For the chili mac I add fresh shredded cheddar, a little tomato paste to punch up the tomato flavor, some no-salt-added canned tomatoes and lots of my own chili powder to Chili Cheese Hamburger Helper. I also sautéed some bell peppers and onions, tossing them into the mix when everything was cooked through.

I also love fancying up Jiffy Cornbread, which you can usually get for under 50¢ a package at the grocery store. I follow the instructions on the box, but add a few tablespoons of honey (you can eyeball it), frozen corn and some Tastefully Simple Garlic Garlic.

Again, it’s nothing special, but who says every meal has to be special? Sometimes simple really hits the spot.

This actually wasn’t the plan when I picked up some pork cubed steaks from the discount meat bin, but when I started poking around for recipe ideas for cubed steak I felt silly for never considering it! Also, it’s ridiculous how easy this was to make. So easy that I’m sure this will become a regular meal in the house!

My shortcut? You know from my Shepherd’s Pie recipe that I never skimp on the mashed potatoes, but use a pressure cooker to make it clean and simple. Nope, the secret’s dry country gravy mix. Not only does using a dry gravy mix save a ton of time; it’s also much lighter than traditional gravy. You’ll be trading richness for quick-and-light, but there’s so much flavor in the steak, you won’t miss it. I promise.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 cube steaks (pork or beef)
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp Paprika
• 1 tsp salt
• 6 turns fresh ground white pepper
• garlic salt (generously)
  
• 1 egg
• splash of half & half
• vegetable oil, fill the bottom of the pan about 1/3″
  

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl flat and deep enough to dredge. Mix egg and milk/cream in another.

Salt and pepper the cube steak before dredging in the egg wash, then dredge in flour mixture. Dredge again in egg then in flour to thicken the coating.

Heat oil until drop of batter sets it bubbling. Cook on each side ’til it’s browned, about 4–5 minutes per side, flipping with a pair of tongs when halfway done. When cooked through, lay the steaks on paper towel to soak up the moisture and grease.

For dinner serve with mashed potatoes; for breakfast serve with eggs and hash browns and smother with country gravy.

Bravado? Maybe a bit, but it’s true. My meatloaf, even when not in MEATCAKE! form, is the stuff of legend. Back when I made the MEATCAKE! I promised a recipe but failed to deliver. Today I give you my secret (modified from Mark Bittman’s recipe in How To Cook Everything). You’re welcome.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 lb ground pork (I usually buy country ribs—about $1/lb—and grind it myself)
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (I like Progresso’s Garlic and Herb breadcrumbs) soaked in
• 1/2 cup milk (until soggy; takes a few minutes)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 large cloves minced garlic
• Dash of Penzey’s Chicago Steak Seasoning
• 1 large carrot, shredded
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 stalk celery, diced fine (optional)
• 1/2 green pepper, diced fine (optional)

Combine all the above ingredients well. And USE YOUR DAMN HANDS. Get ‘em messy. You can wash them. There’s no way to combine this well enough without using your hands. Form into a loaf and place in a bread pan (I use a silicone bread pan). Bake at 350ºF for about an hour, or until the internal temp is about 160ºF. Drain the grease and transfer to a cookie sheet to set.

KETCHUP GLAZE (from Black Widow Bakery, where I learned to make the MEATCAKE!):

• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/8 cup dark brown sugar
• Splash of Worcestershire sauce

To make the glaze, heat ketcup, sugar and worcestershire sauce until combined. Spread over meatload. Clean your pan IMMEDIATELY afterward or it’ll be a pain to clean.

That’s it!! It’s super easy and so, so very good.

CONFESSION: My secret to my chili isn’t shortcut at all. In fact, it’s a gigantic pain, but it makes it so much better. I grind my own very lean meat.

From there it’s hard to say. My chili’s never really the same twice, though I follow the same steps. Brown the meat with plenty of onions and garlic and lots of Penzey’s chili powder, some cumin and chipotle pepper, and plenty of canned tomatoes. Add diced poblano peppers for spice and simmer on very low heat for several hours. I serve it with diced white onion, sour cream and shredded cheese and have been told more than once it’s the best around. I don’t know about that, but it’s good stuff.

But seriously, if you have the means, grind your own meat. We grind chicken, turkey and beef with our KitchenAid Food Grinder Attachment, and it really makes all the difference.

CONFESSION: To say my husband’s a little timid about cooking is an understatement. Still, occasionally he’s willing to tackle dinner, as long as he has VERY SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS. This is the email I sent him to make this delicious beef stew. You really can’t go wrong with this recipe, just season to taste (I season generously with garlic salt, pepper and random herbs).

1. Clean carrots (peel if you want, it’s not necessary if they’re clean), cut into large chunks. All of them (yummm, carrots)
2. Clean potatoes, cut into large chunks (quarters). About half as many potatoes as carrots is a good margin (yummm, carrots)
3. Cut mushrooms in half if button, chunks if portobella
4. Peel and cut two red onions in quarters
5. Mince one full clove of elephant garlic (you can cut it in pieces and run it through the garlic press)
6. Use the Penzey’s beef roast seasoning. Read the directions and add 2x  the recommended amount of spice.
7. Up to you if you want to chop the meat into cubes. It can go in as one big slab and will break apart well enough.
8. Place potatoes and carrots and half of onions and garlic at bottom of crock pot with a sprinkling of the spices.
9. Add beef
10. Add the rest of the beef broth in the carton in the fridge (1 cup) and 1 can cream of mushroom soup and 1 can cream of celery
    
11. Add seasoning
12. Add mushrooms and second half of onions and garlic.
13. Heat on low ‘til I come home.

About 8 hours later we had awesome stew!! Because of the cream soups, this version isn’t a very rich gravy but it’s tasty and  full of flavor. Super easy!

Tonight’s dinner was the product of a fridge full of mustgo. A pound of ground beef, some multicolored cauliflower from the farmer’s market and some leftover curry paste. I’d never thought about making curried ground beef, so I was shocked when I found that ground meat actually had a name.

I kind of wished I could have cooked the cauliflower in a dish that showed off it’s awesome coloring, but I let it go too long and it needed to be cooked now. That said, it was delicious!

As usual with my Indian/Pakistani dishes, I served it up with Trader Joe’s Garlic Naan.

I’m not afraid to mix my Asian cuisines. Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai—if it comes from Mitsuwa it all overlaps in my kitchen. Trader Joes also has pre-marinated Korean Boolgogi (or Bulgogi), but I prefer the stuff from our favorite Asian grocer.

Again using the peppers and onions from the taco party, I stir fried the marinated beef. I also added broccoli and half a jar of JES Korean BBQ Sauce, because I like my stir fries saucy.

As a munchie to go with it I steamed some frozen edamame shumai.

We served this over brown rice and I ate it with my new favorite chopsticks. They’re lime green and sparkly and make me unreasonably happy.

CONFESSION: Campbell’s taught me how to cook. The first cookbook I ever used regularly was Campbell’s Quick and Easy Cookbook. While my dad has a lot to do with my love of cooking, this was the first cookbook that taught me how to shortcut through recipes and how to begin experimenting with the possibilities of everyday foods.

The Beef & Broccoli recipe was one that I absolutely lived on when I was first living on my own. I make a few changes when I make this, adding some Chinese Five-Spice to punch up the flavor, and I marinate the beef in teriyaki or soy sauce.

When I told my husband that the sauce was made with Campbell’s Tomato Soup he looked at me like I was crazy. Two servings later, he was a believer.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Corned Beef & Cabbage. For one, there’s just no good shortcuts for it. Sure, you can make it all in the crock pot, but then you get mushy, fatty vegetables, which is just no fun. So this time my shortcut was simple: I made my husband start it for me, on his day off. This was my first attempt at a stovetop Corned Beef and Cabbage and it was phenomenal. What were my secrets?

1. Place a corned beef round roast (I prefer this to the flat) in a stock pot. I added the remains of one large carton of Kitchen Basics Beef Stock (my favorite—had some leftover from another meal) and enough water to cover the roast +2 inches, and two small peeled onions. I let this go about 3 hours, turning the roast every half hour or so.

2. About half an hour before the beef was done, I added the carrots to the stock.

3. And this is key: In a SEPARATE pan, I added 1 large sliced white onion, and 1/4 stick of butter. First I caramelized the onion a bit then added the cabbage. To steam the cabbage, I ladled in two large scoops of the beef broth and covered it all. The stock reduced to a lovely glaze, combining with the caramelized onions to make for a very sweet cabbage.

Everything was great, and I can’t wait to make this one again!

CONFESSION: I just can’t keep anything simple. Even something as basic as sloppy joes I have to play around with, find a way to make it more interesting, usually by adding more vegetables and some herbs to a prepared sauce.

That said, I also make the best sloppy joes on the planet. My secrets?

• Sauté an onion, a red pepper and a green pepper in some olive oil and set aside. Add it in when everything else is done cooking for the strongest vegetable flavor
• Penzey’s Northwoods Fire seasoning blend adds a great smokiness
• Gouda cheese. I buy mine at Aldi and keep it handy for shredding on random things, but for some reason Gouda+Sloppy Joe is like magic!
• I always serve it up with Milwaukee Midget Dill Pickles, hands down the best pickles in the galaxy. Seriously, there’s nothing better, and I’ve tried many to compare. Buy them online from the Willy Street Co-Op in Madison. and try them yourself!