Hamburgers and Meat Pockets

This past weekend the temperatures stayed in the low 80's. I used this cool time to catch up on some more baking. I've been dying to make these little stuffed meat sandwiches but I'm not going to have the ovens on that long when I'm running the air conditioner so I had to wait until it was a little cooler outdoors. Every day when the kids would start getting hungry Id ask myself why under the sun didn't I have these things made ahead of time. Well now they are made and I've frozen a bunch for future use.

I thought I would give you all a picture tutorial of how to make your own meat pockets. I use any dinner roll recipe I have around. It's not important that you use a special dough. Once you've raised your dough to the right amount you punch it down and pull off enough to make a normal size dinner roll. Roll dough into a ball, and then flatten on the counter. Some women roll the dough with a rolling pin and cut with a round cutter. I don't do that. I just roll the dough in the palm of my hand and then flatten. I make mine more oblong just for a different look. Dough is fun to play with!

After you flatten your dough fill with a meat mixture. This stuffing is fried ground beef with pizza sauce and cheese in it.

The secret is to get enough meat without getting too much that you cant pinch it all in. If you don't get enough meat the roll is too dry. So fill it with meat then pinch the ends together and lay edge down on the pan. You will notice in the pic that the meat is showing through a couple of these. You really don't want that. I went back through and sorta fixed the couple that were doing that. That comes from the meat being hot and sorta melting the dough around it. On the other hand it only takes a little covering of dough. You want to avoid the dough being too thick at all costs.

Lay them on the pan and let them rise a second time. Again you don't want to let them rise until double like a usual dinner roll. Just let them rest about 15 minutes till they get a little puffy then bake at 350'.

Here are the finished meat pockets. They are oh, so yummy and oh, so handy to just hand a kid when you're busy. They're easy to eat on the run and to pack in lunches for picnics. Peter will come in from playing hard and grab one from the freezer, pop into the microwave for 30 seconds, and run back outside with it. No more junk food!

Saturday evening we were going over to Wendy and Edwards house for a BBQ so I just made the leftover dough into hamburger buns. Again you just flatten the dough and again you don't let it rise to double. Just raise it until it gets nice and airy but not high and puffy. I made some with sesame seeds and some without.

And here are the finished hamburger buns. To make hot dog buns you just shape them differently. Now go have a picnic!

My dinner roll recipe can be found at Cooking With Mrs Darling.