Cheaper by the 1/2 Dozen

This evening we had what is essentially my meatloaf recipe but divided up and placed in individual cupcake tinfoil wrappers.

We don’t make your standard variety meatloaf here at this house; in fact, I’ve probably never made the same meatloaf recipe twice. It all depends on what is available and what leftovers we have. The long standing joke in our house is that if mom is making meatloaf, you better stay out of the kitchen because if you pass through, chances are you will be thrown into the pot.

Meat loaf, in our house is not as some of my relatives believe just the cooking of a loaf of meat, instead it becomes how many things can I fit into the meat loaf before my kids think it is too much? Leftovers, duplicate cans of vegetables, and whatever is in the fridge are all considered fair game.

But ask any of my kids what their mom’s secret ingredient for meatloaf is and they will always say baby food. Some of my kids have egg sensitivities and lacking a binder for meatloaf I usually just add a large jar of pureed baby food. Although I kind of feel like Jerry Seinfeld’s wife, my intent is not so much to trick my kids into eating vegetables as it is to avoid eggs.

Comments on the dinner:
• This is great.
• Lucky me I found a glob of stuffing
• Next time could you not use onions?
• This was great
• Thanks for dinner mom

Meatloaf of the day recipe

Combine:
• 1 pound of ground beef (apx 2.10 cost)
• apx 2 cups of stuffing (I used stove top stuffing)
• 1 small minced onion
• 1 large jar of baby food (I used squash but sweet potatoes work well)

Divide the meat into 16 tin foil lined cupcake liners. Cook at 350 degrees until thoroughly cooked (apx 45 – 60 minutes)

At two foil cups each, this fed 8 people.

We ate this meal with Cesar salad and French fries.

To begin this project, I went to Walmart and got a “tube” of 5 pounds of ground beef. We don’t have the freezer space to get 50 pounds at once so this will have to be done in increments.

When I got home, I made each of my 6 kids hold the tube of meat in their arms. The burger that those guys ate used 10 of these tubes I told them.
None of my kids believed it was even possible and by far the most popular reaction to that news was “That’s just gross!”.

I divided the meat into four 1 pound servings and two ½ pound servings. I wasn’t sure what I was going to make but I figured as my kids are usually good about my “experiments” I would just try to wing it. Using my well stocked pantry for additions, I came up with a chunky red sauce served on pasta.

The younger kids weren’t too thrilled with seeing chunks of broccoli in spaghetti sauce but once they tasted it, things were on a roll. Several of the kids also added grated cheese on top for flavor.

The kids (17, 15, 13, 12, 10, 8 ) gobbled it down and even came back for seconds. The meat flavored satisfied the older kids (who are on team sports and are burning calories) and the beans added fullness that kept them filled for the night. Other than a candy cane later in the night (my reward to them for trying this recipe) there was no snacking.

Comments on the meal:
• Hey this is really good
• This is so thick, you could serve it with chips like chili
• This would be good on a baked potato
• Not bad, not bad at all

Used meat to date: ½ pound
Number of meals: 1

Spaghetti and Meat/Vegetable Red Sauce

To a crock pot add:

• Browned 1/2 pound of ground beef (apx 1.20 worth of beef) –drain most of the fat but leave a little
• 1 jar of Red Sauce
• 1 can of white beans, washed and mashed with a fork
• ½ bag of frozen broccoli
• 1 clove of garlic using a garlic press

Heat for at least one hour to let the flavors meld.

Serve over spaghetti.

Note: The cost of ground beef is based on 5 pounds at 10.78.

Early one Monday morning, after my 6 kids had all gotten on their respective school buses, I grabbed my cup of coffee and began going through the major news websites before I started my work for the day.

On article on the ABCnews.com site in particular grabbed my attention. Written by Scott Mayerowitz of the ABC News Business Unit, it was called: Recession Bargain or Fool’s Challenge? Meet the 50-pound Burger: Oversized Eating Could Be Your Ticket to Free Meal or ET.

Always interested in finding ways to cut our food bills I anxiously pulled up the story and started reading. Instead of finding any sort of food bargains, though it was an article about restaurants that offered enormous food challenges, the implication being that it was a good deal if you could complete the challenge as most restaurants would then wave your bill.

Mayerowitz described 72 oz. steaks served with a baked potato, salad, dinner roll, and shrimp cocktail free if you could finish all of that in 60 minutes (apparently the record for consuming this was 8 minutes and 52 seconds).

In the article there was a picture of a 21 scoop (scoops as big as baseballs) sundae and a “serving” of 5 extra large 1 inch thick pancakes that get you the meal for free along with a t-shirt and a hat.

Not wanting to lose out on the experience, Mayerowitz along with a super-sized friend decide to take the challenge of the 50 pound burger. With its homemade bun and a carpet of cheese, it also includes a full head of lettuce and several tomatoes. They had 3 hours in which to finish the burger.

They only made it half-way and got the rest boxed to go. The bill? A mere 159.95.

After I finished this article, I left the following comment and started my day.

If there is one thing this economy is going to show us is that this kind of gluttony and wastefulness has no place in our lives anymore. Buy what you need, eat what you need to and let nothing go to waste. I have 6 kids; do you know how many meals I could make with 50 pounds of Beef?

At a writer’s group meeting, the story still haunted me and I my friends about the story. I was just floored at the sheer waste of food and the comment that these sorts of food challenges made about our obese and over-indulgent society.

I started to imagine how I could feed my family of 6 children and 2 adults with those 50 pounds of hamburger. Our food budget is frugal as it is, with our weekly food bill rarely going over 140.00, but if I had 50 pounds of beef to supply some protein? I wondered how long I could make that stretch, and then I started to come up with actual meals I could make.

I left another message on the ABCnews website:

I’ve been thinking about this all morning. For my family of 8 total by using stretchers like bread crumbs and vegetables, and making chilies and soups, tacos, and salads. I could create meals for about 6 weeks with 50 pounds of hamburger. When you look at it that way, trying to eat that in one meal no longer seems like any kind of “fun”.

And so a plan was hatched. My children not being new to my history of crazy plans, (we’ve decluttered the house and removed 5,000 pounds of stuff and we’ve had a Holiday celebration on a budget of 0.00) all rolled their eyes. Mom is up to it again murmured the oldest one. But when I explained to them about the article and how that 50 pounds of meet could be used for so much more instead of just being wasted like that on two people they started to get interested.

We could make chili said one, mini hamburgers, add it to red sauce and pasta said the others. Before long we had a list of meals that could be made from those 50 pounds of beef.

So let’s try it I said to the kids. With a small amount of reluctance they and my husband all agreed.

So this is what I am going to do. I’m going to buy 10 pounds of beef at a time and repackage it to 8 one pound and 4 half pound servings which will then be frozen. I can add fillers and of course sides but the burger will be the only meat used in each meal.

I’ll record the recipes, the reactions, and the cost of the meals for each day. It is my hope that my kids and others out there will see how wasteful a restaurant food challenge is and how thrifty a creative mom can be.