Adventures with Beef-a-roni!

My husband grew up on boxed meals. His parents both worked, his mom worked nights, and a lot of the time it was either he and his siblings cooking, food brought home, or something from a box. He loves the stuff, that and canned pasta.

However, I just can't do it. I'll buy him a few cans of the pasta stuff for when he's cooking for himself, but I can't in my right mind buy a box of beef-a-roni and make it for dinner! That's why I'm very happy I found a from-scratch beef-a-roni recipe! I've modified it a bit, but I'll post the original recipe here first.

Ingredients

1	lb ground beef
1/2	lb macaroni
2	c water
1 1/2	c tomato sauce
2	t sugar
1	t mustard
1	t pepper
1	t onion powder
1	salt to taste
2	c shredded cheese

Directions

1. Brown and drain ground beef
   
   
2. Add spices and mix to combine.
   
   
3. Pour in water and pasta, bring to a boil.
   
   
4. Simmer 15 minutes.
   
   
5. Turn off heat and stir in cheese.
   

Read more: http://caloriecount.about.com/beef-roni-recipe-r318265#ixzz0dcuUSQhC

The first time I made it, I stuck to the recipe and my Hubby loved it! And it's easy enough that he can even make it himself! Since going low-carb, I've had to modify it a bit. I'm still working on getting it just right, but it works for us :)

First change is to boil his noodles separately. This is actually making it difficult to get the right water ratio in the meat portion, but I'm getting close.

Instead of noodles for me, I usually steam some cauliflower or broccoli. It's surprisingly good over cauliflower!

I'm using my own home-canned tomato sauce with very little sugar in it, and then I only use about 1 t of splenda. I also cut up about 1/4 of an onion and saute it with the ground beef instead of onion powder.

And last but not least, I add garlic :) We love garlic! It makes everything tasty!

I unfortunately didn't get a picture of this from dinner last night, but it's not the most photogenic of meals anyway. But it's beef-a-roni, use your imagination! :)