What would Julia Do?

Would Julia ever use a crock pot? I don't think so. I really don't like the crock pot either, though I have a couple recipes that are for the crock pot, and I've bought a couple of cookbooks hoping to find something that isn't the typical crock pot fare. But with the cooler weather, I just had to break out the old thing to make a recipe from my mother.

My mother and grandmother were both solid cooks, albeit not adventurous cooks–well, there was that time mom made chili and dumplings. Ugh! She had a standard litany of recipes: Spam and fried potatoes, fish sticks and macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, meat loaf, pot roast, stuffed peppers, and stuffed cabbage. Later she added enchiladas. My poor girls never knew what might be on the table when supper time came. There were a handful of meals I repeated from time to time, but I was mostly about experimentation. Grandma was a solid meat and potatoes cook, and she had perfected it by the time I came along.

When I first began setting up my household, I bought a crock pot for this one recipe: Hamburger casserole, which is really more like a soup than a casserole. Until last year, it had been years since I made this, in part because I had given up all meat for about 3 years, and red meat for the last 3 years. Joining the meat share at Randle Farms changed that. So, if you need something to cook all day and warm your tummy at night, give this a try.

Hamburger Casserole

2 Large potatoes, sliced

2 med. carrots, sliced

1 parsnip, sliced

1 10-ounce pkg. frozen peas

1/2 onion, sliced

2 stalks celery, sliced

1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained

1 can tomato soup

1/2 can water

Place layers of vegetables in order given in crock pot. Season each layer with salt and ground pepper. Put the lightly browned beef on top of the celery. Mix soup with water and pour into crock pot. Cover and cook on low 6 to 8 hours. (High 3 to 4 hours, stirring occasionally).

Bon appetit!