Quick and Easy Dinner Recipe--Impossible Cheeseburger Pie

Last night I had a pound of grass fed ground beef thawed out and wanted to try something different. I didn't feel like burgers (plus I don't know how to use our grill. I also have no interest in learning because my brain is too full) or meatloaf or meatballs. I remembered this thing I used to make early in my marriage. What you may not know about me is that I never knew how to cook or bake until I overhauled my family's diet and was forced to learn. All of my 'expertise' back then came from the backs of processed food boxes. On the back of the Bisquick box was something called Impossible Cheeseburger Pie and it was easy and yummy. So last night, I decided to try my own. There were a number of Paleo and keto versions online (that might very well be better than the one I made), but I needed to work with what I had on hand, so I did my best. My version uses dairy because my family eats high quality dairy sometimes. Most blogs go on and on about how amazing the dish is, but I'll be honest and say it's not fancy or overly impressive. It's a different way to use a pound of ground beef and my family liked it a lot. Also I wonder if many of you think I make gourmet meals every night or if I just bring home food from the store every night. It's definitely somewhere in the middle. I cook almost every night, except for Friday nights when we go out to dinner, and if I'm in a pinch I do bring home a pound of protein from the store. So I wanted to give you a glimpse of a fairly regular dinner at my house. The main variation here is that 99% of the time we have sweet potatoes with our dinner, but I didn't serve them last night because I had these fresh cucumbers from Boozer Farms that were a much easier alternative! Also we rarely eat cheese so that was a treat in itself. Lastly I have no patience for trying to take a professional grade food picture when I just want to get dinner on the table so we can all chill out and watch Parks and Recreation after.

So here's the deal:

You'll need

1 lb of ground beef

1/2 of an onion, diced

seasonings of choice (see below)

1/2 cup of cheese (optional)

2 eggs

1/2 cup cassava flour

1/2 cup any kind of milk (dairy or non dairy)

*the only milk I had on hand was unsweetened vanilla almond milk, so I used 1/4 cup of heavy cream and 1/4 cup of water

Heat up the ground beef and onion in a skillet until the beef is cooked through and the onion is soft. Drain the grease and season however you'd like. I used sea salt, pepper and garlic powder. You could also go with Italian seasonings and add some tomatoes and mix in some uncured pepperoni. Or add a taco seasoning and add some salsa. Be creative!

Put the meat and onion mixture into a 9 inch pie plate. Top with cheese if you're cool with that. In a separate bowl, mix together the cassava flour, eggs and milk. Pour that mixture over the ground beef and cheese. I sprinkled paprika on top because I thought it looked nicer. Bake at 400 for about 15-20 minutes. I don't time anything which makes teaching my recipes to others very challenging.

I kept looking at it and thinking it wasn't done, but what I realized was that cassava flour doesn't brown like almond flour, so be careful not to overcook for that reason.

If you try this or a variation of it, let me know. The options really are endless and this base could be an easy way to do a taco theme without corn or flour shells or an Italian theme without bread or pasta.

Enjoy!

Love,

Elizabeth