Ham and Swiss Cheese Rolls

It's Always Freezer Season

I have had these warm ham and cheese sandwiches before (or, similar ones), and they are always a hit. I never considered freezing them, but it worked out very well! We baked up the other half a few weeks later and they were just as good as they were the first time. Next time I would use sliced cheese instead of grated, though, since the grated cheese just didn't want to stay ON the sliders.

Making these and freezing them when you have some extra time certainly would free up time before a party; on the day of, you'd only need to pop them in the oven to bake. However, I would probably make at least a double batch. A dozen just doesn't go very far, and it wouldn't take much more time to make two or three dozen (or however many you have room for in your freezer) than it does to make one.

You can find the full recipe here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-21/chef-ashley-christensen-remakes-ham-and-cheese-for-summer-snack

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:06]: with Heather today we're going to be
[00:08]: working from Ashley christensen's uh
[00:11]: it's always freezer season cookbook and
[00:13]: this is a recipe that you can make and
[00:15]: freeze and just bake off later it's not
[00:19]: sort of an ingredient that you use for
[00:21]: something else you make this all you
[00:23]: bake it up you freeze it and you can
[00:25]: bake it up at any time we're going to
[00:27]: have it
[00:29]: today but we're I'm not sure we're going
[00:31]: to need all of them because today's the
[00:33]: Super Bowl
[00:35]: and so we usually have some snacks for
[00:37]: dinner and that's what this is going to
[00:39]: be part of our dinner
[00:41]: but I think it's just going to be us
[00:42]: probably and we don't need a whole
[00:44]: recipe so what I'm going to do is make
[00:47]: it up freeze it and bake it from Frozen
[00:49]: pretty much like you would if you were
[00:53]: making this way way ahead of time
[00:56]: so we are going to be making ham and
[00:59]: swiss cheese rolls these are if you've
[01:03]: ever seen them before they're pretty uh
[01:06]: classic
[01:08]: Hawaiian rolls with ham and cheese and
[01:10]: then usually you melt butter and put
[01:13]: stuff in it like uh like the poppy seeds
[01:17]: and things like that make a compound
[01:19]: butter but it's melted so it's not
[01:21]: really buttery anymore anyway
[01:23]: and then you you bake it off like that
[01:25]: and so you have a nice warm buttery
[01:28]: sandwich
[01:31]: but we're not going to be melting it
[01:33]: this time we're going to be making a
[01:34]: compound butter with all of those
[01:36]: ingredients so I have some unsalted
[01:38]: butter that is room temperature room
[01:41]: temperature is a little cool so I'm
[01:43]: hoping that I get to
[01:45]: um that this comes together okay
[01:48]: and I'm going to add the rest of my
[01:50]: ingredients
[01:51]: first I'm going to add some
[01:54]: Worcestershire sauce Worcester sauce
[01:56]: however you say it
[01:59]: that's what that is
[02:01]: got some
[02:02]: brown sugar
[02:04]: light brown sugar
[02:07]: I have
[02:08]: poppy seeds
[02:10]: quite a lot of poppy seeds
[02:14]: um
[02:15]: some minced yellow onion which I kind of
[02:18]: measured only in relation to everything
[02:21]: else so hopefully it might be a bit much
[02:23]: but we like onion and that's okay
[02:26]: and it's going everywhere and the last
[02:28]: thing is some Dijon mustard
[02:31]: it was pretty much the same amount of
[02:33]: all of those ingredients
[02:36]: so
[02:38]: there's no salt in this besides what's
[02:40]: already in the Worcestershire and the
[02:43]: mustard
[02:44]: but now I'm supposed to combine this
[02:46]: into a compound butter which I think
[02:49]: would be so much easier
[02:52]: with a mixer but she doesn't say to use
[02:55]: a mixer and so I'm going to be here
[02:57]: trying to make this all work
[03:04]: look
[03:06]: I'm getting the mixer
[03:17]: sauce kind of separates out so I'm not
[03:21]: going to mix it anymore we're just going
[03:23]: to set that aside
[03:25]: and get ready to make our sandwiches
[03:29]: this makes 12 slider size sandwiches so
[03:33]: I have my
[03:34]: pack of Hawaiian rolls she says Hawaiian
[03:39]: sliders
[03:41]: slider rolls they're just regular
[03:43]: Hawaiian rolls
[03:45]: slider roles usually come
[03:48]: pre
[03:50]: -sliced which these are not
[03:53]: and
[03:55]: we're going to separate these and slice
[03:58]: them in half like a bun
[04:02]: and I have since I want to put this in
[04:04]: the freezer I have wax paper
[04:06]: on my uh
[04:11]: baking sheet that's just going to go in
[04:14]: the freezer if you're going to bake them
[04:16]: from here don't use
[04:19]: wax paper use parchment
[04:22]: when you're freezing them you do want
[04:23]: some space in between them so they will
[04:25]: be individually
[04:28]: Frozen
[04:29]: which makes you able to
[04:33]: bake up as many as you like
[04:35]: now I'm not going to measure the
[04:37]: mayonnaise that I put on here
[04:39]: although there is
[04:42]: a measurement
[04:44]: for the total amount used
[04:47]: I'm just going to put mayo on the
[04:49]: bottoms so we're going to spread just
[04:52]: the bottoms I believe
[04:55]: with
[04:57]: some mayo
[04:59]: [Music]
[05:08]: okay so we're done with the Mayo
[05:11]: and I've got some
[05:13]: thinly sliced deli ham
[05:16]: um
[05:17]: I went with a I think it was a Black
[05:19]: Forest ham
[05:22]: get what you like it's what looked good
[05:24]: to me
[05:25]: right now
[05:27]: and we're going to
[05:29]: about half a slice each we're trying to
[05:32]: not have any
[05:35]: overlap
[05:37]: or not much overlap with the edges
[05:41]: um
[05:42]: try to make it fit onto the bun
[05:45]: as well as you can
[05:49]: [Music]
[05:58]: good enough for me so that's all the ham
[06:01]: and the next thing is
[06:06]: going to divide
[06:09]: this cheese this is grated swiss cheese
[06:12]: that's what she asked for sometimes
[06:13]: slices are easier
[06:15]: I find but she says shredded and I just
[06:19]: bought
[06:22]: some pre-shredded because
[06:26]: this recipe does not have to be fancy
[06:28]: you can fancy it up some if you want but
[06:31]: it does not have to be fancy
[06:34]: fans so
[06:38]: shredded cheese likes to fall off of
[06:40]: these things so that's super fun
[06:48]: so we're going to cover them with our
[06:51]: tops
[06:57]: make sure they get
[06:59]: spaced I am very annoyed at that cheese
[07:02]: I would have gone with slices I really
[07:04]: should have gone with slices on I knew
[07:06]: this was going to happen but
[07:08]: we follow the recipe at least the first
[07:11]: time
[07:15]: try to divide this relatively evenly and
[07:19]: spread it on top of the Buns
[07:21]: the um Worcestershire sauce seems to
[07:24]: still be wanting to separate maybe some
[07:27]: of the
[07:28]: mustard as well but there's kind of a
[07:31]: liquidiness to it
[07:34]: it may come together better if if it's
[07:37]: warm you know if your room is is warmer
[07:41]: but
[07:43]: that is the best we can do today
[07:46]: and in the end it's all going to melt
[07:48]: I'm gonna wash my hands I'm going to put
[07:50]: this in the freezer and she says they
[07:53]: need like four hours for a formative
[07:55]: freeze at least if I'm um if I were
[07:59]: going to wrap them up I would probably
[08:02]: let them go overnight
[08:05]: at least
[08:07]: um
[08:08]: but
[08:11]: we'll be back to bake these up in a few
[08:15]: hours when we're ready to eat so
[08:18]: these have been in the freezer for about
[08:21]: four hours
[08:23]: I'm going to put six of them in here
[08:26]: spread apart she says to use a rimmed
[08:29]: baking sheet this is the wrong thing
[08:30]: this is not the right cookbook but
[08:32]: whatever it's fine
[08:34]: um she says to use a rimmed baking sheet
[08:37]: I'm just going to put it in this uh
[08:41]: baking dish that has quite a bit of of
[08:45]: side because I think that butter is
[08:47]: going to melt and potentially go all
[08:48]: over if you don't have enough of a rim
[08:51]: and this will be absolutely fine so I'm
[08:53]: just gonna
[08:54]: take
[08:56]: some of these out
[08:60]: We're not gonna eat all of these today
[09:05]: but I'm gonna try to
[09:07]: give them some room she says well I've
[09:10]: done it before I've baked them sort of
[09:11]: all together but that's okay
[09:14]: this is what we're going to do because
[09:15]: this is what she says to do
[09:19]: so I'm going to bake half of these
[09:22]: that's a lot of
[09:24]: extra cheese whatever
[09:27]: um
[09:32]: she doesn't say to do that but I'm gonna
[09:33]: do it
[09:34]: um
[09:35]: and I'm gonna let these freeze the rest
[09:37]: of them freeze sort of overnight in the
[09:40]: freezer and then she says to put them in
[09:43]: a plastic or glass container lidded
[09:48]: container in the freezer I think I'm
[09:51]: going to wrap them up individually in
[09:54]: wax paper first but we'll see we'll see
[09:57]: what I end up doing
[10:00]: but uh these are going to go in the oven
[10:03]: since they're frozen at 350 for about
[10:07]: 20 minutes until they are
[10:10]: um
[10:11]: all melty and hot basically when you
[10:14]: want to eat them they're done when
[10:16]: they're all
[10:17]: melty because everything in there is
[10:19]: cooked so
[10:21]: basically cook them until you want to
[10:23]: eat them so 20 minutes and we'll show
[10:26]: you what they look like
[10:27]: [Music]
[10:35]: on this episode of cooking the books
[10:36]: with Heather you watched me make ham and
[10:38]: swiss cheese rolls from Ashley
[10:40]: christensen's it's always freezer season
[10:42]: and this was something that you just
[10:44]: sort of put together and freeze as it is
[10:46]: so you can later
[10:48]: bake it up and have it whenever you want
[10:50]: we really love these everybody enjoyed
[10:53]: them
[10:54]: there are the only thing that I would do
[10:57]: differently as far as the recipe is I
[10:60]: would get sliced swiss cheese because I
[11:03]: don't think the grated was
[11:05]: um
[11:06]: the easiest thing just get the sliced
[11:09]: it's much easier and we have a lot that
[11:11]: fell off and wouldn't stay on so
[11:16]: justify the sliced swiss cheese
[11:19]: also I think we should make way more of
[11:21]: these
[11:22]: make like a double batch
[11:25]: to freeze and have them whenever because
[11:27]: uh even the so I baked up half of them
[11:31]: the night that we
[11:33]: we made them uh and that was
[11:37]: I don't know my family still wanted more
[11:40]: but we had other things it was fine but
[11:42]: so we still have half of them in the
[11:44]: freezer I haven't tried those yet but uh
[11:46]: they're supposed to be let's see
[11:50]: uh it was supposed to freeze them for
[11:53]: only up to a month so we'll have them
[11:54]: again soon for a snack or something
[11:57]: um
[11:58]: I thought the compound butter was a
[12:01]: little bit on the sweet side but that
[12:02]: kind of goes with the sweet rolls
[12:04]: everybody else did not care one one
[12:06]: little bit and just wanted more so
[12:09]: it's nice to know we we make we've made
[12:12]: similar things before
[12:14]: um I'm not sure about the exact sort of
[12:18]: butter mixture that went on those but uh
[12:21]: yeah we we really enjoyed them we will
[12:23]: definitely make these again uh and
[12:28]: I hope you do too if you haven't ever
[12:30]: had these you really need to make these
[12:33]: they are great party foods although you
[12:36]: do get very buttery hands so have
[12:38]: napkins
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[12:41]: please give me a thumbs up share this
[12:44]: video with your friends and if you
[12:47]: decide to make it please let me know in
[12:49]: the comments down below what you think
[12:51]: and come back and watch me make
[12:53]: something else next week foreign