July 12, 2011- Green Beans and Ground Beef

I've shared this recipe before in previous posts, but thought I would put it directly in this one for quick reference.  The Asian flavors of this meal are simple, mild, and quite tasty.  I appreciate that it doesn't require unusual ingredients.  One of the things I like best about it is that it only calls for a half pound of ground beef.  Since I usually buy beef in pound packages, it instantly gives me half a pound to turn into taco meat.  I often have the taco meat cooking in a separate pan while making this dish.  Hello breakfast burrito!

The original recipe says it serves 4 people.  But, it also says to serve the beans and beef over rice or noodles.  We don't add the rice or noodles when we make the dish.  I count on it making two nice helpings, plus one lunch sized bowl for left overs.  

GROUND BEEF AND GREEN BEANS

from a cookbook called "Recipes I Have Known and Loved"

Sauce:

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1/3 cup cooled broth

1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce (we always used regular soy sauce)

1 tablespoon dry sherry

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

Main ingredients:

1 tablespoon oil

1 pound green beans, trimmed and sliced diagonally into 2-inch lengths

2 teaspoons finely minced fresh ginger

2 teaspoons finely minced garlic (2 large cloves)

1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (the original recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon...not enough!)

1/2 pound lean ground beef

Instructions:

1. In a small bowl, combine all the sauce ingredients. Make sure the cornstarch is completely dissolved. Set the mixture aside.

2. In a wok or large skillet, heat the oil for 30 seconds over high heat, and add the green beans. Stir-fry the green beans for about 4 minutes-the beans should be tender-crisp and lightly charred in spots. Remove the green beans with a slotted spoon, and set them aside.

3. Add the ginger and garlic to the pan, cook them for 30 seconds, and then add the pepper flakes and beef, crumbling the meat with a spatula. Stir-fry the mixture just until the beef loses its pinkness. Drain off all the excess fat from the pan.

4. Stir the reserved sauce once more, and add it to the meat. Cook the mixture, stirring it, for a few minutes until the sauce thickens. Fold in the reserved green beans, heat the mixture for 1 minute, and serve.

Sunday, 5/1/2011

My plan was to make a taco salad for dinner.  The plan went a bit sour when I realized I only had half a packet of taco seasoning in the pantry.  Since the ground beef was already browning in the skillet, I had to improvise.  I added chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, cummin, salt and black pepper.  And then, I doubled it.  The result was a decent substitute.  It was lacking something, but was definitely edible.  While a taco salad was my original plan, we ended up having taco meat with cheese melted on top with a simple iceberg lettuce salad with chipotle ranch dressing on the side. 

Thursday, 4/14/2011

I browned a pound of ground beef tonight and seasoned it with taco seasoning.  Ben and I each had a good serving of the beef and then melted cheddar over the top.  We added a caesar salad to round out the meal.  I definitely would have enjoyed the meal more if the meat and cheese were over tortilla chips, but this wasn't bad for a low-carb meal. 

Monday, 3/7/2011

I haven't been to Costco in a while, and my supply of frozen lean ground beef is long gone.  While at Fred Meyer this week, I decided to buy a couple pounds of beef to get me by until I could make it to Costco.  I was surprised to see how much more expensive it is at F.M, especially when looking at the lean beef.  It was $2 more per pound.  So, I opted for the more fatty, less expensive beef this week.  It was still more expensive than at Costco. The dish I made tonight tasted sooo much better with the fattier meat.  What a cruel reality!  The fats really do enhance flavors. 

Anyway, we had Green Beans and Ground Beef with some white rice.  Katie ate some rice and one green bean.  And, it took her twice as long to eat that as it did for us to finish off our full servings.  Next time, we will be serving it with leaner beef and less flavor.

Tuesday, 2/15/2010

We hosted our PEPS group tonight for a "Make Your Own Tacos" meal.  We had the choice of soft or hard taco shells.  I made four pounds of taco seasoned ground beef.  All but one-half pound of the beef was eaten tonight.  We served Mexican rice, shredded cheese, diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, and hot sauce with the taco meat.  Naomi brought chips and salsa that her mom made:)  For dessert, Sara & Aaron brought brownies, cookies, ice cream, and strawberries.  What a spread!  I definitely ate too much.

Thursday, 1/20/2011

I made an Asian flavored dish of ground beef and green beans tonight. It includes fresh ginger, garlic, and red pepper flakes. On several occasions, I have made this dish without the correct amounts of beef and beans. The proportion of sauce to main ingredients is never quite right if the beef and beans are not what the recipe called for.  I followed the instructions tonight and it was perfect!  Katie enjoyed the ground beef in the sauce, but she was not interested in the beans. 

GROUND BEEF AND GREEN BEANS
from a cookbook called "Recipes I Have Known and Loved"

Sauce:
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/3 cup cooled broth
1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce (we always used regular soy sauce)
1 tablespoon dry sherry
1 teaspoon cider vinegar

Main ingredients:
1 tablespoon oil
1 pound green beans, trimmed and sliced diagonally into 2-inch lengths
2 teaspoons finely minced fresh ginger
2 teaspoons finely minced garlic (2 large cloves)
1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (the original recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon...not enough!)
1/2 pound lean ground beef

Instructions:
1. In a small bowl, combine all the sauce ingredients. Make sure the cornstarch is completely dissolved. Set the mixture aside.
2. In a wok or large skillet, heat the oil for 30 seconds over high heat, and add the green beans. Stir-fry the green beans for about 4 minutes-the beans should be tender-crisp and lightly charred in spots. Remove the green beans with a slotted spoon, and set them aside.
3. Add the ginger and garlic to the pan, cook them for 30 seconds, and then add the pepper flakes and beef, crumbling the meat with a spatula. Stir-fry the mixture just until the beef loses its pinkness. Drain off all the excess fat from the pan.
4. Stir the reserved sauce once more, and add it to the meat. Cook the mixture, stirring it, for a few minutes until the sauce thickens. Fold in the reserved green beans, heat the mixture for 1 minute, and serve.

Friday, 9/17/2010

Getting Katie to eat dinner has been a bit of a challenge lately.  She has been going down for her nap around 11am and has been getting up around 3pm--super long naps!  She snacks before her nap, but doesn't really eat a lunch until she wakes up.  With just three hours between when she eats her late lunch and when Ben and I are ready for dinner, she doesn't each much when we sit down as a family.  She is usually ready to get down from her high chair at the same time we start to actually eat.  Today, when Katie got up from her nap, I went down the list of foods Katie could eat for lunch.  She said "nope" to all of the options.  Knowing that she would eventually be hungry, I started to bake some halibut for her.  She sat down on the floor and played with cans of food she pulled out of the pantry.  She never whined or acted hungry, but did finally eat around 4pm when the fish was done.  It was quite a nice afternoon with her:)

I cooked a couple pieces of fish for myself and ate around 5pm.  Ben usually takes the bus to and from work, but I thought it would be nice to see a bit more of him tonight.  So, after I was done eating, Katie and I went downtown to pick Ben up from work.  He was starving by the time he got home.  He opted to eat the left over green beans and ground beef from yesterday, instead of waiting for the halibut to cook.  

Thursday, 9/16/2010

Tonight I made Asian style ground beef and green beans.  The recipe was previously posted here.  Before I talk about making the dish, I have to share my frustration with trying to prep dinner with a 21-month-old in the house.  Katie just will not play by herself when I am doing something in the kitchen.  She constantly yells "up" at me.  I calmly explain, over and over again, that I am getting dinner ready and can't hold her at the same time.  She doesn't care.  "UP" she yells.  Well, today I was trying to get all of the ingredients measured out and chopped up so that I could quickly make dinner when Ben got home.  After yelling at me didn't work, Katie decided to try to put herself between me and the counter section I was cutting beans on.  Her little shoes really hurt my sandal feet when she steps on them.  I tried to reason with her.  I tried to explain how it hurts when she steps on my feet.  I moved her away.  I sent her on errands to get things from other parts of the house.  My efforts failed.  She interpreted my actions as a game.  So then, she did her best to step on my feet with purpose.  That was the last straw.  I told her she was going into a time-out in her high chair for a minute.  

After 30 seconds in her high chair, I looked over to see her yanking large amounts of hair out of her head.  This isn't the first time this has happened.  Last weekend she did it while we were driving home from taking a run on Alki.  We've read about it online, and we have concluded that she is doing it for attention.  Regardless of the reason, it makes me sick to my stomach.  I mean, every mom wants her little girl to have an adorable hairstyle.  I don't want to see her like this.  Yes, I could stop what I am doing and give her my full attention, but then dinner would never be ready.  I hope that she moves past this phase quickly!

OK, enough with sharing my frustrations--back to tonight's meal.  In the past, I have not used the proportions of beef and beans the recipe called for.  I usually go heavy on the beef and light on the beans.  As a result, there hasn't been enough sauce for the dish.  Tonight, I followed the recipe exactly and the meal turned out great!  It was actually my first time making the dish from start to finish myself.  I usually have Ben make it, because he can flip the beans in the skillet.  Well, tonight, for the first time, I flipped the beans myself!  Also, Ben took Katie upstairs while he changed his clothes after work.  That allowed me to cook uninterrupted for a while:) 

During dinner, Katie was an absolute angel for her daddy.  She giggled, made silly faces, and was a joy to be with.  She ate a little macaroni and cheese with peas in it.  I'm glad I got to see cute, smiley Katie and not the mean, foot stomping Katie before she went to bed:)  

Our internet service went down today and will hopefully be fixed tomorrow. It is amazing how many things we do daily rely on having an internet connection.  With little left to do, Ben and I decided to watch a movie, drink wine, and eat brownies to end our night.  It was a good night:)

Monday, 8/23/2010

It's nacho week at the Ackers home.  Well, really, it will only be nacho Monday and nacho Thursday.  Anyway, I covered two plated in tortilla chips, added a layer of shredded cheese, a layer of taco seasoned lean, ground beef, a little hot sauce, and then another scant layer of cheese.  Popped in the microwave and dipped into salsa, these were pretty good nachos:)  

I tried to give Katie some left over pork, grapes, and cheese for dinner.  She wanted nothing to do with them.  She was only interested in dipping things into the salsa.  The catch was that she really didn't want to eat any of the things she dipped into the salsa.  So, she would whine and grunt and point and make awful sounds to get something like a chip and then continue that noise until she was given the salsa to dip into.  She would dip in, lick it, then give it back to me.  I will admit it--it got quite annoying after a while.  Sorry Ben, I wasn't very patient with that tonight. 

Tuesday, 7/6/2010

Every five years, the Moser side of my family gets together for a reunion. This would be for the descendants of my Grandma Jean and her four siblings. We gathered at the Zephyr Conference Center in Liberty Lake, Washington. This is the first time the reunion has happened someplace other than at my grandparent's home. I am pleased that it was such a success! We had 60+ family members there. Some people stayed on site in the two lodges, other stayed in hotels nearby, and we stayed with my parents at their home in Spokane.

My dad's cousin Judy took on the responsibility of purchasing food for breakfasts and lunches. Families were assigned to prep and clean up for those meals. We had the camp cater the dinners for us. Tonight we enjoyed a taco bar. Soft and hard tortillas were available along with ground beef, rice, and all the fixings. Katie enjoyed pulling rice out of a taco and would occasionally let me put a bite of beef in her mouth.

For dessert we had delicious chocolate cake. There was some debate about whether it was cake or brownies. Ben says it was cake; so, that's what I'm sticking with:)

Tuesday, 6/29/2010

Ben and I had beef burritos again for dinner tonight. Katie got sick earlier in the day, so she had to stick to a pretty bland menu. She only got plain pieces of our tortillas, a quarter of a pear, graham crackers, and water. With two sickies in the house, me and Katie, it was a pretty uneventful evening.

Monday, 6/28/2010

Tonight's meal was simple--beef burritos. Standard use of taco seasoning with lean ground beef, shredded cheddar cheese, and low carb wheat burrito tortillas. Ben's burrito had some hot sauce in it. I left it off of mine due to my sore throat.

Katie was the wild card in tonight's meal. About a 1/2 hour before we ate, she was whining for food. I told her we were going to wait so that we could eat together with Daddy. When we finally sat down, she barely touched her food. Then she started to pull off her bib. We won't let her continue without a bib on. Either the bib stays on or she is done with the meal. But, she wouldn't tell us that she was all done. Each time we went to try to clean her up, she would reach back towards the food. What's a momma to do?!? Well, this momma decided to clean her up and get her down from her high chair.

Not long after that, we went upstairs so that she could take a bath. We were just about to put her down for the night when she started signing for food. Milk. Cheese. Bread. Peanut butter. Thinking that she was still hungry, we went back downstairs. She went right to the fridge and started pointing to the jar of jam. At this point, we think that she means jam when she signs for bread. Anyway, we made her a small pb&j sandwich. Seated back in her high chair, she proceeded to pull the two pieces of bread apart to lick off the pb&j. She only took a few small bits out of the bread. The kicker was when she rubbed her jam covered hand through her clean hair. ARGH! That was the end of her second dinner. Her hands and hair were cleaned up, despite her loud objections, and we took her upstairs to bed. It's been about a 1/2 hour and I haven't heard a peep from her. I guess she was just plain tired.

Monday, 6/14/2010

I had to strap Katie into her high chair so that I could make dinner. She seems to be cutting a tooth, which has made her very whiny, clingy, and kind of frantic today. Thankfully, she was mostly content being up higher so that she could see what I was doing from a distance.

I made Bisquick's Impossible Taco Pie tonight. We have a busy week ahead of us and it is a good meal to reheat as left overs. Here is the recipe we use. I'll share my notes at the end of this post.

IMPOSSIBLE TACO PIE

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 ( 1 1/4 oz.) envelope taco seasoning mix
1 can ( 4 oz.) chopped green chiles, drained
1 1/4 cup milk
3 eggs
3/4 cup Bisquick
2 tomatoes, sliced
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack or Cheddar cheese

Preparation:
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease glass pie plate, 10 x 1 1/2 inches.
Cook and stir ground beef and onion in skillet until beef is brown;drain. Stir in seasoning mix, dry. Spread in pie plate; top with chillies. Beat milk, eggs and Bisquick baking mix until smooth. Pour into pie plate. Bake 25 minutes. Top with tomatoes and cheese. Bake 8-10 minutes. Longer or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes. Serve with sour cream, tomatoes and shredded lettuce if desired. 6-8 servings.

I opt out on the onions for this dish. I don't think they are needed, and it cuts down on my prep time. I skip the tomatoes and instead top the pie with hot sauce for a little more kick. When we make beef burritos, we always use 1.5 packets of taco seasoning for one pound of ground beef. I use the same amount for this taco pie. And, I think 1 cup of shredded cheese isn't enough. Try 2 cups:) By the way, this is a great dish to take to a potluck. Hint: save a couple of those plastic pieces they use in delivery pizza boxes that keep the cheese from sticking to the box. You can use them in this dish to keep the melted cheese from sticking to the tin foil.

Sunday, 6/13/2010

The recipe we followed tonight is simply called "Ground Beef and Green Beans". One of Ben's mom's friends, Bev, gave us a copy of the recipe. It is similar to one dish we ordered at Mandarin Cove in Portland, OR, a couple weeks ago.

Tonight is the first time we have made this dish without setting off our smoke detector. Something about cooking oil in the skillet on high has always made our alarm go off. It has really freaked Katie out in the past; so, this time, Ben took the battery out of the detector before we started to cook. Cooking the meal was much less stressful this time around. I wrote "take out smoke detector battery" on the recipe:)

GROUND BEEF AND GREEN BEANS
from a cookbook called "Recipes I Have Known and Loved"

Sauce:
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/3 cup cooled broth
1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce (we always used regular soy sauce)
1 tablespoon dry sherry
1 teaspoon cider vinegar

Main ingredients:
1 tablespoon oil
1 pound green beans, trimmed and sliced diagonally into 2-inch lengths
2 teaspoons finely minced fresh ginger
2 teaspoons finely minced garlic (2 large cloves)
1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (the original recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon...not enough!)
1/2 pound lean ground beef

Instructions:
1. In a small bowl, combine all the sauce ingredients. Make sure the cornstarch is completely dissolved. Set the mixture aside.
2. In a wok or large skillet, heat the oil for 30 seconds over high heat, and add the green beans. Stir-fry the green beans for about 4 minutes-the beans should be tender-crisp and lightly charred in spots. Remove the green beans with a slotted spoon, and set them aside.
3. Add the ginger and garlic to the pan, cook them for 30 seconds, and then add the pepper flakes and beef, crumbling the meat with a spatula. Stir-fry the mixture just until the beef loses its pinkness. Drain off all the excess fat from the pan.
4. Stir the reserved sauce once more, and add it to the meat. Cook the mixture, stirring it, for a few minutes until the sauce thickens. Fold in the reserved green beans, heat the mixture for 1 minute, and serve.

I was a little short on green beans, since I used them for the General Tsao's chicken earlier in the week. So, we ended up using a full pound of ground beef. I thought that the reduction in beans would offset the increase in ground beef. Turns out, I needed to have made 50% more sauce for these proportions. It was still tasty, but could have been a little bit better.

Tuesday, 4/27/2010

Last night after putting Katie to bed, I made up a batch of chili. We've got a very busy week ahead of us this week and it seemed like a good idea to get that one out of the way early. We found this recipe on the Food Network a couple years ago. We've doubled the beef broth and tomato sauce quantities, but left the rest the same.

CHILI
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds ground beef (we like to use 1 lb leanest beef and 1 lb not so lean)
2 (14-ounce) cans low sodium beef broth (the low sodium is definitely preferred)
2 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce

Batch one:
1 tablespoon onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules (we found bouillon granules on the grocery store isle with the Mexican food ingredients)
1 teaspoon beef bouillon granules

Batch two:
5 tablespoons red chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon brown sugar

Batch three:
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

In a large heavy bottom pot (we use a dutch oven) heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef and cook until browned, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and drain off the excess grease. Add the tomato sauce and the beef broth and simmer for 1 hour in covered pot. Uncover the pot for the rest of the preparation. Add all of the ingredients from Batch one, stir and simmer for 35 more minutes. Add Batch two to the pot and cook for another 20 minutes, stirring often. Add Batch three and cook for 10 more minutes.

Tonight we topped our chili with shredded cheddar cheese and scooped it with tortilla chips. I tried to serve Katie some chicken and stars baby food, but she would have nothing to do with it. She only wanted our chili. I even attempted to trick her by pouring some of the baby food into my empty bowl, serving it to her with my soup spoon. She was too smart for that. So, she had chili for dinner and loved it! Guess since she only wants to eat what we eat, we better start eating more vegetables for dinner.