Hamburger Helper Remixed
I have Hamburger Helper issues. I blame Joey.
When I first met him he lived in a house with 3 other guys. As you can imagine, the house was none too clean and healthy eating definitely wasn’t being done there. Watching Joey eat his dinner of HH straight from the pot was gross enough but even worse was seeing that same dirty HH pot sitting in the kitchen over a week later. That pot belonged on Fear Factor.
I was convinced that HH could be remade healthy and meatless. And that it would be just as simple to make as the boxed stuff.
I was right, as usual.
Tempeh Helper
Ingredients:
Serves two hungry people
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 8 oz tempeh
- 3 cups water
- 8 oz small shell pasta (I used quinoa shells)
- 1/2-1 cup frozen peas
- 3 tablespoons vegetable broth
For the seasoning mix:
3 teaspoons onion powder
1.5 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon mild chili powder
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons tapioca starch (or arrowroot or cornstarch)
1/8 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Directions:
Preheat a large skillet over medium heat. Have a lid at the ready because you’ll need to cover it at some point.
Drizzle the oil in the pan and tear the tempeh into bite sized pieces, adding them to the pan. Saute for about 5 minutes, until tempeh is lightly browned. In the meantime, mix the seasoning together in a mixing bowl.
Add vegetable broth to the tempeh to deglaze the pan. Add the 3 cups of water and seasoning mix, giving a good stir to get it all mixed in. Add the pasta and cover. Bring the heat up to a boil. Once boiling, you can reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring once. Remove the lid, and cook until the sauce is reduced and thickened to your liking, usually about 3 minutes. Taste for salt.
Serve topped with “cheese” sauce.
“Cheese” Sauce:
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 teaspoons cup all purpose flour
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon onion powder
dash of salt
dash ground turmeric
2 tablespoons vegetable broth
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon yellow mustard (less if you’re a mustard hater like Joey)
Mix all ingredients together and microwave for 30 seconds or until thick the pour over tempeh helper mixture.
Pour on that “cheese.” I think this would be really good with real cheese as well, I just happen to love the taste of nutritional yeast and when I gave my cheese loving boyfriend the option of using real cheese he chose the “cheese” too so you can trust the nutritional yeast cheese is delicious.
I don’t know what real Hamburger Helper tastes like (I do know what it smells and sounds like and neither are pretty…) but this tastes pretty damn good and it was a heck of a lot healthier than the “real” stuff. Real in what sense, I ask.
And there’s even some green in there 🙂
Happy Thursday!
The Greenest Pancakes You Ever Did See
I sincerely hope you all made some pancakes for National Pancake Day yesterday, or at least made in over to IHOP and had someone else make them for you for free.
I found a way to have someone else make them for me for free without stepping foot in IHOP. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (and again and again), moms are the best.
I even have my mom foodgawking now, but I’d say it’s for the best because it resulted in some fun looking pancakes.
Yes, those are bright green pancakes and no there was no food coloring involved.
How you ask? Well ask and you shall receive (the answer, that is).
This recipe seriously involves 3 and only 3 ingredients:
- 2/3 cup rice flour
- 3 eggs
- 3 handfuls of fresh spinach
And if you think the ingredient list is simple, just listen to the directions:
- Blend eggs and spinach together in a food processor then add flour and pulse until fully incorporated.
Then you just use the batter the same way you would for any other pancake. Awesome, no?
There were also almond pancakes (gluten free flour + almond extract) that came out oh so fluffy. The spinach pancakes were fun, but the almond pancakes stole my heart — I went back for more.
Remind me to get that recipe from my mom.
P.S. The spinach pancakes aren’t sweet so if you’re not dousing them in maple syrup like I did, I would suggest perhaps adding some sugar but in my humble opinion maple > sugar.
So I realize it’s only March 2nd and Spring doesn’t officially begin until March 21st but I’m calling an end to my “Winter Goals” challenge and I’m surprised at how well I did! Let’s look, shall we?
Pop my own popcorn– accomplished 2/27/11Finish Gone with the Wind– accomplished 12/30/10
Make Mama Pea’s Dough Balls– accomplished 12/14/10
- Go snowshoeing
Go to a holiday play– accomplished thrice over: A Christmas Carol on 12/20/10, The Nutcracker on 12/26/10 and Tran-Siberian Orchestra on 12/22/10
Make my own seitan– accomplished on 12/8/10
Go to yoga once a day for a week– accomplished on 1/5/11Get my glasses adjusted– okay, I don’t have documented proof but I swear I accomplished thisDonate the 2 bags of clothes that have been sitting in my room for…months!– The same goes for this one
Run a winter race– accomplished on 2/6/11 and it was brutal!Send my grandpa a Christmas card– accomplished and now that I think about it I never checked to make sure he got it in the mail!
Make almond butter– accomplished on 12/30/10
Be internet-free for an entire day– accomplished 12/30/10- Homemade sandwich bread.
- Decorate a gingerbread house or gingerbread men cookies.
I think I did pretty well. I’m proud of myself and who says gingerbread are only for Christmas? Leprechaun gingerbread men for St. Patrick’s Day, anyone?
Cu-runch!
First and foremost, HAPPY NATIONAL PANCAKE DAY!
So loves, how was your weekend? I hope you had time to eat, drink and be merry and to watch the Academy Awards of course.
We had some friends over and I printed out ballots for us to fill in. I’m sad to say I lost to my roommate Josh, once again. Next year, Josh. Next year. We also popped our own popcorn for the first time (another Winter goal to cross of the list!) and I’m pretty sure Joey and I ate a majority of the two bowls by ourselves.
We also had a pre-show dinner of homemade shrimp fried rice, because who says Chinese food can’t be made healthy?
This recipe is from Cooking Light and it’s really easy and the result is some delicious tasting fried rice, minus the extra calories.
It also took care of my newly developed obsession with peas. I was eating handfuls of them out of the bag while we cooked – frozen or not, peas are awesome!
It was a great end to the weekend, which as usual, went faster than I’d like.
By the way, I did my regular weekend yoga schedule (one class Saturday, one class Sunday) and for some reason my hamstrings are really sore today. What gives? I’m going to pretend it’s because I pushed myself harder than usual 🙂
In reality, the only thing I pushed was my waistline by eating as many chickpea crackers as was possible on Saturday.
Talk about addicting!
You can find a full editorial on how to make these crackers here.
I took it upon myself to eat all the oddly shaped edge pieces.
I think I ate a whole pan standing in front of the oven. Good thing there was a second and a third batch, made cinnamon sugary.
They look and taste like Cinnamon Toast Crunch and that’s perfectly fine with me!
I used to love that cereal, but for some reason I also seemed to drool milk all over myself while eating it. Does that gross you out? 🙂
I have no doubt that Joey will eat both batches in one sitting, which only means I need to get to them first.
Now go eat some pancakes!
Lauren Loves Good Food 
