The longer I cook family dinners, the bigger my kids (and their appetites) get, and the higher food prices go, the more I’ve begun to realize what generations of women and cooks before me have known: Ground meat is the weeknight cook’s best friend. It’s generally cheaper than other cuts, it cooks quickly, and it’s versatile enough to be turned into dozens of different dinners without a lot of thought or effort. Even at Whole Foods, which so many people malign for its supposed high prices (which I half-dispute; I think for some items, the “whole paychecks crowd” may have a point, but if you shop wisely you can get quite good deals and excellent prices on most things), I can generally find grass-fed ground beef for less than $6 a pound. Often, I can get it for more like $5 or $4. Our local chain supermarket sells their feedlot ground beef for $4.99 on a good day.
Lately, our household has had to ramp up the meat consumption. I know, I know. I always wanted to be more plant-focused. There are so many things to dislike about meat consumption — the prices, the challenges meat production can present to environmental stewardship, the fact that all bacon was once that cute little pig Wilbur from “Charlotte’s Web” — and yet so many OTHER things to enjoy about it, like the fact that Wilbur tastes really, really good, and the fact that J. and the boys just don’t seem to get full or stay full without animal protein. (Not to mention the fact that L., we’ve noticed, seems to be far more alert and energetic, his neurological difficulties better managed, on more high-quality animal proteins and good fats, less starches and grains.)
So for us, for now, it’s meat, more often than not. Which, budgets being what they are these days, means that it’s GROUND meat fairly often, along with other cheap cuts and lots of slowly cooked things on bones because they’re inexplicably affordable along with being delicious. Tonight’s weeknight dinners are both fast fixes made with ground meats. Neither’s particularly fancy (no shock there, I’m sure, since we’re starting with what is essentially the basis for Hamburger Helper), but both were really good and made the family happy. Since I shoot mainly for “more eat, less whine” at the dinner table, I declare both menus to have passed that incredibly high bar.
Loaded Patty Melts
Buffalo-Inspired Lettuce Wraps
On the menu:
Loaded Patty Melts
Buffalo-Inspired Lettuce Wraps
I agree that Whole Foods can actually really have some good prices. I just tend to want to spend an arm and a leg there because they do such a good job of making all their food look DELICIOUS! If I can avoid impulse buying, its actually a good bargain. It is the cheapest place I have found to buy cashew butter, (which is of course an expensive splurge itself).
I look forward to seeing your ground meat recipes in the future. I don’t buy much meat, but when I do, it is usually ground meat because like you said, it is cheap, easy, and super tasty.