Cheeseburger Pie

Cheeseburger Pie

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Today would've been my mom's 83rd birthday so I wanted to make one of her recipes.  Once again - i don't remember this one.  I DO remember her making hamburger pie and I make it often.  But it is a layer of ground beef (cooked) mixed with a can of tomato soup as a bottom layer.  A layer of green beans.  And topped with a layer of mashed potatoes.  I think it had cheese on top but I've lost that through the years with a non-cheese eater at my table.

I liked this recipe but the crust needs a little work.  Instead of one large pie I made three separate:  one without cheese, one as is, and one without onion.

The recipe said "1 cup sifted flour" which means sift then measure.  (As opposed to 1 cup flour, sifted which would mean measure than sift.)  It's subtle - and one has to have faith that the writer knew the difference.  In this case, I wonder if that's why my crust was a bit dry.  Flour that is measured and then sifted would  not be as much as flour that is sifted then measured.  Imagine a measuring cup that you fill with pebbles.  There will be some holes where the rocks don't quite fit together.  But if the pebbles are ground into fine dust they will fit together better and you can pack more into the cup.

I just used a spatula to mix.

I stopped mixing when I could pick up a bunch and squeeze it and it held together.

I put a bunch of dry-ish crumbs in the pan and then pushed with my fingers to make a smooth dough.

I did not measure the onions but I did measure the tomato sauce because I actually have 16 oz. cans from Costco.  I thought about using Panko bread crumbs because I had an open box but they looked to be not as fine so I opened a new can of Plain breadcrumbs.

I did not put a "small amount of fat" in my pan before I browned the meat.  Also, even though the recipe didn't say to, I drained the meat after it was browned.  (I love my T-Fal HeatMaster Sapphire-infused pan!  "3" is the highest heat it should ever be set on.  And it is high enough to brown the meat.)

I added the spices, bread crumbs and tomato sauce.  It was a little tricky to get all the bread crumbs worked in - I really don't think I did a good job but it didn't seem to affect the end result.  It was surprising how dry and sticky it was.

After I spooned out some filling into the sensory-challenged eater's dish I added the onions.  It surprised me that they weren't added before or immediately with the meat to soften but they turned out fine in the end, if a bit crunchy but not unpleasant.   (I eat onion rings sometimes, grilled onions on my burgers if it is convenient, and onions on my Subway but I really don't consider myself as someone who likes onions.)

I thought about only making 1/2 of the egg/cheese mixture since the larger of my 3 bowls would not be getting cheese but I went ahead with it for two reasons: a) it's hard to use only 1/2 a raw egg, b) I thought it might keep the dish from getting too dry.  So I mixed up everything but the cheese and drizzled some over the large dish.  Then I mixed in some cheese - I didn't measure, and blobbed it onto the other two bowls and then spread it around a bit with the tines of a fork.

Typically the sauces that come with a recipe are underutilized at my table.  Sometimes I don't even make them.  But because I had 4 oz. of tomato sauce to spare (and I can't think of a recipe that only needs 4 oz.) I figured I'd use it up.  My no-cheese eater has a little food with his ketchup usually once a week (especially if he doesn't like what I've cooked - somehow he thinks drowning it in ketchup makes it better).  He did use quite a bit of this sauce.  I enjoyed it too.  The dish was a tad dry and this helped but the larger reason I used it was that it just added a really nice flavor.

There is no indication of where this recipe came from.