Those of you who went to public schools should remember the lunch room ladies; they were the ones with their hair in a bun, hair nets, and flabby arms due to hard farm work before getting their jobs at the school; they also were the bus drivers. I think they had to be at 215 pounds to qualify also; what I am asking about is a recipe they made using ground beef with a gravy or sauce, "cupped" by white bread and baked in muffin trays. For some reason unknown I am craving the taste that came from that recipe secret. Do you know?

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), December 22, 2001

Answers

Mitch, I'm worried about you. You're actually CRAVING school cafeteria food! You just stirred up a lot of old scary memories for me, man! I think instead of looking for a recipe, you might want to be looking for a doctor.... LOL!

Okay, here's a recipe, but it isn't exactly what you're looking for. I think you could forego the BBQ sauce, and replace with brown gravy. It's the closest I could come up with.

Barbecue Beef Cups

Ingredients:
3/4 pound ground beef
1/2 cup barbeque sauce
1 tablespoon dried minced onion
1 (12 ounce) package refrigerated biscuits
1/3 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease the cups of a muffin pan. In a medium skillet, brown the beef over medium heat. Drain off the fat. Stir in barbeque sauce and dried onion. Simmer for a few minutes over low heat. Flatten each raw biscuit out, and press into cups of the prepared muffin pan. Make sure the dough comes to the top of the pan. Spoon a portion of the meat mixture into each dough cup. Bake in preheated oven for 12 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese, and bake for 3 more minutes.

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), December 22, 2001.

You better be careful, if you eat too much of that gravy, you'll weigh 215# and have flabby arms. We never had anyting like what you're talking about, we had soup beans that nobody would eat unless you dumped have a bottle of ketchup on them, flying saucer sandwiches- bologna and cheese on a small bun and pizza burgers. I do remember some mighty fine yeast rolls, though.

-- Cindy (SE. IN) (atilrthehony@hotmail.com), December 22, 2001.

Cindy, I weighed 215 in my junior year in high school with a 34 inch waist and haven't looked back yet and as for the mini meat pot pies, I think I will use the aluminum inserts for ease of removing from the tray. What keeps the biscuts from rising and pushing out the filling?

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), December 22, 2001.

We had hamburger gravy, but it was served on mashed potatoes. It was kind of gray looking...

-- Melissa (me@home.net), December 22, 2001.

You smash the biscuits flat before you use them to line the muffin cups. Just smoosh 'em real good, and stretch them out to cover the inside of the cup. They do poof up some, but not that much.

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), December 22, 2001.

Maybe I'm older than anyone else here, but I remember school cafeteria food with great fondness. It was wonderful! Wait...maybe that's a reflection on my mom's cooking...anyway, they made the BEST mashed potatoes, and they still had little lumps and some peel in them. Covered with brown or cream gravy, they were a meal in themselves. Also, the creamed chicken or turkey always had quartered boiled eggs in them. Mmm, good.

-- melina b. (goatgalmjb1@hotmail.com), December 22, 2001.

I tried that thing with the biscuits Cheryl, I had a bit of meatloaf in the freezer and some five unit mini packs of biscuits, so I placed the squished biscuits in the muffin pan, warmed the meatloaf in a skillet and came back to put the meat into the pockets which in my absence had turned into cockroach trampolines. So I ended up making biscuit - meatloaf taco balls. That was a trying lunch, do you come up with this idea or did you just find it somewhere and are useing me as a guiena pig??!!

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), December 22, 2001.

Sorry the biscuits turned into balls there, Mitch! It's a recipe I found on the internet, but we've made it at home, and it came out fine. We must be using different kinds of biscuits or something!

But still..... I don't think it could have been as bad as school lunch food!!!!! LOL!

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), December 22, 2001.

Mitch-we used to have Hamburger Gravy over White bread-it wasn't bad in the its better than MREs way of thinking. You fry up some crumpled ground beef with lots of onion, then make a gravy, and stir the hamburger back into the gravey. It was served over white bread or toast.

-- Kelly (Ksaderholm@yahoo.com), December 22, 2001.

I am wondering if you used slices of bread (already cooked) and put them in the muffin tins, then spooned the hamburger gravy into them and baked them, if this is what you are looking for??? The bread could be pressed into the pans and baked a little first if you like. You will have to experiment and let us know!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), December 23, 2001.

take crusts off white bread

scrunch into muffin tins. bake till toasty

fill with hot whatever

serve

-- Rose (open_rose@hotmail.com), December 23, 2001.

Mitch, you are talking about basic S O S. There is the chipped beef on toast which always tasted incredibly nasty. It sometimes had canned peas in it. Then there was the hamburger gravy. Are you sure you remember this from the school cafeteria or from your military days?

Brown your crumbled ground beef to well done, with onions, garlic, parsley carrots or whatever if you wish, season with a bit of paprika and basil, salt and pepper, and drain off most of the fat. Sprinkle in almost a 1/4 cup flour onto the meat and mix with a fork over medium low heat until all meat crumbles are coated and all fats and liquids are absorbed. Keep stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan until the flour is browned, too.

Add 2 cups milk (for cream gravy) or water (for brown gravy) Keep stirring over heat to keep it mixed. bring it to bubbling and cook, stirring constantly for 1 minute. If you make it with milk, add a pinch of nutmeg.

Spoon this into the above mentioned toast cups

-- Laura (LadybugWrangler@hotmail.com), December 23, 2001.

I always enjoyed the yellow gravy they put on the mashed taters. Does anyone know how to make it? I have always liked cafeteria (hospital food) I'm weird. At Marion High School they had a salad bar, mexican bar and a pool table room. Nothing like what it was in elementary. I wonder what has changed in the past 10 years since I've been out. Wow I feel so old.

-- melinda (speciallady104@hotmail.com), December 26, 2001.