Mme Pépin: Texas Beef Bake

While sifting through the 'Beef' section of my Healthy Cooking for under $7 cookbook I came across a 'Texas Beef Bake'. It sounded interesting and filling, perfect for a meal in with Mike since he eats like a horse.

The ingredients were simple enough: ground beef, mashed potatoes (from baking potatoes), frozen broccoli, parm cheese, an onion, beef broth, and some seasonings.

For meals involving more than just throwing pasta into boiling water while heating up some sauce, Mike and I like to work together. While he got to work chopping the onion, I skinned the potatoes and waited for the water to boil so I could get them ready for mashing. While we continued to wait for that water to boil, Mike sauteed the onions and I got the rest of the ingredients ready to be added to his pan as needed. Note on the water: just now boiling, potatoes added. Whole. The recommended 15 minutes had passed and the potatoes were in theory supposed to be ready to mash. Mike was running out of things to add to the pan.

The mashing was not a success, the potatoes were still too hard (note that I'd already drained the water). So, Mike lowered the heat on the contents in the pan, as I got the water boiling. Again. The potatoes sat in the boiling water for another 15 minutes. Still too hard to mash as Mike tested their firmness every few minutes with a mashing utensil. We even debated if the utensil I gave him was appropriate for mashing. Finally Mike said, perhaps we should have cut them up before boiling them. Lightbulb. I looked in the cookbook, and noted that the ingredients called for the potatoes to be cut, not the directions (where I'd been looking this whole time). Oops. Needless to say that made a world of difference and we were back in action.

After everything had been sauteed (the pan turned into a large metal bowl as we ran out of space), we transfered the contents to a pyrex baking pan, sprinkled on the cheese (note next time I will not get grated parm, I'll get shredded), and popped it into the oven. The bake time took longer than expected, Mike attributed that to the cheese being grated.

When all was said and done, Mike did most of this meal, as I threw complications his way left and right (unintentional of course). Despite some of the set backs, the meal tasted excellent. It was incredibly filling, leaving plenty of leftovers (score for me, I got to bring it to work for lunch!).

I will say, don't make this as a company dish since it's quite the opposite of appetizing looking. But it does taste great, is under 400 calories, and is simple to make: if your baking partner isn't me.