Ground Beef

Ryan's Daughter 600 E. Belvedere Ave., Belvedere Square -- 410-464-1000 Hours --11 a.m.-2 a.m. daily Restaurant's estimate --10 minutes Ready in --10 minutes A flaky pastry shaped like an oversized beer cozy held a small portion of ground beef, peas and carrots covered in mashed potatoes. More meat and vegetables sat next to the pastry. But the $13.64 dish was not as hearty as we would have liked and could have used more seasoning. Know of a good carryout place? Let us hear about it. Write to sam.sessa@baltsun.

HAGERSTOWN -- I felt as if I almost ate a cow the other day. I had five different beef dishes for lunch. I started with meatballs with bow-tie pasta. Then I ate a salad -- made with chunks of precooked pot roast, kidney beans and chopped peppers -- served in an edible tortilla bowl. I also had slices of precooked pot roast served with ravioli covered with pesto and cream sauce.I had Asian "moons," pockets of pie dough shaped like crescent moons and filled with tangy ground beef. And I finished with a tortilla stuffed with rare roast beef, mushrooms and Asiago cheese.

Some folks -- most likely staunch meat and potato eaters -- say you can't mess with a burger. That usually means it has to be made solely from ground beef. Then there are the garnish enforcers who regard anything other than a lettuce leaf and one slice of tomato as sacrilege.Oh, come on -- lighten up.As far as I'm concerned, any kind of ground meat formed into a patty can be a hamburger. Take, for example, the Grilled Lamb-Chicken Burgers With Feta Cheese: It's made from ground lamb and chicken, fresh herbs and capers, and is stuffed -- not topped -- with a slice of feta cheese.

THE RECIPE called for ground beef. I had a slab of round steak. Casting a glance at the food processor, I decided to give modern meat grinding a whirl. I put in the metal blade, tossed in a few thick slices of the round steak, snapped the lid on the food processor and let 'er rip. The machine sprang to life, bumping into the nearby television set, almost knocking a football game off the air.After about three minutes of commotion, I stopped the food processor and looked at its work. In the bowl was some extremely ground beef.

"I have been thinking of a recipe which my Mom used to make oh so many years ago," wrote Cynthia M. Dills of Havre de Grace. "I can't recall the ingredients but it was called Meatzza Pie and was a delicious variation of a pizza using lean ground beef and Parmesan cheese, I think. Hope someone out there has a good memory for the original recipe."Responses included recipes from Barbara P. Barry of Towson, ** Regina Motter of Chestertown, Mira B. Campbell of Watertown, S.D., Patricia L. Frakes of Luverne, Minn.

Do you ever find yourself in a trendy restaurant, ordering the Thai shrimp salad or the smoked chicken pasta, all the while quietly craving a slice of old-fashioned meatloaf with a side of mashed potatoes? Or, if the truth be told, maybe it's leftover meatloaf you really want, sandwiched in a bun with plenty of ketchup and lettuce, a cold glass of milk in easy reach.It isn't so much that retro food is "in." It's more that you love the foods that feel familiar -- the way you buy the same brand of toothpaste as your parents.

As the summer grilling season reaches its full sizzle, hundreds of scientists and public health officials converged on Baltimore yesterday to discuss a hazard posed by that most all-American of foods -- the hamburger.The bacterial strain known as E. coli 0157 is considered an emerging pathogen, a bug that appeared without warning in 1982. It now causes 20,000 infections and 250 deaths annually in the United States: cases traced to unpasteurized apple juice, contaminated water, raw vegetables and various meats, but mostly to ground beef that is served rare.

WASHINGTON -- A Nebraska meat-processing plant is closing temporarily and expanding its recall of ground beef to 25 million pounds after federal investigators found evidence that far more meat might be contaminated by a hazardous bacteria than originally suspected.It is the largest such recall in U.S. history, said Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman. Last week, the Hudson plant in the eastern Nebraska town of Columbus recalled 1.2 million pounds of meat.The beef has been distributed across the country in 4-ounce frozen patties to a variety of chains, including Burger King, Boston Market, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and Safeway supermarkets, Glickman said.

Because of incorrect information provided to The Sun, the safe cooking temperatures for red meat and poultry were reversed in yesterday's Tidbits column in the A La Carte section. Ground beef should be cooked to 160 degrees, and whole poultry should be cooked to 180 degrees.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 8/28/97

Across the top of the menu at Mencken's Cultured Pearl is a single, cryptic line called Mencken's Law. It reads, "If A injures B under the pretext of saving or informing X, A is a scoundrel." Let's try to figure this out by using this review as an example: If I (let's call me "A") harm Mencken's Cultured Pearl (we'll call the restaurant "B") under the pretext of informing readers ("X") that the food is not very good, then I am a scoundrel. Hmm, I don't like the sound of that.But, it would be very difficult to hurt Mencken's booming business by informing the world that I've eaten a few less-than-stellar dishes there because, frankly, a lot of folks don't go there strictly for the food.

Scott Barao sold 420 pounds of ground beef one day last week at his Frederick County farm store, up from the 100 pounds he moves most weekdays. The reason for the run on his $4.95-a-pound burger meat: Bad beef in the news. "Every time there's a ground beef recall, our ground beef business in our little market triples," said Barao, owner of Hedgeapple Farm in Adamstown. Or quadruples, at least this time around, a few days after Fairbank Farms in Ashville, N.Y., recalled nearly 546,000 pounds of ground beef.

Janna Snyder from Portland, Ind., was hoping to find a recipe for one of her favorite dishes from childhood. It was a skillet type of pizza, without the traditional crust, that she thought was made by soaking bread in beaten eggs and then topping it with pizza sauce, cheese and pepperoni in the fashion of a traditional pizza. I decided this sounded interesting, and while I did not receive any recipes from readers, I did locate a recipe for a skillet pizza on Cooks.com that sounded close to what Snyder had described.

The March consumer price stats came out from the Labor Department, showing a slight (0.1 percent) decrease from February's levels. Overall prices have been flat-lining or declining since last fall, when the bottom fell out of the economy. Much of the decline has been driven by energy, which we all know about. But food prices have also started falling, as can be seen in numerous deals at the grocery store. Overall food prices dipped 0.1 percent in March for the second month in a row. The last time food prices fell in two consecutive months was in 1992, as the economy recovered from a recession.

I find myself paging through my mother's recipes when I'm stumped for an economical meal these days. This meatloaf, with its sweet-spicy glaze, evokes pleasant memories, and the price is right, especially when ground beef is on sale. (When it is, buy ahead and freeze the meat.) Leftovers make great sandwiches on pieces of toasted whole-wheat bread. shopping list Wine: $1.25 Ground beef : $5.88 Bread crumbs: 50 cents Onion: 50 cents Eggs: 33 cents Ketchup: 61 cents Brown sugar: 36 cents Vinegar: 27 cents Dry mustard: 25 cents From the pantry: salt, pepper TOTAL:$ 9.95* *Note: Prices are calculated based on the amounts used in the recipe.

Does anybody really need two all-beef patties? Portion-conscious carnivores might want to consider swapping the second slab for a soul-satisfying slice of earthy portobello mushroom featured in this Beef and 'Bello Burger. Introduced to consumers in the '80s, portobellos were a marketing ploy to sell overgrown cremini. But the meaty mushrooms continue to grow in popularity because of their pleasing flavor, one that scientists describe as "umami," a fifth element of taste. Mushrooms long have been used to boost the immune system, but scientists more recently have discovered they contain selenium, which helps protect against prostate cancer.

Consider this dish a Southwestern spin on a sloppy Joe. It's just as easy to make, especially if you buy commercially prepared salsa, refried beans and, of course, the soft flour tortillas. Use the Mexican variety of hot chorizo, which must be cooked. To crumble the sausage, cut down the casing with a sharp knife and use your fingers to pull out the meat. You can find chorizo at supermarkets and ethnic-food stores. Ground turkey or ground chicken are lower-fat alternatives to the ground beef.

WASHINGTON -- The recent recall of 143 million pounds of ground beef highlights the problem with the government's heavy and growing reliance on industry to police itself: Companies have too much leeway to overlook contamination, and inspectors don't have the time or power to catch violations before suspect food gets sold, according to government inspectors and food safety experts. Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, Calif., withdrew the ground beef last month after it was caught on videotape ignoring requirements designed to prevent meat from diseased animals from entering the food supply.

Jane Braun of Bel Air was looking for a recipe for hamburger chowder made with cabbage. Stephanie Allread of Bradford, Ohio, had a recipe for a hamburger chowder - however, it did not contain cabbage. It sounded like a wonderful soup to make this time of year, so I decided to give it a try anyway. In fact, it was extremely hearty and delicious, and I see no reason why some chopped cabbage could not be added along with the other vegetables. Served with a crusty bread and a salad, this soup made for a very satisfying weeknight meal.

State schools officials said yesterday that a portion of the record 143 million pounds of ground beef recalled nationwide last weekend had been distributed in Maryland public schools systems, including Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Baltimore County. The beef was all precooked and distributed through the U.S. Department of Agriculture school lunch program, state officials said. William Reinhard, a spokesman for the State Department of Education, said that the meat has been marked. Reinhard said boxes of the meat had been put on hold since Jan. 31, when word of potential problems emerged.

PITTSBURGH -- There is at least one Roethlisburger that is supposed to be eaten up. This city is home to a sandwich named after Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. The Roethlisburger is about a pound of ground beef and sausage mixed with American cheese and scrambled eggs on a large roll. It's a creation that has been mastered by Peppi's, a restaurant on the north side of town. Owner Jeff Trebac said he got the idea for the ingredients in 2004 from his wife, Kim, who had grilled ground beef and sausage before heaping it on rice with eggs and cheese on top. The inspiration for the name came that same year, when the Steelers drafted Roethlisberger out of Miami (Ohio)