I live, write, and garden in the PNW with my husband of 28 years, disabled daughter, adult son, and my 84-year-old mother. We have paid off $250,000.00 worth of debt (if you include the interest) in the last fifteen years and as of 6/12/2020 are 100% DEBT FREE!!!!So as we have eaten our way through the steer we bought last summer, we are now mostly left with ground beef. A lot of ground beef. 3 compartments in the chest freezer and 1/2 a bin of it in the upright. So I spent a good amount of time on youtube the last couple of days trying to find recipes that aren't all about Mexican food. My daughter is having issues right now with those spices so I've been trying to veer away from them, but the hugest number seems go there.
Taco Mac, chili mac, enchiladas, Taco spaghetti, Taco penne bake, Taco bowl, Taco salad, Chili, Tacos, Taco Mac and Cheese, Taco Chili, Taco Lasagna and on and on and on. The Italian ones are good, but are basically all variations on a theme, too, pasta or bread, meat, usually sauce, and cheese. And there is only so much spaghetti, calzones, stromboli, pizza, goulash, meatball sandwiches, baked penne or ziti, macaroni and cheese and Fettuine Alfredo that one can eat in a week without being bogged down by a wheat hangover.
I was on a mission to find some other recipes and it took a lot of weeding through it, but I found some Asian inspired ones and some German ones, and of course there is meatloaf and burgers, cabbage rolls, etc., but I'm still lacking in much else. I still have to do some recipe searching on google to see what else I can find.
But I have enough for a start and today I went to the grocery store and stocked up on what I needed to do this. The goal is to have ground beef three times a week, or two if we are having steak. Which we are just about out of, so probably not much of that will happen.
We've made a recommitment to cooking almost exclusively from scratch and eating healthy and not eating out for the month of July, because we really need to buckle down and stop spending money. There are a few things in the freezer that are convenience foods, like fish sticks, fries, hot dogs, sausages, and garlic toast, but not a lot of that. I'll be baking bread, rolls, and buns myself. Everyone has pledged to help me as much as they are able, so hopefully this time around things will go as planned. We have a good chance as summer tends to be the season I don't get badly sick in. So if I can refrain from falling down or hurting my back for the rest of it, we can get this done.
We had a deer in the garden again today. It had big abscesses on its face, poor thing and was bashing it's head against one of our trellises until one of them popped. It was really gross, but the thing needed to be drained. We had to spray things down to get the gunk off and the smell was atrocious. If I see it again, I will call animal control, because that is not a healthy animal. We will be getting some fencing up tomorrow to hopefully keep the the deer out of the garden, and building some more low tunnels and cages for the thornless blackberries. One day we will be able to fence everything tall enough to keep them out of the whole back yard, but this year is not that time.
We finally got DD's old doctor to fill out the forms needed for the insurance company and hopefully she will qualify to stay on our insurance. We also need to have the chiropractor fill out one, because he has been treating her for congenital hip dysplasia since she was 3 months old, and correcting for hypermobile joints since she was 3 years old. And he has seen first hand what her degenerative disc disease has done to her.
We had an online appointment with her new primary care doctor. This is her second appointment and it was so nice to be heard. Really heard. She put DD on a muscle relaxant that does not interfere with her other meds. It is actually the one I take, too. The doctor also brought up this new treatment for obesity. It is a diabetes drug that had a big side effect of weight loss. It's called semaglutide and it's a pen injection. They are very expensive, so I don't see us being able to do this for DD unless she is able to stay on our insurance and then they approve it. She is hyperinsulinemic, the step before diabetes, so maybe. If she doesn't we will be paying so much for COBRA or another insurance, we will never be able to afford it.
Prayers that the insurance company accepts from her reports that she is disabled enough to stay on it would be greatly appreciated.
July 1st, 2022 at 08:14 am 1656663267
I’m thinking you can probably find some good casseroles with ground beef. Meat pies are delicious as well.
July 1st, 2022 at 01:08 pm 1656680891
It's summer-- what about plain old hamburgers for a nice meal?
July 2nd, 2022 at 09:40 pm 1656798001
July 4th, 2022 at 04:35 pm 1656952546
July 4th, 2022 at 07:47 pm 1656964030
I just did a quick search and you aren't a kidding...so many of the ground beef recipes are Mexican or spicy. My husband's mom used to make one that was pretty flexible...you add what you want to the beef to flavor it or not much at all. You slice some potatoes very thin and put them in a greased casserole dish. Add the hamburger and whatever you want to go with it such as chopped onions, bell peppers, etc. You could probably substitute the evaporated milk with tomato sauce or mushroom soup or a concoction that you may like. Anyway, here's the recipe so you can decide if you are interested enough to try it and fix it the way you wish:
Arrange evenly sliced 4 cups thinly sliced peeled raw potatoes. Add chopped onion, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix 1 pound of hamburger, 3/4 cup of evaporated miiil, 2/3 cup fine cracker crumbs, 1/4 cup catsup, and spread evenly over potatoes. Bake at 350 oven one hour until potatoes are tender.
I've been cooking mostly from scratch for the past few years and I do believe it has helped us feel a lot better and stay a lot healthier. It is just darn scary to see what is put in foods that are commercially made.
Hope you all stay safe and healthy!
July 11th, 2022 at 10:34 pm 1657578872
Meatloaf - my kids love it
salibury steak - another winner
mapo tofu with ground beef
dumplings/won tons - another winner, usually pork but beef for jewish/muslim so I make it
hamburgers - usually i do with cheese mixed in
beef keema curry indian style
meatballs teriyaki style - also kids winner
sloppy joes - kids like
stuffed cabbage - kids like
empanadas - kids love, I cheat and use fillo dough already made
bolognese sauce - into lasagna
lettuce cups - i prefer chicken/duck but we do beef too
thai basil beef - kids like with a fried egg
stuffed bell pepper cups - my DK2 loves this one
shepards pie - kids like this a lot too
Beef Kefka kabobs - i love this
Beef Moussaka - similar to shepards pie but more work, I've done this
tacos, enchiladas
korean ground beef rice bowl
ground beef is our staple kept in our house because I can make all of those and do make the recipes above all the time.
July 26th, 2022 at 03:54 pm 1658850878