life hacks



I did something crazy last night. Not as crazy as misspelling my first name on my boss's birthday card this morning, but close.

I ate mushrooms.
On purpose.



Mushrooms are a no go for me. It is a texture thing. I prefer not to eat cooked slug. But I saw a recipe that added mushrooms to ground beef to stretch it. We normally half a pound of ground beef anyways and adding a little more veggies and bulk to a meal is great when you are feeding a giant man.

Source - Iowa Girl Eats

IGE instructed me to grind up my button mushrooms in the food processor and toss them in with my ground beef. She also SWORE I wouldn't be able to taste the difference. We cooked up a full pound of ground beef/mushrooms and divided it, saving 1/2 for tacos later.

VERDICT -- I could taste the difference. There was a distinct earthiness in our meat sauce. Texture was perfect. And if you hadn't told me I would have thought there was just a strange spice. Would I make it again? Probably. But I wouldn't use a full 8 oz package. For a non-mushroom eater it was a little to overwhelming at first and I might need to slowly increase the mushroom flavor. If you like mushrooms, what are you waiting for?

HUSBAND TEST -- David's delicate pallet detected no taste difference. None. He said the tomatoes overpowered the mushroom. I could probably hide real slugs in his meat sauce and he wouldn't notice...