragon. The results were mild enough that when they baked up I could still enjoy the rolls with some jam and butter.

4.) Add the flour, mixing as you go, a cup at a time. Add enough additional flour to get a soft dough. I added another cup and a half for almost 6 cups total. Flour your surface and hands and add additional flour as you knead. Sorry no photos on that step. I was on my own and my hands were pretty sticky. You can also let the dough hook in your mixer do the work. You know the dough is ready when it doesn't tear easily when you try to form a rectangle with a small hunk of dough. Also, when you press in the center of the dough it springs back slowly. Here's what your dough will look like after 8-10 minutes of kneading. Do a search on You Tube for videos on how to knead dough by hand if you're not familiar with it. This dough is oiled already which accounts for the wet look. You can still see some chunks of cottage cheese. It will melt into the final product.

5.) Form dough into a smooth ball and place in an oiled bowl, turning once to oil both sides. Cover and let rise until double, about an hour. Of course, make sure you put it in a bowl large enough to accomodate the rise or you'll end up with this. Reminds me of what it feels like to be 8 months pregnant, bursting out of everything you wear.

6.) Punch the dough down. Shape it into a long rectangle and score with a knife into 4 by 6 squares like so. This just helps you get more even sized rolls.

7.) Form into 24 balls and place in a greased 9" x 13" pan. These rolls were so tall and luscious next time I'm going to try and make two pans and make the rolls smaller. I think they'll cook more evenly that way too.

8.) Let rise until doubled, another 45 min to an hour. Preheat oven to 350'. Brush with cream and place in oven.

9.) Halfway through baking, dust with flour. If the rolls on the outer edge start to get too brown before the ones in the center cook through then cover with foil. Bake 20-25 minutes.
10.) Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before tearing off the rolls you want for your meal. When the leftovers are entirely cool, place them in a container in the freezer and reheat for another meal.

Mmm, chewy, soft moist dinner rolls you can pull from the freezer for dinner...

...or breakfast.