Slow-cooker Beef Burgundy

At our house, Monday dinners are one of the few times we can all be there. Unfortunately, it’s also the day when I’m out of the house all afternoon. I finally figured out I can USE the crock pot to solve the problem of a hot dinner for 8+ on Monday without dinner being put off until 9 p.m. It only requires a little planning.

This recipe was originally from a blogger who had IBS issues, and she used things like white rice flour and special beef broth. These aren’t an issue in our house, though we try to avoid starch and sugars for the diabetic one’s sake. I am writing it out here as I made it.

2 lbs. stew beef, cubed
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 cup dry red wine, divided (I used Marsala because I was out of red wine)
1 cup baby carrots
4 green onions, sliced (or a small onion, diced)
8 mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup fresh parsley, minced (or dry, to taste)
1/2 cup beef broth
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1. In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the flour, salt, pepper, and then add the beef, shaking to coat.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet to shimmering. Add the beef pieces and brown on all sides.
3. Remove beef to slow cooker. Deglaze the skillet with 1/2 of the wine, scraping up any brown bits. Pour this into the slow cooker. Add the remaining wine, baby carrots, onions, mushrooms, parsley, broth, bay leaves, and thyme in the slow cooker and stir to combine.
Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours, or on high for 2-3 hours. Remove bay leaves and serve over pasta, rice, or mashed potatoes.

Slow-cooker Moroccan Beef Stew

I am always looking for recipes that are low in carbs, and this is a pretty good one. I made it this evening for the first time. You can leave the vegetable pieces a little large for this stew, as they cook very thoroughly, and too-small pieces will turn to mush.

• 3 lbs. stew beef, cubed small-ish
• 2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
• 5-6 carrots, peeled and chopped (or use peeled baby carrots, about 1.5 cup)
• 3 medium onions, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic (or more), chopped or minced
• 1.5 teaspoon yellow curry powder
• 1.5 teaspoons garam masala
• 1 8-oz. can of tomato sauce
• 32 oz. beef broth (I used 4 cups of water and 4 bouillon cubes)
• 1 14.5oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 2 single-serve boxes of raisins
• 1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
• 2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro (we passed the tin of dried cilantro at the table, because not everyone likes it, and I didn’t have fresh)
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds (or sliced), toasted if desired

Heat oil in a large saute pan until it’s shimmering. Sear the meat as much as you can, at least two sides. Remove the meat and set it aside. (I found this rendered a lot of liquid, so don’t be shocked.) Add the carrots, onions, and garlic to this. (I tend to add the garlic only a minute or less before the pan-cooking is done, so it doesn’t scorch.) Saute for about 5 minutes. Add the spices and the tomato sauce, stirring to combine.  These steps can all be done the night before, if you are pressed for time in the morning.

Add the beef, vegetables, and broth to the slow cooker. If you are doing all this the same day, you can use part of the broth to deglaze your saute pan, so you can get all the spices and yummy flavors! Cook on low for 6 house, then stir in the chickpeas and the chopped fruit. Cook for one more hour.

Serve with couscous, and pass the cilantro and almonds!

Home-made Chicken Soup

That chicken you roasted? Here’s what you do with the stuff that didn’t land on the table. You’re going to make the stock and meat for the soup, and then make the soup. It will be FABULOUS.

• Leftover chicken, the back and wings and other parts you cooked but didn’t eat- skin, bones, and meat.
• Enough water to cover the chicken as completely as possible (but don’t overdo–Just covered. It’s okay if a few points stick out.)
• 3-4 carrots, scrubbed and cut into 2-3 inch lengths.
• 2-3 ribs of celery (if you have ribs with leaves on them, this is the place to use the leaves!), scrubbed and cut like the carrots
• 1-2 medium to large onions, peeled and quartered.
• a little salt and pepper

Place everything in a large pot and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat so that it’s simmering. Let it simmer until the chicken carcass comes apart. (It doesn’t have to be every bone disjointed from the others, but the major things, like where the wing is attached, or the thigh, those ought to come apart.)  If you’re worried about whether the broth has any flavor, taste it. If it’s too bland, toss in a bouillon cube or two. Just remember that any salt you add now doesn't need to be added later.

Let it cool until you can handle the chicken. (I usually render the carcass after supper the night I roast the chicken, and tackle the boning in the morning. And leaving it at room temperature is fine, because everything in there has been thoroughly cooked.) Using a colander and a big bowl or a stock pot, I pour everything in, letting the stock drain. Don’t pour it down the sink! This is the soup part of your chicken soup, and it is SO much better-tasting that anything that comes out of a can or box or a jar. Now separate the meat from everything else. Since I am making soup, I throw the meat into the pot with the broth. EVERYTHING ELSE gets thrown away: skin, bone, tendon, and all vegetables. This is the time-consuming part, and the main reason hardly anyone makes chicken soup from scratch. But I promise you, this soup is a game-changer, and it is worth digging through the bones and skin and mushy carrots. Being right-handed, I put a garbage bowl on my right and the pot for the meat on my left, and the colander in the middle. And sometimes I wear disposable vinyl gloves, because otherwise I’m fighting the urge to wash my hands the whole time I’m doing it.

Once the meat is separated from the garbage, I heat up the broth again. And I evaluate how much soup I want, versus how much broth and meat I got from this operation. If I need more broth and meat, this is the place to add it. Usually I end up adding at least 2 cups of broth and 2 or 3 frozen boneless-skinless breasts. It’s okay to throw it in there frozen and uncooked. It will cook.  Then I start chopping vegetables.

• 6-8 carrots, peeled and sliced (or you can use 1/2 lb. baby carrots)
• 3 ribs celery, or more, washed and sliced thin (no leaves)
• 2-3 onions, peeled and diced in your favorite size
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced (optional)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
• herbs of your choice (sage, thyme, rosemary, basil are all favorites)

Once you have chopped your carrots, onions, and celery, put everything in with the chicken. Check the meat, if you put in extra, and if it’s cooked through you can shred it up. Put your herbs in now, too. Cook it at a high simmer-low boil until vegetables are tender. (If you have leftover vegetables that would enhance the soup, put those in when your other veggies are not quite done. I might add leftover cauliflower, leftover rice, or mushrooms, but not broccoli or Brussels sprouts, for example.)  Remove the bay leaves.

You can serve it now, and it will be delicious. You can also put a lid on it and let it cool down, and then reheat it later, and it will taste even better. I grew up eating crackers with soup, but we almost always go with bread now at suppertime. (Crackers are for lunch, apparently.)

Keep leftovers in the fridge for up to 10 days, or you can freeze it and keep it for up to 3 months.

Brined Roasted Chicken for the Newbie

This is probably one of my favorite entrees to eat. I probably like it a lot more than anyone else in my family.

• Roasting chicken, 4-6 lbs.
• 1/4 cup salt
• cold water to cover
• oil or softened butter (about 1/4 cup)
• salt
• pepper

Mix the salt and the water in a container that is big enough to completely submerge the chicken. It can be glass, plastic, or metal. I usually use a soup pot, but a 2-gallon ziploc will work for most chickens. This is the brine. It can be fancier (this is a great place to put lemon slices, poultry seasoning, bay leaves, sage and thyme, sugar, brown sugar, etc., or you can skip the salt water and go to buttermilk, but it’s kind of expensive to cover a whole chicken in buttermilk, and it’s better to use parts if you’re going that direction), but it can be as simple as salt and water and it will still be tasty.

Remove anything that some butcher stuffed in the cavities of the bird in order to make it weigh more, and throw that stuff away. No, I don’t make giblet gravy or fry the livers (although that is delicious) or anything like that. Rinse the bird inside and out.  Stick it into the brine, making sure that the cavities are all filled with brine, and leave it there for 30-60 minutes. It’s only a chicken. You don’t have to leave it in there for more than an hour. (Yes, I know that a turkey has to be brined for 12-20 hours, but that is a turkey.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray the inside of your roasting pan and rack with Pam or something similar.

Remove the chicken from the brine, and discard the brine. Rinse the bird inside and out. Now pat it dry. Inside and out. (If you use a clean dishtowel, do not use it for anything else. Put it directly into the laundry.) Place the chicken on the roasting rack. Whether it’s breast-up or breast-down doesn’t actually matter, according to America’s Test Kitchen. Rub the skin all over with your choice of olive oil or butter. Salt and pepper moderately, both sides. (Because of the salt in the brine, the chicken does not need much salt, but you can go crazy with the pepper.)

Place the roasting pan, covered, in the oven and let it cook 20 minutes per pound plus 15 minutes extra. So if my chicken is around 5 pounds, I would cook it for 115 minutes. I usually uncover the bird for at least 20 minutes at the end to crisp the skin. When the internal temperature (stick a meat thermometer into either the breast or the thigh, not touching the bone) reaches 165 degrees, remove the chicken from the oven and tent it loosely with aluminum foil. (I have made the mistake of putting the lid back on the roaster instead of a foil tent, and this traps the steam in the pan and ruins the lovely crisping of the skin. It was not pretty. Heed my warning.)

Let the chicken rest for 10-15 minutes. This is an important part. Cutting the bird without letting it rest causes all the moistness to leak out immediately, and the meat is the Sahara by the time it gets to the table. Between the brining and resting, this should be a succulent bird, so don’t skip it!  While it rests, you can make gravy from the drippings. (This is a worth-while use of time, because the drippings make FABULOUS gravy.)

• drippings from the roasting pan  (if there isn’t much, you can add 1 cup of chicken broth, or however much you need to make 1/4 cup of gravy per person)
• flour
• water

Put your drippings in a smaller pan, first. It’s just easier to control. Add stock to it if you need to. I try to wind up with at least 2 cups of gravy because my kids really like gravy, and that’s at least 1 1/2 cups of juice.  Bring it to a boil. While it’s coming to a boil, whisk together 1/3 cup flour with 1/2 to 2/3 cup cold water. (If this mix has to wait for a while as the chicken broth gets going, it tends to settle, so give it a stir occasionally to keep the particles suspended.) Whisk the flour/water mixture into the boiling drippings very gradually, a little at a time, and whisk quickly to avoid lumps. Stop adding flour/water when it seems like it’s almost thick enough, and let it boil a minute or two. You can always add more thickener, but you’ll have to add more water if it’s too thick. You can add salt and pepper, but taste if first, because the drippings will be salty from the brine.

After rest period is over, THEN you can cut the chicken. You can look up all sorts of tutorials on how to carve a bird, and they all work. I usually take the legs and thighs off first and then carve the breast, but you can do what you want. (I also ignore the wings and the back, because tomorrow I’m going to make chicken soup.)

Garlic Cheese Drop Biscuits

These are LIKE those biscuits you get at Red Lobster, but they are not copy-cat. They go great with soup, with fried ham, with breakfast….

• 2 cups Bisquick (regular or reduced fat)
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 cup shredded cheddar
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1.5 teaspoons garlic salt

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Yes really. Do it now, because once you mix these babies up, you won’t want to wait for your oven.

Mix Bisquick, cheese, and milk in a bowl until well-combined. No dry spots. Let it rest 5 minutes.

Spray a cookie sheet with Pam, or if you’re owner of a seasoned pizza stone you can use that and you don’t even have to spray it.  

Now here you have a choice: I use a small cookie-scoop and make 3 dozen (or more) bite-size biscuits, or I use a fork and make the biscuits about twice that size. This takes some practice to make them round rather than oblong, and you’re going to get dough on your finger. If you have a normal ice cream scoop with a lever, you can use that. I don’t have one of those anymore. (I don’t miss it.)

Bake 8-10 minutes. You might need to go longer if you use a bigger scoop. You want them to get brown on the edges and the rough parts.

While it’s baking, mix your butter and garlic salt. If you want to be REALLY fancy, you can use fresh crushed garlic and sea salt. In my opinion, it’s BISQUICK. Fresh garlic might be a little over the top. Sea salt is just wrong.

As soon as the biscuits are out of the oven, start brushing on the garlic butter. You want to baptize every single one of those golden-brown lumps of Fabulousness. I use my pastry brush. I have a silicone one, and it’s perfect. (The old bristle-one that I had and wore out worked perfectly well, too.) I usually have enough butter to thoroughly coat every biscuit.

You’ll have to use a spatula or pancake turner to get them off your baking sheet. Serve hot or warm or cold. You will be a hero.

And if you make a batch and eat them all yourself, I won't judge you.

Ham and Hash Brown Casserole

This is good for dinner, for breakfast, for cold weather… It is not good for diabetes. Originally, many years ago, I found it at the Better Homes and Gardens website.

• a can of cream of chicken or mushroom soup
• one 16-oz tub of sour cream (you can use reduced fat, but fat-free doesn’t do well here)
• one 30 or 32-oz bag of frozen hashed-brown potatoes (you can use Southern style or shredded, but the southern-style could lengthen your baking time, and it’s really long enough without that). Don’t thaw them out.
• a small onion, diced fine (you can use 2 Tablespoons of dried minced onions)
• 2 cups shredded cheddar (either mild or sharp)
• one or two 8-oz packages of diced ham
• a tube of Ritz Crackers or similar (I have also used Club crackers, but saltines are unsatisfactory), crushed.
• a stick of butter (1/2 cup), melted
• a cup of shredded mozzarella or cheddar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix everything but the crackers and butter and that last cup of cheese in a big bowl, and I mean big. This always takes a lot more time than I think it ought. Spray a 9×13 casserole pan with Pam, and press the food into it. Even it out. Sprinkle the crushed crackers on top, evenly, and then drizzle the melted butter over all. (I think the original recipe called for the crackers and the butter to be mixed together and then spread over the top, but I never remember to melt the butter in a big enough dish to mix the crackers in, so I just do it separately, and it has never seemed to make a difference.)

Bake for 50 minutes. Sorry, it just takes that long. Actually it takes longer. Because after 50 minutes, take it out, sprinkle on the additional cup of cheese, and put it back in for 5-10 more minutes until melted and just beginning to brown.

You can’t really cheat on the time. If you try to shorten the time, the middle won’t be done. The potatoes will not be tender. Don’t be tempted to try it. You’ll be sorry.

You CAN make this ahead of time, at least partially. Cook it without the crackers and butter for the 50 minutes, let it come to room temperature, and then refrigerate. Then 40 minutes before you need it, top your casserole with the crackers and butter, bake at 350 for 30 minutes, then add the last cheese for the last 10 minutes.

Comfort-food Spaghetti

Okay, this is SO not home-made. But it is the sauce that my children want when they want spaghetti. So don’t judge me. We all do things when our children are small (i.e. when we have been sleep-deprived for 7 years) that we aren't necessarily proud of.

1 lb. ground beef (the leaner it is, the less you’ll have to drain)
1 jar of Barilla Roasted Garlic Tomato Sauce. (Yes. That specific.)
1 can of LaRosa’s Original Sauce (If you’re not in Cincinnati, you’re out of luck. Sorry. You can skip this post.)
1/2 to 1 lb spaghetti pasta

Fill a 2- or 3-quart pot with hot water, salt it, and bring it to a boil. Break your spaghetti noodles in half and put them in to cook. I usually only make 1/2 lb. or less, because I like a lot of sauce, and because G-man can't eat a lot of pasta anymore. (Read the box for how long this should take. They’re all similar.)

If you're okay with multi-tasking, you can start the beef while the water is coming to a boil and before you add the pasta. Cook the ground beef in a large skillet. Break it up, cook it completely, and remove the pan from the heat to drain off the grease. Get as much as you can. Use paper towels to sop up as much as possible. 

Then dump in both sauces, and mix it up well. Turn the heat back on and bring the sauce to just boiling, then set it to simmer. That is all there is to it. No extra spices, vegetables, nothing. Of course you CAN put those things in, but in general I don’t bother with it. It would be nice to add in sauteed zucchini or mushrooms, extra diced tomatoes, these are yummy. If your kids are fussy, doing this instantly transforms this dish to poison.

When the spaghetti is cooked, drain it well. A colander is great for this, because you can dump the spaghetti in and leave it, the colander can sit on the pan and drain, everyone’s happy. If it sticks to itself, rinse it with hot water. I’ve heard to put olive oil on it (and I’ve tried it, it was okay), which you CAN do, but hot water is free(ish), and olive oil prevents your sauce from sticking to the pasta.

I plate this at the stove, serve it with garlic bread and grated parmesan cheese, and now that G-man has diabetes we also serve a big salad.

Grandma Barn's Beef Stew

I’m going to be frank, here: this is not the way I make beef stew. The reason I don’t is because my family doesn’t appreciate this. But I want to record this recipe because it is the comfort food of my childhood.

• beef, cooked. This can be leftover pot roast, you can get a couple pounds of stew beef and cook overnight in the crockpot on low, or you can get a couple cans of beef in the canned mean aisle at the grocery. The more beef you have, the more people you can feed, but the point here is to make a little meat feed more people than it would on its own. I try to have 1.5 cups of cooked beef. (NOT HAMBURGER. Just stop that nonsense right now.)
• water, 2-3 cups
• Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix. (You can try the store brand if you want, but it won’t taste right.) One packet for 2 cups of water, if you need 3 cups of water, add a beef bouillon cube.
• 3-4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1-2 onions, diced (doesn't have to be small)
• a can of diced tomatoes, juice and all (Not Ro-Tel!)
• other vegetables if you want them (corn, green beans, Veg-All, diced carrots, mushrooms, etc.) When I was still trying to make my family like this, I had the most success with corn, green beans was less-well-received, but carrots were okay.  Mushrooms were right out.
• 1.5 tablespoons pearl barley

You’ll notice that some of the ratios aren’t precise. Soup is, for the most part, very forgiving.

In a 4 quart pot, mix the cooked beef, water, onion soup mix, potatoes, and onions. Bring it to a boil over high heat and then reduce the flame to simmer. Cook uncovered until the potatoes are tender and the onions translucent. Add in the tomatoes and any other vegetables you want, and the barley. Keep cooking until the barley plumps up. Serve with hearty bread or crackers.

Note: if you have gravy from your pot roast or drippings from cooking the stew beef, this makes the stew that much more fantastic. Also, while my mother called this stew, it isn’t really unless you thicken the broth.

To thicken the broth: whisk 1/2 cup all-purpose flour into 1 cup COLD water, and while the soup is boiling, whisk this mixture slowly into the broth. That is, whisk fast and pour slowly. Pouring slowly does two things: it prevents lumps of dough from forming like little miniature and tasteless dumplings, and you can see when to stop adding the thickener. You don’t want this to congeal too much, only enough so that if you had to eat this off a plate instead of out of a bowl, you could.

Quick Mexicana Chili with Quinoa

Not sure exactly why this is called "quick." Including chopping the vegetables, it's probably going to take you over half an hour to put together and cook it. However, It helps to have all your vegetables washed and diced, all your cans opened, and the spices measured out in advance. (I dump all the spices together in a small mixing bowl, since they go in at the same time.). And I usually line everything up on the counter in the order it goes into the pot.

From The Blood Sugar Solution by Dr. Mark Hyman. (This is some of that “diet” food that we’ve been eating lately.)

• 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 Tablespoons garlic, diced
• 2 Tablespoons chili powder
• 1 Tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 Tablespoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon chili flakes
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 Tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 Tablespoon red wine or water
• 1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed
• 1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 small zucchini, diced
• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans
• 1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans
• 4 cups vegetable stock or water
• 1 (8 ounce) can of tomato sauce
• 1 (15 ounce) can of diced tomatoes (optional)
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• fresh lime juice
• chopped fresh cilantro for garnish (optional)
• toasted tortilla strips
• cheddar cheese

It helps to have all your vegetables washed and diced, all your cans opened, and to measure out the spices in advance. (I dump all the spices together in a small mixing bowl.)

In a 4 quart pot (and it will fill it, so if you’re doubling this, use a larger stock pot), heat the olive oil on medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and saute until they begin to sweat. Add the spices and continue to saute for 2 more minutes. If it’s too dry, add another splash of olive oil, but you don’t need too much. Add the tomato paste, saute another minutes. Deglaze the pan with the 2 T red wine or water, then add the quinoa. Saute until the quinoa is browned. (This is really kind of hard to see, since the paprika and chili powder make everything a dark red. After a couple of minutes, I assume browning has happened, and I go on.)

Add the green pepper and zucchini, and saute a few minutes until they begin to soften. Add the beans with their liquid, the 4 c water or stock, tomato sauce, and salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Garnish with lime juice and cilantro, serve with cheese, sour cream, and tortilla strips. We usually have corn bread, too.

Swiss Chicken Casserole

I got this recipe from the Three C’s Celebrates cookbook. 3Cs is the preschool that Hans and Libby attended before the turn of the century. The cookbook was published the year before Hans started there, so I don’t know the lady who submitted this recipe. Her name is Barbara Ervin. We bless her.

• 3-4 cups cooked, shredded chicken
• 2 cups diced celery
• 2 cups (about 1 5-oz bag) seasoned croutons
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 6-8 oz. grated Swiss cheese
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds

(Notes about the ingredients: 4 cups of shredded chicken is quite a bit. I usually only use 3-4 chicken breasts cooked and shredded, or whatever leftovers I have, as long as it’s at least 2 cups. *Useful hint: in large quantities, you can cook boneless-skinless chicken and when they cool down you can dump them in your Kitchenaid stand mixer and use that to shred them in about 30 seconds. What, you don’t have a Kitchenaid stand mixer? Oh. Sorry. In other news… *Sometimes I run the celery through the mini-chopper because some people object to celery. *You can dice your onions, you can use frozen onions, you can use minced dehydrated onion. You don’t even have to rehydrate them. *I measure the mayonnaise by displacement method with the milk, then mix them together in the measuring cup. *Grated Swiss comes in 6-oz bags, and that’s really enough, but if you’re grating off the block, it’s about 2 cups. *You can use sliced almonds, but slivered is better.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all the ingredients except the almonds, and pour them into your favorite casserole dish. (If you use a 9×13, you definitely want to watch this after 20 minutes, because it will only be a thin layer...unless you use 4 cups of chicken, I guess. I usually use a round Pyrex casserole.) Top it with slivered almonds. Bake it in your preheated oven, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes (unless you use a big flat pan, then less time).

Traditionally we serve this with a side of cinnamon applesauce. We don’t get applesauce anymore because it has lots of sugar in it, but we still like the casserole.

Seasoned Oyster Crackers

From the Three C’s Celebrates cookbook, submitted by Lee Hubbuch.

• 2 lbs. oyster crackers
• 1 pkg Ranch dressing mix
• 1 cup of vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon dill weed
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper

Combine everything together, stirring well to coat. (I usually mix everything but the crackers, and then toss the crackers in to coat them. Doing it this way means you get more even coatings of the seasonings.) At this point you have a choice: You can mix it in a large, lidded container and give it a good shake occasionally over 20 minutes, or you can put it in a roasting pan and toast it in the oven at about 275 degrees for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. (I've done it both ways, and I don't really have a preference, except if it's 100 degrees outside, I'm not turning on the oven for anything, and if it's 2 degrees outside the oven is already on, so why not toast it?) 

Store in an airtight container.

Personally, I think this is a lot of oil.  I think I usually only use a scant 3/4 cup. And I prefer more garlic salt and lemon pepper than this. Sometimes I even throw in season salt. But I don’t really like dill, so I never use more of that.

Cheeseburger Quiche (low-carb)

Cheeseburger Quiche (low-carb)

I made this tonight for the first time. It is that good that I thought I should include it here. Found it on Food.com as I searched for something that would call only for my very limited supplies on hand and yet not send G-man into a coma. We were seriously surprised by how good this is.

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1/2 onion, chopped (I used frozen chopped onion)
• 1 clove garlic, minced (I used a whopping soup spoon full of pre-minced garlic from a jar)
• 4 slices crisp bacon, crumbled (I used real-bacon bits from a jar)
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup half-and-half (I used about 1/4 cup sour cream and the same amount of 1% milk)
• 6 ounces shredded sharp cheddar (I used mild, since I was using sour cream)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Brown ground beef in skillet with onion and garlic. Drain off fat and mix in bacon. Break up large clumps.  Press into the bottom of a deep-dish pie plate or smaller casserole dish. (I sprayed it with Pam, because I knew the egg mixture would permeate everything.)

Combine eggs, mayo, half-and-half (or substitutes), and mix well.

Sprinkle cheese over the meat mixture.

Pour egg mixture over the meat mixture.

Bake 40-45 minutes until browned and set.

New blog home

Moving House is kind of a hassle.

Because the first blog spot I tried is really unfriendly to their free-service users, I've decided to come over here to blogger.com. I've used it before, never had trouble with it, and hope that this time things will go more smoothly.  So I'm really glad you've come to check out what we feed people at our house around dinner time, and I hope you find something useful.

By the way, I am cooking more healthfully these days because of the diabetic personage in the home, but I don't promise that everything you see posted here is healthy. I'll let you know when something's particularly good for you, or if it came from a specific source, but otherwise you can pretty much tell from the ingredients.

Cheers!