Dinner On The Double: Braided Sandwich

I learned this super simple dinner idea during an activity with the Young Women, 16-18 year-old-girls.  If you remember, I also learned these amazing Skillet Enchiladas.  It was a yummy activity!

This one is a Braided Sandwich.  Simple, easy, fast, and sure to impress.  All requirements met, since it's also super delicious!

Start with 1 lb of lunch meat, any kind; four slices of cheese, any flavor; Italian dressing, you only need a tablespoon or two; an egg white; and 1 lb of nice, soft roll, bread, or scone dough.  My local grocery store carries it ready to go in a baggie.  It's the bomb.

UPDATE: My friend gave me a super idea: use a frozen loaf of bread dough, Rhodes or some-such.  Just remember to defrost it before hand, or use the quick-method with some boiling water and a warm oven.  They call theirs Stromboli, and you could fill it with pepperoni, ham, sausage, peppers, onions, olives, pizza sauce, mozzarella, & cheddar.  The options are as limited as your imagination...which in my case is severely.  Aren't friends great!?

Preheat your oven to 350°.

Roll out your dough about 14" long and 8-10" wide.  This is easier the warmer your dough is.  Mine was fridge temp, and it made things slightly difficult once I got to the braid.

Pat your meat dry with paper towels.  Fold the sandwich meat into quarters (it only took me my whole life to realize that sandwich meat is much more tasty folded) and place on the dough, down the center.  I chose turkey.  

Drizzle a couple tablespoons of the dressing down the middle.  

Won't really need salt, but pepper is nice.  

Slice the edges of the dough, the same number of slices on each side (which I didn't do and it turned into a big pain).

Place the four slices of cheese on top of the meat and dressing.  I chose Swiss.

Fold the bottom up, then alternate folding the "fins" over the center, crossing to make a "braid".  Fancy look, easy as pie.  This is where warm, puffy dough is nice.  The braids will overlap better and cover all the meat if you start with room-temp dough.

When you get to the last two fins plus the top round section, fold the top down over the meat, then fold the fins, and tuck randomly in to keep the braided look.  That one extra fin was really bugging me right about now.

Whip up your egg white with a teaspoon of water until frothy, then brush it on with a pastry brush, coating all the exposed dough.  

Lay it on a greased cookie sheet, or line the sheet with parchment paper.  At this point you could let it sit and raise for a few extra minutes.  But seeing as I'm always doing the "dinner dash" mine had to go straight into the oven.

Pop it into the oven for 30 minutes, or until golden brown.  Darker than this is better; my ends were slightly doughy.

That was sure easy!  Despite the rush and the shortcuts I took today, it turned out pretty well.  No one ever need know how ridiculously simple this complicated-looking braid really was.  In expensive and a hit with kids.  Do you need any more reasons to try this Braided Sandwich?

Dinner time is Family time!

And thanks to Brooke at Pick Your Plum for featuring our 12 Simple Easter Crafts post on Facebook today!  Wow, did traffic soar!  And thanks to all of you who explored our little blog project.  We hope you really like it!