Comfort Food
Self-prompted memory on account of Sunday dinner.
When I was a kid - oldest of 6 - we were assigned to prepare a dinner and a breakfast (at least inasmuch as I recall) once a week. Regardless of homework, sports team practice and games, and anything else going on. I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, but it was good practice. (We were also on rotation for setting the table and doing the dishes, which I appreciated even less.)
To this day I'm amazed that my mom somehow knew how to stretch one box of hamburger helper to feed a family of eight. And just like we often inexplicably supplemented the fresh whole milk from our dairy cows with powdered milk, though we also raised Angus beef on our farm our hamburger was sometimes not hamburger at all, but rather TVP (textured vegetable protein).
My favorite flavor of hamburger helper was cheeseburger macaroni.
To no one's chagrin, my days of hamburger helper are long past. However a year or two ago I was reminiscing on that salty cheddary flavor and I wondered if the Internets had blessed us with a recipe from scratch. Low and behold they had. I found a recipe that was a decent knock-off and made it a few times before I stumbled upon yet another and I love that it's become a regular on my youngest's request line.
Now I make it with Angus from my brother Jon's ranch Serenity, of which I have a freezer full. And while in my youth the importance of comfort food was lost on me, I have to say this serving of carbs, cheese, and a good home-grown protein sure does the trick.
Note: Having completely lost years of memories and images from three different blogs and three different hard drives, I'm back to scraping snapshots of old posts via the web archive and will, when so moved, record them here again, along with new content when it comes to mind. Google don't fail me now.
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