Slow Cooker Lumberjack Ground Beef Casserole

This recipe was in the top 50 at allfreecasserolerecipes.com for the month of February 2018!!!!!!!!!!

An Old Maine Logging Camp Favorite Adapted for the Slow Cooker!

This old logging camp favorite has been adapted for cooking in today's slow cooker. Here in the Northwoods, the logging camps were famous for the hearty meals that they served their work crews in the old days.  Back then the process of harvesting the trees was labor intensive and the lumber jacks needed good hearty meals to fuel them.  The men had to cut the trees down by hand, and pull them out with teams of horses.  As time passed the work was made a little easier with the use of chainsaws and skidder-tractors but still required a lot of moving around and physical work.  Not so much now as the whole process has become very mechanized and tracts of trees that took weeks to cut can now be harvested in a day or two. If you ever plan to visit northern Maine, be sure to include a trip to the Lumbermen's Museum in Patten, Maine.  It has a wonderful living history exhibit of life in the North Maine Woods Lumber Camps of old. And in August, the outstanding Bean Hole Bean Dinner is an event that folks from all over New England come to for a taste of the old Maine lumberjack tradition, "bean Hole Beans".

What is the best type of ground beef to use for the Lumberjack Ground Beef Casserole?

When I make this casserole I use ground chuck. My reasoning is that the ground chuck has a little less fat content than regular ground beef but has more flavor than lean ground beef. Regular ground beef (or hamburg as it is often called) has the most flavor but it also has the most fat content at 25-30% whereas the ground chuck has a fat content of 15-20%, which is enough to make it more flavorful than lean ground beef.

What is the best onion to use for this casserole?

I use yellow onions in this recipe. Yellow onions have a relatively high starch content when compared to other onions so they don't dissolve into mush when used in a slow cooker recipe. Although very severe in taste when raw, they sweeten in flavor as they cook which makes them a good choice for this ground beef casserole.

What type of potato is best for this recipe?

The recipe calls for cutting the potatoes into 1 inch cubes so you need a potato that will hold up to the long slow cooker cooking time and not dissolve. For that reason you do not want to use a russet potato, which is great for baking or mashing, but tends to dissolve in a casserole.. Instead I choose potatoes of a more "waxy" variety such as red potatoes or Yukon Golds. These potatoes both have thin skins so you don't have to peel them if you don't want to and they will hold up under the CrockPot cooking time.

A True Northwoods Maine Traditional Recipe

Logging camp cooking traditions are still rooted deep in the Northwoods communities.  This recipe was given to me by a woman who worked as a cook in the logging camps in the old days.  I adapted it to the slow cooker for today's busy families.  It's a hearty one-dish meal that has a little bit of everything - meat, veggies, dairy.

TRy some of our other Wilderness Wife Slow Cooker Recipes -

Best Slow Cooker French Onion Soup

Moist Juicy Slow Cooker Ham Recipe

Slow Cooker Mushroom Barley Soup

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