100 Word Challenge: Hungry

sliders

I enjoying cooking for my family, but don’t always make a full dinner. What with the menfolk having such diverse work schedules, many nights there isn’t a full contingency for a meal. When they are both home, I try to prepare something homemade.

Whenever I try a new recipe, I always ask later if it’s good enough to add to the Dinner Rotation.

One favorite heavy-rotation meal is really more party food than a proper sit-down dinner. Being that we are less eat-at-the-dinner-table people, and more TV-trays-in-the-living room kind of people, party food works well for us.

Lately, we’ve been in a Slider phase – those little two-bite sandwiches on sweet rolls

It all started with the quintessential minis – ham and cheese, garnished with a butter/Worcestershire dressing. We took this idea and ran with it, adding several versions of these tasty, tiny tidbits to our menu repertoire. If you can make big sandwiches, you can miniaturize them.

Reubens – these were a bit messy, but good. The key is to use lots of cheese to hold them together.
Cheese steak – use thinly sliced or shredded beef. Leftover slow-cooker roasts work well.
Buffalo chicken – cut-to-size chicken tenders or cutlets, or flatten chicken breasts to about 1/4 inch, then trim to size.

By far, though, our favorite is meatball sliders. Ready-make, frozen meatballs will do, but homemade are so much better.

Meatball Sliders

Servings: 12
Time: 50-60mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

1 lb ground beef
1 egg
1 tsp pepper
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ cup grated Parmesan
1 ½ TBS Italian seasoning
6 slices of provolone cheese
2 TBS canola oil
1 large jar marinara sauce
1 pkg Hawaiian rolls (12), split in half lengthwise

Directions

Combine first six ingredient together (beef – Italian seasoning), then form mixture into 12 meatballs. Heat 2 Tablespoons of oil in a large pan over high heat. (I flatten the meatballs a little to make the sandwiches easier to handle.) Brown meatballs, about 10 minutes, turn them over to cook evenly. Remove meatballs from the pan and drain excess oil.

Pour marinara sauce into the pan and place meatballs into the sauce. Turn heat to medium-low and cook until the sauce thickens. Remove from heat.

Line a 9×13 inch pan with foil, arrange bottom half of rolls in the pan. Place one meatball on each roll half. Layer cheese evenly over the top. Cover with the top half of the cut rolls.

At this point you can top the rolls with the traditional butter sauce, or what I do is drizzle on a little olive oil and herb dressing. (I use this recipe.). I also top with more Parmesan.

Tent a sheet of foil over the top of the rolls (this helps prevent the rolls from charring), and cook for 20 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

I use any leftover marinara sauce to dip the sliders.

These also reheat well if there are any left.

“Too few people understand a really good sandwich” ~ James Beard

This week’s word is:

Hungry

What to do:

Using “hungry” for inspiration, write 100 Words – 100 exactly – no more, no less. You can either use the word – or any form of the word – as one of your 100, or it can be implied. Include a link in your post back here, and add your story to the Mister Linky list. If you don’t have a blog, you can leave your submission in the comment section, or as a Facebook status post. Remember to keep spreading the love with supportive comments for your fellow Wordsters.