A couple of weeks ago, Tom called me from the farm and mentioned that they had found some chives that had begun growing after overwintering on the farm. He wondered if there was something we could use them in and I managed to come up with a couple of things. The first was to add a bunch to our mashed potatoes (which was a wonderful addition to already wonderful mashed potatoes) and the second was this dinner roll recipe. These turned out light and fluffy winning rave reviews from my taste testers.  I love finding great recipes to use up our herbs; they add something special to our meals.

FRESH HERB ROLLS (adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

1 package active dry yeast

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 cup warm water

1 cup milk, room temperature

2 eggs

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons butter, softened

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/4 cup chopped fresh chives

6 cups bread flour

1 egg white

2 tablespoons water

Directions:

In a small mixing bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in 1 cup warm water. Let stand until creamy; about 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, stir together the yeast mixture with milk, eggs, salt, butter, parsley, chives, and 4 cups flour. Add the remaining flour a little bit at a time until dough has pulled together. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and put in a warm place to rise until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

Grease one 9×13 inch baking pan and one 9″ deep dish pie plate. Deflate and divide the dough into 18 pieces. Shape each piece into a round ball, and place in the prepared pans. Cover the rolls with a warm, damp cloth, and let rise until doubled, about 40 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F . In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg white with 2 tablespoons of water; brush egg wash over tops of rolls.

Bake in preheated oven for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

My notes:

• One of my many failures as a baker is spaghetti bread from our bread machine. I just cannot seem to get a good loaf. So one day when we were having spaghetti, I decided to adapt these rolls as mini-spaghetti bread. In order to do that, add the following in place of the chives and parsley: 2/3 cup Parmesan cheese, 4 teaspoons garlic, 1/4 teaspoon each of rosemary, thyme, marjoram and basil. Also substitute olive oil for the butter. Yum!
• I made 18 rolls from this recipe but they were large rolls. If you want smaller dinner rolls, use two 13×9 pans and divide the dough into 24-30 pieces depending on the size you want.
• I don’t always use the egg wash (usually because I forget). Egg washes are used to give rolls a pleasing golden color but if you are like me, feel free to forget it; they will still taste great.