WEEK #3—GROUND BEEF #2

February 28, 2013

While doing clean-up on my blogs I discovered I'd never got this post up and running.  It was originally written for the week of July 4, 2012 and for some reason never left the draft mode. I did some adjustments to it and so here it is.  Finally!  Hopefully I'll get the rest of the 52 weeks up soon.

July 4, 2012

It’s ground beef time again.  As I said in the beginning we eat a lot of ground beef, so technically every other week my menus will be ground beef based for a while.  After all what can’t you make with ground beef?

Please note that most, if not all, of the recipes I do with ground beef could be done with other ground meats.  You might have to make a few allowances for fat content or such to keep things from drying out, but pretty much you can interchange the ground meat ingredient without much change.  Unless, perhaps with wild meats, such as venison, but if you are cooking with wild meats you most likely KNOW what you need to do to make the recipe work. 

As usual I’m running a little behind on my menu posts, so this is being done during the July 4^th week and therefore you will be seeing our holiday cook out menu for that day during the week. It will look like a huge menu for just the three of us, but we LOVE leftover grilled meats, so when I am cooking I am doing so with planned leftovers in mind.

Today is Tuesday and I have the Donvier in the freezer preparing for our homemade ice cream for tomorrow’s dessert.  And the chicken leg quarters to grill, along with tomorrow’s ground beef and bologna are already thawing in the refrigerator.  I’ll boil the eggs for the deviled eggs later on today. 

My son has already made a delicious huge batch of chocolate chip cookies both for sharing at work today and to go with our ice cream tomorrow.  We are in full holiday mode here.

We’ll have zero fireworks because we don’t want to burn the place down, not to mention the fact that the cost of those does not comply with the budget we have going right now.  We’d rather save money we would have spent on fireworks to travel to Walt Disney World in the future on a shoestring budget to have a wealth of fun and enjoy their fireworks while there.  If you are interested in how you can travel to WDW cheaply, and still get the most fun see my blog posts on the subject. How to Plan a Frugal Trip to Walt DisneyWorld,  Payingfor your Magical Trip, Saving Money While onthe Trip—Getting There,  Saving Money While on the Trip—Food! GloriousFood!,  and Saving Money While on the Trip—Souvenirs and Other Things.

So instead we  will have a great day of watching the latest Harry Potter movie and other movies we have recorded scheduled, complete with popcorn and a little Pepsi (an uncommon treat around here any more), along with a cookout and some down time as a family. During the evening hours we’ll watch fireworks on tv in the cool of the house.  Both men are off work for the holiday and that makes for an even better time. 

In this week’s menu you will also see the appearance of using my muffin tins for things other than just muffins.  For a whole list of ideas on other uses of the muffin tin and other common household items view “Muffin Tins, Not Just for Muffins and Cupcakes Any More. “

Anyway, here is the menu for Week #3—Ground Beef #2.  Hope you have a Happy and Safe July 4^th!

BREAKFAST OPPORTUNITIES:

Basic Cake Donuts/Muffins

Raisin Bran

Grapenuts

Oatmeal

Farina

Fruit salad

Dried Fruit

COMMENTS:

My husband loves cake donuts, but we don’t love the calories from frying donuts.  So for Christmas  I purchased him two donut pans and we’ve been experimenting with different recipes.  We’ve found that muffin recipes work well, especially if you add a little glaze.  As time goes on there will be various other donut recipes posted as we find ones we like.  This was the first, other than the one that came on the pan—which we can’t find right now, that he really likes.  He eats his unglazed.  Me I want the glazing—gotta have my calories you know!

LUNCH OPPORTUNITIES

MuffinTin Corn Dogs—once we’ve had them for dinner

Spaghetti and Meatballs—once we’ve had them for dinner

Home canned beef soup

Jarred salad with cucumbers from the garden

PB&J

Potted Meat Salad sandwiches.

COMMENTS:

In an effort to stick with keeping things cool in the house I’ve taken to cooking various muffin tin meals.  These make great individual servings, that leftover well and re-heat quickly.  They also cook in record time.  After all the shorter time the oven is on, the better it is when it’s 100+ degrees outside.

WEEK 3—DAY 1, GROUND BEEF 2

Red Topped Meat Loaf

Mashed Potatoes—make a big batch for uses later in the week

Peas

Jarred salad

Toasted French Bread

Applesauce Spice Cake

Tea

COMMENTS:

Red Topped Meatloaf is the basic ground beef meatloaf with the ketchup topping we all grew up with.  You can either cook it in your Summer Kitchen in either your turkey roaster or crockpot.  Or if you prefer in muffin tins to speed up cooking in your oven.

We like potato salad made with mashed potatoes, so later this week you will see the leftover mashed potatoes appear with the holiday big meal. If you prefer a different type then go ahead and prepare your potatoes while boiling the potatoes for the meatloaf then cool and refrigerate for being one step ahead in that meal preparation.

WEEK 3-Day 2

MuffinTin Corn Dogs

Frozen French Fries

Pork ‘n Beans

Refrigerator Pickles

Tea

Applesauce Spice Cake

COMMENTS:

As I mentioned earlier we are trying to cut down fried foods in our household—except on the fourth—sorry doc, so I’ve been experimenting with how to have our favorites without frying them. 

On one list a woman recently posted she made these using a pre-packaged cornbread mix.  Since I make all my own mixes I first tried them with my Cornbread Master Mix cornbread and it came out a bit too dry and crumbly for our liking. 

So then I decided to use my Corn Dog recipe that uses that master mix and found we liked the texture and firmness better.  An additional tweak I did was on the second batch I used my mini loaf pans instead of muffin tins and found they accommodated the shape of the hot dog link better. 

WEEK 3-DAY 3

Moo Gurgle Tacos

Mexican Rice

Guacamole

Flan

Tea

COMMENTS:

Moo Gurgle is our quick and easy homemade taco filler recipe that we use in numerous ways.  My husband made it as a teenager and then introduced it to me while we were dating nearly 40 years ago. 

It didn’t earn its unique name until we had teenagers of our own, however.  A group of them went to our lake house together and wanted to make tacos while there. 

They called and asked me for the recipe and I rattled it off—forgetting to tell them to drain the meat after they browned it.  Being teenagers they purchased the cheapest, fattest ground beef they could.

All the kids called me “Mom” so when I was asking them how the tacos turned out one young man said “Mom, those moos really gurgled!”, referring to the thick grease in the taco filler.  Thus the name was born “Moo Gurgle”.

WEEK 3-DAY 4—July 4, 2012

Charcoaled Hamburgers, plain

Charcoaled Hamburgers, bbq sauce

Grilled Bologna

Char-grilled Chicken Leg quarters

Deviled eggs

Potato salad

Butterfly potatoes

Onion strings

Zesty Onion Ring Dipping Sauce

Cole Slaw

PEPSI

Homemade Ice cream

Chocolate chip cookies

COMMENTS:

We thoroughly believe in this house when you fire up the charcoal grill or a wood fire you use every bit of the fuel you put in the grill.  We also love grilled leftovers, so while we’ll cook all the above on the fourth not all of it will be eaten for certain.  It will be a pick and choose meal.  “This is what we cooked, choose what you want and the rest will reappear in other meals.”

All the hamburgers with bbq sauce consist of is a beaten egg mixed with bbq sauce and then mixed into the ground beef patties and grilled.  One word to the wise, they do tend to fall apart easily—despite the egg for a binder, so cook them on foil on the grill.   I use Kay’s BBQSauce as the sauce in them.

We make up for all of the non-fried foods this week in this one meal.  Butterfly potatoes is our name for the potatoes that you see at fairs of all sorts that are potato chip thin and cut in a spiral.  I was lucky enough to acquire one of those potato cutters at a craft fair years ago and we have enjoyed it ever since.

I’ll try to get one of the guys to create a pattern for it and I’ll put up photos of it as well asap.

We are Pepsi addicts in this household, but once we decided to become super gazelle intense on paying off our debt Pepsi is one of the things we removed from our life.  Now we each drink one sweetened beverage a day (juice, tea, lemonade or kool-ade) and the rest of the time we drink water or unsweetened tea.  I will admit it’s hard going from lugging around a Pepsi all day to going to a single sweetened beverage (I generally do a juice), but it has saved us so much money it is unbelievable. (Do the math on how much you pay for soft drinks in a week and multiply that by the month/year—you will be astounded!) Plus all three of us are losing weight and are feeling better. 

So the Pepsi for this one day—two 2-liters, is a special treat.  The bottles will be washed out and saved for future events—stay tuned for those.

WEEK 3-DAY 5

Smoked Chicken Salad in Tortilla bowls

Lime Cilantro Rice

Refried Beans or home canned pinto or kidney beans

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Tea

COMMENTS:

What grilled chicken isn’t eaten on the fourth will be deboned, cubed and tossed in with picante, refried beans, corn, lettuce, rice and whatever else we happen to think of for a cool salad on a hot summer night.  We may even forgo cooking the tortilla into a tortilla bowl and simply roll it all up in a burrito style tortilla much like Qdoba burritos.

WEEK 3-DAY 6

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Garlic Toast

Jarred Salad with Italian dressing

Leftover desserts from the week

Tea

COMMENTS:

I generally make a double or triple batch of the spaghetti meatballs—which are different than my Master Mix Meatballs and either can or freeze them with or without the sauce for future grab and run meals.  

Both men also like for me to cook extra pasta for the meatballs and will take the leftovers to work for lunches. 

WEEK 3-DAY 7

Biscuit Cup Tacos

Either leftover Mexican or Lime Cilantro Rice

Tea

Leftover Flan

COMMENTS:

Truly the tail end of the week and a meal of all leftovers, simply reproduced in a slightly different manner.  Quick to bake in the toaster oven in the Summer Kitchen.  Look for any leftover Biscuit Cup Tacos to make an appearance at lunchtime next week.

Jan who wishes you a Happy and Safe Independence Day in OK

ALL THINGS FERMENTED

February 24, 2013

After reading the book “Friendship Bread” and writing a review on it.  I started doing research on Amish Friendship Bread, its history, its uses and similar products.  This is already causing ripples in my kitchen that may be either a boon to my scratch cooking materials or the all out host to a fruit fly congregation.

Amish Friendship Bread is basically a sweeter than normal sourdough starter that is used to create hundreds of breads, cakes, donuts, muffins, coffee cakes and foods of all types.

Currently I have no starters of any type going in my kitchen, which is actually pretty unusual for me.  Generally I will have Sourdough Bread Starter, RefrigeratorPotato Bread Starter, Artisan Bread Starters, sour cream, buttermilk and yogurt starters of various types stashed here there and everywhere, but for some reason I have found myself not doing so this last year or so.  Why I don’t know, I simply got away from it.  I’m thinking as spring is coming on soon that having these starters on hand again might be a good thing.

Despite what you may have heard just about any fermented starter can be refrigerated or frozen if you have to travel for a bit or simply bore of it.  So if life gets too busy to do my baking I can always freeze them.  Then once thawed you start over with day one of the process.

I lost most of my starters when my big freezer died the last time and I’ve simply not got them going again.  So yesterday I started out with the new to me Amish Friendship Bread Starter, and then I’ll slowly work my way through the various other “ferment” items I have used over the years to give variety to our basic menus.  First I need to get both fridges cleaned out for the refrigerated bread doughs, yogurt, sour cream and buttermilk batches but that is a post for the PrincessPlan blog so please wander over there and read it.

Since I needed to do some research anyway on the Amish Friendship Bread Starter and recipes for its use anyway I soon found myself cruising the web watching utube videos on the subject and reading of its history on various websites.  This of course segued into finding other fermented products to possibly try like Biga, andHerman Cake.

Biga is a much thicker starter used in Italian cooking for things like Ciabatta bread and is often called La Madre or Mother to bread.  

Herman is a German Friendship Bread quite similar to the Amish Friendship Bread http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cake  .  I found the name of this one interesting because I call my regular Sourdough Starter Herman and he actually resides in my Herman Pot that the master Potter Swan made for me years ago while I was attending rendezvous.  It is basically a lidded crock with an air hole in the lid to allow the gases to escape.   When using my Herman pot I do put a piece of folded cheese cloth under the lid because fruit flies are very determined little fellows and where you have starter and bananas in the same kitchen you are likely to get fruit flies.  Then I will have to drag out my homemade fruit fly traps instructions to get rid of those guys too.

While reading the book and doing the research I found myself thinking about the brandied fruit that I use to make in the late 70’s and early 80’s.  It was excellent as a topping for ice cream, cheese cakes, pound cakes and numerous other items or to bake with so of course I decided to check for recipes for that as well.  A trip to the grocery will be required for me to get that starter going, so I’ll post about it on a later date.  I have already uploaded the recipe for the starter for it if you are interested, just hit the hyperlink above and another window will open directly to the recipe.

Now on to creating the starter for the Amish Friendship Bread.  It is a very basic recipe and the only thing you have to remember is to not use anything metal while making the recipe for this or any other fermented starters.  Because if you do the starter will turn green and develop a metallic taste that is most unpleasant.   I personally use glass or ceramic bowls, or my pottery Herman pot and wooden spoons for all my mixing. 

It took me roughly 15 minutes to gather and make the starter and day one was soon behind me.  Following the instructions of the recipe I should be baking my first Friendship Bread in ten days.  Stay tuned.

Jan who likes having the basics put together for fast basic baking during the busy spring season as she sets out the garden and helps her men clean up the yard in OK

Epilogue: Day #2 moved the Friendship Bread starter from the bowl I mixed it in to the standard gallon Ziploc bag today.  Squished and mixed and it is now waiting for a repeat of the squishing for the next few days.

Day #3 I found out yesterday that you do need to expel the air from your ziploc more than once a day.  After about six hours my ziploc was very ballooned.  Luckily I checked it just in case and avoided a possible explosion.  What a mess that could be.

Day #6 As per the instructions I just added the 1 cup each of flour, milk and sugar to the starter.  Oh boy did it smell good!  Nicely soured. By the way, when I add milk to this batch I am using whole milk, future batches I may used powdered milk or milk of less fat content, but I always start out with a new to me recipe per the instructions and then adjust them to the way they work best for my family in future versions.

Jan who ran out between rain showers to feed and release in OK