Hamburger Biscuit Roll

Today is Meat Eater Monday!  I am eating leftover Hamburger Biscuit Rolls for breakfast, and let me tell you, they are heaven in your mouth!  I need to do laundry, school work, and get something figured out for dinner tonight. I am overwhelmed, in a funk, and fighting a headache.  I am drowning my sorrows in carbs and comfort foods.  For me, beef is a comfort food.  It just makes me feel better about things, and I can justify eating half a pan of these beef rolls because they have to be better for you than Twinkies, right?

It blows my mind when my college students tell me that they can't cook.  I want to grab them by the shoulders, look them straight in the eye and ask "Can you read?"  Frankly, cooking is easy.  As long as you can read and have an oven that works, you should be able to cook.  I grew up in a family of wonderful cooks, and remember being not much older than my sons helping my mom and cousin Margie baking cookies and things like that.  Not only are my family wonderful cooks, our entire community are wonderful cooks.  They've published 3 cookbooks and they are my go to whenever I need to make something and I'm not sure quite where to start.

All 3 Mountain City Homemaker Cookbooks

As you can tell, mine are well used.  I have a rubber band holding the first one together, and half of the binding is missing from the 3rd cookbook.  Today's recipe comes from the 2nd cookbook.  It is so easy, it's almost embarrassing!

Hamburger Biscuit Roll

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef

1/2 c. chopped onion

2 tbsp. green pepper

2 tbsp. mayonnaise

2 tbsp. catsup 

3/4 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

1 3gg

Biscuit Dough:

2 c. Flour

4 tbsp. shortening

3/4 tsp. salt

4 tsp. baking powder

3/4 c. milk

Gravy:

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

1/2 cup milk

Directions:

Make biscuit dough (you can substitute Bisquick biscuits and make one batch).  Roll out dough in a 12"x18" sheet. 

I wouldn't recommend using your canvass rolling sheet like I did.  The next step involves putting raw hamburger directly onto the sheet, never a good idea unless you wash your rolling pin and sheet everytime you use it.

Next, mix ground beef and remaining ingredients, excluding gravy.

I used the same bowl I mixed the dough in because I am lazy like that and hate, hate, hate washing dishes!  Spread meat mixture on to dough.

Roll up like a cinnamon roll and cut into 12 pieces.  Before cutting them, I moved them to a cutting board.  

Place in a greased baking pan and bake about 40 minutes at 350*.

Just before removing from the oven, combine soup and milk in a small sauce pan and bring almost to a boil.

Pour over rolls and serve hot!

They are so easy, and tasty, even TR and QT liked them!  I served them with a simple green salad with a sweet and tangy dressing and canned green beans.

Forgive my pictures, they are really bad!  

What kind of meat are you enjoying today?

Scotch's Big Day

Bullseye's First Time With a Saddle

Mama's Broken Heart

The boys watched Black Beauty the other night.  I won't watch the movie.  I'm afraid it will be too different from the book by Anna Sewell, and frankly, the book makes me cry.  (If you've spent your entire life under a rock and are unfamiliar with the story, here is a little recap: "As a young horse, Black Beauty is well-loved and happy. But when his owner is forced to sell him, his life changes drastically. He has many new owners--some of them cruel and some of them kind. All he needs is someone to love him again...
Whether pulling an elegant carriage or a ramshackle cab, Black Beauty tries to live as best he can. This is his amazing story, told as only he could tell it.").  So I hid out upstairs, trying not to think about it.

Here is a trailer to the movie:

When the movie ended QT came upstairs and found me, on the verge of tears.  I asked "What's the matter?"  With a slight stutter and quivering lip he told me "Ginger died," and with that he broke down into sobs.  I did my best (not to start crying myself, and) to explain that while it was very sad that she died, it was just a story and not real life.  That seemed to make things a little better, so with a big hug, I sent him on his way to get ready for bed.

I heard TR sobbing before I found him.  He grabbed me in a big bear hug and wouldn't let go.  I asked him "Are you upset about Ginger too?"  He nodded and told me between sobs "Ginger is dead and they didn't take very good care of her."  If the boys being upset that Ginger died bothered me, TR's comment broke my heart.  I want them to think there is good in the world and not to notice all of the bad just yet.  I want them to think everyone takes care of their animals like mom and dad do, and nobody or animal anywhere is mistreated.

I tried again to explain to him that it was just a story and not real life, which he understood.  It just really bothered him that the horse was mistreated.  I told him that I was proud of him for realizing that Ginger was mistreated and that he knew that it was wrong to treat any animal like that.  I shared with him this quote from Black Beauty, which is actually one of my favorite quotes ever:   “My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.”  ~Anna Sewell  I tried my best to explain to him that we should always try to prevent wrong doing when we see it because if we don't, we are just as wrong as the wrong doer.  

I am happy that they are growing up and able to comprehend what they are seeing and hearing, and willing to come to me when something bothers them.  I'm glad (to an extent) that they cried when Ginger died.  It tells me that they are compassionate and hope nothing ever happens to change that!

The Cowboss and I are currently compiling a list of movies and books to not watch or read with the boys.  So far it includes Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller.  Please let me know if you have any other suggestions of sad stories to avoid.  This mama can't handle too much of this!

Feeding

The Cowboss had to help a neighbor ship some cows this morning and it was up to the boys and I to feed the calves.  It should have been fairly easy, pitch 1 1/2 big bales of hay off the wagon.  The wagon was loaded, so all we had to do was drive in a straight line and kick off hay.  As you can tell, our line isn't straight, and it took about twice as far to pitch the hay as a normal day.

Kind of makes sense when you see who was driving!  Atleast we didn't dump any bales off the wagon and we didn't hit the fence or tear anything up!