Ground Meat Sauce Base (Recipe)

So this is my ground meat base recipe. It's the beginning of a lot of good things, something to play around with until you find your favourite uses for it.

I made this because I like the price of ground beef, but I don't like plain ground beef very much. So, to get the financial benefit of eating ground beef more often, I needed to find a way to make it more palatable.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs ground beef (or use half beef and half another ground meat: pork, lamb, turkey, bison, sausage meat, etc.)
• 1 chopped onion (optional)
• fat for sauteing (animal fat will give a richer flavour; use anything you have on hand, even ghee)
• 1/2 cup dehydrated mushrooms
• 1 cup chopped fresh mushrooms, any kind you like (optional)
• 3 cups stock (beef, chicken, etc.)
• 1 T chili powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp black pepper
• beef bouillon cube (optional)
• 1/2 tsp salt (go light on the salt especially if using a bouillon cube; you can always add more later)

Directions

1. Rinse dehydrated mushrooms in lukewarm water. Drain. Cover with hot water and soak for 25 minutes. Drain off soaking water and reserve. Pour boiling water on mushrooms and let sit 5 minutes. Drain and chop mushrooms.
2. Put stock and bouillon cube in a small pan and boil until reduced by about half. You are boiling off the water to concentrate the flavour.
3. Roughly chop fresh mushrooms.
4. In a saucepan or large frying pan, heat some fat until hot. Add mushrooms and saute until browned. Add chopped onions, if using, and saute for a few minutes until onions are translucent and tender.
5. Add ground meat and all spices to above mixture.
6. Saute until meat is no longer pink.
7. Add mushroom soaking water and the reduced stock (you should have about 1.5 cups).
8. Bring to a boil and cook until onions (and any veggies you might have added) are well-cooked.
9. You're done.

You can eat this, as is, or you can pour it over cauliflower rice, mashed low carb veggies (rutabaga/Swede, cauliflower, celeriac, etc.), shirataki noodles (zero carbs), zucchini noodles (low-carb), etc.

If you want it more gravy-like, use a little arrowroot, tapioca starch or low-carb gravy granules mixed with a bit of cold water and bring to a boil until it thickens. If you like lots of gravy, you can skip the reduction of the stock or start with more stock.

Pasta sauce: Sauté some finely chopped vegetables with the onion (red pepper, carrot, celery, zucchini, etc.). Reduce the amount of mushrooms. Instead of the stock and mushroom water, add a 14oz can of tomato sauce, a 14oz can of diced canned tomatoes (maybe fire-roasted for fun), a bottle of marinara sauce, Italian seasonings and paprika. Simmer until thickened to your preference. If you, or family members, are not low-carb, cook up some pasta to go with it.