Thanks to the deals I got at Safeway last week, I had lots of versatile ingredients on hand which I’ve been able to use in many meals. The day after my shopping trip, I split my big package of ground beef in half and used it to make both taco meat and hamburgers.

First, I combined half the meat with chopped red onion, seasonings, and an egg. I then formed the meat into 8 balls (since we had 8 buns!) and flattened them with a plate to make patties. I cooked these on my George Foreman Grill and had a delicious batch of burgers in minutes!

I topped the burgers with ketchup, mustard, swiss cheese slices, and lettuce from the boxes of free salad I got in the mail. We enjoyed a couple of burgers for lunch, and then refrigerated the rest of the patties for later meals.

For the taco meat, I browned the other second half of the ground beef in a frying pan and then placed it in my brand-new slow cooker! I’ve been wanting a crock pot for some time, and I had a gift card for CSN Stores because of a review I’m working on for Contest Corner, so I was able to get a brand new slow cooker, a tea kettle, and a digital meat thermometer for $5.48 out of pocket after applying my gift code. I’ve mentioned previously how much I enjoy working with CSN, since I’ve gotten so many useful things for cheap or free – so I think you’ll be excited to know that there is another gift card giveaway in the works for my loyal readers, so you can snag some bargains too. Stay tuned this weekend for your chance to win!

I’m new to cooking with crock pots, but I love it so far. Normally, you can cook the raw meat right in the slow cooker, but the general consensus seems to be that ground beef is better browned in a pan first, to keep grease out of your meal. I was also getting a late start, so I didn’t want the meat to be undercooked!

I didn’t have any packets of taco seasoning on hand, so I took some inspiration from this recipe and added a ton of spices to the meat to make my own. I threw in garlic salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, turmeric, taco sauce, and even a little curry powder. I also found a packet of red pepper flakes from Pizza Hut in my fridge – I keep Ziploc baggies filled with leftover fast food condiments! – so I added that as well. I threw in chopped red onion and the last lone baby tomato from our garden, 1/2 a cup of water, and left it to cook on low for a few hours.

When it was time to dish it out, I pulled out my handy taco holder – isn’t it cute? It fits the taco shells and condiments all in one! For toppings, I set out shredded cheese, more lettuce from the salad mix, and – you guessed it! – taco sauce packets from the fast food condiment bag!

The tacos were delicious, and made several meals – there’s a lid that fits on top of my taco holder, so it was super easy to store and serve the leftovers. Yum yum!

I also made some sweets last weekend. I had some cake glazes that I was reviewing for Contest Corner, so I made a pan of tasty brownies using this Paula Deen recipe. I adapted it by using margarine instead of butter and omitting the mint chips and frosting.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 27th, 2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under Coupon Menu Corner. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.