Beef sticks

This is something a little different that you can do with mince if you're a bit sick of making bolognaise, pies, rissoles or any other of those regular things.

You can put in any veges or flavours you want really but for this post I'll just give the amounts and quantities for what I actually made today.

Place the following ingredients in a bowl and mix together:

 500g mince

1 finely grated carrot

1 egg

1 teaspoon beef stock

2 crushed cloves garlic

a pinch of mixed herbs

2 tablespoons tomato sauce

2 tablespoons barbeque sauce

salt and pepper taste

(You could add grated onion, zucchini, mushrooms etc.  List is endless)

Form 12 balls of equal size and roll them in breadcrumbs.

Using moist hands, place a soaked skewer in the centre of each piece and press around the stick until you have a long sausage shape.

Place in the fridge for a couple of hours before cooking.  They can be cooked on the barbeque, on the stove (if you have a long pan) or I sometimes do them under the grill which turns out really well.

Serve with a salad and tomato sauce for the kids or tomato relish for me and enjoy.

I have used smaller paddle pop sticks for the kids before so that they don't pierce their throats with the skewers.  It makes lots of smaller ones that way and can be good if you've got a heap of kids around for a barbeque.

You can also leave the breadcrumb stage until AFTER you've placed the mince mixture on the sticks, especially if you want that really nice crunchy crumbs on the outside. 

I find that when the kids are 'helping' me make these that it's much easier to do the breadcrumbs first.  Mainly because we have a production line and as they have trouble keeping the mixture on the sticks, I do that part and they get to roll the mixture in the breadcrumbs.  I can forgo a crunchier outside for the sake of my sanity sometimes.