 Beefy Mushroom Mac. This recipe is out of our first volume cookbook and I'm going to make a half recipe so that I don't have too much leftover. We're going to start with browning some ground beef and chopping up an onion. So this like I said is in our second volume cookbook. We are going to get started. We're going to use a can of mixed vegetables. We're going to use a can of premium mushroom and remember I'm having this. I don't have a can of just mushrooms in a can that are sliced so I'm actually going to use some marinated mushrooms tonight which is a little different. I've got some macaroni noodles and you actually cook your macaroni on the stove top within the juice that you've already made. So it's great to have a non-stick type pot to do it in. It doesn't have to be as long as you watch it really good but we're going to use that and that way I don't have to worry so much about it. So I'm just going to chop up an onion right quick. I hope you're having a wonderful day. We actually took a day and went to Savannah, Georgia even with the we thought we were going to get a lot of rain from the storms but it turns out we did it. So we took the kids over to the Armstrong campus at Georgia Southern and got to take a look at that. We went down on River Street and had lunch today at a seafood restaurant and so we had a really good day as a family in the car and it's just a couple of hours from here so they're going to be pretty close to home when they're in college which is nice and that's one of the reasons me and Chris did relocate here so that they wouldn't have to drive so far to come home if they wanted to. We hated to be eight and nine hours away from their college and I know that that might sound a little silly to some people but Chris has always wanted to live next to the water and they all got accepted here so we got that onion chopped up so we're going to go ahead in this skillet and we're gonna start browning our onion and I'm gonna bring y'all in a little closer so y'all can see what I'm doing. Okay so I'm gonna turn this on and put in a little bit of olive oil we're gonna start sauteing this onion a little bit and then we're gonna add our ground beef. The beef that I'm using today is actually 73.27 so it's gonna have a lot of fat in it so I will have to drain it. While you're getting your onions sauteed and soft get you out some beef bouillon. You can use cubes or you can use granules and you can use any brand you like. I just like this one because it's not expensive okay and it tastes good. We are going to mix up some beef broth now if you have some you want to use fresh beef broth you're more than welcome to but I'm gonna put a couple of cups of really hot water in here add some beef bouillon and we're gonna make a broth right quick. So I've got my water really really hot okay I'm gonna add a couple of cups in here the recipe calls for three but we're short cutting it remember we're not using quite as much so I'm gonna place this water right here we're gonna put some bouillon in it and I'm just gonna throw something in there till I think it looks good. I like a lot. I think the recipe calls for like three cubes or one nor large bouillon. Y'all just use your judgment it's a lot of salt so if you're have to watch your salt you know of course you reduce that amount of that. So there's our liquid we're gonna sit it over here by the pot that we're gonna make our noodles in. What we could do while we're waiting on this is get our mushrooms out since I don't have sliced ones and start slicing them up and that way they'll be done and that's just another step we've got done. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go ahead and let them slice them right here. Now you can just get a can of mushrooms you know sliced mushrooms I just don't have any and I want the mushrooms in it and of course you can use fresh too. I'm gonna taste one of these y'all. Wow these are good. Now this is gonna add a different flavor to it because they're marinated and they're Italian. So normally I wouldn't get this you know flavor it's profile in there but I want a few written there. We won't put too many. I think that's good it's soft so we're gonna go ahead and transfer it over into our pot over here that we'll be making our mac in. Then we're gonna brown some beef. Now since this is fatty meat I won't be able to use it won't go as far so it's gonna take a little bit more meat. So I would typically be using a pound of A20 but since this is 73 you know I'm just adding a little bit of extra so that when I'm done I'll have about a pound of what a pound would have given me. While we're waiting on that to brown I'm gonna take the rest of my beef and put it in some ziplock bags so I probably just need two. So I'm using quart size and I'm just gonna pick it up and get it in here and then we'll wipe everything off when we're done. I always put it in with one hand and then I wash my hands before I seal the bag. So while you're doing while you're waiting on stuff to prep just like waiting on this brown beef to get brown or whether you're browning you know steak or whatever it is you're doing in the kitchen I always try to get stuff done while other things are cooking in that way you know I'm one step ahead. When I do ground beef I typically press the seal until it's not quite sealed you know at least about an inch left and then I smash the bag as tight as I can and then I fill it the rest of the way up and that way you get a nice you know a bag that doesn't have a lot of air in it for the freezer. I do my own vacuum sealing the shortcut way of course it's not as good as a real vacuum but it works pretty good on it. Now we're back on this side so I'm going to see how our beefs do it. Got a lot of oil and grease because it's 70% instead of 85-53 I think what it works. This is a hamburger separator chopper thing. It's a pampered chef item. Anything you see in the kitchen if you really like it you can go to our website and take a look at it. I say that mostly because it answers a lot of questions before I get them and a lot of people think you know I have other motives but I mean sure I like getting a little percentage but I also like to answer questions for people before they ask them. It's always easier that way ain't it? But like this beef skillet this is a three inch this is a 10 inch skillet but it's three inches tall. I have two of them and I love them. Now I don't use them for my cornbread I use our standard 10 inch skillet but I use them all the time for frying and doing stuff like I'm doing tonight. I don't really want to rinse all the oil off of it but try to drain it a good bit so I'm just going to hold it up and drain it as I put it in my pot. Be patient and get it all drained before you put it in here. Okay now what we're going to do is we are going to put in our beef bouillon and water, a can of cream of mushroom soup, a can of mixed vegetables drained. We're going to mix that up real good and then we're going to add the noodles. Of course we're going to add some salt and pepper and this is just going to simmer on the stovetop until the noodles get done and then you've got supper ready. So this is about a cup almost two cups of noodles so it's all right at a half a recipe. It might just be a few more closer to two cups than one and a half but the biggest key for this is covering it and making sure the noodles are submerged. If they're not then they're going to dry out so if you don't think there's enough water in it even if it's my recipe or whatever you add enough liquid to that so that you know that everything is submerged but you don't want to put so much in it that it's not nice and creamy when the noodles get done. Okay so put your lid on it put it down on a very low temperature the lowest temperature for the eye. Put your lid on it and then come in here and stir it every few minutes to make sure it's not sticking or that it doesn't need more water because some of the water is gonna absorb into the noodles and but that's what makes it nice and creamy. All right it has started to simmer a little bit and starting to bubble some but you can tell that it's cooking really slow and that's the way you want it to cook. You do not want to rush it and boil it. Let's get us the serving of this. I'll show you how good it looks. It's just a homemade hamburger helper for the grandkids or your kids. Something quick meant to be easy not complicated not using you know just using a can of vegetables and a lot of mommas cook that way and your kids are going to love it. It'll be one of your kids. Something that your kids are gonna like. Now it's not gonna taste like hamburger helper just like hamburger helper because hamburger helper has a good bit of salt and different stuff in it but it is really good. You can always add the garlic salt or whatever it is you like in it. We are just not real crazy about garlic salt but you can always add some stuff to it. This is a nice little simple dish just made with canned vegetables for a momma or a grandmomma that's trying to feed the kids and I hope y'all enjoy it. I hope the kids enjoy it. I'm gonna give it a taste for you. I need to turn it off. It's just sitting there simmering but now you can see that it's not all full of water once it gets done. It looks kind like it does on the plate so don't think it's got to be packed you know full of water or it's not gonna taste good. It's good y'all. Simple ingredients good food. Thanks for watching Colored Valley Cooks where we cook like momma did. Bye y'all love ya.