Monthly Archives: February 2025

Taco Hamburger Helper

Posted on by

While I’m in front of the computer, let me give you the Taco Hamburger Helper recipe I got from the Instagram reel that kicked off my whole trip down memory lane.

Healthier Taco Hamburger Helper:
1/2 Lbs Ground Beef
1/2 Onion, diced or thin strips
Oil

Pan fry onions. set aside in a bowl to sear meat. Add onions back in. Add a small pinch of salt and start adding:

1/2 Red Pepper, diced or thin strips
2 Handfuls Spinach, washed/drained
10 oz Tomato Sauce
1 C Milk + 1/2 Water
1 C Egg Noodle Pasta
2 Tbsp Taco Seasoning Blend

Stir everything together, making sure the pasta gets submerged. Once the liquids start to boil, cover the pot and drop heat to low. Let that simmer for about ten mins before adding a can of rinsed off beans (black or pinto). Add a generous amount of Mexican blended cheese (reserve a bit for plating) and lid the pot again to melt it. After two mins, kill the heat and let it rest off burner to cool down.

Uncover and give everything one final good stir to combine the cheese into the mixture.

Plate with lettuce, sour cream, and pickled jalapeno or banana peppers, and a bit more cheese shred if desired. <– These are all the things I will add to make it a taco bowl meal when I make this next week.

DIY Hamburger Helper

Posted on by

A few weeks ago I commented on an Instagram reel about DIY Hamburger Helper. I commented that I’d never eaten the box stuff before and asked what it tasted like. I never got a reply so I forgot all it until someone at work the other day was telling a co-worker she’s never eaten it before. She asked if I’ve ever eaten Hamburger Helper and then asked what it tasted like. Out of us three, not one of us had, and we come from three different age groups. And we all now work at a grocery store. I thought that was odd. What are the chances?

So, the three of us then had this back and forth about making it at home, and why it exists at all. The answer is, women started working outside the home in the 1970s. This product was marketed to every woman who was looking for faster, simpler meal ideas to feed their hungry family each night from the late 1970s onward.

The basic idea of Hamburger Helper has always been a box of small noodles with a cheese powder + curated spices packet, and all the consumer has to cook it with ground meat, veggies, and liquids to make it a complete meal. Easy peasy.

My mom made a version of HH which she could scale up (the box didn’t stretch far enough) to feed her army. So in that spirit, here is the basic idea of what Mum made us based on my memories, with spices I like, smashed together with what I saw in that Instagram reel. The husband and I loved it. I made enough for six big people meals on Monday at lunch, and by dinner tonight (Tuesday), it was all gone (save for one more portion for his lunch tomorrow.)

Aunt Stacey’s Hamburger Helper:
4 C Small Pasta Noodles, half cooked and strained (I only had penne on hand)

2-3 Tbsp Oil
1 Onion, diced
Salt Pinch
1 Lbs (454g) Ground Meat (of choice)

Fry the onion until it starts to soften; place into a small bowl. Lay the meat down in the oil to cook the first side, When the bottom edge is browned, carefully flip the meat over from you to sear the second side. Leave it go a full minute before breaking it up with a potato masher, twisting the tool as you push down on the meat to separate the strands into crumble.

Add to the meat:

1 Garlic Clove, minced (I used jar stuff)
1 Sweet Pepper, diced
1 Tbsp: Italian Seasoning, Ground Onion Powder (or more), Beef Gravy Powder (opt)
1 Tea Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 Tea: Ground Sage, Red Hot Chili Peppers grinds, Black Pepper
10 oz Canned Tomato Sauce (or canned diced tomatoes blitzed)
1+ Cup Whole Milk
1/2 Cup Water

Taste test the liquid. Adjust the flavours here if you want or need to. Add another small pinch of salt.

Bring the pot to barely a boil and drop in the half cooked pasta. Stir the pasta so 90% of it is submerged in the liquid. Lid the pot and drop the heat so it can simmer 10 mins to finish cooking everything and give the flavours time to marry.

Final additions:

1+ C Parmesan Cheese, grated or shredded
4 Marble Cheese Slices or 1 C Marble Cheese Shred

Kill the heat and lid the pot one last time to let the cheeses melt. Uncover and stir to combine everything evenly.

I’m not really sure how long this took to make, but I’d say it was between 20-30 mins. It was just as fast from scratch. The longest part was the time it took the meat to sear so I could start filling up the pan with the other ingredients.

Mary-Lou’s Apple Coffee Cake

Posted on by

About 16 years ago, my assistant manager gave me her recipe for a coffee cake she created years before at home. She gave it to me because I told her how much I love a good apple cake during one of our tea times. I can see why she gave this to me. It’s been years since I last made it but I recall really liking the taste of it a lot.

Well, she died in December, and I have been thinking about this recipe ever since. I have felt bad for not making it more often since she gave it to me. I need to rectify that in her honour.

My only qualm about making this every weekend is the volume size. It’s a full Bundt cake pan size. Over the years I have cut this recipe in half, and then cut it in half again. The husband doesn’t really like coffee cakes, but if I make a mini one as a dessert, he won’t say no to a portion of it. Here is the full size version she gave me:

Mary-Lou’s Apple Coffee Cake:
3 LG Apples (of choice), thin half slices (for the best presentation)
1 C Butter
3 Tea Ground Cinnamon
3 Tea Brown Sugar

Sautee the apple slices around in the butter, sugar, cinnamon. Cool down completely.

3 C AP Flour
2 C Sugar
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
2 Tea Salt
2 Tea Baking Soda

Whisk dry ingredients together, and then combine wet ingredients with a hand mixer. Combine wet and dry by hand.

1 C Sour Milk (or Buttermilk if you have it)
1/2 C Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 C Sour Cream, almost room temp
3 Eggs, room temp
1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract

Grease a Bundt cake pan (or any other large baking dish or pan). Pour half of the batter into the pan and top with more than half or the apple slice mixture. Top with the second half of the batter and arrange the last of the apple slices up on top.

Bake at 350*F for 60 mins. Check batter with a cake tester. Bake another ten mins if needed to get the cake tester to come out clean.

Cool on the counter about 15 mins before placing a wire rack over the top and using oven mitts to turn over so the cake can fall out of the pan. Cool cake completely before dusting with icing sugar or glazing  the top if desired.

I don’t have a picture of the cake because, as mentioned, I haven’t made this cake in awhile. I will have to make the scaled down mini version of it this weekend.

Thick Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted on by

The new retail cookie craze is Crumbl. There are a few other companies selling their own version from store fronts as well. But honestly, if I am going to spend $6.50 for a single cookie, it better blow my mind while it blows my budget and bank account! I can also just as easily buy the ingredients to make this knock-off cookie (minus the icing topper) for that much money. And so can you.

I really like a crispy exterior with a softer chewy centre. If you like the same cookie texture, you will love this recipe. Give it a test drive by halving all of the ingredients.

Thick Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies:
1 C Bread Flour + 3/4 C AP Flour *
2 Tea Salt
1 Tea Baking Soda

1 C Butter, melted
1 C Dark Sugar + 1/2 C White Sugar

2 Tbsp Vanilla
1 Tbsp Instant Espresso Powder
1 Egg, room temp
1/2 C Chocolate Chips (or 4 oz Chunks)

Melt the butter and let it sit on the counter about ten mins before stirring all of the wet ingredients together in the same bowl. Whisk up the dry ingredients in another bowl.

Add them together with a spatula to form the dough. Fold in the chocolate chips last. Scoop the dough out into balls onto a lined sheet tray to chill for at least 24 hours. This is a key step. Don’t skip it!

Bake at 355*F for 20 mins. Rest the cookies on a wire rack after a ten min rest out of the oven. Cool completely before topping with an icing if using.

* Bread flour is too expensive and takes up too much room in my pantry, so here’s how I do make my own at home: I mix 1 cup AP flour (minus 1 tbsp) + 1 tbsp Wheat Gluten. *

Awhile back I bought a bag of Bob Mills Vital wheat gluten when it went on sale for making my own bread flour so I can bake proper loaves of bread. Each batch requires so little that I have been storing it in my freezer all year since. It barely takes up space.

I made these 5 cookie test batch a week ago using my biggest 3 oz disher but I found by the time I got well past the halfway point, I started to feel gross in the gut. I figure one half size cookie should be the ideal size for me.

Going forward, I will be using my half-ish size 2 oz disher from now on for more reasonable sized cookies. I also have a smaller 1 oz disher for a mini cookie version.

This wooden disher is an antique. I was given to me by the master baker I used to work for something like 18 years ago. It still works beautifully, unlike its modern version that doesn’t hold up scooping out thick doughs or frozen ice cream. I’ve broken a few modern dishers over the years. These two are my standard for loaded cookie doughs, and the smaller size not shown does a great job on softer plain cookie doughs.

Blueberry Oat Bars

Posted on by

This is an internet provided version of the Jammy Oatmeal Bars I used to make when I worked in the cafeteria. Those bars required more ingredients but they are the same idea: a solid oat base, a jam filling, and a crumble oat topping.

Blueberry Oat Bars:
1 C Frozen Blueberries
1/3 C Water
2 Tbsp Sugar

1 C Quick Oats
1 C AP Flour
1/4 Tsp Salt

1/3 C Peanut Butter (any)
1/3 C Maple Syrup
2 Tbsp Coconut Oil

Cook the blueberries and water down over a med-low heat until it starts to bubble. Mash down the berries at this point and continue to cook down on a lower heat for 5 mins longer. Cool off the burner while assembling the bottom and top layers.

Whisk together the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix the wet ingredients together in a small bowl before dumping it over the dry ingredients. Fold the wet into the dry to form a ball. Cut the ball into two portions.

Place one portion into a small lined baking dish by pressing a bit of the mix into all the corners first, and flattening out the rest across the bottom evenly using a spoon or a small measuring scoop with a flat bottom.

Pour the blueberry jam over top, pooling the mixture all over by tilting the pan. Pinch off small irregular chunks of the remaining mixture to drop on top of the jam layer. It doesn’t have to be evened out like the bar’s base.

Bake at 350*F for 20 mins.

Cool down almost completely before chilling two hours still in the parchment paper before cutting into eight small bars, or six medium bars, or four large bars.

These bars keep for a few days wrapped and chilled, I think. They don’t last long enough in this house for me to tell you for sure. 😉 Oh, and the jam can be store bought if you have some to use up instead. And I’ve made these with a few different fruit jams to change it up when the mood strikes me.

Hey, I just found this link of that time I burned a pan of these bars. Ooph!

Slow Braised Steak Cheese

Posted on by

This is a loose version of the classic Philly Steak sandwich meat that’s typically cooked on a flattop. But since we don’t have one, I decided to make something in the oven instead. While looking into my Insta saved food videos, I found this one from Tasty that they put out in August of 2018.

I didn’t deviate from their recipe much beyond swapping out the chicken broth for beef broth, so my version was a bit darker overall. But, boy! The flavours were great together.

Sear the meat hunks in oil. Rest them on a plate while working on softening the onion and green peppers in the same pan with the knob of butter and minced garlic.

Drop in some S&P and start adding your hot broth. Give that a good stir before adding the meat back to the pan and dropping in the milk. Give it another good mixing and cover to bake in the oven for 3 hours at 334*F. Now sit with a bevvy while waiting. This is the best part of this recipe. 🙂

When your timer goes off, carefully remove the pot from the oven and let it rest uncovered on your stovetop for five mins before grabbing two forks. I used one to hold the pot in place (it wanted to move around on the glass top) and the other to smush the meat chunks down into shredded meat. Top with 1/2 cup cheddar shred + 1/2 cup Parm grate. Stir to combine and lift all of the shredded meat off the bottom of the pot.

I reserved a bit before laying the rest out on a sheet tray to rapid cool before storing in the fridge to magically turn it into tomorrow’s pasta dinner. I topped today’s reserve with slices of marble cheese and some Frank’s Red Hot Garlic Parm dressing to make us Hawaiian bun sliders.

Don’t forget to show your pots and pans the love they deserve so they last you forever.