Call me old fashioned, call me boring, but I love Salisbury steak!
Give me a plate of Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans and call
it a meal! Growing up it was one of my favorite meals and not much has
changed. My family eats it at least once
a week, it’s cheap, it’s easy, but unfortunately it’s usually in the form of a
frozen, processed, brick. I’ve been
buying it this way for years; I know how to make it from scratch (it’s usually
the way my mom made it), but the frozen dinners are so much faster and
easier. Lately though I’ve noticed that
the On-Cor and Banquet Salisbury steak has gotten less and less flavorful.
Maybe it has always been that way but I’ve just started
noticing it more and I’m not digging it.
In an effort to eat food that’s less processed and cheaper I decided
that for our weekly Salisbury steak dinner I would make it from scratch.
Remember all of that ground beef I scored last week?
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| A picture just in case you forgot! |
Well, I set aside a pound specifically to make this very
meal. After I finished I realized I
probably should’ve set back more, maybe 1.5 lbs or 1.75 lbs. One pound was just barely enough for me, my
husband, and my stepdaughter. I bought
some Kroger Brown Gravy mixes to top these with, I prefer Heinz Beef gravy but
it was out of my budget this week.
We
will get to the gravy in a minute, first I want to start with the beef.
First, I put the thawed hamburger in a bowl and added finely
shredded carrot, my grated onion (ya know the one from the freezer!), pepper,
seasoned salt, and garlic powder. I don’t
have exact measurements and I apologize for that, I will get better at
measuring things for y’all. I just
eyeball things and do what looks right.
I mix all of this by hand in the bowl and then I divide it into balls
that I then form into patties. Before I
placed these in the frying pan I wanted to get my gravy and my green beans going. I put my canned green beans in the pot with a little salt, pepper, some of my grated onion, and bacon, heat over low heat and let them go.
For the gravy, since I was using a mix, I wanted to get it
up to temp so it could thicken and marry with the seasonings I added while the Salisbury
steaks were cooking. You could
absolutely make your own gravy from the grease from the cooked hamburger if you
so choose, I was just feeling particularly lazy this evening and decided to
take the easy route. Shh, you can do the same, I won’t tell! With the gravy I
followed the package directions and added a few seasonings of my own because
packaged gravy is about the most boring, bland thing you can buy. I added just a little salt, pepper, and some onion powder till it tasted how I wanted it to.
Follow the directions and most of all pay attention, go low and slow! Gravy can get away from you very quickly and turn lumpy, no one likes lumpy gravy.
In between stirring my gravy I put my patties in the frying pan and get them started. I cooked them until the juices ran clear. When the patties were done I removed them from the pan and placed them on a paper towel to soak up any extra grease and then I drained the pan.
Now, as I mentioned before you can make your own gravy from the grease and hamburger bits left in the pan, if you choose to do this don't drain the grease! But I'm lazy remember!
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| Don't drain this off if you are making your own gravy!!! |
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I drained the grease but I didn't wipe it out, I wanted to save the little bits to add more flavor to the gravy. If you're feeling health conscious, wipe the rest of the grease and the bits out of the pan. It looked like this.
I added a few spoonfuls of the gravy to the pan over low heat and gently scraped the bottom of the pan until the gravy came to a low simmer.
After it reached a simmer I returned the patties to the pan and then poured the rest of the gravy over the patties and heated over low to medium heat until it came to a simmer.
After it reached a simmer I shut if off and dinner was ready!
Looks pretty yummy, ehh? Enjoy!!!
