Recipe Sharing, Runza Style

I love sharing recipes.  I think it is how I have ended up with so many family favorites.  I also love it when there is a story attached to your recipe.  How you got, whose it was originally, where they got it.  All that information is probably the part I love the most.

I will say that many a recipe in my collection has come from my mom.  She is by far the best cook I know.  (I may be a bit biased :)   My sister Lauren is a close second and I will never turn down an invite to eat at Laura's house either! 

And while I come from a cooking and recipe sharing family, I will have to say that Adriane likes to mix in a bit of wit with her cooking and it is highly entertaining. 

So in honor of her arrival today, I wanted to share a recipe with you.  It is Mom's recipe and there is a story attached but  the running commentary on this one definitely takes the cake.

Monday, November 14th, 2005

Mom wanted you to have this. She says to tell you these taste just
like the ones from the LeMars bakery. Dad ate his with mustard. They
haven't made, er, let me try one yet.

RUNZAS (run-zah, n. a bun stuffed with crap, example: "Oh man. I took some Citracel and now I got the runzas.")

1/2 lb. hamburger

1 c. sauerkraut (drained and cut up with shears) [note: be sure to

clean the shears after the sheep is shorn but before shearing the 'kraut,' 

1 tsp. instant onion flakes (refer to Joan if you're running low)

2 cups mozzarella cheese (if you have this kind of cheese in your
fridge and you're not making a pizza instead, you oughta be shot in the face; if at this point, you're still alive, continue)

1 pkg. frozen dinner roll dough

Let dough thaw and start to rise. Cook hamburger and drain well. Add
sauerkraut, onion flakes, cheese, salt and pepper to taste. (Dump both shakers in to mask the kraut flavor.) Mix together. (Duh.) Refrigerate till dough is (like Todd Beamer on 9/11) ready to roll.

Roll each ball of dough on floured surface to a 5-6 inch circle. Place
2-3 tbsp. of meat mixture (etymology: a term coined by the MMC school
cooks when the actual kind of meat is undiscernable) in center of dough.Pull centers together and press together tightly to seal (as long as Heidi Klum isn't around to get jealous). Place on a greased baking sheet. Let runzas rise 20-30 minutes. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown or until they've exploded. Brush while hot (Did I mention before I started that you're making these with Paris Hilton? That's hot.) with margarine. Serve hot or cool and bag individually and freeze. (Of course, if you've just served them hot or cool, it's going to be a bit difficult to "bag" them, as it were, unless you're kekking them into a "bag" because they've got "kraut" in them.) Defrost and reheat in microwave for a convenient (yet nasty) meal. When reheating, place on paper towels so bottom doesn't become soggy. (You know how we hate a soggy bottom!)

Jean Erickson recently fixed these for the residents at the supper

meal. She said the recipe came from Koreen Anderson at the cooking school at the Marcus fair a few years ago.  

(And there you have it - your mom is sending you recipes from the nursing home. Well, don't say you weren't forewarned...)