Dinner rolls!

Tim and I went to his sister's for Thanksgiving, so I didn't really get to cook anything, and I definitely didn't get a fridge full of leftovers. So the Sunday after, we did our own little Thanksgiving dinner, and I made rolls. Behold! (This recipe makes approximately 40 rolls; feel free to halve the recipe if you need to.)

To begin, pour four cups of milk into a large pot. Add one cup of sugar and one cup of vegetable oil. Stir. Then, scald the mixture (heat it up over medium-low until right before it boils, then turn off the burner). Then, walk away. The mixture needs to cool down to lukewarm before we do anything else. Go fold laundry. Build a snowman. Mow the lawn. Knit a sweater. And come back when the side of the pan is comfortably warm.

Add four cups of flour...
And five teaspoons (two packages) of active dry yeast.
Stir.
Add in another four cups of flour.
Stir some more.

(I don't have pictures for this next part, because the process happened over a couple of days and I forgot I was taking pictures.)

Allow to rise for an hour or so, covered. Add one more cup of flour, one heaping teaspoon of baking powder, one teaspoon of baking soda, and two tablespoons of salt. At this point, the dough is good to go. You can keep it in the fridge for a day or two before you make the rolls, as long as you remember that it's still going to rise and you'll have to punch it down every now and then.

When you're ready to make the rolls, butter a couple of muffin tins.

Then pinch off pieces of dough, roll into balls, and put three balls in each hole.

Like so. Let them rise for another couple of hours, and when they look big and puffy enough, bake at 400F for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

And enjoy. These suckers keep well enough, but just make sure you store them in an airtight container so they don't get stale and rock-hard.

Takes about four hours, what with all the rise time.
Makes about 40.
Difficulty: 2.