The Home Stretch: Part II Making Beef Stretch

Having learned the value of a pantry long ago, I confess I've never understood why others would forgo having one.  By the same token, I grew up with a family garden...My husband, who was raised in West Palm Beach has never been on board with gardening.   Obviously minds can be changed   I'll expect that those who've never kept a pantry will plan to create one.  In the meantime, we still must eat, whether we have no pantry or no garden.

Meat is generally the most high cost item on our menu.   When there's only a very limited amount on the grocery shelves we must learn to stretch what we're able to buy.  This is where a casserole becomes your best friend.   If your family is just not a casserole eating family then I suggest you think of all the dishes you make that are not casserole like chili, spaghetti, etc.  Both can become a casserole type dish and most families do not object to such meals.  However, in the current economy it's best to figure out now how to cut back on the meat content in those dishes and how to stretch the few meals where you typically would serve a portion of meat.



Here's what I learned to do:  Spaghetti and chili may both be made with as little as 1/4 pound meat.  Increase the onions and beans, tomatoes.  Use a variety of beans such as kidney/black/pinto and give it a fancy name when it comes to table: Southwestern style Chili, Three bean chili, etc.  For spaghetti sauce I add grated carrot, finely chopped bell pepper, onion, zucchini, mushrooms, egg plant if I happened to have one given to me...I mean spaghetti sauce can take it all on as can meatloaf!  I'll get back to meatloaf in a moment...I still make my spaghetti sauce in this manner and my family is always asking why theirs doesn't taste like mine.

An alternative option is to buy an inexpensive canned spaghetti sauce with meat such as Hunt's or DelMonte and add in a few of the vegetables mentioned above finely minced.  I did this a LOT when my family table was seating 7-12.  I'd serve extra spaghetti, homemade garlic toast, a big salad and if more than anticipated number of folks chose to stay to dinner that night I'd serve green beans on the side.   The point is that you don't fill folks up on meat.  You feel them up on all the rest of the things.  The meat becomes a basic seasoning ingredient.

Inevitably we'd have leftover spaghetti sauce.  So I'd hold on to that sauce, make more spaghetti and then make a spaghetti casserole.   Mix the pasta with a couple of beaten eggs and Parmesan cheese.  Put into a casserole, pie plate or 9 x 13 pan (depending on family size naturally) and then top that pasta with the leftover sauce.  Sprinkle Mozzarella and Parmesan cheese over the top and bake it.  If you have cottage cheese on hand then spread cottage cheese over the pasta and then add your spaghetti sauce.  It's a sort of knock off  of lasagna.  The cottage cheese adds additional protein to the dish.

When I made chili, I always made a huge pot.  And when we'd had chili for supper (over rice very often, with cornbread and a salad and canned pineapple for dessert) I'd have about half a pot of chili left.  There were two ways to deal with these leftovers.  And this is a great extra added meat stretcher, to make meals do double or triple duty.  Remember I was cooking for seven to twelve back then.  I learned the art of the Leftover Makeover.   My family thought we never ate leftovers!  It was always a brand new meal to them.  So I would take any leftover rice since I usually made extra and added it to chili then filled tortillas, topped with a little bit of cheese, rolled it up and put in a  9 x 13 pan, saved back a little chili liquid and topped the burritos with that and more cheese, then bake in an oven until hot.

A second leftover makeover meal with chili is to add a can or two of drained whole kernel corn (or 2 cups frozen) to the chili, pout into a 9X13 pan and then mix up cornbread batter, pour over the top and bake.  This is called Tamale Pie.   A big green salad, sliced oranges and instant chocolate pudding (make it with dried milk that you've made and chilled well).   These are filling meals, and tasty ones.  It's the balance of hot/spicy with cold (as in the crisp green salad and pudding), the sweet and the savory.

Meatloaf is a great meat stretcher.  A single pound of ground beef, bread crumbs, egg, tomato sauce, onion, grated carrots and zucchini, bell peppers if your family likes them,  even a handful of oatmeal if all seems you need a bit more bulk (or cooked lentils would work as well...but more about those in a bit!), whatever seasonings your family enjoys best in meatloaf and pat the whole into a loaf pan and bake.

Now here's the deal.  Perhaps your family would like hamburgers.  Then you can stretch the pound of ground beef with leftover mashed potatoes (my grandmother always did this when making meatballs or burgers), bread crumbs a bit of milk, an egg, finely minced onions and mushrooms, and even a cup of drained black or kidney or red beans and  voila you'll likely find you can make 8 burgers from that pound of meat.

My daughter tells me that people tend to bypass the roasts in the meat case these days.  I expect it's the cost overall that puts them off but a roast is a great meat to buy to stretch out.  I cooked a half chuck roast (about 2 pounds of meat) the other night.  I made a dish that my daughter in law showed me how to make, Mongolian Pot Roast.  John and I ate some of the meat over rice, topped it with green onions.   I had probably about 1/2 of the meat left over.  Yesterday, my daughter and daughter in law both stopped in at lunch time.  I reheated the leftover roast, we made a quick salad of pickled carrots, sliced up some cucumbers, chopped more green onions.  I pulled out a package of flour tortillas.   We took that meat, and the vegetables and pickled carrot and rolled it in a tortilla.  Honestly if I'd had rice I'd have added that, too!  That portion of roast served each of us two generously filled tortillas, a sort of take off of an Asian dish.  It was delicious and the table fairly hummed with "Mmmms".  It was a good stretch meal.

When my kids were all at home, we usually had a big pot roast the first night.  I bought bone in cuts of beef back then because they were generally cheaper.  Finding anything with the bone in anymore besides ham or whole chicken is next to impossible, now, and you'd likely pay extra for the privilege of having that bone!   Anyway, we'd have a pot roast with onions, potatoes, carrots, a bit pan of rolls or cornbread, a big salad,  a green vegetable on the side.  I'd serve just a couple of thin slices of roast with the meal.  The leftovers became a makeover meal of Roast Beef Hash.   I'd pour the roast, mashed carrots and potatoes and juice into a pan.  I'd add more chopped onion, more diced potatoes and let it all simmer on the stove top until the liquid was mostly absorbed and the potatoes and onions were tender.  My kids LOVED this so much that one night when I was cooking the roast my youngest son begged me to "Just skip the roast, Mama and let's go straight to the hash!"

Shepherd's pie is another good meat extender.  I'd make a pastry shell for the bottom of the dish, then fill with mixed vegetables, onion,  make a gravy with the meat broth that was left and chop up roast bits.   I'd pour that mix into the dish atop the pastry, then  I'd make mashed potatoes (often instant ones) and spread over the top of the meat and vegetable mixture.    I like to top this with grated cheddar but just as often I sprinkled the potatoes with paprika and let the whole thing bake until bubbly and hot.

Now Chuck roast makes an excellent substitute for stew meat.  Just cut into chunks and make your stew.  You can decrease meat and increase the vegetables as with any other dish.  The key is to get the most flavor in that stew by using wine, onions, garlic, tomato  paste, beef broth,  herbs, etc.    A crusty piece of bread, a pretty green salad finish off the meal nicely.

Yes, I've concentrated heavily here upon the ground beef and chuck roast, but honestly look that meat case over hard.  I used to find absolutely great buys on things like beef shank and oxtail.  I'd rather eat those two cuts than a much more expensive short rib any day!  These meats do especially well as stewed meat or soups.  Because the shanks and oxtails often do have bone in them they make for an especially flavorful  soup or stew meat.

I like steaks...but they are a bit pricey for my budget, especially my preferred cuts.  I usually purchase a sirloin and find the ones at Aldi, once released from the packaging are often quite large.  Half a steak would net three generous slices if you wanted a steak meal.  Since there are just the two of us, I usually let a fourth of a steak  suffice for us.  I always serve steak with a big baking potato (filling and cheap and classic for good reason), a salad, rolls.  The steak may be a star but the supporting cast are pretty darned good, too. 

I'll use the remaining portions of sirloin as a Stroganoff and a stir fry dish and fajitas.  With each of those dishes, I just use extra mushrooms or peppers and onions and stretch the small portion of meat a little further.   

For stir fry we like an oriental green bean and beef mixture.  I also do an Italian Pepper steak which was a take on a dish my mom was always trying to recreate for my dad.    It's a sort of Philly cheese steak that she served on onion rolls. I added more peppers and onions and served over rice.  My family loves it.

This past year, I'd been polishing up my skills at stretching meat a little further once more after a few years of eating differently.  I knew we'd need to adjust for our first year of retirement income but I didn't know that the empty grocery shelves would make it even more necessary. 

I hope you all will find these suggestions helpful. Next, I'll do a post on stretching a chicken into more than one meal for a family.

When my youngest son and his family lived with us for six months, I did a great many of these meal stretchers and he never complained that there wasn't enough meat, though he proclaimed himself a 'big meat eater'.