The following “Chew This!” column has been reprinted from “The Courier-Times”, Saturday, April 4th 2020 edition. By: Blaise Doubman

A Simple and Easy Dinner Solution
Blaise Doubman

I had another column planned for you to be reading right now but I put that one aside and decided to share a recipe that is simple, easy and comforting. A recipe that, in my opinion, is much needed currently, given the circumstances that we are all dealing with. Right now, at the time of my writing this, we are feeling anxious, worried, nervous, unsure, unsafe and uneasy. I’ve had my battles with anxiety over the years but what I am feeling now is something that I have never dealt with in my life. I miss my Grandma’s and I miss being able to talk to them about this virus, this outbreak and hearing their opinions on it. I am worried and nervous about my health, my family’s health and the health of my friends and neighbors. My anxiety is running high thinking about the stock market, money matters and wondering if a recession or depression is in the future. I must remember that I am not in this alone. I am not feeling what I am feeling alone, and it is perfectly fine to feel these things and admit to yourself; I am not ok. Without getting political or standing too much on my soapbox I want to urge everyone to please be kind, be compassionate and be understanding to people. Always, but now more than ever. We are all in this together and only together will we be able to make it through.

The recipe I am sharing today is the perfect recipe for a time like this. It can be doubled, tripled or even more! If you don’t have ground beef, use ground turkey. If you do not have breadcrumbs, make your own, or use crushed up crackers. No onion? That is fine! Use onion powder or use scallions or shallots or just leave it totally out. Now more than ever people are thinking what they can make with what they have, and this is the perfect recipe to let your imagination run wild. Recipes are not rules, you can put your own creative spin and touches on things. Cooking should be fun and relaxing. Even if you do not think you like to cook, try it! Especially now. Give yourself a break and some time to yourself and try working in the kitchen and seeing if maybe it might help your stress and anxiety. You may just discover you love it! Thank you all for your continued dedication and support and please stay safe. If you have any questions about substitutions, recipe ideas, bread making, etc. please feel free to find me on my contact page through my website at trailblaise.com/contact and send me your questions. I would love to help you with any and all questions that you may have. Be well and stay safe.

Simple Salisbury Steak

This recipe can easily be doubled, tripled or more. For sake of never knowing what may be in your kitchen storage at any given time, the gravy for this recipe is very forgiving. You can use fresh homemade gravy, premade from the little packages you can find in your grocery store, or even the canned variety. Just be sure the total is 10 oz or slightly larger depending on how much extra gravy you would like to have to serve alongside your steaks.

1-pound ground beef
1/3 cup dry breadcrumbs
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 large egg, beaten
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
¼ cup vegetable oil
10 ounces beef gravy, homemade, premade or canned

Start by combining the ground beef, dry breadcrumbs, chopped onion, beaten egg, salt and black pepper in a large bowl with clean dry hands.

Divide the meat into 4 equal sections. Shape each section into ½-inch thick oval patties.

Add the vegetable oil to a large skillet and place over medium high heat. Once the oil has heated, this takes about 3 or 4 minutes, place the patties into the skillet.

Cook for 8 minutes on one side, then flip and cook an additional 4 minutes on the other side.

Carefully pour off any fat that may be in the skillet.

Return the skillet to the stove over medium high heat and add in the gravy. Bring the gravy to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve immediately.

Ask and Answer: Pamela Shortridge emailed in a question about my candy bar brownies that I shared with everyone here a few weeks ago. She said her problem with baking any type of brownie, is that they always come out overdone. She wondered if I could help solve her problem. I wrote back to her and told her that the first thing that needed to be done was monitoring her oven to make sure the temperature she sat her oven on was the actual temperature the oven was giving off. My next tip was to make sure she was taking the brownies out exactly when the recipe stated. I told her that if she was leaving the brownies in the oven until they appeared to be done, they were already overbaked. An important tip to remember! She thanked me and wrote back to me a couple of weeks later and said my tips worked and her brownies turned out perfectly! Thank you, Pamela, for the question and happy baking!