Hamburger Help

[cat17715]

Hi folks, I'm new to this board and new to cooking low fat, and unfortunately cooking low fat is not something that I wanted to do but now HAVE to do. I know the answer to my question is throw it out. But is there any way or anything that I can fix for dinner which is low-fat,low cholesterol with regular hamburger? I'm looking forward to all your good advise and hopefully someday I can put in 2 cents once I'm out of the "student" stage.

[Beth]

My first thought is to use it in dishes where you brown the meat and can drain it well, then add veggies and fiber to help cut down the amount of meat per serving. Make a meat sauce to serve over spaghetti squash, or add sliced zucchini and whatnot and serve over pasta. Don't add any oil when you brown the meat, brown it well, then drain it well. I'm sure you'll get some other ideas.

[kwormann]

I agree with Beth, and I would add rinsing the meat in hot water to get even moe grease off! Have you ever used ground turkey??? Sometimes it is lower in fat (but you need to check) and very yummy!

Good Luck

Kim

[SusanL]

The few times we buy hamburger, we buy the lower fat, more expensive, of course. We make meatloaf and cut slices to freeze for last minute dinners. I also agree with the rinsing of the hamburger if it is not low fat. Read somewhere to freeze it to remove fat?
Cat-are you looking for specific recipes? You could use the search to look for hamburger. I'll try it and see what I come up with.
There were 25 threads when I tried it.
Here is a favorite recipe of ours from CL
the fat and calories are lower if you use all low fat beef or rinse the beef.

Meatloaf
Cooking Spray
1 cup chopped onions
6 T. ketchup, divided
2 T. Dijon mustard, divided
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup Italian-seasoned bread crumbs
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 T. grated Parmesan cheese
1 t. dried oregano
1/4 t. black pepper
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 lb. lean ground beef
1/2 lb. lean ground pork- You can use all
1/2 lb. lean ground veal- lowfat beef!

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Place a med. nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over med.-high
heat. Add the chopped onion and saute for 3 min. Combine the onion, 1/4
cup ketchup, 1 T. mustard, mozzarella cheese and next 6 ingredients
(mozzarella through egg) in a large bowl. Crumble ground meats over cheese
mixture; stir just until blended.
3. Pack mixture into and 8x4 inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray.
Combine 2 T. ketchup and 1 T. mustard; spread over top of loaf. Bake at
375 for 1 hour or until meat thermometer registers 160 degrees. Leat meat
loaf stand in pan 10 min.
4. Remove meat loaf from pan and cut into 12 slices. Yield: 6 servings
(serving size is 2 slices).

Calories: 329 (38% from fat)
Fat: 13.9 g (sat 5.6g, mono 5.3g, poly 1.2g)
Protein: 33.8g
Carb: 15.1g
Fiber: 1g
Chol: 133 mg
Iron: 2.4mg
Sodium: 801mg
Calc: 196mg


[This message has been edited by SusanL (edited 01-08-2001).]

[This message has been edited by SusanL (edited 01-08-2001).]

[This message has been edited by SusanL (edited 01-08-2001).]

[Jessica]

Chili is good because you can stretch it with beans and vegis. You get the meaty taste without too much meat per serving. Try a search for chili on this board; there are several recipes and i know i posted mine someplace.

[Jessica]

And just a little encouragement... You can eat a lot of the dishes you like, cat 17715. There are low-fat and tasty versions of nearly everything, and once you try cooking light you will prefer the clean tastes to lots of butter and cream--I can almost guarantee it. Good luck.

[Grace]

Cat,

What kind of things do you like? What kinds of things do you eat now that have ground beef in it? I have Cooking Light software with recipes that goo back many years, and ran a search using ground round (which is the 90% to 95% lean ground beef). They all have about between 7 and 10grams of fat per serving and about 40 to 70 mg of cholesterol per serving. I don't know if that's low enough for you or not, but I can post some recipes here if you tell me what you like. Like others mentioned, I think you will VERY pleasantly surprised at how easy and still delicious it is to cook low-fat. I've converted my MEAT eating husband. Now we both actually feel sick when we eat a high fat meal somewhere. Good luck, and let me know.

[cat17715]

Thank you all for the info and word of encourgement. We are,where, a meat and potatoes kind of family, so most hamburger meals where, chili,lasgena,stuffed cabbage,reg. hamburgers and when in a pitch for time hamburger helper. I have 6 lbs of the "bad" hamburger, so I think I will have to brown it all, rinse with hot water, and freeze portions to use probably in chili. The meatloaf receipe look great but the cholestrol looks high to me. I haven't figured out exactly what we are supposed to be eating total, I know the my husbands cholestrol was 280, and after meds. is only down to 247. still way to high. He just got out of the hospital for a blocked arterty, hense the reason we now HAVE to change our bad ways. We got lucky this time, it was our warning, next time we might not be so lucky.
Tammy