Cooking for a Cause

Yesterday was the benefit for my dear friend who was in a very bad motorcycle accident this summer. Thankfully he will be ok although he will probably walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Sundays at my house are usually spent on the sofa watching football, especially when it is as dreary as it was yesterday. But, I promised that I would make an appetizer. I really didn't want to leave the house and with money being so tight lately I need to come up with something low effort and low budget but tasty. We have a ton of beef in our freezer since we bought a hind quarter in the spring, so I came up with these tasty little french onion sliders. All I needed to buy was the rolls. I got dinner rolls from the bakery department of our local grocery store. The kind that come in a sheet and you have to break them apart. They looked kind of like this (but mine came 12 to a sheet):

 This allowed me to slice them all open, toast and fill all at one time, thereby allowing me to make them in batches of 12. As a bonus, each pack fit perfectly in the disposable aluminum pans I bought for the occasion. It worked perfectly! Here is how I did it.

French Onion Roast Beef Sliders

2-3 pound chuck roast
2 cans french onion soup

4 Tbs Butter
2-3 Tbs flour
1 Tbs garlic powder
1-2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp Gravy Master
1 Tbs beef base
salt and pepper to taste

3 dozen small dinner rolls
1 stick butter
1 lb mozzarella cheese, sliced

Place roast and soup in a slow cooker, set low and cook overnight (8 hours minumum).
When cool enough to handle, remove roast from slow cooker (reserve cooking liquid), separate fat and shred meat. Place meat in a bowl and cover with cooking liquid from the slow cooker to keep meat moist.

Melt butter in a large skillet and add flour and garlic powder and make a roux. Add cooking liquid, Worcestershire, gravy master, and beef base and stir to create a thick sauce. Add meat to the pan and continue to add cooking liquid until meat and sauce are of a sloppy joe like consistency. You don't want it to be pasty but if too runny bread will be soggy. Once desired consistency in achieved, salt and pepper to taste, and remove meat from heat and set aside.

Slice rolls open. Melt butter in a skillet and place rolls cut side down to toast. I used a table top electric skillet and was able to toast and entire package of rolls at one time. I was able to do three batches with 1 stick of butter. Once toasted, place a slice of mozzarella on each roll, then top with meat mixture, and then the top of the roll.

To serve, cover with foil and bake at 350 for 10-20 minutes or until rolls are hot.