Simple Sliders

I always try to plan for at least one quick meal during the week, because it's inevitable that I'll end up having a really grumpy child, have to do something unplanned, and/or something else will happen at least 1 out of 7 days of each week. So, I thought I'd share one of my go-to recipes for those times :) This is also a GREAT Summer recipe for grilling indoors (in a grill pan) when it's just too hot to do it outside. Hope you enjoy!

SIMPLE SLIDERS

Ingredients

1 lb ground meat (as lean as you can get it; don't freeze it, because that takes away from the freshness)
1-2 tbsp seasoning (your favorite ground meat seasoning; ours is Mesquite)
12 pk of dinner rolls (our favorites are King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls - Original)
fresh lettuce (we use leaf lettuce, but you could use Romaine as well)
2-3 fresh Roma tomatoes (they're typically cheaper, easy to slice and perfectly sized for sliders)
3-6 slices of cheese singles (we love Borden - American)
Condiments (ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, etc.)
Chips or some other side (can of baked beans, etc.), optional

Directions

1.  Preheat the oven to 450°F.

2.  Use your hands to knead or "squish" together the ground meat and seasoning in a bowl.

3.  Use your hands to spread out the ground meat
     mixture (to about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness) onto
     a flat, shallow, oven-safe pan. This recipe is
     designed for a large, flat stone. If you use
     another type of pan, you may need to adjust the
     cooking time and/or oven temperature,
     depending on the specifications of your particular
     pan.

4.  Once the oven is preheated, place the pan into
     the oven and bake for 12 minutes.

5.  Meanwhile, use a serrated knife to cut the rolls
     in half. And, you could go ahead and fold each
     cheese single slice into 4 small pieces each.

6.  You can also use this time to wash and cut the
     tomatoes and wash and tear the lettuce.

7.  When finished cooking, remove the ground meat
     from the oven carefully (it will be hot ;) ). It will
     look pretty gross...lol. I typically take a couple
     of paper towels and dab off the excess juices
     from the top of the meat.

8.  Use a pizza cutter to divide the meat into 12
     equal patties; you could do 3 rows of 4. I
     sometimes make more, depending on the size of
     the dinner rolls, and make my husband double-
     stacker sliders :)

9.  Simply build the sliders and you are finished!

Yield: 12 sliders
Preparation Time: about 10-15 minutes
Cooking Time: 12 minutes