YUMMMM

There is a very popular drive-in in this area and everyone loves their loose meat sandwiches. Some may call these Maid-Rites. They are not tomato based like Sloppy Joes.

My son got hold of a recipe that is very close to what the drive-in has, and his sister-in-law made a big crockpot full for supper here at home after the birthday open house.

Here is the recipe.

I am  not a fan of horseradish but I could not taste it. It does add to the final taste. This is a large amount that could be cut in half, but why not make the whole thing and freeze in manageable portions. Enjoy!

FORGOT TO THAW GROUND BEEF?

This weekend officially begins the summer cookout season.

In the past, every year on Memorial Weekend we went camping. Naturally, we had to grill hamburgers or it wouldn't be a holiday weekend, right? Or maybe you get together with some friends and have a picnic.

Some of you may remember that I am one of the world's great procrastinators, and I usually forget to take the ground beef out of the freezer ahead of time, whether for picnics or a meal at home. So here I am, with frozen meat at the last minute. What to do?

The usual way to defrost when you don't have time to put it in the fridge overnight, is to put the package under running water, leave it sit on the counter top, or try defrosting in the microwave. My experience with putting anything frozen in the fridge overnight is that it never thaws overnight, but takes a couple of days. Leaving it sit on the counter top until thawed is not safe, and still takes a long time. So I end up trying to defrost in the microwave, which can be tricky. Sometimes the outer edges get cooked before it is thawed and that doesn't work well if you want to form patties or balls.

I was reading a beef council section of the newspaper recently and found a tip on how to thaw ground beef a safe and quick way. You may wonder why I would be reading such a section since I don't raise beef cattle, but they often have good tips and sometimes recipes for using beef. If you would like to see more, check out this website:  http://www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com/.

Here are the tips listed in the news article on how to defrost ground beef in the microwave in less than 5 minutes, and you can still form burgers, patties or meatballs this way!

1. Remove a pound of frozen ground beef from packaging and place in a gallon size storage bag.

2. Seal the storage bag leaving a small opening for steam to escape.

3. Heat the bag in the microwave (on a microwave-safe plate) for one minute on high.

4. Flip the bag over.

5. Heat on HIGH for 1 more minute, then wait 1 minute.

6. Remove beef from the microwave and massage the beef for 10 second.s

7. If needed, heat on HIGH for 30 seconds longer, followed by 30 seconds rest. The leaner the ground beef, the less time in the microwave.

The ground beef should not be hot to the touch. You don't want to cook the meat, just thaw it enough to form it into your desired shape.

(From the Iowa Beef Industry Council)

Now I admit I have not tried this yet, but will do so when the need arises.

The best thing to do is form patties or make meat balls as soon as you bring the ground beef home from the store, but we are often in a hurry so just throw the package in the freezer to deal with later. You can also buy already frozen patties, but that is not as frugal, plus the ground beef may not be the best, or you like to add your seasoning and other ingredients before freezing.

Sometimes it is just easier to grab a package of frozen hot dogs and put those on the grill instead!

Have a great holiday weekend, and don't forget to honor the veterans first.

(the Beef Industry Council did not pay me to write this. I discovered this myself.)

FAVORITE MEAT LOAF

I have tried many meat loaf recipes throughout the years. They were all good, some better than others. This is my all-time favorite. It comes from one of my church cookbooks, and most of those recipes are wonderful. I think meat loaf is a comfort food, especially for fall and winter. But it is also good to take to pot lucks any time of the year. It usually disappears really fast, and is good cold.

2 pounds ground beef
1 cup dry bread crumbs
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups milk
1 pkg. onion soup mix
          or   1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon each pepper, celery salt, garlic salt, and dry mustard
1 teaspoon salt (if using the soup mix, I don't add more salt)
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Mix all thoroughly. Put in ungreased loaf pan. Mix equal amounts of catsup and mustard; spread on top of loaf. Bake at 350 for 1 1/2 hours.

Sometimes I use this topping:

6 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup catsup

The last time I made this I did two batches, and used panko bread crumbs as that was what I had on hand, plus what was left of a can of regular seasoned bread crumbs, and finally had to add some quick oatmeal to the mix. It all worked well. Use whatever you have in your pantry.

I mixed these two batches up and then divided each batch in half to freeze. I wrapped in aluminum foil and then put in freezer bags, and froze unbaked. I will sometimes bake a meatloaf and slice it up, then freeze the individual slices for a quick meal option.

What's Cooking. . . . Old Favorites - Spanish Rice (5 ingredients)

Old Favorites

I love Spanish rice. Today I often have boxes of  Rice-A-Roni Spanish rice on hand. I try to buy them at a good sale price. Of all the Spanish rice mixes out there, that is probably my favorite, maybe because of the small pieces of pasta in with the rice? I don't know. When I make it I usually make it into a full meal dish by adding some kind of cooked meat. I do like to use coin sliced Polish sausages or kielbasa, but will use hot dogs, bologna, leftover cooked chicken, and then a vegetable - usually corn 'cuz I just love it - but could be anything you like. Here is the original recipe that we liked ~

SPANISH RICE

1 pound hamburger

1 diced onion

3/4 cup dry rice

1 can tomatoes

1 cup chopped celery

Brown hamburger and onion. At the same time boil rice in double boiler. Combine and add tomatoes and celery. Bake in covered casserole until heated and blended, about 3/4 hour, at 350 degrees. Or simmer at low heat in electric frying pan, stirring occasionally.

** I no longer have an electric frying pan, but it can also be done on top of the stove in a heavy pan with a lid.

** Today I would probably just add some water to the pan with the rest of the ingredients and use dry instant rice instead of cooking it first. Or you can cook a large batch of rice at one time and freeze in portions. So this would be a quick dish using a bag of frozen browned hamburger and frozen rice. I haven't tried it yet, but I think this whole dish would freeze well.

What's Cooking. . . . . Cowboy Casserole

I saw this recipe on Pinterest recently and actually tried it! This was posted by Lisa at http://thecuttingedgeofordinary.blogspot.com in this post,  She titled it "Cowboy Casserole-that-looks-like-dog-food"! She adapted this recipe from Taste of Home.

This is how mine looked. Does it look like dog food? 

I also adapted mine to fit what I had on hand. I added the changes below the recipe, as well as my comments on the result. It is a hearty dish and good for chilly days. I think it would also go well at pot-lucks. Men and boys always seem to like anything with potatoes and corn in it.

COWBOY CASSEROLE

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 can (15.25 oz) whole kernel corn, drained

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

1/2 cup milk

4 tablespoons sour cream 

1 bag (30 oz) frozen tater tots 

In a large skillet cook the onion until tender and translucent. Add the chopped garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Add the beef and cook over medium heat until no longer pink. Drain the mixture and place into a large bowl and set side.

In a small bowl combine the soup, milk and sour cream. Whisk until smooth. Add to hamburger mixture and stir to combine. Add corn and 1 cup of cheddar cheese. Gently mix to combine.

Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish. Layer half of the tater tots on the bottom, pour the hamburger mixture over the top and then layer with the other half of the tater tots. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 (?) cheese and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown and crunchy.

Notes: I only had 1/2 a bag of tater tots in the freezer, but I also had a bag of shredded hash browns, so I used about 1/2 of the hash browns on the bottom layer. Since I had browned hamburger in 1 pound packages in the freezer, that is all I put in, and I thought it was enough. That also makes the dish a little cheaper to make. Lisa used 80/20 mix and I think mine was 85/15, so I had less fat to drain off which was done before freezing) and more meat.

I don't always stock canned corn but always have bags of frozen corn on hand, so that is what I used, just poured some in, guessing about equal to a can, maybe more. I like corn! I had chopped garlic in a jar that had just enough to equal 3 cloves. Since I was out of fresh milk, I used some powdered milk in 1/2 cup of water. The rest of the ingredients were the same.

Lisa said she allowed the potatoes to thaw first. I did not, plus the corn was still frozen. I did add the frozen hamburger to the pan when I had cooked the onions and garlic so that it was warm. The directions say to bake 25-30 minutes, but it took mine closer to an hour to get the top tater tots browned and crispy. She did mention that the second time she made this she assembled it the night before and put in fridge, then took it out an hour before she baked it so it could come to room temperature a bit. She thought it was better than the first one. In my mind, I am thinking why not have it baking and finished in that hour instead of taking another 1/2 hour or more to bake it? But then, I am the one that always forgets to take things out ahead of time!

I thought this was a little dry and not as creamy as I expected it to be. Using the hash browns might be the reason for that. I also thought it could use more cheese even though it already has 2 cups in it. And the hash browns needed some seasoning, especially salt, and the frozen corn is also salt free. I added seasoned salt and seasoned pepper to my dish and that helped. The tater tots maybe come seasoned? I did not check the bag for that.

All in all, I thought it was good enough to make again, only next time I will use all tater tots.

 

What's Cooking. . . . . Old Favorites - Texas Hash

Old Favorites

I have to be honest and say I have not done much cooking lately, so I have no pictures to go along with these recipes right now. But I thought I would share with you some of my family's old favorites. The one I am sharing today is from an old community cookbook that was given to me early in my first marriage and there are several recipes that have been marked with 'good' or 'very good' in the margin. Most of these recipes are simple and economical. Nothing gourmet about them, just common, everyday foods that most families in the Midwest were eating in the 1960's. I would not be surprised that many of these recipes could be found in Amish cookbooks, even though most of the recipes in this book were contributed by Dutch ladies.

A side note: Did you know that the group of people called the Pennsylvania Dutch are not Dutch, but Deutsche? The Deutsche are German people, and Germany is called Deutschland. It sounds something like doytch-land. I haven't researched why the people from Holland are called Dutch.

On to the recipe for today ~

Texas Hash

1 pound hamburger, browned

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 cup diced celery

1/4 cup green pepper

2 cups tomatoes

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 cup uncooked rice

Combine all ingredients. Heat to boiling on stove burner, then bake, covered, 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Note: I am usually in a hurry when cooking a meal, and find that bringing this to a boil in a heavy skillet with a lid, I can then turn the heat down to simmer and cover with lid. Allow to simmer until rice is cooked. That could be about 20 minutes. And it depends on whether you use regular rice or instant rice.

Since I try to have browned hamburger in the freezer at all times, using a bag of that makes for a really quick dish. This is also easy to add other ingredients to your liking. You might like to add garlic, a little bit of sugar to mellow the tomatoes, a can of corn or an amount of frozen corn to your liking, a can of pork'n'beans, or any kind of cooked beans. Adding the corn and a can or two of beans can extend the meal to feed more people if your kids bring friends home. If you happen to be out of rice, add some pasta.

Serve with a salad and garlic bread and you have a tasty and filling meal. In fact, I think I will make this for my supper tonight! I have everything on hand, except I think what is left of the green pepper in the fridge needs to go in the garbage. I should check the freezer as I might have some chopped pepper in there. I do know there are some whole hot peppers in there, and since I like a little heat, that is probably what I will end up with, or else a small can of green chilies. Adding a jar of chunky salsa could be substituted for the tomatoes, onion and green pepper. That is part of the fun of cooking isn't it? Make it your own. But if you find a combination that everybody loves, you better write it down so you can remember what you did the next time you want to make it. Ask me how I know that!

Wiley Post Steak

We received a little over 4" of snow by this morning. It is a very fine and light snow - so fine that you could barely see it coming down. But it came down steadily and accumulated. Now the sun is shining and the snow looks like it has been dusted with the diamond dust glitter that is used in crafts. Very pretty. I wish I could get a good picture through the window because I am not going outside in the cold just to take a picture. Sorry to be such a wimp.

Today I am making an old recipe that is a long time family favorite. It is one that my mother clipped from a newspaper column probably over 50 years ago. She passed away in January 1971 so we know the recipe is older than that. I have no clue as to why this is called Wiley Post Steak, but I do know it is really good.

WILEY POST STEAK

 

Prepare 2 lbs round or chuck steak by pounding until the meat separates slightly. Pound 1 cup flour and salt and pepper to taste into both sides of steak. Sear meat in hot fat until brown. Transfer to large baking dish. Add 2 1/2 cups water, a medium onion, sliced thin, and garlic if desired. Bake covered in 275 degree F. oven for 3 hours. The meat forms its own gravy. Serves 8

 

 

 

I always use round steak and usually have it tenderized so I don't have to pound it. The steak I am using today has not been tenderized, but it is usually very tender anyway so am going to skip that step today. The recipe doesn't state it, but I also cut the meat into serving size pieces before flouring and browning.  I will dredge the meat and press with fingers to work it into the meat a little more.

 

I use an enameled roaster, mostly because that is what I have and it works really well for this. You can also use the crockpot but mine is busy cooking a pork roast for pulled pork today. And since it is cold outside, having the oven on will be comforting.

 

I have also made this with venison steaks. I did that for a dinner party after my husband had gotten his first deer, but I didn't tell the people they were eating venison. They didn't know the difference and liked it so well that they kept eating more. This is a dish I have used many times to feed guests as it never fails.