Grinder bread!

Wah, wah wah. Enough of that.

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My grinder sandwich bread recipe:

Wet ingredients, all at room temperature:

1 egg
1 cup drained plain whole milk yogurt
(maybe about 1/4 to 1/3 cup lukewarm water-or milk- as needed to make resulting dough sticky. Better to err on the side of too wet now, since flour is easier to incorporate into dough than liquid is.)

dry:
3 cups plain white flour
1 HEAPING tablespoon of yeast granules
1/2 level tsp sugar
1/2 tsp chicken or vegetable bouillon granules. Yes really.

Stir wet ingredients together.

Dump all dry ingredients into Cuisinart, mix for a couple of seconds (no, you don't need to proof the yeast; this isn't 1866.)

With the Cuisinart OFF, dump wet ingredients into dry. Now whir until the clump of dough begins to clean the sides of the bowl. This takes no more than a couple of seconds. It won't be perfectly mixed; that is not a problem. You'll mix it completely when you knead it.

Shut off machine, ignore the dough in there for 20 minutes.

Dump dough out onto floured counter top and knead for 8 minutes until it is smooth. It will be sticky.

(Remember, flour is really, really reactive to the ambient humidity, so there's always a margin for wiggle in the wet to dry ratio. If the dough is altogether too ridiculously gluey and unmanageable, lightly sprinkle in flour each time you fold and knead for a few strokes, and think about the texture before you add more, until it becomes less gluey. It should still stay somewhat sticky, though. You will have to flour the board and pick dough off your hands every now and then. The important thing is that the dough is smooth; that you cannot feel any lumps or granules in it. Smooth is the important thing and the end product you're going for. At this stage, if you're going to err, err on the side of a little too sticky.)

Put in a covered, room-temperature bowl and let dough rise in a warm place (99-101f) for 1 hour.

Handling the dough lightly, push dough down and form it into a ball in the bowl. Then take it and form it into a long, french-style loaf on a flat, lightly greased baking sheet.
(Try to keep the top free of creases; it won't hurt the bread but they will split apart in the oven. If this can't be done, the bread is still perfectly good and edible; it just isn't magazine perfect. I try to keep it as smooth as I can because we make huge 'grinder' sandwiches with this bread and the intact crust acts as a nice case to hold all the goodies inside. If you do get creases in the top, brush a little warm water into them with a wet paper towel or your fingers and then pinch the edges together; that can glue them. But it isn't vital.)

Let the formed loaf rise for 20 minutes in a warm place.

Bake in 400f oven for 25 minutes, or until nicely browned on top.

Turn out onto a rack and cool.

To make grinder sandwiches: Split the loaf lengthwise. With a fork, lightly scrape out some of the fluff to make a shallow cavity in each half of the bread. Then fill with meatballs, shrimp, cold cuts, lobster salad, whatever you like!
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I made this recipe specifically for grinder sandwiches. The bread has a distinctive flavor, but it doesn't fight with the ingredients, and it has a structure that holds up to sloppy stuff. It's on the heavy side; this isn't an airy, fluffy bread full of cavities like a french loaf.

Now-you could bake this in a regular loaf pan and it turns out fine. Slice it up for sandwiches and toast; its great.

If you wanted to get really rooty zooty, you could add some fresh herbs to this; rosemary and garlic are very nice!

If you want to be all 'gourmet', you can make this dough up to the first rising stage, and then put it in a covered container in a chilly place-like a cold cabinet or the front entry; NOT the refrigerator- overnight. Then bring it back into the warm part of the house, let it warm up to room temp, and THEN put it in a slightly warmer place (99-101f) to rise for 1 hour. This is called 'cold fermentation' and you will be surprised at how much it really does make the bread taste better.
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People always wonder-where the hell do you rise bread that's warm?

There are such things as 'proofing chambers' that you can buy. It's just a box that gets slightly warm. For about 35.00! Wigga please.

If you have a heating pad that has a good temperature control-i mean, one that doesn't sneak up hotter and hotter over time but stays the same- you could set it on its lowest setting (no higher than 101f!!) and let the covered bowl rest on there.

If you have a deep kitchen sink, you can warm it up with hot water, and then float the covered bowl in a couple of inches of very warm water with a towel over the whole thing. Don't do this if you have cats, though. They cannot stay away from dough rising in a sink full of water for some reason; they tip over the dough and lay on top of the towel and just cause all kinds of trouble.

What I do is I heat up the oven for about three minutes on it's lowest setting, and then turn off the heat, open the door and let it cool back down until I can just place my hand on the wire rack and keep it there comfortably. You pop the covered bowl of dough right in there and shut the door, and it will stay nice and stable. And cat-proof.

If you have a tank style hot water heater, that's another good place...just set the covered bowl on top of it and let it go for an hour. Another good place? On a sunny warm day? Set the bowl on the seat of a car that's parked in the sun.

I made the mistake of rising dough on top of a radiator, and, no. Same goes for in front of the furnace vent. NO.

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Anyone want some blue columbine? Or some 'Pink Panda' strawberry?
Ooo, I know, how about some iris laevegata? It's white! It only grows up to 51/2 feet tall and only spreads once again its former size each season. And it's roots are really easy to break up if you have a small saw, and a butcher knife. And a shovel. And a dirt fork. And are fat. And jump up and down and cuss.