Like Mom used to make--Beef and Cheese Roll

Beef and Cheese Roll
The New York Times Menu Cook Book Copyright 1966

3 slices bread, crusts removed
1 ½ pounds chopped beef
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry mustard
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
½ teaspoon ground thyme
2 tablespoons grated onion
¼ cup finely chopped parsley
½ pound mozzarella or Swiss cheese, thinly sliced I used mozzarella
2 tablespoons butter, melted I omitted this
1 ½ cups tomato sauce or brown sauce

1. Preheat oven to moderate (375 degrees).
2. Wet the bread, press out excess moisture, and add bread to meat.
3. Add eggs, salt, mustard, pepper, thyme, onion and parsley. Mix with the fingers until well blended.
4. On a piece of wax paper press the meat into a thin rectangle. Spread cheese over meat and roll, beginning at a narrow end, using the paper to lift the meat and aid in the rolling.
5. Carefully place the roll in a shallow baking pan with the joined edges of the meat carefully under the roll. Brush with the melted butter. Bake for about forty-five minutes. Serve with tomato sauce or brown sauce to which pan drippings have been added. I baked some tomato sauce on at the end.
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Growing up my mother would make 'pinwheel meat loaf' which was very similar to this recipe but her's was better. I've decided that there's something about thyme that bothers me. It's not exactly that I don't like it, it's just very overpowering. Otherwise this was pretty good. My husband didn't leave me any leftovers for lunch the next day.

Another thing we ate a lot while I was growing up was cubed steak. We would eat it fried on toast. It was a bit chewy but I loved it. I saw a recipe using cubed steak and I made a mental to buy some next time I saw a good deal on it. Then I happened to see yellow markdown tickets on packages of cubed steak in my secondary grocery store and I thought 'jackpot!' but geez, it was still over $3/pound - even marked down for quick sale!

So this week I saw in the circular that it was on sale for $2.99/lb for larger packages in my main grocery store. They didn't have any of the larger packages and the smaller packages were $5.89/lb. Outrageous! It's just round steak and it's cubed because it's not that tender. Why it is so expensive? Believe me, my mother wouldn't have bought it so often when I was growing up if it was expensive back then.

I got a raincheck. I will get my cubed steak and at a decent price.

Blast From The Past: Venison Paprika from February 2006. I'm working venison back into the rotation next week. I hope I can eat it.

Question of the Day: Do you ask for rainchecks when the store doesn't have a sale item?