MEATabons and Memories

Do you have kolaches where you live? Back in Ohio they didn't when I lived there... and judging by my family's comments they still don't. Depending on who you ask, they are either of Polish, Czech, or east German origin with varying spellings and pronunciations.

Regardless, they are basically rolls with a hotdog “sausage” in them. Sometimes with cheese or jalapeno and some places make them sweet with fruit inside. They're everywhere in Texas since there was a huge migration from Germany and Poland a century or so ago. Some are good, and some are boring, and rarely do they taste like they are advertised.

...insert wavy memory fade here.... the first time I tried them here in Texas I got one with sausage and cheese. What could be more awesome for breakfast than good bread stuffed wth sausage and cheese? So imagine my disappointment when I chomped into grainy bread with a HOTDOG in it. Not Jimmy Dean links or anything resembling sausage, but a HOTDOG with a piece of cheese wrapped on it. Holy smokes! Now I'm pretty luke warm on hotdogs anyway, but my fantasy breakfast had just been flushed by this horrible deception... but I'm digressing....... fade back to blog...

A couple of years ago I came up with a bada$$ recipe for kolache bread and made bbq kolaches. I've stuffed them with just about anything I can: pulled pork, chicken, chopped beef, and any other combination sometimes with cheese and/or jalapenos. Unfortunately making all the little dough sheets and filling them was SO time consuming and just not practical to do on a larger scale. It would take ALL day to make 8-10 dozen of the things.

Well, I spent the better part of my late high school years with my best friend (Rob Walton, Desert Storm Hero) who worked at the Town Mall cinnabon in Middletown, OH. I would shoot the bull with him while he made them- basically weigh everything out and make the dough, proof it, roll it out into big rectangles of a specific size, spread on the ingredients, roll it up, cut it into servings, proof, and bake. Over and over, all day long.

A couple weeks ago I had a hankering for kolaches but not the heart to make them. So I harkened back to those days and decided to try making them like he did cinnabons. I think the pictures speak for themselves. I made 5 dozen in under an hour (sans profing time, of course)! Some are ham and cheese, some are bacon and cheese, some are breakfast sausage, and some are chopped beef/chopped beef and sweet pickled jalapenos.

…and so kolache doesn’t fit anymore. We’ve started calling them Meatabons! And this time I cooked them out in the smoker cause I can’t handle the oven fighting with the AC in this heat.

Thanks to my buddy Rob for the great memories. Funny how things sometimes come around.

Enjoy!