Salisbury steak

We're going to start eating less red meat, as soon as we've cleaned out the freezer of all the tons of meat that's in there. I pulled some ground beef our of the freezer with no plans for what to do with it, so I flipped through some old cookbooks I got from my dad as a wedding present. You know the ones from the mid-60s where hotdogs and jello are in half of the recipes? And some of them call for msg, condensed mushroom soup, american cheese or bologna? The recipes are sent in by readers, and most of them are not the best. I did come across a recipe for Salisbury steak, which sounded good. I looked up some alternate recipes online for inspiration (the recipe in the book had a can of tomato sauce and some condensed soup) and threw it together in about a half an hour. I made rice and green beans, and voila! Dinner! And it was good. I made a brown gravy, with mushrooms and onions, and yum.
Salisbury Steak

1 lb ground beef

2 onions

salt and pepper

1 T Worcestershire sauce

2 cloved minced garlic

1 T olive oil

2 c sliced mushrooms

2 T butter

1 T sweet rice flour (heaped)

1 c stock, water, or wine

Finely dice half of one onion, set the other one and a half aside. Put the beef into a bowl, add the onion, salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce (wooster-sheer), and garlic and mix with your hands. Heat the olive oil in a medium sized pan, form the beef into egg-shaped balls, and flatten a bit. Cook the beef on each side until well browned. While the beef is cooking, slice the onions. Remove meat to a plate and cover with foil, and cook the onions in the same pan over low heat, until softened and starting to caramelize. Push the onions to the side and add the mushrooms and cook until they're lightly browned. Scoop the mushrooms and onions into a bowl, and add the butter to the pan. When it's melted, stir in the sweet rice flour, let it cook for a minute, then whisk in the stock and let cook for a few minutes, whisking occasionally, until thickened. Stir in the mushrooms and onions, then nestle the beef into the gravy and let the meat heat through. Serve with rice, noodles, or maybe even on a sandwich (woah!).

I love mushrooms.