Giraffe's Low-Carb Cream Cheesy Hamburger Casserole

The holiday seasons can be very busy and time consuming. Today, being the day before New Year's Eve is no exception.  We, as flight attendants are in the middle of our marathon flying.  Finding time and energy for food shopping and cooking can be very trying.  

Well, here's a dish that we created from what we had leftover in our refrigerator and food pantry - Giraffe's Low-Carb Cream Cheesy Hamburger Casserole.  Our dish is definitely a hearty meal, similar to beef stroganoff.  

Preparation time was a mere 5 minutes, while our cooking time added an additional 30 minutes.

The ingredients gathered are as follows:

• 1 Pound of Ground Beef
• 1 8 oz. Block of Cream Cheese
• 1 Cup of French Onion Dip or Sour Cream
• 1 Cups of Water
• 2 4 oz. cans of Mushrooms
• 1/4 Cup of Red Wine
• 2 Bouillon Cubes
• 2 Tbsp. of  Minced Onions
• 2 Tbsp. of Margarine or Butter
• 1/4 tsp. of Pepper
• 1 tsp. of Minced Garlic

We'll begin by melting our margarine in our large frying pan over medium heat, until completely liquified.  

We'll then add our ground beef to the skillet, along with our garlic, onions, and mushrooms.  

Next, we'll simply mix our ingredients together.  

We'll then add our Bouillon, water, wine, and will mixture together.  We'll continue cooking our ground beef until our hamburger is absent of any pinkness. 

We'll then soften our cream cheese by placing our cheese block into a bowl and microwaving for about 1 minute and 20 seconds.  This will allow us an easier time to blend our cream cheese into our hamburger mixture.  

A paper towel can also be placed over your bowl to avoid the cream cheese from exploding all over the inside of your microwave.

Next, we'll remove our softened cream cheese from our microwave and place on top of our hamburger mixture.

We'll then cut our cream cheese into cubed pieces and will completely mix into our ground beef concoction, until well blended.

Next, we'll add our French Onion Dip, pepper, and will stir and until completely blended. 

We'll then continue cooking on medium heat for 10 minutes.

We'll then cover our pan and continue to cook on low heat or simmer for an additional 10 minutes. 

Ta-da!!  Our hearty casserole is ready to be served! 

From your refrigerator to your plate in only 35 minutes!  Another successful and delicious meal for you and your family.  

Giraffe's Low-Carb Cream Cheesy Hamburger Casserole tastes great over rice, with potatoes, or simply by itself.  

Enjoy!!

Giraffe's Low-Carb Zucchini Crusted Pizza Bake

According to many, pizza has become one of America's favorite comfort food.  Our family is no exception. However, after scarfing down the entire pizza, we always feel a tinge of guilt and/or a stuffed feeling from inhaling all of those carbs.  

We have a recipe for a zucchini crusted "pizza" that leaves the carbs behind, but has you swearing that you are eating a regular pizza.  This recipe tastes very similar to our other pizza concoction, Smokey's Cheesy Pizza, but, might be a little "healthier," for some.  

You'll be amazed at how crust-like this zucchini crust tastes!

Preparation time for this dish was a little longer than our other recipes, but we found it to be well worth it. The longest part about this recipe was peeling our zucchinis, which was completed in about 15 minutes, while cooking only took 45 minutes.

The ingredients you'll need for our recipe is as follows:

• 4 Cups of peeled zucchini (about 4-6 small sized zucchinis)
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 Cup of Parmesan Cheese
• 1/2  Onion
• 4 Cups of Shredded Cheese
• 1 Pound of Ground Beef
• 2 8 oz. Cans of Tomato Sauce
• 2 4 oz. Cans of Mushrooms
• 1 Green Pepper
• 1/2 Tsp. of Baking Splenda
• 1 Tsp. of Italian Seasoning
• 1 Tbsp. of Chili Powder

We'll begin with the most time consuming part of this recipe - shredding our zucchini into a colander. 

Zucchini naturally has an excess amount of water.  If the water is not drained, the crust will be soggy. That's why we have our zucchini in a colander.  

 Since we don't have a blender or food processor, we'll merely use our carrot peeler to peel our zucchini into thin strips.  

Next, we'll squeeze out as much water as possible from our zucchinis. 

We'll then place our zucchini, eggs, Parmesan Cheese, 2 cups of our shredded cheese in a large bowl and will mix together.

Next, we'll preheat our oven to 400F degrees and will spray our 13 inch by 9 inch baking dish with cooking spray.

We'll then pour our zucchini mixture into the greased pan and will press until the concoction is evenly spread throughout the dish.  

Next, we'll bake our "crust" for about 20 minutes or until slightly browned.

While our "crust" is baking, we can begin cooking our pizza "toppings."

My mom bought us this awesome “1 Second Slicer” that slices almost any vegetable, literally in a second.  This invention is amazing and saves much time.  We therefore, use this slicer to chop our onions and peppers.

Next, we'll place our ground beef and chopped onions into a medium sized frying pan and will cook on medium heat until the meat is absent of any pinkness.

We'll then drain our grease and will add our tomato sauce and Baking Splenda.  We enjoy adding a hint of sweetener to combat the acidity of the tomato sauce.  

Next, we'll add our mushrooms and will completely stir.  

We'll then pour and spread our beef mixture evenly over our baked zucchini "crust."

 Next, we'll evenly sprinkle our remaining 2 cups of shredded cheese and chopped green bell pepper over our meat concoction.

We'll then sprinkle our Chili Powder and Italian Seasonings over our mixture, place into the oven, and bake for another 20 minutes, also on 400F degrees.

Voila!!  Our pizza is ready to eat!

We were amazed at how crust-like this zucchini tasted, but were pleasantly surprised!  Hopefully, you will be too.  😊

We thoroughly enjoy our low-carb scrumptious and hearty pizzas.  This one in particular usually lasts us for at least 2 dinners.

Bon Appetit and Enjoy!!