Thursday, December 10, 2009

Budget "Beef-aroni" - old fashioned comfort food...

Anyone out there remember “Beefaroni”? Maybe I’m the only one that old now - but seriously it was my favorite pasta-in-a-can. I’ve tried lots of recipes that try to duplicate it - but I think mine (of course!) is the real deal... And guess what? It’s still out there! Maybe you even remember the advertising jingle:

We’re having Beefaroni! It’s beef and macaroni! Beefaroni’s full of meat. Beefaroni’s fun to eat. Beefaroni’s really neat. Hooray! Whee! For Chef Boy-ar-dee!



This week I had a good amount of ground beef I needed to use, and meatloaf just didn’t sound good. It made me think of our favorite comfort soup. I usually make this family stand-by with crumbled ground beef and it’s wonderful - but this time I made it into meatballs.



I formed tiny meatballs (smaller than normal) and placed them in a heavy pan in a 350 degree oven. After watching them, and testing a few - I determined they were finished about an hour later. After taking most of the meatballs and packaging them to freeze, I had about 2 cups left.



Over the years, I’ve seen similar recipes, but they turn out too watery to resemble my favorite canned Beefaroni. The thing I liked about Chef Boy-ar-dee’s was the creamy, but not too thick sauce. Once I added a can of condensed tomato soup to the mix - it was perfect. I still like it to be a bit soupy, but not watery - so my recipe has evolved over years of making it.



And yes, kids love it - it DOES have macaroni you know... If you want it more “classy” - change the pasta to something fancy.

For the recipe - tweaks included - go to:
www.changeabletable.com

No comments:

Post a Comment