Ground Beef

"For as long as I can remember, every Christmas Eve I've hosted an open house with a Mexican buffet," writes Jill Cole of Fallbrook, California. "Any suggestion of varying the meal is met with cries of protest from family and friends. I set out guacamole, salsa, homemade tamales, and what has become my famous albóndigas soup." Be sure to put out hot sauce for those who like extra heat.

Top the grown-ups' burgers with the caramelized onions with barbecue sauce and be sure to have mayonnaise and mustard on hand. Serve corn on the cob and the baked potato wedges to the whole crowd.

Have creamed spinach and sautéed carrots with these updated Swedish meat loaves. Then serve applesauce and spice cookies.

Located in a century-old coal warehouse that stoked the train coming from Albuquerque, the Zia Diner is in the National Register of Historic Places—and on many lists of favorite neighborhood restaurants. Regulars fuel up with such popular dishes as chicken-fried steak and meat loaf with green chilies and pine nuts. The latter provided the inspiration for another Zia Diner classic: spaghetti with chili and pine nut meatballs.

"Last year my family spent the holidays on the Big Island of Hawaii," writes Jo Lucarz of Phoenix, Arizona. "One afternoon we ate lunch in Kamuela at the Parker Ranch Grill, where we had the best chili ever — and coming from a group of Arizona natives, that's saying a lot."

"I grew up in the middle of Croatia, near Zagreb, where the cuisine is very heavy — lots of meat and potatoes," writes Snjezana Hercigonja of Raleigh, North Carolina. "But when I was young, it was customary to vacation on the Mediterranean coast in the summer, where you go to the market every day to see what's good, and everything is really fresh and light. Even the fat is good, since it's usually olive oil. This recipe is based on dishes from that region. Select peppers that are flat on the bottom — they stand up better while cooking. Mashed potatoes would be a perfect side dish.

Joe's Special This meal was supposedly concocted as late-night fuel for 1920s musicians, at a spot called New Joe's, on Columbus St.

Serve this on its own, or use it for chalupas, tacos, or nachos.

I hadn't expected to find an entry on meat loaf in Alan Davidson's magisterial Oxford Companion to Food (1999). Indeed, I only looked it up there so I could say that meat loaf was a great and ubiquitous dish that everyone snubbed. Meat loaf, I intended to say, is a kind of joke.... Alan Davidson let me down. He had plenty to say about meat loaf..."a dish whose visibility is considerably higher in real life, especially in N. America and Britain, than in cookery books."

Beef and Roquefort have a long-standing culinary partnership, but the thick and sweetly smoky slices of barbecued red onions are what really make these burgers great. Keep the meal all-American with chilled beer, homemade lemonade and iced tea. A fresh peach pie with vanilla ice cream is a perfect dessert.

A versatile dish for the family or for casual entertaining. The chili is also good without the cornmeal topping, served with corn bread alongside.

Our recipe makes plenty of sauce for two meals, so enjoy some with this menu and freeze the remainder for another time. The sauce is also great over tortellini, penne or fusilli. You can find the convenient prepared ravioli in the refrigerator section of most supermarkets.

Dr. James Henry Salisbury might have been the first of the protein-diet doctors, proclaiming in 1888 that humankind's maladies were caused by too much starchy food. His solution? Chopped lean meat, or hamburger steak. To hide the "liver-y" taste of hamburger, he recommended adding horseradish, mustard or Worcestershire sauce. By the 1900s, Salisbury steak was a staple menu item, often served with mushroom gravy or smothered in onions. This version, inspired by today’s southwestern cooking, has terrific flavor.

(BEEF AND SAUSAGE ROLL WITH PROSCIUTTO, PROVOLONE, SPINACH AND EGGS) At one time very little meat was eaten in this region. When it was, humbler cuts were transformed by long cooking into delicious stews or combined with other ingredients to make meatballs or a meat roll such as this one. It is good hot, at room temperature or even cold. Leftovers are great in sandwiches. Serve with the Mixed Salad and some bread.

Pasta Fazool is slang for the classic Italian pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans). This recipe includes Italian sausage and beef along with kidney beans and pasta. It's all topped with Fontina.

My grandmother Mignon Smith estimates that this tamale pie recipe is at least 40 years old. She's been making it for us for years.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.