By Melanie Dale
@melanierdale 

“Meatless grind sounds a lot like youth group-sanctioned hanky panky,” my friend and Coffee + Crumbs’ own Jenn Batchelor messaged me after I posted about how I impulse-bought a pound of vegetable protein fake ground beef. The front of the package called it “meatless grind,” and why I ever let a package sporting “meatless grind” into a house full of tweens and teens I’ll never know. Call it a lapse in judgment. Call it a desperate ploy to trick my people into eating their veggies. 

Toddlers have a reputation for being picky eaters, but teens are tough, too, because they’re equally picky, you hardly ever see them, and if they don’t like your food they snatch the keys and head to Chick-fil-A without you. On any given evening, you have about two seconds to impress them before they disappear to their rooms to scrounge the bag of chips they have stashed under their bed.

They walk into the kitchen.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Sauteed—” Nope, you’ve lost them.

“Fried—” Better.

“CHEESEBURGER—” Good. Start with “cheeseburger,” even if it’s not. We’re having cheeseburger salad or burger kabobs. “Pizza” will also suffice as a prefix.

This is why I found myself fondling the meatless grind. My son’s love language is beef, and I’m always looking for ways to meat his demand without giving us all the meat sweats. I had high hopes the meatless grind might be a way to cut back.

Also beef is apparently bad for the environment? Did you know this? We’re eating too much of it and the cows are threatening the ozone with their farts. Hashtag science. But I read an article recently that said our rampant almond consumption is also problematic for the world, so I guess we’re just supposed to eat only unpopular foods. Wait till I break it to the fam that we’re eating mung beans and pickled pigs’ feet. Also, tapioca pudding, cuz I don’t see a lot of that moving at the grocery store.

Anyway, I posted a photo of my beef-lite on Instastories, Jenn made it dirty, and then I couldn’t quit thinking about sexually-repressed youth group feelings while spanking the meatless grind with my spatula.

Perfect. Bring on the dry-humped dinner.

I started browning the fake meat and encountered problem number one: it doesn’t brown. I had a pan of presumably safe vegetables posing as bright pink raw beef and I’m supposed to eat it looking like that? How was I supposed to know when it was done?

That’s when I encountered problem number two: I knew it was done by the smell. My friend Nichole warned me the smell was of the Alpo variety and when my kitchen started wafting dog food and our dogs ran over to see what was cooking, I knew I was in trouble. But thanks to Nichole, I’d prepared for this part because I planned to cover up the smell by making tacos. I figured enough seasoning could solve any problem, so I sprinkled and stirred, sprinkled and stirred, until I smelled cumin instead of kibble.

But the fake beef was still real pink and fake raw. So I grabbed more chili powder. In the costume shop where I worked in theatre school, they had a saying—“If you can’t fix it, feature it”—so since the meatless grind was staying deep pink I decided to go with it and put enough chili powder in to make it seem like it was pink because of the seasoning and not the meatless grind itself. The hot pink faux-meat started developing a rusty red hue as I worked. 

Soon the kids wandered over asking about dinner and I tried to block it with my body so they couldn’t see what was happening.

Them: “What are we having?”

Me: “Tacos?”

Them: “Beef tacos?”

Me: “Uh … sure.”

Not really a lie. We were having beef-ish tacos. After all, they weren’t fish tacos or chicken tacos. I felt my integrity remained intact.

Toppings were really the linchpin in this plan. I loaded everyone up with enough toppings that no one noticed the base underneath, their brains dutifully telling them they were indeed eating beef, and the next night my son finished off the leftovers during his late-night binge. (Fourth dinner. He’s growing so fast that he has a sandwich after school, a sandwich after swim team, whatever dinner I make, and one more bonus meal before bed. Costco, beer me the strength.)

So was meatless grind a success? Yes? But will I buy it again? Probably not. I still have the smell in my nose, and that horrible look of uncooked meat in the pan.

I’m sorry, Earth. Sticking with meat.

I know TikTok is silly and for teenagers, but I made one for my new favorite cheeseburger casserole recipe, a hit with my beef-loving family, if this essay is making you want to brown a pound of actual meat. Feel free to try it with the meatless grind, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.