Friday, January 09, 2009

a small batch of hamburger stew

I made meat loaf yesterday, and was left with perhaps a third of a pound of ground beef. I know, most of you would have incorporated it into the meat loaf, right? But I'm a stickler for using the amounts stated in recipes.

I eyed the meat, wondering if it was enough for two hamburgers. But since I limit our meat portions, that didn't seem like a good idea.

After sleeping on it (not the hamburger, silly; the idea of what to do with it), I decided to make hamburger stew. Thankfully, I do make some things without a recipe.

Trouble is, I'm so used to making a huge pot of stew, and it's hard for me to judge amounts in a smaller batch.

At this point, I realized I should have used one more potato, but it was too late... until I remembered the microwave! I baked a potato in three minutes, peeled it, diced it, and tossed it in. No problem.

I wait until the last ten minutes or so to add the cabbage. Here again, I had to be careful to use the proper amount for such a small batch of stew.

As I added ingredients, it occurred to me how many spices I use that my mother never had in her cabinets, as far as I can remember. Here are just a few of them.

All the above except for lemon pepper and bay leaves are in my stew, which I just sampled. It's good!

When I was a kid growing up, sometimes I'd climb up on a kitchen counter, open the cupboard doors, and sniff all the spices in there, one by one. Mother had a lot of phony Watkins flavorings (coconut, lemon, etc.) that smelled divine. My favorite thing was vanilla; it was so heavenly that I decided one day to taste it.

Bad mistake.

11 comments:

  1. yuck! vanilla is horrid hahahaha..

    I used to make "chop meat soup".. that would be a chop meat base and can tomatoes and any and all veggies I could get my hands on! It was always delicious! your stew reminded me of it and now I find I want to make it lol...

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  2. Love that soup. I put a can of Veg-all when I don't have fresh veggies.

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  3. Oh man! Hamburger stew! That was one of my mom's specialties. I might have to try making that this weekend.

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  4. Anonymous11:22 AM

    That stew looks so gooood

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  5. Mmmmm your stew looks heavenly. When you made mention of sniffing the spices...it brought back a memory of me doing that as a kid also. Funny how we forget things like that. Kelly

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  6. I bet the bay leaf would have tasted very well in your stew too!
    Sounds yummy!

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  7. My oldest says hamburger soup/stew is one of her favorites. I don't know why I don't make it more often.....it's crazy easy, isn't it?!

    When I was really young, I remember how good my grandma's ground coffee used to smell. So good that I ate it. Once. It's a shock that I love coffee as much as I do know considering that experience....LOL

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  8. I need the recipe! LOL! Looks yummy and I am always trying to find news way to cook hamburger. Pass my way if you have a chance.

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  9. That looks soooooo good. You'll have to tell us how you make it. Mmmmmmmm

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  10. That looks good!

    Tomorrow I'm making my families version of beef stew. Kind of similar, no potatos, and we put it over rice. It's a Cajun recipe.

    Stew makes the Winter season better =]

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  11. Hi there. Hope all going well at your place...reading up on several entries and had to stop to tell you how wonderful that hamburger stew looked. yummo. Wish I had a bowl here in the middle of the night. lol

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