After posting the honey-baked chicken legs recipe , I received a couple of requests for my mother’s hamburger helper recipe, a favorite of mine and my siblings as children, a favorite of our growing families today.
There is not much more to say about this dish except that it is true comfort food, completely satisfying and easy to prepare to boot. I hope you and your families enjoy it, too.
- 1 cup elbow macaroni
- 1 lb. ground beef or lamb
- extra-virgin olive oil
- kosher salt
- 1 1/2 to 2 cups diced onion
- pinch oregano
- 1 15-oz. can of tomato sauce, your favorite brand
- squirt ketchup
- squirt tomato paste
- freshly cracked black pepper
- 1/3 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano
- 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
- Bring a pot of a water to a boil. Add a pinch of salt and cook the macaroni till al dente. Drain and set aside.
- Meanwhile, brown the ground meat in about a tablespoon of olive oil (if your meat is on the lean side) or less (if your meat is on the fattier side). I always start this browning process over high heat and then turn the heat down to medium when the meat starts browning. With a wooden spoon, stir the meat around so that it browns evenly — don’t get too fussed here…you just want the meat to be almost cooked through with a few browned bits here and there.
- Scoop the meat out of the pan with a slotted spoon into a bowl and set aside. Wipe out the pan you cooked the meat in, add another tablespoon (or more or less depending on how much onion you are using) of olive oil, and sauté the onion until slightly soft, about five minutes. Again, don’t get too fussed here — if the onions begin to brown, that’s ok; if they don’t, that’s also ok. You can’t mess this up.
- Add the ground beef back to the pan. Season with a pinch of oregano. Add the tomato sauce to the pan and stir to coat evenly. Squirt in some ketchup (about a tablespoon) and tomato paste (a couple of teaspoons) and season with pepper to taste. Stir to combine. Add the cooked pasta and stir to incorporate.
- Sprinkle in the cheese and stir until melted and combined. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary. This gets better the longer it sits, so don’t be afraid to make it early in the day and reheat it come dinner time. It also reheats in the microwave very nicely.
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Category: Dinner
Method: Oven
Cuisine: American
1 cup elbow macaroni
1 lb. ground beef or lamb
extra-virgin olive oil
kosher salt
1 1/2 to 2 cups diced onion
pinch oregano
1 15-oz. can of tomato sauce, your favorite brand
squirt ketchup
squirt tomato paste
freshly cracked black pepper
1/3 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
- Bring a pot of a water to a boil. Add a pinch of salt and cook the macaroni till al dente. Drain and set aside.
- Meanwhile, brown the ground meat in about a tablespoon of olive oil (if your meat is on the lean side) or less (if your meat is on the fattier side). I always start this browning process over high heat and then turn the heat down to medium when the meat starts browning. With a wooden spoon, stir the meat around so that it browns evenly — don’t get too fussed here…you just want the meat to be almost cooked through with a few browned bits here and there.
- Scoop the meat out of the pan with a slotted spoon into a bowl and set aside. Wipe out the pan you cooked the meat in, add another tablespoon (or more or less depending on how much onion you are using) of olive oil, and sauté the onion until slightly soft, about five minutes. Again, don’t get too fussed here — if the onions begin to brown, that’s ok; if they don’t, that’s also ok. You can’t mess this up.
- Add the ground beef back to the pan. Season with a pinch of oregano. Add the tomato sauce to the pan and stir to coat evenly. Squirt in some ketchup (about a tablespoon) and tomato paste (a couple of teaspoons) and season with pepper to taste. Stir to combine. Add the cooked pasta and stir to incorporate.
- Sprinkle in the cheese and stir until melted and combined. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary. This gets better the longer it sits, so don’t be afraid to make it early in the day and reheat it come dinner time. It also reheats in the microwave very nicely.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Find it online : https://alexandracooks.com/2013/01/24/homemade-hamburger-helper/
After a month of abstaining from serious dessert (inordinate amounts of dark chocolate, providing heaps of antioxidants, don’t count), a sugar craving and a magazine blurb had me unearthing baking pans and once again scribbling down butter, chocolate and brown sugar on my grocery list.
The blurb described a treat offered at San Francisco’s Black Jet Baking Co — brown butter blondies made with Maldon sea salt — which I needed to have in my mouth immediately. Sorry, but I did.
While no recipe accompanied the blurb, the ever-so-giving interweb provided more than a handful of brown butter blondie recipes for me to compare and contrast, many of which had similar butter-to-flour-to-sugar ratios.
After creating a crude comparison table, I ultimately just altered the blondie recipe I always make , substituting brown butter for the butter and a teaspoon of Maldon sea salt for the salt. And, perhaps because the sea salt enhances the flavors of all of the elements including the brown sugar, after making a few batches, I reduced the amount of brown sugar by a quarter cup.
To me, these are heaven, a perfect balance of sweet and salty, impossible not to nibble on all day long. The brown butter, which I had yet to experiment with in baking, provides all of the nuttiness and deliciousness promised by its many fans. These are particularly good with a glass of milk, but I can’t pretend I haven’t enjoyed them aside morning coffee and afternoon tea as well.
Description
Adapted from Simply Recipes’ blondie recipe
Notes: As mentioned above, the original recipe, which is delicious, calls for melted butter not browned, much less salt, and 1/4 cup more brown sugar. I double the recipe (reflected below) and bake it in a 9×9-inch pan, and although I have not tried it, a few of you have had success using an 8×8-inch pan with the double recipe, too.
- 1 cup ( 227 g ) unsalted or salted butter (I always use salted)
- 2 cups ( 255 g ) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon ( 2 g ) baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon ( 1.4 g ) baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ( 5 g ) Maldon sea salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups ( 300 g ) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon ( 11 g ) vanilla extract
- 2/3 cup white chocolate (11o g)
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9×9-inch pan baking pan with parchment paper. (Alternatively, grease with butter.)
- Brown the butter: Place butter in a saucepan and bring to a bubble over medium heat. Let the butter gently bubble, swirling the pan occasionally, until the mixture smells nutty and starts turning brown. Before the mixture starts turning brown, the bubbles at the surface of the butter will get really small and will be moving rapidly — be careful at this point as the mixture can quickly turn from brown butter to burnt butter. The whole process should take about 10 minutes. Remove pan from heat and let cool slightly before using.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.
- In a separate bowl, beat the eggs. Whisk in the brown sugar, browned butter, and vanilla extract and mix until smooth.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir together until just combined. Stir in your mix-ins of choice.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 – 35 minutes.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
