I’ve been promoting this round-up as a chance to share your one-dish, one-pot or skillet meals that are pseudo-hamburger-helper-esque, but I realized tonight when I was trying to think of a real title for the carnival that it’s the box that is trying to be like our kitchens, not the other way around. So there, General Mills!
Got a great meal, preferably husband-and-kid-approved, that the food processing companies would love to be able to copy and package? If you use all real ingredients, link up here! (Old posts welcome.)I’m not seeking perfection here – we use white pasta and potatoes sometimes too. But no trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, or MSGs, all right? 
My Recipes
I discovered my husband and son’s new favorite meal, Dad’s Homemade Cheeseburger Helper last fall after people gave great ideas in this Sneaky Trans Fat post (the comments are worth perusing). This week I’m sharing a new one that isn’t exactly one pot (but probably could be): Wanna-Be Lasagna Skillet Pasta. Check it out, then enjoy gems from other bloggers below!
Tomorrow I’ll share my thoughts on Helping Husbands Appreciate Real Food (and eat it too) along with my reverse engineering job of my hub’s favorite meal (pepper steak), and you may also be interested in the Real Food Face-Off currently running here at KS.
If you’ve never figured out how to make your favorite boxed meal from scratch, check out my Guide to Reverse Engineering Packaged Food for Real Food Quality.
Your Recipes: How to Participate
Enter your recipe and link(s) in the form below (see example). My husband created this very cool plug-in so you can leave an anecdotal description of your recipe to tempt folks to click over to you. *Thanks, honey!* Your name @ website will link to your mainpage, and the title of your recipe links to the permalink for that recipe.
Please include a link to this carnival on your recipe post so your readers can find even more ideas. If it’s an old post, you can still include the link. A possibility to copy:
Check out Kitchen Stewardship for more One Skillet Recipes that are husband-approved.
If you make a mistake, just do it again correctly and I can delete the incorrect version. When you refresh the page to check for new additions, click” “cancel” on the resend question that will pop up, or else your link will be entered twice. By the way, I can also blow away any links to recipes that don’t fit the theme or don’t fit the mission of Kitchen Stewardship (i.e., nutritious).
To link up more than two recipes, it would be great if you make a new post at your site, then link once to that post here. Because you can write a description of your recipes, you can list all the titles and tempt folks to come over to your site and then stay awhile clicking around.
Thanks so much for participating!
Be sure to catch the next round-up of homemade salad dressings, next Tuesday, February 2nd! You won’t miss out if you sign up for an email subscription or grab my reader feed.
If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.
Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money. If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.
Example
Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship My carnival post You can write a brief (250 chars) synopsis here to tempt readers to visit your post!| Kelly the Kitchen Kop HAMBURGER HELPER ALTERNATIVES This post is an oldie but still a goodie with a couple good options for recipes everyone actually LOVES! raine@agriculturesociety.com Savory Beef, Potatoes, and Bacon Skillet Grass-fed ground beef, bacon, diced potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, and onions Alexis@Happy 2 B A Homekeeper Beefy-Mushroom Skillet Delicious one-pan meal using only real-food ingredients Hallee the Homemaker Family Favorite Steak and Gravy I even got a picture of my son licking his plate to get the last bite! emily sweet potato cottage pie Vanessa @ Simple Bliss Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese So much better than the box! And it doesn't make me sick! Songberries Un-Stuffed Cabbage Rolls This is an inexpensive pretty quick meal. I've had men ask me for the recipe when I've brought it to pot lucks! Trina@AllThatsGood Sweet Potato Shepard\'s Pie My favorite thing about this recipe is that my kids devour it, and it always gets gobbled up at potlucks! Stacy @ Recipes for Moms Chili Mac Skillet Beef & macaroni mixed in with beans, veggies & spices - My whole family loved it! chanelle@simply real Spanish Rice and Mexican Potato Frittata One pan Spanish rice, and an easy frittata. These are great meals for a busy weeknight. Enjoy! Alison @ Hospitality Haven Almond Chicken This has an asian influence, and includes stir-fry veggies, rice and yummy chicken! Lisa@BlessedwithGrace Hamburger Goulash or Chili Mac Some call it goulash, others call it Chili Mac. We love it. Jodie@Trying New Things Hungry Man\'s Macaroni I made this awhile back, I thought it tasted like a hamburger helper meal at the time. Easy and good :) Emily @ Live Renewed Mexican Chicken Pasta Skillet A yummy mexican twist on a traditional pasta skillet meal. |
Simple Bliss… » Blog Archive » Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese // Jan 28, 2010 at 9:46 am
[...] that boxed mixes have tried to imitate (ex. Hamburger Helper, and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese) visit Kitchen Stewardship. While you’re there, check out all of the awesome information that Katie has to [...]
Everyone’s dishes look yummy! It’s going to take me awhile to go through them all. Great idea!
.-= Jen´s last blog ..Sunshine Break =-.
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What a fun post and carnival! I need to see if I have a recipe from my archives that will work.
.-= Lisa@blessedwithgrace´s last blog ..Apple I-Pad =-.
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I found my fats book! Now I can give you an actual citation about baked goods with flax.
The following is quoted from Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill, by Udo Erasmus:
“Boiling is less destructive of oils than frying because the temperature goes only to 100*C (212*F). Even the most sensitive, EFA-rich oils can be used in cooked grains and on steamed vegetables without deterioration.
Baking fits between safe boiling with water and unsafe frying. The temperature of baking pan and crust gets very high, damaging (browning) molecules of oils, starches, and proteins. Butter or tropical fat should be used to line baking pans and to brush the top of what you are baking. The temperature inside the bread being baked goes up to only just above boiling – perhaps 116*C (240*F) – and the inside of bread is also protected from air and from light.
The inside of ‘baked’ bread is actually steamed at an acceptable temperature for even the more sensitive oils.”
.-= Rachel R.´s last blog ..Getting to Know the Neighbors? =-.
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Katie Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Rachel,
Katie
You rock! Thank you so much for coming back to share this; it totally makes sense and validates the fact that I thought you could bake with about anything. I’ll add it to the flax post for others’ reference!
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Tweets that mention The “Meals that Hamburger Helper was TRYING to Imitate” Carnival! | Kitchen Stewardship -- Topsy.com // Jan 29, 2010 at 1:13 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jessie Weaver, Raine Saunders, NaturallyKnockedUp, Katie Kimball, Katie Kimball and others. Katie Kimball said: Looking for #realfood recipes that are easy and husband-approved – link them up now! http://ow.ly/11eIh [...]
Great idea! I’ll be checking out the links and will take a look to see if I have anything in the archives to add
.-= Martha´s last blog ..Martha@Menagerie Menu Plans =-.
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ScratchBaked Cake Mix
I fail to understand why it is easier to shop for and store box cake mix when you still have to round up and add in a variety of wet ingredients. What is so hard about dumping a few dry ingredients into one bowl and some wet ones in another and stirring together? And your friend FLIP OUT when you make them any kind of scratch cake! Make people love you with a “homemade” birthday cake in just about 7 minutes of time!
This made the rounds from back door to back door back in the 50′s and then a friend of mine reinvented it when her brother brought her some terrific cocoa from Holland. It is totally forgiving and you can mess around with it endlessly. Reduce the water and add some jam. Substitute some of that going off sweet fruit wine languishing in the frig for some or all of the water. Try using walnut oil instead of olive oil. Leave out the cocoa for a plain cake to serve with berries.
I make this so often that I have quantities for both a 10″ round and and 8″ round cake pans in columns-the formatting is a little messed up so read and copy with care!
Chocolate Vinegar Cake for the New Millennium
10″ 8″ inch cake pan
2¼ 1½ cups flour
1-1¼ ¾ cup sugar
1/3 ¼ cup cocoa
1½ 1 tsp baking soda
½ ½ tsp salt
1½ 1 Tbl balsamic vinegar
1½ 1 tsp vanilla
1/3 ¼ cup olive oil
1½ 1 lukewarm water (or sweet wine)
Prep pan by spraying with spray oil and then sprinkle with sugar and cocoa to keep cake from sticking and give the cake a sweet crust. (traditional flour works too and usually just the spray oil is enough)
Stir dry ingredients together
Stir liquid ingredients together
Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients
Stir briefly together until just mixed (muffin method)
Bake 350 for 25-30 minutes
For crustier top
Bake at 350 for 5 minutes and then increase oven heat to 375 for 20 minutes.
Serve warm with ice cream
Prep all the ingredients in two bowls ahead of time and stir together quickly and pop into oven as you serve dinner to have warm, freshly baked cake for dessert.
[Reply to this comment]
Katie Reply:
May 6th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Anita,
Katie
Amazing! Thank you so much for sharing! I have a birthday party this weekend and am tempted to try it right away. Ever used any whole wheat flour? I bet that balsamic vin. makes it absolutely incredible.
[Reply to this comment]
Anita Reply:
May 7th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
I totally mess around with what I do in most baking. And use half whole wheat and half white a lot. Often chuck in a half cup or so (per 2 cup flour) of ground flax. Right now I have a bag of almond meal I bought on impulse that I am chucking into baked goods. The only time I am careful re directions in baking is with real gateau. And if I am springing for real butter cookies I like to make sure they are deliciously and totally worth the fat grams and calories kind of bad! Even there tho I find that using maybe 1/4 whole wheat to white makes for a tastier cookie. I do have to accept some margin for failure tho when I muck about. I had a lot of expired/expiring mayo in the frig that a housesitter had left so I made a chocolate mayonnaise cake and went overboard using wine for the liquid and tossing in some of that almond meal and it fell in the center-got to think of it as brownie like, not a failure!
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Lisa S. Reply:
January 14th, 2012 at 7:54 pm
What is the measurement for the lukewarm water? I’m assuming a Tablespoon, but who knows, maybe it’s a cup.
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Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese | Simple Bliss… // Dec 19, 2010 at 10:35 am
[...] that boxed mixes have tried to imitate (ex. Hamburger Helper, and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese) visit Kitchen Stewardship. While you’re there, check out all of the awesome information that Katie has to share! This [...]
Family Favorite Steak and Gravy | Hallee The Homemaker // Jan 26, 2012 at 9:49 pm
[...] KitchenStewardship [...]