So, yeah, I haven't cooked in awhile. I've been down with a broken leg. For a year. *looks shifty*

Anyway, now that I'm done living off the chip aisle and the frozen-food aisle, here's some actual food that is currently cooking in my oven and smelling up the house all yummy.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be to find the pastry cutter we used last year on the fruit cobbler, because you're going to want it. You will also need a basting brush, a whisk, a mixing bowl, a cookie sheet, a large skillet and a saucepan.

Beef and Mushroom Roll

MEAT MIX INGREDIENTS:

1 lb ground meat (beef or turkey)
1 small onion, chopped
1 4-oz can of mushroom stems and pieces, drained
1/4 cup dill pickle relish
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground mustard
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/3 cup water

PASTRY INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning
1/4 cup shortening or butter
3/4 cup milk
2 Tbsp. milk (separate from above)

GRAVY INGREDIENTS:

2 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 cups milk

Okay! Are you intimidated yet? Don't be! This was actually very easy to make, despite the fact that we literally screwed it up THREE DIFFERENT WAYS, and it was still delicious.

To begin, preheat your oven to 425. Now put your meat and your chopped onion into the skillet and cook them on medium heat until the meat is no longer pink. Add the mushrooms, relish, salt, mustard and pepper.

Combine the flour and water until smooth - I used a shaker thingummy with a lid for this - and then stir it into the beef mixture. Turn up the heat just a smidge and keep stirring for a couple of minutes; when it starts to get kind of thick, take it off the fire and set it aside.

Now for the pastry! Put the 2 cups of flour, the baking powder, the salt and the poultry seasoning into the mixing bowl and give it a stir. Using your pastry cutter (or a couple of knives if you haven't got one), cut the shortening into the pastry until it's kinda coarse and crumbly in texture. Stir in the 3/4 cup of milk, and stir good, to make the dough.

Now, you want to mind when you're doing this; you might even want to get in there and mix it good with your hands, because this makes a very dry dough and if you aren't careful, you'll have bits of crumb all over the counter... because that's where this is going.

Flour your counter a bit so the dough won't stick to it, and then dump the dough onto the counter. Make sure it's good and squished together, and then start flattening it out. The original recipe I used calls for you to make a 12" by 9" rectangle with the dough. Me, I don't keep a ruler in my kitchen (heck, I barely keep food there). Just check out the picture below, you want to make a big oblong, and you want the dough itself to be not-too-thick-but-not-too-thin. Maybe 1/4" or so, if you are the type with a ruler in your kitchen.

Anyway. Meat mix goes on dough now. You want to keep back about 1/4 cup or so of the mix, but spread the rest of it all across the dough, leaving yourself about an inch clear at all the edges, because the next thing is to roll it up and pinch the edges together.

Cover your cookie sheet with aluminum foil or spray it with cooking spray, and then put the roll on the sheet seam-side-down. Take that extra 2 tablespoons of milk and brush it all over the roll with the basting brush. Pop that sucker in the oven and set your timer for about 10 minutes.

Go have a cigarette and check your Twitter stream.

When the timer goes off, it's time to make the gravy. Melt your butter in the saucepan over mediumish heat. Be careful not to scorch it. Take it off the heat and whisk in the flour, salt and pepper (it'll lump up quick), and then slowly mix in the milk. Whisk this until it's smooth, then put it back on the heat and turn it up a smidge.

This part is pretty crucial. You have to keep stirring pretty fast the whole time the gravy is cooking or it will burn to the bottom of the pan quick-like. You want to get that gravy up to a boil and let it get to a good, thick gravy-like (heh, see what I did there?) consistency, and then you take it off the heat and stir in the last of the meat mix that you set aside earlier. Warm that for a second.

By now, your roll should be done. Check and make sure the crust is nicely browned, and when it is, pull it out. Slice it and stick it on a plate and put some gravy on it. Seriously, this is good stuff.

Ingredients (in HUGE PICTURES NOW because I'm using Photobucket):

Meat mix: