productivity

I have an “official” recipe that I kinda sorta follow sometimes if I feel like it, but usually I have way more hamburger than the amount called for in the official recipe (we buy one cow a year and have most of it, minus the excellent cuts [about which I am very specific] ground into hamburger). This is how I made it last night:

• 2-1/2 lb hamburger
• 1-1/2 c bread crumbs (combined my own dried/crumbled with boughten seasoned)
• 1 c milk
• 1/2 c yellow onion, chopped
• 2 eggs
• 2 T Worcestershire sauce (this is the key to a good meatloaf, IMO)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp dry mustard
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground sage

 

• Mix all ingredients (knead it with your hands as you would bread dough) and put into a springform pan. Put on an aluminum-foil-lined cookie sheet. Cook at 350F for 1 hour.
• Add ketchup as needed.

 

• NOTE: For low-carb version, substitute bread crumbs with chopped mushrooms (not the kind from the can).

If you’re easily squicked about meat and the eating thereof, you may stop reading right here.

I love steak tartare. If you don’t know what that is, it’s raw ground sirloin with egg and capons and a bunch of spices in it. I eat this meatloaf raw once I get all the spices worked in and settled. Sometimes I’ll add a little extra Worcestershire sauce. Poor woman’s tartare.

Continuing with the theme of what Mojo cooks because she hates to, and this is what her mother cooked and so she likes it enough to cook it:

This should probably fall under the heading “no brainer,” but these are the best enchiladas I’ve ever had, bar none.

I got 27 enchiladas out of this today:

This isn’t hard, but the prep time (especially if you hand grate the cheese and dice the onions by hand instead of the handy-dandy chopper I adore) is a killer.

Obviously, you can substitute any meat you like, but I prefer plain cheese and onions.

Got a request for my recipe for beef stroganoff, so I’m going to add a new category of comfort food. These are adapted from recipes my mother used, the food I grew up on and while some of it’s expensive to make, some of it’s not. It’s not fancy. The reason I don’t cook is that my mother made everything from scratch (even egg noodles) and so it wouldn’t occur to me to go get, say, a jar of Ragu for spaghetti sauce (and the one time I did I gagged). However, when I do cook, I cook from scratch.

I very rarely measure anything unless I’m baking, so you’ll have to adjust for your own tastes. I have tried this stroganoff with stew meat or cutting up a cheap steak (say, chuck), but I don’t like it that way, as the flavors don’t blend as well. Liberal use of pepper is the key to a good batch of stroganoff.

The measurements for this beef stroganoff are written per 1 pound of hamburger.

Cook up the hamburger with all the above ingredients on medium high heat, enough to barely cook the meat and make the onions translucent. Stir well, and let it simmer for about 10 minutes to let the flavors settle in. Drain, put it back in the pan, and put it back on the stove.

Into the drained meat, stir in (very well):

Let that simmer on low for about 15 minutes. While that’s cooking, cook up:

Remove the stroganoff from the heat. Add:

Stir it in well and let the whole thing sit for about 10 minutes.
Drain your egg noodles and put them on a plate.
Then top with the stroganoff mixture.

That’s it. Only takes me about 1/2 hour, no matter how much I make, and I make it in batches of about 5 pounds of hamburger. It never lasts long enough to be able to freeze any of it, but it is freezable.