Frugal Friday – Comfort Food

With the economy, I’m reading that comfort food is making a big comeback.  It never left my house.   I grew up in East Texas and was raised on this stuff.  One frugal meal I use is Hamburger Steak, passed down from my mom and “mama”.  It is a way to serve hamburger in “steak form” and great when you don’t have buns.

Season your ground beef with an egg, worchesture, salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder.  Make patties for the kids.  With remaining mixture, add onions and tabassco.  Then coat the patties with white flour.  I cook in my iron skillet in about 3 tablespoons of oil.

With the steak drippings and oil, I make milk gravy and serve the steaks with potatoes and green beans.  It is an expensive meal and your tummy is full.

Stove Top Pot Roast – on sale at Kroger’s

Kroger’s has pot roast on sale this week for $1.99 per pound w/ $10 purchase, limit 2.  They also have chicken breast bogof.  I bought the roasts this morning and made one for lunch.   It was really good and simple.  You could make ahead and freeze this for prep ahead meals.  The roast was about $3.50.  I served with a sliced raw red bell pepper ($1.00) and white rice (.25).  Our lunch (for four) was $5.00 and we had a little left over.

Stove Top Pot Roast:

Rinse off your roast and pat dry with paper towel.  Season a pot roast with salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder.  Then coat with flour.

Put your heavy pot on the stove and turn on high heat.  Put 1/2 stick of margarine.  It will melt quickly.  Then add pot roast and sear (almost burn) on one side.  Then turn over and sear on the other side.  Once seared, take roast out of pot.  Add in 2 heaping tablespoons of flour .  Then add one cup of water.  Season liquid with worchestire sauce, garlic powder and onion powder.  Squeeze in juice of one lemon.

Put roast back in pot.  The liquid should come up about 1/2 height of roast.  If it covers roast, remove some of the liquid.  Or add more if it is too low.  Cover and simmer for 3 to 4 hours for medium size roast.   Really large roast might take longer.   Your roast should pull apart with a fork.  If not, cook longer if you have time.  Please note you could also cook in your oven (after you’ve seared) on 300 degrees for at least 4 hours.

Serve with rice or mashed potatoes.  The gravy is great either of these.  Fresh yeast rolls would also be nice with this.  Actually fresh yeast rolls are nice with anything:)

$5 ground beef dinner for family of 5

Tonight we had a really good dinner and it only cost about $5 to make… so I thought I’d share.  We had hamburger chili steak, gravy, smothered potatoes and green beans.  Yes, I grew up in East Texas.  Anything “smothered” with a little grease sounds good to me.

When Kroger’s had angus ground beef 1/2 off ($1.99/lb), I made a few steak patties.  I put half in the freezer and gave some to a friend for burgers.  Take 2 pounds of ground beef.  Add 1/4 cup chopped onion, one tablespoon of steak seasoning, one egg and 1/2 bottle of Heinz Chili Sauce.  I purchased the sauce on sale with a coupon a while back.  Form into large patties.  At least 24 hours before cooking, place in your fridge to thaw if you had these in the freezer.  These are excellent for make ahead meals.

To cook, I placed on my stove top grill pan and cooked like a hamburger.  Then I removed and placed on a paper towel.  To make the gravy, add 1/4 cup of flour to the pan I used for your burgers and cook with the leftover drippings.  Add 1 1/2 cups of milk and press out lumps of flour with a fork.  Heat until thickened.  If too thick, add more milk.  Salt and pepper to taste.

If you’re having smothered potatoes with this, start them before you start the meat.  This dish would also be good with rice.  I use one potato for every person.  I usually get bags of potatoes on the mark down section of my Krogers for $1.  I bring them home and toss any that are bad.  I place the rest in my fridge.  You’re really not supposed to refrigerate potatoes (I’ve heard), but it works for me and keeps them longer.  Last time I found the produce manager clearing out all the shelves and putting out a fresh batch.  There was nothing wrong with these and I got 20 pounds of russet potatoes for $2.

Slice the potatoes into large fries.  I used a cast iron pot, heated and put about 1/2 cup of veg oil in the bottom.  You want enough to coat the potatoes, but not to fry them.  When this is hot, add the potatoes.  I also added 1/2 of an onion. sliced.  Once they get to cooking, stir so both sides cook evenly.  Then cover and let them “smother” while you make your hamburger steak.  Turn the temp to low.  By the time your meat is done, these will be soft and delicious.  I added garlic salt and pepper.

I served with the frozen green beans I bought last week (or two?).  So they were about $.50.

This meal was about $1 per person.  We were all full and happy.

Stretching Ground beef #2 – beef vegetable soup

I had about 1/2 pound of cooked ground beef leftover.  I used it to make beef vegetable soup today for lunch.  This meal served 4 and cost less than $2.00.

Heat 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil on the stove in a pot (right size for soup).  Add 1//2 chopped onion and 2 chopped carrots.  Cook until the onion is just tender.  Add one large clove of chopped garlic and cook for about 30 seconds.  Add one can of diced tomatoes (I used fire roasted) and one can of water.  Add leftover ground beef and bring to a boil.  While heating, add salt and pepper to taste.  Don’t over salt b/c you can add more later.  Once boiling, add one diced potato.

I also seasoned with ketchup for sweetness and worchestire for tanginess.

A can or corn would also be good in this.  We ate with buttered saltine crackers.