One pot, if you can manage to cook rice in a frying pan. Personally, I wouldn’t go there. You’d have to take the rice out to cook the beef anyway, so that would be one pot and a bowl. Forget it, two pots.
We called this Hamburger and Rice when I was growing up. No cutsey euphemisms and actually none needed. It’s straight on comfort food. It’s simple, nutritious, and any kid will eat this – promise.
It's ground beef [mince], tomato sauce, and rice, that's it. Put the rice on, and while it’s cooking, brown the beef. Add Italian seasoning and the tomato sauce to the beef and simmer a bit, and then add the cooked rice when it’s ready. Proportions are to your own taste, I like it a bit on the runny side. No ‘eeeuuuw’; wait till you taste it.
These days I use extra lean ground beef and yesterday, fearing that I had found a way to screw up the simplest recipe on earth, I used brown rice. Sigh. H& R for dinner and the world tilted back into place- I’ll bet you were wondering why that had happened.
When I was growing up it was one of the few things we would eat on Hallowe’en night. And you had to eat before you could put your costume on and go begging for candy from the neighbours. It was a Mom Rule. No running up and down people’s walks dressed like a pumpkin until you’d had your dinner.
The other good thing about H&R is that I got to pass on “ the method” to Erin.
The right way to eat it. When you’re little it always seems to arrive on your plate way too hot to eat. And because you’re little, you are really, really hungry. Dilemma.
The trick is to flatten it out on your plate till it’s almost level and then make “roads” in it with your carrot sticks. Straight across one way and then back across at an angle, and then you can make a bunch of shorter ones if you’re really getting into municipal planning.
By the time you’ve done this with enough care to keep the rice bits from falling off the plate, it’s cool enough to start eating around the edges of your roads. Erin watched in complete fascination the first time I showed her this. Big brown eyes looking at me in amazement; license to play with food.
When I’ve eaten too much rich food or just eaten out too often and crave something simple, this is at the top of my list. Well right under sushi. And steak.
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