TIL the woman at the corner store taught me how to stretch beef into 3 meals

She showed me how to brown 1 lb of ground beef with a full chopped onion and a can of black beans, and I fed my family for 3 nights off that one pound. How do you stretch your pricier meats without making it feel like a punishment?

2 comments

2 Comments

kelly.emma1d ago

You said "it's just normal cooking" and honestly, that's what I thought too until a buddy of mine told me about his neighbor. She was a single mom on a really tight budget and she used to take one pack of chicken thighs and stretch them over four days. She'd boil the bones with some celery and carrot scraps to make broth for soup one night, shred the leftover meat for tacos another, and then use the broth to cook rice with a little leftover chicken for a third meal. He said she never complained about it or made it feel like a struggle, she just treated it like regular cooking. So yeah, some folks might call it normal, but for people who really have to make every penny count, it's a skill not everybody knows.

clark.faith1d ago

Wait, is stretching a pound of beef into three meals really some kind of life hack or is it just... normal cooking? lol. I mean, beans and onions in ground beef is pretty standard stuff, my grandma did that back in the 80s. It's not exactly a revelation, you know? And honestly, if you're feeding a family of four on that, you're probably serving pretty small portions unless you're loading up on rice or potatoes too. Not knocking it, just feels like people act like discovering a can of beans is some kind of culinary achievement.