Biscuits and Beef Italiano

Biscuits and Beef Italiano

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Initially my regular two dinner guests were grumbling about the meal - before they even tried it!  In the end, this was all that was left in the pan.  It tasted a lot like pot roast (which I often cook with a can of tomatoes in the slow cooker).

This recipe has perforated edges, an outline of a file tab / index card and in the top right corner it says "Main Dishes / Side Dishes".  It also has a similar lay out with a different recipe on the back side. It is trademarked from General Mills.  I suspect it was sent to my mother in some sort of promotional offer that she could subscribe to receive regular mailings of perforated recipe cards.

Before I went to the library one afternoon I decided I'd get a head start on dinner by gathering the ingredients I would need.

I got all the dry stuff measured.

My spaghetti sauce can was 24 oz. but I had some left over in a jar in the refrigerator so I planned to use that too.  I didn't measure to make sure it was exactly 32 oz. because if it wasn't, I wasn't going to open another can just to make up the slight difference.  The jar was "traditional" flavor and the can was "garlic and herb" flavor.

I checked the recipe to make sure there was nothing else I could prep early and realized the whole thing had to be in the oven for almost 3 hours so I got it all into the oven and programmed the auto-start so it could be ready for the finishing touches when I got home around 5 p.m.  I added the sauce from the jar and mixed it around a bit.  Then I left the jar upside down to get as much out as I could.

While waiting for the sauce to drain into the lid I added in the dry ingredients and stirred them up.

I added most of the can but the 10" skillet was starting to get pretty full.

I decided to add the wine before adding the remaining sauce to be sure I'd have room to stir it around.

It was a little tricky to get the wine incorporated.

It was a pretty full pan!

I covered it with a lid from a pan or skillet or I-don't-remember-what that I no longer have but I still use the lids on whatever.  It fits pretty well.  Since I wasn't home while it baked I did not add any water or wine or even stir it.

When I got home from the grocery store, after the library, I got right to work on the biscuit topping.  I still had some parsley left from two other recipes a few days ago so I used fresh parsley instead of dried flakes from my spice cabinet.

I used a large cereal bowl to mix the dough but I really should have used something bigger.

Mixing vigorously for 30 seconds implies (to me) an electric mixer.  But I really didn't want to get it out for 30 seconds so I just did all mixing by hand.

Ewh!  That lid was nasty when I took it out of the oven.  Next time I'd cover with foil instead so I could just throw it away instead of cleaning.

The dough didn't release very easily from the spoon.  I didn't want to be too forceful in blobbing it onto the skilled because I was afraid it would make a big splatter.  After 15 minutes the biscuits didn't look quite done.  Maybe they were too big...I cooked for 10 additional minutes.

The husband never likes wine in anything but, since it was the first time I made the recipe, I wanted to try it fully as written (although I did use only 1.5 lbs. of meat instead of 2 lbs. because that's how the package came at the store).  The husband could taste the wine.  I could too!  Which is unusual because I usually don't taste it after it's cooked through.  I enjoyed the slight wine taste but he did not.  If I make this again I'd leave the wine out for his sake.  This is a nice and easy way to use stew meat, which is often cheap but tough.  The long cooking made the meat tender.