Farmer Jones' Special

 Farmer Jones' Special

    Farmer Jones' Special is a recipe I found in my copy of the 1959 Farm Journal's Country Cookbook. It's towards the back in a section called "Exciting Rice Dishes". This is pretty much a casserole. The recipe calls for putting the mixture into a 12" ovenware pie plate and I ended up using a 9"x13" baking dish. One, all of my pie dishes are not that big and there was so much, that I knew it would do just fine in a 9"x13" dish. 

    So, the first thing you do is pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Then you chop up your celery and onion.  The recipe calls for 1 cup chopped celery and I used a little more. I'd cut up 4 stalks and didn't want to waste it. You cook the celery and onion in butter/margarine until golden brown, cover and cook until tender. The recipe says to add the tomato juice, tomato paste and ground beef, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.  The recipe did not say to brown the ground beef first, but I did.  It just wasn't going to be cooked thoroughly unless you cooked it before adding to the vegetables. I cooked my rice in the microwave while I was doing all this. Once everything was done, I mixed it all together and spooned it into my baking dish, which I had sprayed with a bit of cooking spray. The recipe calls for 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese.  One, I used the powdered in a jar kind and two, I used way more than 1/3 cup. It is cheese and cheese is awesome, so do to your taste. I used the powdered kind, because I forgot to buy fresh Parmesan. The powdered kind was just fine.  Switch it up and use an entirely different kind of cheese, like shredded mozzarella or monterey jack if you wish. I like to salt and pepper on my plate sometimes, rather than adding during cooking, but feel free to add your 1 teaspoon of salt during cooking (you add that when you add the meat to the vegetables. 

    This recipe was good as is and I would definitely make it again. You can get at least 8 servings out of this recipe. The ingredients cost less than $10 and the most expensive ingredient was the ground beef, which was $5.79.  The rice I got for $1 and the tomato paste was under $1. The tomato juice I got (a pack of mini V-8 juice cans) was about $2.50. I only used two cans, but I am happy to have the extras in my pantry. And something I like, is that you can easily make this spicy by using spicy tomato juice, adding chili powder or maybe even finely diced jalapeno. I love garlic, but wanted to make it without this time.  I will sprinkle some garlic powder on what I have for lunch today and see how I like it. You could also add diced tomatoes if you like. If you don't like hamburger, use ground turkey. *If you are vegetarian, I think this could be made with diced tofu or paneer cheese. Just cook it before adding to the vegetables.*

      A nice garden salad and rolls or cornbread would round out this meal nicely. As always, if you make this, let me know how you like it. 

    The last picture below is a before/after photo of the filled baking dish.  :)