Back In The Kitchen

It's been a while since I've really cooked here at home. Lately we've been having lots of pizzas, and for the past week or so, there have been several meals where I pulled whatever leftovers I could find out of the fridge and hoped it would be enough to fill us up.

Thursday, though, I had both the time and the want-to for making a nice homemade meal of hamburger steaks with mushroom gravy, skin-on mashed potatoes with cheddar, sauteed snap peas and a garden salad.

I just winged it without recipes and the meal got rave revues from Shane. I thought it was really good, if I do say so myself.

Last Friday (not yesterday but a week ago), I made a dozen thick hamburger patties using ground beef, a little KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce and a little Cavender's seasoning. I took eight of them with us to the campground and froze four of them. This afternoon I took the frozen ones out of the freezer and cooked them, from their frozen state, using the convection oven option of my microwave.

For the gravy, I sauteed one package of mushrooms that came from the CSA farms yesterday in butter. I spooned the mushrooms out once they were tender, then added flour to the butter and cooked it for a few minutes. I added a couple of cups of beef broth made from beef consomme concentrate and cooked it until it was thick. Then I stirred in about a teaspoon of browning sauce. Not all of us likes as many mushrooms as I do, so I served them on the side rather than add them back to the gravy.

The snap peas were easy to make. I just added them and a sliced green onion to some hot olive oil and sauteed them for just about 4 minutes. I also added a bit of dried thyme leaves and some Cavender's.

The potatoes were everyone's favorite, I think. I chopped and boiled Yukon Gold potatoes with the skins still on, until they were just tender. I drained them, mashed them with some real butter and half-n-half cream, then added about 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar and about 1/4 cup French onion dip.

For the salad (not pictured) I tossed together spinach, green leaf lettuce and oak leaf lettuce, then we each topped our salads as desired. Mine had cheddar, bacon bits, green onion, radishes and pineapple chunks with Ranch dressing.

Shane said this meal was one of his favorites. Ever. It was nothing fancy, but somehow it all just came together the right way.