31
The way my grandma used to stretch a pound of ground beef into three meals hit different after I talked to a neighbor last week who said she does the same thing with lentils now
She told me she mixes half lentils with half beef for tacos and nobody even notices, and I realized I'd been thinking of swaps as a compromise instead of just... a different way to make things work when the pantry's low - has anyone else had a swap that actually made the dish better than the original?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
eric_knight77d ago
Murray's not wrong that people have been doing this forever (my grandma used to stretch ground beef with grated potato and I only found out as an adult, which honestly explains a lot about her "special meatloaf"). But see, the lentils thing actually makes the dish better in my experience - they soak up all the taco seasoning juices and add this texture that ground beef alone just doesn't have. I tried it myself after reading about it and now I'm that annoying person who brings lentil-beef tacos to potlucks and watches people go back for seconds without the "uh, what's in this?" look. It's like discovering your favorite band has a B-side that's actually better than the hit single, you know? Though I will admit my first attempt involved way too many lentils and I basically made beef-flavored lentil soup tacos, which was not my finest culinary moment.
8
murray.drew7d ago
Oh, is it really that deep though? Mixing lentils with beef is fine and all but let's not pretend it's some kind of life changing revelation... people have been stretching meat with fillers since forever. I bet your grandma would have just called it a Tuesday dinner and moved on.
4