Week 39 of the 52s...Runzas

The weather this weekend has been extreme; the edge of a typhoon has blown across the Northwest leaving destruction in its wake.  Yesterday, my sister and I did manage to drive south to Mom's without any difficulties, but had barely gotten back to my house in the late afternoon when the storm hit.  Serious wind, lashing rains, chaos and mayhem.

In light of the storm, and being housebound, I decided for the 52s this week to make these intriguing savory buns from a recipe in my Food Network magazine.  For those of you, dear readers, who live in the Midwest, no doubt you're very familiar with Runzas.  Personally, I've never heard of them, but oh man, did they look good in the magazine.

So, last night I made the dough...

After an hour, it went in the fridge overnight.  Then this afternoon my sister and I made the filling: ground beef, spinach, onion and garlic.  Four simple little ingredients.  The dough is divided into eight balls, rolled into rectangles and filled.  As you can see, I had a bit of trouble keeping things consistent.  It might have been the wine.

Half an hour later and the most amazing transformation!  We were so excited.  Earlier we'd been talking--and laughing--about my past epic failures when I've attempted a new recipe (the naan bread disaster immediately comes to mind), though at least in this case even if the Runzas didn't taste good, they sure looked  yummy...

 The buns are on a large dinner plate, just to give some perspective on size...

The outside was crunchy, the insides were soft and fluffy like the best roll ever, and the filling was the perfect mix of savory combined with the sweetness of the yeasty dough.  We didn't even make it to the table...just stood over the sink and ate these two pieces with various moans and mumbles and incomprehensible conversations around mouthfuls of deliciousness...

When we could finally speak, we started to think of other ingredients that would work with this wonder dough, everything from calzone to barbecued pork fillings.  Then we split another bun and decided maybe it tasted just perfect the way it was.

Runzas.  Who knew?