Cheeseburger Cupcakes

ATTENTION: This post will be as good as it sounds, may require immense will power or purchasing of larger pants.

A former co-worker of mine was talking about how she made cheeseburger cupcakes for dinner one night that week, and I was intrigued so I asked her if she had a recipe. She then rattled off a few ingredients and some basic instructions, so I went home and gave them a try. They are amazing! I now make them for potlucks and parties they are easy to make and perfect portion sized finger food. Too bad you can't just eat one of them. 
One of my many business venture dreams is to open up an awesome food truck featuring savory cupcakes, but until then I'll share how you can make your own!

First things first, you'll need:

Muffin Tins (2 that hold 12 muffins each)

24 Pillsbury Grand Biscuits

 (Can be the store brand, but must be the large or jumbo sized only)

2 Pounds of Ground Beef or Turkey

One Bottle of your Favorite BBQ sauce

1-2 tbsp Brown Sugar (optional)

Favorite shredded cheese

Biscuits I chose to use.

Now brown your ground meat in pan of suitable size, until fully cooked. Drain the grease and add enough BBQ sauce to the meat to make it the texture of sloppy joes. If you'd like to sweeten the sauce a bit add a tablespoon or 2 of the brown sugar to the meat and sauce mixture until fully dissolved. Normally for children's recipes sugar is added to cut the acidity of the sauce, I myself have never added sugar.

Ground meat and sauce mixture.

Next preheat your oven to the temp on the biscuit packaging usually between 375 and 425 degrees, and now spray your muffin tins with non stick cooking spray. After this take each biscuit and squish them out flat and round so they will fit into the tins. Like so:

then...

Perfect, next, spoon your ground meat and sauce mixture into each biscuit cup.

Once finished sprinkle shredded cheese on top,

and bake them in your preheated oven for 17-20 minutes or until the biscuits are golden and the cheese melted.

Let them set in the tins for 5-10 minutes before serving, and be careful they will be VERY hot. 
Then Enjoy!

Beer Oh Beer

I guess I should explain my job a little better other than I just dress in crazy amounts of wool. I work for Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, MA, and my official job title is Colonial Foodways Specialist. Which means I spend half my time in "old time-y" clothes, with a funny accent, and I pretend not to know what the internet is, or what iPhones are, etc.etc.

Being part of Foodways means I get to make things like this Gooseberry Tart for our recreation of a 17th century wedding this past summer.

I also roasted a pig on a spit, with fellow interpreters in our museums colonial village site.

Sorry about the blurry picture, it's hard to sneak pictures while a pilgrim (Picture courtesy of Sally Rothemich).

Now that it's the winter, and we're closed, we get a chance to do things like research, and classes which isn't as easy when we're open to the public. And do you know what a lot of people think of, other than Thanksgiving when they think pilgrims?

BEER!

"Monday the 25 being Christmas day, we began to drink water aboard, but at night the master caused us to have some beer, and so on board we had divers times now and then some beer, but on shore none at all."

-1622. Mourt’s Relation. Caleb Johnson, ed.  p. 472.

Poor pilgrims, they knew the wilderness would suck, but I bet they thought they'd at least have beer. Which leads me to my latest adventure; a couple days ago I headed to Beer & Wine Hobby in Woburn, MA for a home brewing class. It was in hopes to get more detailed information on modern brewing, how we can make it like the pilgrims, and of course to buy supplies. My wallet was not too happy about this adventure; I got a bunch of extra supplies for a kit I previously bought, and a new book, much recommended:

Long story short, brewing beer is pretty easy, (well that's what I was told), and now all that's left to do is read, and brew. So check back and see if I brew amazing beer, or just beer bombs (over carbonated beer can make your bottles explode and create a giant mess. I'm aiming not to do this).

If you want to learn more about beer or what beer to drink, or not to drink you should check out my friends The Two Kyles. They try beers and tell you who awesome or not so awesome they are. Here is one of their episodes:

CHEERS!