The smart 21st century kitchen
I have the most amazing kitchen sink.
I’m not sure how many times this happened before the penny dropped tonight and I saw the pattern. I can recall two other times though, so it can’t be random. I must have a smart sink.
Once a week or so I have an attack whose only remedy is high-cholesterol depression food. Depression as in the 1930s, not as in the mental disorder. I grew up, in the 60s and 70s on high-cholesterol depression food. Of course we didn’t call it that. I don’t think cholesterol had been invented yet.
Anyway, a steady diet of modern healthy food just seems to cause problems that can only be set straight by ingesting large amounts of animal fat. And mmmmm, mmmmm! It’s tasty too.
So tonight’s repast is an old family favorite called hamburger pie. I once thought it was a family inventions, then, after she passed on, I discovered the recipe in my grandmother’s 1953 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens “New” Cookbook. Then again, for all I know, my grandmother could have submitted it. It’s the only thing in the whole book I can ever remember eating.
Fifty-one years later, my only substitution is spuds-in-a-box rather than the u-peel-it variety. It’s really quite simple. You need:
- 1 to 1 pound of ground beef. Don’t wuss out and get the 90% or 95% kind. Go with the 85% kind, or if you can still find it, the 80% kind. (And if you can find it, ship me 20 pounds or so.)
- 4 servings of mashed potatoes. I’ve come to prefer the spuds-in-a-box kind, but you’re free to make the traditional kind.
- 1 can condensed tomato soup
- 1 can cut green beans (not the french-style you use in that recipe with the mushroom soup and canned deep-fried onions.)
- 1 egg
Preheat oven to 350F, 180C. While that’s happening, brown your ground beef. I add some dried onion flakes, more because it smells nice in the kitchen than for any other reason.
While that’s going, make your spuds. Even if you use fake spuds, use for-real butter. And real whole milk.
While the spuds are cooking, pour out the nasty vitamins from the can of green beans. Mix the drained green beans and the tomato soup (straight-up, no milk or water) in a 1 to 2 quart cassarole dish.
When the meat’s done, mix it in with the beans and soup in the cassorole, preserving as much of the essential, life-giving fat as possible.
Quick like a bunny, empty the contents of the egg into the spuds and mix furiously. This keeps the egg from beginning to cook before it’s mixed in evenly. Finding chunks of cooked egg white in your spuds is gross.
Top the casserole with the spuds and bake, uncovered, for 20 to 25 minutes until the peaks of the spuds are browning and pleasing to the eye.
Serve.
Preferably with a large glass of the real milk you used to make the spuds. Not skim, 1% or 2%.
BH&G makes the allegation that this serves four. In my 47 years, I’ve never seen this serve more than two. Or one person twice. Mom had to make two, three in later years, to feed the family.
It’s just that yummy. You might not think so from the ingredients list, but this is definately one of those whole-is-greater-than-the-parts deals.
So, what does this have to do with my most amazing kitchen sink?
I don’t generally use the nuke to defrost meat. And I seldom plan far enough ahead to thaw it overnight in the fridge. That leaves the tried-and-true method of thawing in a sink full of water. That’s where the most amazing sink comes in.
This sink can apparently tell when meat is defrosted. Fill it with water, toss in the meat and if you check it before the meat is thawed completely, nothing looks out of the ordinary. If, when you check it, the water’s gone, then the meat is thawed through.
Don’t ask me how it knows or how it lets the water out without removing the plug, or without me hearing it gurgle down the drain. All I know is at least three times now, it’s happened exactly as described.
Now if only I can make it ring a litle bell…
