Breadmaker Pizza Buns - Easy Lunch

Check out what I got from my in laws for Christmas! I'm in love with it.

Here's what I made today. Don't they look delicious?

There is a bakery in town here that I love and every once in a while I treat myself to pizza buns to have in my lunch when I'm at school. I'm not a huge fan of pizza, but I sure do love these guys. So, I decided to make my own. I used this recipe for pizza dough. I only did two things differently than the recipe. First, I didn't have any of this so-called pizza seasoning, so I just threw some spices into the dough. In fact, I had a tiny bit of a Victorian Epicure dip mix in the cupboard that wouldn't be enough to actually make dip, so I used that. It gave the crust I really nice flavour. Secondly, after the bread rose on the counter for 30 minutes I kneaded it and broke it into small pieces rather than rolling out one large crust. I ended up getting 12 pizza buns out of this recipe but I think I could (should) have gotten about 18-20 because some of them ended up being quite large. The dough rose much more than I expected in the bread maker and since I had to do two batches of pizza buns because I only have two stoneware pieces, the second round rose even more on the counter and so those buns could have easily been split in half.

I didn't get too creative this time ... just pizza sauce, pepperoni and cheese. I wanted to be sure I'd like the way they turned out before going too hog wild. Next time I'll be a little more adventurous with my toppings.

After they came out and cooled, I wrapped them individually in saran wrap and then placed them in two freezer bags. I would normally put them in sandwich containers but my tupperware cupboard is a little scarce right now as my fabulous dude is hoarding them in his lunch room at work. Whenever I want one for lunch, I can just grab it and go. They are delicious cold or heated up. Doing things like this takes the pressure off when I'm in the midst of a busy semester. This way I have something on hand for the days when I forget to think about what I'm going to eat. Check out The Grocery Cart Challenge for some really great recipes.

We just got home last night from 2+ weeks of vacation for the holidays. Today we've been busy with unpacking, reorganizing, tidying up and getting prepared to get back into the swing of things starting tomorrow ... oh yeah, and making pizza buns and chicken soup and taking care of dear Caley who is sick and also has no water at her apartment ... the poor dear. I am hoping to take some time tomorrow to post about our holidays and share some of our favourite pictures.