Grandma Sakis' Bierrocks

For those who keep up with me on Facebook, you know that I spent my day Tuesday making Bierrocks.

Making bierrocks is a labor of love for me with a lot of memories wrapped up in them.  Growing up in a staunchly German town (and family) bierrocks were well-known and always well-made!  The schools even served them for lunch!  Around here, just about everyone knows what a bierrock is, but in case you've stumbled upon my blog from a decisively less German upbringing, a bierrock is a soft roll filled with meat and cabbage and onions.  The person I most associate with bierrocks is my Grandma Sakis who would've been 98 today.

Grandma Sakis was THE epitome of a what a grandma should be.  I can remember spending the night at her house once when I was seven or eight and for whatever reason, she and I were doing the dishes together.  I remember talking and talking (and TALKING) to her about everything going on in my class: the other girls, cartwheels, recess.  I can vividly remember standing on the moss green chair in the corner of her kitchen showing her some kind of gymnastics move that my friend Adrienne had taught me.  She just listened, seeming to fully enjoy the conversation (which was rather one-sided I'm afraid.)   One Sunday morning after Mass (after spending the night) my siblings and I raced up Grandma and Grandpa's front sidewalk to their porch.  When we turned around, Grandma had just gotten to the picket fence (about 25 feet from the front door.)  She had the (skeleton) key to the front door and I think we yelled "Come on Grandma!" and she RAN - IN HER CHURCH SHOES - to the front door!!  I'll never forget it!!!

Grandma and I, twenty-five years ago today.

I don't think I ever had the privilege of making bierrocks with Grandma, but I remember eating them at her house regularly.  Thanks to my cousin, I have a copy of her recipe in her beautiful cursive handwriting.  Written no doubt with her favorite pen.

Dough: 4 cups warm water, 2 Tbsp. sugar, 1 Tbsp. salt, 2 Tbsp. melted butter 1 pkg. yeast, enough flour to make a soft dough (12 cups give or take.)

If you're a math/science nerd like me, the warm water should be between 110-115 degrees for optimal yeast action.

Filling: 3 lbs. hamburger, 2 medium onions, 1 head cabbage, salt and pepper, 1/2 c. water, 1 T. flour

Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water and let proof for 5 minutes.  Add yeast mixture to a large bowl, then add the salt and melted butter.  Gradually add flour, first whisking, then stirring with a spatula, and finally kneading it in by hand until you have a soft dough.  Put dough ball in an oiled bowl, turning to coat the top, cover, and let rise about 1 hour, knead down and let rise again until doubled in size.

Grandma always said Maggie Becker was the very best at knowing when to stop kneading to have a soft loaf.  My mom always told me to check for when it springs back when you poke it with your finger.  I figure that less is more with kneading, so once it springs back and "looks right" I form it into a ball and call it good.

In a large pot, brown hamburger, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

Add the onions and cabbage and adjust the salt and pepper until it's flavorful - it should taste good - not bland!  Add the water and flour and steam with the lid on for about 10 minutes.

Yes, I switched pots.  I was making a double batch.  It was SO MUCH!

Divide the dough into 8 balls, leaving the ones you aren't working with in the oiled bowl, covered.

Working with one ball at a time, roll the dough as thin as pie dough and about 12 inches square.

Cut into 4 pieces.

Place a generous 1/3 cup of filling on each square.

Bring corners together and pinch, then seal the seams.

Again bring the corners to the middle, pinch, and press.

It doesn't have to be pretty... seriously... have you ever even seen the bottom of a bierrock that you were eating?  I didn't think so.

Place on a baking sheet with sealed edges down.  Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.  (If you are going to freeze them, just bake them for 20 minutes.)  Remove from oven and butter the tops.

Transfer from baking sheet to cooling rack and enjoy!

We like to dip ours in mustard or barbecue sauce!

Bierrocks:
Yield 32 bierrocks

Ingredients
Dough:
4 cups warm water
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. salt
2 Tbsp. melted butter
1 pkg (or 2 1/4 tsp.) yeast
*Enough flour to make a soft dough (12 cups give or take)

Filling:
3 lbs. hamburger
2 medium onions, chopped
1 head cabbage, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup water
1 Tbsp. flour

Method 
Dough
Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water and let proof for 5 minutes.  Add yeast mixture to a large bowl then add the salt and melted butter.  Gradually add flour, first whisking, then stirring with a spatula, and finally kneading it in by hand until you have a soft dough.  Put dough ball in an oiled bowl, turning to coat the top, cover, and let rise about 1 hour, knead down and let rise again until doubled in size.

Filling
In a large pot, brown hamburger, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.  Add the onions and cabbage and adjust the salt and pepper until it's flavorful.  Add the water and flour and steam with the lid on for about 10 minutes.

Assembly
Divide dough into 8 balls, leaving the ones you aren't working with in the oiled bowl, covered.  Working with one ball at a time, roll the dough as thin as pie dough and about 12 inches square.  Cut into 4 pieces.  Place a generous 1/3 cup of filling on each square.  Bring corners together and pinch, then seal the seams.  Again, bring the corners to the middle, pinch, and press.  Place on a baking sheet with sealed edges down.  Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.  (If you are going to freeze them, just bake them for 20 minutes.)  Remove from oven and butter the tops.  Transfer from baking sheet to cooling rack and enjoy!

*I used a whole wheat flour/whole wheat pastry flour combination.  Proportionally, probably twice as much whole wheat flour as the pastry flour.  I didn't measure!

Freezer Cooking Day cont'd

Put your baking panties on and get ready to cook up some more awesome freezer meals!

Manicotti Roll-ups (ninetuple batch)
48 lasagna noodles
7 c. shredded mozzarella cheese
8 c. cottage cheese
2 jars grated parmesan cheese
7 eggs
(for eating: 1-1.5 c. spaghetti sauce)

Prepare lasagna noodles as directed on the box, being careful not to let them stick together. (You may have to do them in batches.)

In a bowl, combine the cheeses and eggs. Spread a heaping 1/4 c. of cheese/egg mixture over each noodle. Roll up and place seam side down in a gal. freezer bag (8 per bag)

To eat: place in greased glass baking dish. Heat at 350-375ish until they are warm, then pour spaghetti sauce over the roll ups. You may top with additional cheese if desired.

Okay, so this one below takes the cake for being the EASIEST recipe! It goes together in no time flat!

Marinated Chicken (Quadruple Batch)
16 boneless skinless chicken breasts, frozen
2 bottles Italian Dressing
8 large green peppers, sliced
8 large onions, sliced

In a gal. freezer bag, put 4 frozen chicken breasts. Dump in half of a bottle of Italian Dressing, a quarter of the green peppers, and a quarter of the onions. Fold the freezer bag in half (so the mixture only takes up half the bag) and stick it in the freezer, you're done!

To eat: cut bag off of frozen mixture, put in crockpot. Heat on low for 6ish hours (or as long as you like, quite honestly!) Eat over cooked brown rice (or white rice, whatever!)

French Bread Pizzas (Double Batch Supreme, Double batch pepperoni)

Supremes:
4 loaves French bread
2 jars spaghetti sauce
3 lbs. hamburger cooked with salt and Italian Seasoning
1.5 bags pepperoni
4 large green peppers, diced
2 large onions, diced
2 cans olives, diced
5 cans mushrooms
8 c. shredded mozzarella

To assemble: split loaves in half then cut in half (so you have 4 open faces) (an electric knife works SWELL for this!) Top with: 1/4 c. spaghetti sauce, spoonful of hamburger, 7-8 pepperoni, peppers, onions, olives, mushrooms, and 1/2 c. cheese. Wrap in heavy duty foil.

Pepperoni:
4 loaves french bread
2 jars spaghetti sauce
1.5 bags pepperoni
8 c. shredded mozzarella

To assemble: spit loaves in half then cut in half (so you have 4 open faces.) Top with: 1/4 c. spaghetti sauce, 1/2 c. cheese, and 7-8 pepperoni.

Make-Ahead Butterhorns (makes anywhere from 24-48 rolls depending on how you slice it)

2 Tablespoons dry yeast, heaping
1/3 cup warm water (110-115 degrees)
9 cups flour, divided
2 cups warm milk (110-115 degrees)
1 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
6 eggs
2 teaspoons salt
3-4 Tablespoons butter, melted

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add 4 cups flour, milk, butter, sugar, eggs and salt. Beat 2 minutes or until smooth.

Add enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. Turn onto floured board and knead lightly. (Or, knead in mixer until sides of bowl are clean, then knead two more minutes.)

Place in a greased bowl, turning dough once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled (1-3 hours).

Punch dough down and divide into four equal parts (When we made it for freezer cooking day, we made a double batch, then each family got a half of a batch. Some people divided their half into thirds, then made 24 rolls - because I'll warn you, if you make four equal parts, then 8 wedges from each part, the 32 rolls will be pretty big ). Roll each part into a 12-inch circle and brush with melted butter.

Cut each circle into 8 pie-shaped wedges. (Alternately, you can cut a circle into 6 wedges, which are a great size for sandwiches.)

Roll up each wedge for wide edge to tip of dough and pinch to seal. Place rolls, top down, on baking sheets and freeze. When frozen, place in freezer bags and keep frozen until needed.

To bake: Take out as many frozen rolls as you’ll need and place them on a greased baking sheet. Thaw for five hours or until doubled in size. Bake at 375 degrees until lightly browned. Brush with melted butter as soon as they come out of the oven. Remove and serve immediately or cool on wire racks.

Broccoli Chicken Casserole (Quadruple Batch)

1 c. butter
2 large onions, diced
2 c. celery, chopped
8 c. uncooked rice
8 chicken bouillon cubes
4 cans cream of chicken soup
4 c. milk
3 head broccoli, chopped
2 chickens, cooked and cubed (cook in crockpot for 6-8 hours on low)
1/4 c. Montreal Steak Seasoning
(for eating: 1 c. cheddar cheese)

Cook rice according to package directions, adding chicken bouillon cubes to the water. Saute onion and celery in butter. Add broccoli towards the end and cover briefly to steam broccoli slightly. Mix milk & soup. Mix all ingredients in a LARGE bowl & place in greased foil in 8x8 glass baking dish. Pop it in the freezer and when frozen, cover with excess foil and put it in a gallon freezer bag.

To eat: Peel foil off and put back in the 8x8 pan. Bake at 350-375 until warm, then top with cheese and bake until hot.

So there you have it! That's all the recipes we used for Freezer Cooking Day in July. We were pretty proud, because we spent $159.19 TOTAL (not per person!!) Some of it was from our gardens, and some of it we lucked out because we get milk and beef for free. That figures out to $4.82 per meal (not per person) for a 4 person meal. In my opinion - you can't beat that! Anyway, here are a couple of pictures from the day:

Freezer Cooking Day

Towards the end of July, I was thrilled to host my first ever freezer cooking day with my little sis and a good friend. I've done freezer cooking days by myself before, but it was SO much more fun to share the day with other people!! Thanks go out to my awesome momma for watching our combined 6 kiddos (3 of which were 8 months and younger!) during the 9 hour day!

We made 37 meals total and butterhorn rolls. The count included:

4 pans of Chicken Enchiladas
7 pans of Shredded Beef Enchiladas
3 bags of Hamburger Stroganoff
4 bags of Marinated Chicken
34 French Bread Pizzas
6 Broccoli Chicken Casseroles
6 pans of Manicotti Roll-ups
64 Butterhorn Rolls

I'll include a few of the recipes below, and will post the rest in another post later!

Chicken Enchiladas (Quadruple Batch)

2 whole cooked chickens, shredded (I cook them in the crock pot for 6-8 hours, then shred 'em)
2 tubs sour cream
6 cans cream of chicken soup
2 cans Rotel
1 can diced tomatoes
4 c. shredded cheddar cheese
30 tortillas

Comine the sour cream, cream of chicken, rotel, and diced tomatoes. Set back some to top the enchiladas with. Add the chicken to the cream mixture. Stuff the tortillas, roll them up, and place them seam side down on a greased sheet of heavy duty foil in a 9x13 pan (make the foil big enough to completely cover the pan as well as fold over the top of the pan once it's frozen.) Top with the remaining cream mixture and the shredded cheddar cheese. Freeze, then cover with the excess foil. Slide into a 2 gal. freezer bag and you aren't without your pan for more than a few hours!

To eat: heat up in the oven at 350-375ish for an unspecified amount of time (until they're done!)

Shredded Beef Enchiladas (ninetuple batch)

6 lbs. beef roast, shredded (again, I use the crockpot for 8-10 hours, then shred them)
2 large onions; diced
2 c. plain yogurt
4 c. shredded cheddar cheese
4 c. uncooked rice
8 beef bouillon cubes
4 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes
2 T. parsley
1 T. black pepper
54 flour tortillas

Sauce:
6 cans tomato sauce
4 c. water
1/4 c. chili powder
1 T. oregano
1 T. cumin
4 cloves garlic, minced.

Prepare rice according to package directions, adding the beef bouillon cubes to the water.

In a large, large bowl, combine the shredded beef, onions, yogurt, cheese, tomatoes, parsley, and pepper.

Heat tomato sauce, water, chili powder, oregano, cumin, and garlic to boiling in a large saucepan, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered 5 minutes. Pour some into an ungreased pie plate.

Stire rice into beef mixture.

Dip each tortilla into sauce in pie plate to coat both sides. Spoon about 1/3 c. beef/rice mixture onto each tortilla. Roll tortilla around filling, place seam side down inside a 1 gal. freezer bag (8 enchiladas per bag.) Pour 3/4 c. sauce into a quart freezer bag and freeze flat.

To eat: heat up the enchiladas in the oven at 350-375 ish for an unspecified amount of time (until they're close to done) pour the sauce over the enchiladas in the last 5 or so minutes of baking.

Hamburger Stroganoff (quadruple batch)

2 large onions, finely chopped
1 c. butter
4 lbs. ground beef
1/2 c. flour
4 tsp. salt
4 tsp. pepper
4 cans mushrooms
4 cans cream of chicken soup
(when eating: 1 c. sour cream, & egg noodles)

Cook onion & butter on medium heat until transparent. Add meat; cook & stir until it has lost its red color. Add flour, salt, pepper, soup & mushrooms; cook 5 minutes. Cool a bit, then fill a gallon freezer bag half full. Seal the freezer bag and fold it in half then freeze.

To eat: cut bag from stroganoff, put frozen into a 9x13 glass dish and heat at 350-375ish until it is warm. Add 1 c. sour cream and stir, then put back in the oven until it's hot. Serve over hot cooked egg noodles ( we used about 1 bag.)

Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls

Here's the recipe for the cinnamon rolls as promised. Enjoy!!

Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls

Dough:
1 c. plus 2 T. warm milk
3 T. canola oil
1 egg, lightly beaten plus 2 egg whites
1/2 c. sugar
4 c. flour
1 t. salt
3 t. bread machine yeast

Filling:
4 T. butter
1 1/3 c. brown sugar mixed with
2 T. cinnamon

Icing:
1 t. milk
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
4 T. (or less) butter, softened
1 t. vanilla

Directions:
Put the dough ingredients in the bread machine in the order listed and run on the dough cycle. After the dough cycle is finished, dump the dough out onto the counter (I usually have to add some flour at this point because the dough is pretty runny.) Roll the dough into a large rectangle and spread it with the butter cut into the brown sugar and cinnamon (I use a pastry cutter, alternately, you could melt the butter and mix it all together.)

Roll up and cut (dental floss works great!) into 1 1/2 inch rolls and place in two greased round cake pans. If you have time, let them rise, covered, in a warm place until they double in size. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes or until browned. Spread the icing on as soon as they come out of the oven.

You can also cover the unbaked rolls with plastic wrap, stick them in the refrigerator overnight, and then bake in the morning.

The baked cinnamon rolls also freeze well... not that we often get to that point in our house. They're usually gone in no time!!

Freezer Cooking

The month before Ruby was born, I got very into the practice of freezer cooking. He he he that just sounds funny when you write it out... as if you could cook with a freezer... Anyway, before Ruby was born, I cooked about a dozen meals and a few pans of cinnamon rolls, and a few loaves of zucchini bread. It made the month after she was born INCREDIBLY easy as far as cooking went. I could just take a meal out of the freezer (in the morning if I remembered, usually right around dinner time was when I finally got around to it though) and pop it in the oven and voila! We had a nice meal!

I've continued the freezer cooking since she was born. In April, I basically grocery shopped for 2 months on my big shopping trip (yes, I like to only grocery shop once a month and just pick up the necessities: eggs, cheese, potatoes, lunchmeat, etc. as needed.) Every time I cooked a meal, I just doubled (or unintentionally tripled...) the recipe and put one in the freezer. One rainy day I really felt like cooking so I started around 10 AM and by 4 PM, I had about 12 meals ready to go in the freezer. Ira loved helping me cook and Ruby slept the day away riding in her swing.

If you dread the drama of dinner time, freezer cooking is something you should definitely try. I'll even share a great recipe that we LOVE and is super easy. It's a recipe from my favorite blog, tweaked just a bit to make them even more economical.

BROWN BAG BURRITOS
Makes 30 burritos

2 c. Uncooked Rice
2 lb. Ground beef
2 cans refried beans (14.5 oz cans)
1 1/3 c. enchilada sauce
1/2 c. water
1/3 c. dried minced onion
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. dried oregano
3 c. shredded cheese (cheddar, Mexican blend, whatever)
30 flour tortillas (burrito-size)

Prepare the rice according to the package's directions. Brown ground beef; drain. Add remaining ingredients (except tortillas). Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Add cooked rice and stir until well mixed.

Spoon 1/4 c. (ish) beef mixture down the middle of each tortilla, fold in both sides, and roll up.

Refrigerate or freeze.

Now here's where you need to decide what exactly you want to do with them. Andy takes them in his lunch, so I wrap them in a paper towel, then in foil, then freeze them. That way, he can grab 2 in the morning, take the foil off at lunch, and heat them in the microwave in the paper towel. I also hold some of them back for us to eat for dinner. Those you could just wrap in foil alone and stick them in a ziplock bag and freeze.

To reheat them in the microwave, just remove the foil and heat for about a minute and a half. You could also put them in a pan altogether and heat them in the oven. Or.... you could be really healthy like we are and nuke them in the microwave to get the filling warmed up then pan fry them in oil so they end up like chimichangas... I'm just sayin'... Then you can top them with lettuce, cheese, salsa, sour cream, etc. and they are a fast, delicious meal!

Enjoy!


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