Hawaiian Loco Moco

 I hadn't heard of Hawaiian Loco Moco until recently. I'm not sure why that is and I'm not sure why I waited over 50 years to taste it, but this recipe will be going into our regular rotation. There are 4 components: the base of steamed rice, the burger patty, the gravy and the sunny side egg that goes on the top. It's delicious! It's economical. It's very filling and, the best part is that you only need 1/2 pound of ground beef for 2 servings.

I did serve this with Hawaiian Mac Salad.

 Very quickly, the the ingredients for this salad are:
Salad macaroni
Grated carrot
Minced onion
Finely diced red bell pepper
Cubed cheddar cheese

The dressing is:
Mayonnaise
Milk
Apple Cider Vinegar
Sugar
Salt & pepper, to taste

It's very simple. I can't give you measurements because I don't measure.

Now, back to the scheduled program of Loco Moco.

This is absolutely delicious! You have to put a crispy edged sunny side up egg on the top. The yolk mixes with the gravy on the ground beef patty and makes this delectable, silky sauce.

Hawaiian Loco Moco
2 servings

Prepare 1 cup of rice. You can use jasmine, basmati or just regular white rice. It's up to you. Rice is cooked using a 2:1 ratio. That means for every 1 cup of rice, use 2 cups of water. You don't even need a measuring cup. You can use whatever vessel you have on hand. Just use 2 water to every 1 rice. Rice cooks, covered for 20 minutes.

1/2 pound 93% lean ground beef
2 or 3 dashes of Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder


Mix together in a bowl and form into 2 patties. Cook in a heavy bottomed skillet (we used cast iron) until desired internal temperature is reached. I prefer my burgers to have no pink. Remove from the skillet, tent with foil to keep warm, and set aside.
In the meantime, make the gravy.

For the gravy:

1 tablespoon butter
1/2 medium onion, diced
1-2 mushrooms, sliced (I diced mine as my husband has difficulties eating some food unless it's finely diced)
3/4 cup beef broth
2 teaspoons shoyu soy sauce (use regular if you don't have shoyu, it's perfectly fine)
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon ketchup
2-1/2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with a bit of water to make a slurry

Cook the onions and mushrooms, in the butter,  in the same skillet that you cooked the burgers in, making sure to scrape up the browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Once everything is cooked down, about 5 minutes or so over medium heat, add the rest of the ingredients except the cornstarch. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer 3-5 minutes. Add the cornstarch slurry, bring back to a boil, whisking continually, until thickened. Remove from heat, cover and let set for a few minutes while you make 2 sunny side up eggs.

You will also want to slice up a green onion to use as garnish.

On a plate, add a mound of steamed rice, top with a burger patty, top that with gravy, top all with a sunny side up egg and garnish with green onions.

Enjoy!

Stocking Up & A Week's Worth Of Groceries

 We're getting ready to do a no spend challenge coming up starting in March. When I say no spend, I mean that we will eat what we have stocked up in our freezers, in our refrigerators and what we have stored up as far as canned and dry goods. The only things we will buy will be milk products, and those will be limited to milk, half & half and heavy cream. I will not be buying yogurt because I'll simply make my own. We won't be buying cheese because I can make yogurt cheese and farmers cheese from milk. We will be able to buy produce, as well. Some produce I can grow in my Aerogarden or I can start it out in one of my raised beds, like lettuce, chard, peas and spinach.

Anyhow, I've allotted us a $400 grocery budget to get by for February and I'll also use that to stock up stuff that we use regularly, like coffee, flour, etc.
I'm challenging myself to see exactly how far we can go, spending as little as possible. I know we can do this.

Now, onto my grocery haul this morning. I shopped at our local Safeway. I saved 64% off of my total. By carefully planning my trip and allowing for a few impulse purchases, I was able to save $20 off of my total. I will use that $20 at another store to stock up on some other items that are way cheaper there than at Safeway. Whenever I shop, I have 4 tabs open on my laptop. I have Amazon, Safeway, Fred Meyer and Walmart pulled up. I go between those 4 stores. I find that Walmart and Amazon usually have about the prices on many things. Fred Meyer is a bit more than Walmart and Safeway usually has the highest prices of all unless you shop the sales, like I do.

My total, before discounts and coupons, was around $140. Safeway has a deal this week, if you buy 3 or more pounds of 93% lean ground beef, it costs $2.97 per pound. I decided to completely top off our chest freezer with ground beef and I bought 12 pounds. If it wasn't on sale and, if I didn't have a Safeway Just For U account, it would have cost me $101.88. I paid $36.64 for 12 pounds.
In the produce depart, they had fresh sage, in a clamshell, for $1. We decided to roast a chicken this coming week. The juicing carrots are Bob's big expense that he feeds to our wild rabbit population. The deer eat them, too. By feeding them in areas away from the garden, they stay out of it because they know they will get a carrot if they do.

I added coupons on Just For U for $10 off $50, $20 off $100, $5 off $5 or more produce and 10% off the entire purchase if it was over $50. Just with those 4 coupons, I saved over $40. I also got a free yogurt, 50-cents off of Yoplait yogurts, which were on sale for 24-cents each, limit of 12. The Noosa yogurts were $1.49 each, which is a fantastic price. These are delicious and they are usually quite expensive. I bought 8 of those at that price.

Here are my total savings. Saving 64% is nothing to sneeze about. 24 meals of ground beef for just over $36 is a phenomenal price. I also got quadruple the reward points (for gas discounts) for buying over $20 worth of produce.

Cowboy Calico Beans

 Bob and I are trying something a bit different this month. I found a menu template and I sat down and figured out 31 main dishes for dinner. I filled it in with all sorts of different ideas. I put in everything from Cod Mappas to breakfast for dinner. I let Bob choose what he wants for dinner the following day.

He chose Cowboy Calico Beans.

I've made this recipe multiple times since we moved out here into the country. It's become a favorite.

All good recipes, in my opinion, start out with a chopped onion. This was no exception.

I used 1/2 of a green bell and 1/2 of a red bell. Color is a great thing in recipes as you eat with your eyes first.

This recipe contains four different types of beans. I ordered a case of butter beans from Amazon so that I could have them on hand. That's how much we like this recipe. Butter beans are hard to find here locally.

Everything cooks together, slowly, for 45 minutes to an hour.

This is a perfect ending to a cool and blustery day.


Cowboy Calico Beans

1 pound lean ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1/4 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons yellow prepared mustard
1 15-oz. can butter beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz. can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz. can lima beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz. can pork and beans

Cook beef with onion and bell peppers until cooked through and no pink remains. Drain. Add to a large pot with all the other ingredients. Cook, covered, over low heat for 45-60 minutes until everything has melded together. Make sure to stir every now and then to stop from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

**You can also add all the ingredients to a slow cooker and cook on low temperature 8 or so hours.