Hamburger: Help With Scratch Cooking

My boyfriend doesn’t like casseroles, but sometimes I worry that my dad could live on boxed hamburger noodle meals during the colder months when he isn't as inclined to grill. While a lot of these boxed helpers are making the jump to whole grain pastas, they still have a long way to go in lowering their sodium content. For dinner a few nights ago, I made my own version, with fresh tomatoes from my dad’s pet plants. (He doesn’t have a garden, but he has tomatoes, which I think is a growing trend; my boyfriend’s parents only have a few tomato and pepper plants.) Plus, I love macaroni and cheese from scratch, so this meal was a great compromise.

This meal is an exercise in multi-tasking, and you’ll have three things on the stove, but they will all be in sight and shouldn’t be too hard to watch. So tie your hair back and wash your hands, because here we go.

TIP: Most ingredients are available in many versions, and you can always choose the healthier options: unsalted light butter, whole-wheat flour, skim milk, lean beef, whole-wheat pasta, 2% milk cheese, etc. TIP: There’s always a ratio on ground beef packaging. That’s the meat-to-fat ratio. You’ll notice ground beef that is actually labeled as “Ground Beef” is often available in a 70-30 ratio, because “beef” could mean anything when it comes to the cut and may include fattier pieces of meat. “Ground Chuck” is a ground chuck roast, which is a less fatty cut of beef and a more specific quality. You can find ground beef (that's ground beef in general, not "Ground Beef") in as good as a 95-5 ratio, and it will be more expensive because you are getting more meat and less fat. You can potentially buy the cheaper stuff since you’re going to drain the fat off before mixing your ground beef into your recipe, but since it’s all 1 pound when you purchased it, you’ll drain off more fat and be left with less meat in the long run. TIP: Roma tomatoes are used for a lot of sauces because of their construction – they contain a lot more meat and a lot less pulp and seeds. My Grandmother likes them for tomato sauces like spaghetti sauce and sloppy joe sauce. I like them because they are easy to prepare. See the photo above for Roma tomatoes; there are a few large slicing tomatoes hiding in the back. TIP: For my dad, I used 1½ cups of shredded cheese and a 1”-thick slice of Velveeta, cubed. It adds to the creaminess of the sauce.

Beefy Mexican Macaroni and Cheese

½ onion
1 clove of garlic
4 Tablespoons fresh cilantro, divided
2-3 Roma tomatoes, or 1 large slicing tomato
1 pound ground beef
2-3 teaspoons chili powder
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
3 Tablespoons flour
1 Cup milk
1 ½ - 2 Cups shredded cheese
1 box pasta

1. Prepare your ingredients and put water on to boil. TIP: If you have an extra large pot in which you can cook the pasta, that will be convenient when you need to mix all of the final ingredients.

Chop ½ onion, mince the clove of garlic, and chop the cilantro. 2 Tablespoons of the cilantro and the rest of the ingredients you just chopped can go straight into a skillet, where you’ll soon brown ground beef. Save the other 2 Tablespoons of cilantro in a bowl, and while your cutting board is out, dice the tomatoes and add them to the saved cilantro.





TIP: I find Roma tomatoes to be the easiest to chop. Slice off a little from each end so that you can stand it up. Then slice down through the standing tomato to cut it into sixths. Over a bowl or the sink (carefully though, so you don’t drop it!), slide your thumb into the pocket of pulp and seeds, and they’ll easily come out; throw that away. Lay the piece of tomato on its side, and slice off the center piece to make one strip. Turn the piece onto its skin side and slice that into strips. Stack the strips together and slice across them to finish chopping.

2. Get the beef in the skillet and the pasta in the water. Brown the beef over medium heat with the onion, garlic, cilantro and chili powder. TIP: You can add more chili powder now or later if you want it to be more flavorful; you could also use taco seasoning which will incorporate many other flavors, but again, those premixed packets come heavy with salt, so buy the lower-sodium variety.

Pay attention to your water and add the pasta as soon as it boils; set a timer so you do not have to remember to look at the clock for cooking time.

When the beef is ready, drain the grease and then add the tomatoes and extra cilantro. I like both the milder cooked cilantro flavor and the fresh cilantro flavor, but to keep the cilantro and tomatoes fresh, don’t cook for more than a minute; just stir them into the meat. Remove it from the heat; just slide it onto a back burner, which is both heat-safe and out of your way.

3. Start the sauce. Over medium-low heat, melt the 2 Tablespoons of butter and then add the flour, whisking constantly. This will need to cook a little until it just starts getting a color; that will cook out the “floury” taste, and only takes a minute or two. As soon as it has just started to brown, add the 1 Cup of milk and whisk constantly to a boil. This will take a few more minutes, but doesn’t need to be whisked vigorously; just keep the bottom from scorching. As soon as it boils, add the cheese and stir with a spoon just until the cheese has melted. Remove from heat to keep it from cooking.



When the timer for the pasta goes off, turn off the heat, but don’t abandon your cheese sauce if you're still in the middle of it or you will have a disaster. If your pasta has to sit for an extra minute in water, it might get a tad softer; if any stage of your cheese sauce sits alone for an extra minute, you will have a scorched, smelly mess. Whenever you have a minute to spare, drain the pasta.







4. Combine the meat, pasta and sauce. If your pasta is already in a large pot, just add to it the sauce and meat. Otherwise, use a large heat-safe mixing bowl. Now that it’s practically ready to serve, taste your food and see if it needs any last minute tweaks. I added just a little more chili powder, but I didn’t add any salt; I know a lot of cooks say your food should be seasoned and ready to serve, but when some people add salt before even tasting their food, I say hold off.

I served this with fresh corn-on-the-cob, which I conveniently cooked in the microwave after I had completed the casserole. Just wrap the shucked corn in waxed paper and twist the ends so that it looks like a giant piece of taffy, and microwave on a plate for 5-10 minutes, depending on how many ears are on the plate.


















Now you can let your hair down.