Table of Contents > Recipe and Essay Ham Rolls with Sweet & Sour Sauce

Cooking Time: PT1H

Cooking Method: bake

Category: meat

Cuisine Type: American

Servings: 5-8 servings

Related: dbPedia entity

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb ground beef 1 lb ground pork 1 and 1/2 c. graham crackers 1 c. milk 1 egg, beaten 1 1/4 tsp salt 1 1/4 tsp pepper Sauce 10 3/4 oz condensed tomato juice 1 cup brown sugar 1/3 c cider vinegar 1 tsp dry mustard

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, combine all roll ingredients together.
  2. Mix well.
  3. Using about 1/3 cup of mixture form into rolls.
  4. Place in 13 x 9 pan.
  5. In separate bowl combine sauce ingredients.
  6. Mix well.
  7. Pour over rolls.
  8. Place rolls in oven at 350 for 50-60 min.
Ham Rolls with Sweet & Sour Sauce

Table of Contents > Recipe and Essay Ranch Life and Home Cooking

Loraine Laubach grew up in a ranching family near Springdale, Montana. Born in 1934, she was too young to experience the hardships of the Great Depression. Her family, however, was quite self-sufficient. They grew much of their own vegetables and raised their own livestock, ranging from dairy cows to pigs and chickens. Her family was still tied into the local and national food supply, however, through the sales of extra dairy products Loraine's family did not need. These sales provide her family with the means of obtaining foodstuffs they could not grow themselves.

Her own cooking experience came once she left home. Through trial and error, Loraine learned the finer points of cooking. While Loraine learned the basics of cooking from her mother, she acquired recipes and techniques through her own culinary struggles. Like her mother, Loraine took on the family's cooking duties when she married. The one exception to this was a period when her husband, Henry Valgamore, worked on a road crew for the highway and cooked for the crew. Just as with her mother's family Loraine maintained the ideals of family meals and everyone gathered around the table at mealtime.

The importance of food in her life today has remained quite strong. Food serves as a catalyst for almost all major family events from small branding weekends on the ranch to the largest of family barbeques. Food plays a major role in other family events such as Christmas where family favorites are a must and without the traditional foods the holiday is just not the same. Loraine has been the head chef for these events, with her daughters and now grandchildren aiding in preparing these large meals. These occasions help to bring her large family together under a single roof at least for a short time and serve as much as the meal itself as a reason for the gathering.

The long history of self-sufficiency that her parents taught Loraine has stayed with her. She learned canning from her mother many years ago and still cans her own garden vegetables. She maintains a garden yearly in which she grows tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, corn, and potatoes. And as with any location where cattle is raised, beef has been a main part of meals and has always been plentiful. These all tie into the long heritage Loraine has as a country ranch woman. One thing always present in her home today is a hearty supply of cookies, brownies, or cake, with frozen cookies just waiting to be thawed. Through the years Loraine has seen many changes in her own food supply from the range of foods now present in supermarkets to the supermarkets themselves. The evidence of a global food supply has made her more conscious of the larger context of how food plays into not only local but the global market.