13 posts tagged “beef”
I'm traveling for work this week, so this will be the last post for a bit. (I know, I've been slacking this summer on posting, so you've come to expect a few days between posts. Thought I'd warn you anyway).
When I leave for a trip (FYI-never anywhere exciting), I always try to make a few different dinners for Husband that he can easily pull out of the freezer, reheat, and eat. He has a tiring daily commute and coming home to no wife (especially no wife) and no food has to be depressing. So, I do what I can. :)
Unfortunately for you, I don't measure when I make meatloaf or mashed potatoes, so I have no recipe to provide you with. They are cute. Aren't they?
Whenever red bell peppers are on sale, I think, "Stuffed Peppers. What a great idea!" I return home, make them, and then, no matter what the filling, I always leave the table a little dissapointed. It's not that they weren't tasty, it's that they turn into just another weeknight dinner. I don't know why I always think they're going to be spectacular.
What a way to start a post: "The food's good, but not that good."
Really, it was good. I promise.
So, in case you're feeling the stuffed peppers:
Stuffed Peppers
1 t. olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and grated
1 clove garlic, minced
1/8-1/4 t. dried basil
1/8-1/4 t. dried thyme
1/8-1/4 t. paprika
splash Worcestershire sauce
1/4 c. cooked rice
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes, divided
1/2 beaten egg
1/2 lb. ground meat (I use 93% lean beef, but you can sub. any turkey, hamburger, whatever)
2 bell peppers, stemed, cleaned and halved
grated mozzerella cheese
375 degrees. Heat oil in a skillet. Add onion, carrot and garlic. Saute until softened. Add basil, thyme and paprika stir and cook for 30 sec. Place in a mixing bowl and let cool. Add worcestershire, rice, 1/2 c. diced tomatoes, egg and ground meat. Mix well. Place the rest of the can of tomatoes in a baking dish. Stuff peppers with meat mixture and place on top of tomatoes in baking dish. Top with cheese. Bake 30-45 minutes*.
*Forgot to look at the clock, so not sure how long I left them in. Probably closer to 45 minutes.
Ever since I can remember I've loved beef stroganoff. I loved it so much as a child that I often chose it for my special birthday dinner. It must be the sour cream. I crave dairy.
The most recent issue of Cuisine at Home magazine had a recipe for beef stroganoff. I thought I'd give it a try. I had never watched my mom make this dish, so a recipe for guidance was needed. In this issue, the magazine takes a few "chewy" cuts of beef and walks you through tenderizing and then cooking, so the result is oh, so tender. I must say, I picked out a nice eye of round roast that needed tenderizing. I grabbed the mallet and hammered away. I enjoyed this task. Before you picture me taking out my frustrations onto a helpless roast, let me remind you that I live a fairly stress free existence...no frustrations here. (Have I mentioned I love my live?) Knock on wood. I wasn't picturing any enemies or a brother or anything like they told you to do in T-ball to make contact with the ball. I don't believe in violence. I was just a girl hammering a piece of roast hoping that the neighbors weren't suspecting any foul play. It was fun. The end result was nice tender chunks of beef.
Here's what I did:
Beef Stroganoff
adapted from Cuisine at Home Magazine April 2008
serves 3
1 lb. beef roast, trimmed, tenderized, and cut into 2" cubes, and seasoned with salt and pepper
1/4 cup flour
3 T. vegetable oil
1 8oz pkg. button mushrooms
1/2 T. butter
1 cup diced onion
1 T. tomato paste
3/4 cup beef broth (I had to increase the braising time to 1/12 hours due to an overworked and late husband, so I added more broth...ended up using a full 14oz. can)
1/4 c. sour cream
1/2 t. dried dill
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Dredge beef cubes in flour, then sear in 2 T. oil, in a Dutch oven over high-ish heat until browned, 2 mintues per side. Remove beef from pot; add 1 T. oil and reduce heat to medium.
Add mushrooms and saute until golden, stirring often; remove from pan. Melt butter in pot, add onions, and saute until beginning to soften, 3-4 minutes. Stir in tomato paste, cook 1 minute, then increase heat to medium-high.
Deglaze with a bit of broth; add rest of broth and beef back to the pot. Cover, transfer to oven, and braise for 45 minutes. Remove pot from oven and stir in mushrooms. Return to oven and cook until meat is tender, about 15 minutes.
Add sour cream and dill. Stir.
Serve stroganoff over noodles.
Yesterday marked the beginning of the Chinese New Year. It's the second holiday this week that we don't really celebrate, but another excellent excuse to try something new on the dinner table.
I have a new cookbook that I hadn't tried yet, In Nirmala's Kitchen: Everyday World Cuisine. The author, Nirmala Narine, travels all over the world, and the recipes from her travels are in this book. I wasn't sure how good the book was going to be, after all I got it on a sale rack for $5.99, but both recipes I tried were delicious, so the book tastes like it's going to be a winner.
From the Chinese section of the book, I chose a recipe that Husband had been drooling over, Sichuan Peppercorn-Sesame Beef. Maybe it reminded him of his college days of grocery store Chinese? Now, what to serve with it? I personally love dumplings! The Tibetan section (Tibet is part of the People's Rebulic of China) of the book provided the perfect recipe for steamed dumplings. It was a good feast.
Maya's Tibetan Momos (Steamed Dumplings)
Adapted from In Nirmala's Kitchen: Everyday World Cuisine
2 T. olive oil
1 medium onion, grated
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 t. ground ginger
2 t. ground turmeric
2 t. ground cumin
1/8 t. ground cayenne pepper
2 t. soy sauce
7 cups shredded green cabbage (this was half a head for me)
1/4 c. firmly packed chopped cilantro
Approximately 40 wonton wrappers
Nonstick vegetable spray
In a large saucepan heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the turmeric, cumin, cayenne, and soy sauce; continue to cook for 2 minutes more, stirring occasionally.
Add the cabbage and cook, turning occasionally, until soft, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add cilantro, toss to combine, and allow to rest until cooled.
To make wontons, place a wonton wrapper on a work surface and lightly brush with water. Keep stack of wonton wrappers covered with a damp cloth. Place about 1 t. of filling in the center of each wonton. Moisten the sides of the wrapper with water and then fold in half diagonlly to form a triangle, squeezing out any air from the center. Press the wonton firmly all around to seal it. Moisten the corners with water and fold in so that they overlap each other. Transfer wontons to a baking sheet and cover with a damp cloth. Repeat until all of the filling has been used.
Fill a saucepan large enough to hold a steamer insert with 1/2 inch of water. Bring to a steady simmer over medium heat. Genersouly spray the surface of the steamer insert with nonstick vegetable spray. Place as many dumplings as will fit into the steamer in a single layer without touching each other. Cover and steam over medium heat for 10-12 minutes. Remove dumplings as they are done and keep warm. Repeat with remaining dumplings. Serve with chili sauce.
I love recipes where you can just drop, cook, and dinner is done. I guess it's sort of like Dump Cake. I've never made one, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume that you just dump the cake ingredients in a pan and voila! Dinner tonight was just as easy. I would have used the crockpot, but got too busy earlier in the day. Instead I cooked it low and slow in the oven. It was surprisingly good. I wasn't sure what to call it. It was similar to stew, so stew it is.
Dump Dinner (it's an appetizing title) serves 2-3
1/2 -2/3 lb stew meat
1/2 onion, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1/2 can diced tomatoes
1 garlic clove, minced
few splashes beef broth
few sprinkles worcestershire sauce
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper
Dump above ingredients in an oven safe dish with lid. Cook at 300 degrees for 2 1/2 hours.
Before the last 15 minutes of cooking, my "stew" had a bit too much liquid, so I made a slurry (I think that's the word) of cornstarch and water and added it for the remaining cooking time.
Serve the stew on mashed _____:
Didn't have a potato, but I had a small sweet potato. It was a bit small for both of us, so I cooked a bit of cauliflower, and mashed them with the sweet potato (a little sour cream is nice in the mash). If you haven't had mashed sweet potato or mashed cauliflower venture out a bit. Both mashed together is tasty too.
Wanting to experiment in the kitchen? Not sure where to start? My recommendation: Meatloaf.
I make a good meatloaf. Just ask husband. I never make it the same, but somehow it always seems to turn out great. My secret? Use whatever I have in the fridge. I've been known to put (not all at once) eggplant, mushrooms, carrots, lentils, Mediterranean rice mix and other "leftovers" in my meatloaf. Anything goes, I've discovered. It's seems to be foolproof.
Tonight, I had an assortment of peppers (banana, jalapeno, bell). They all made it into my "Southwest" Meatloaf along with cumin, corn, chili powder, and cornmeal. To be honest I was a bit worried about this one, but miraculously it was good.
When husband suggested hamburgers for dinner, I thought, "Hamburgers?!" To me hamburgers are one of those meals you eat out. They just don't taste really good at home. Anyway, I decided to heed some popular marital advice: Pick Your Battles. Hamburgers it is.
Because I wasn't too wild about the idea, I decided to make a really obnoxious burger. I headed straight to food network's website. I thought for sure they would have burgers loaded with feta cheese, olives, artichokes or other odd and non-traditional ingredients. When I ran across Paula Deen's Big Mike Burger, I thought this is just too good to be true!! Go ahead check out the link, you'll be mesmerized by the picture of this monster. It's two patties, one with pecans and the other loaded with butter. After reading a reviewer's comment, "Heart attack on a plate," I came to my senses. I would have to eat the Big Mike Burger too. Back to the search.
Bobby Flay's Turkey Patty Melt eventually won. (I had rye bread in the cabinet from some reubens earlier in the week and this would be a good chance to use the rest). I made just one change to the recipe. I used 93% ground beef instead of the ground turkey.
Actually this was a good sandwich. After all the fuss, I enjoyed this hamburger!
Every now and then I get hungry for a "farm dinner." What's a farm dinner? I'm sure those of you who were raised on a farm might have a different definition than me, but I consider a farm dinner a piece of meat (beef), potato and a vegetable. Hmmm, lots of meals start with these same ingredients, so what makes a farm dinner different? Maybe it's the fact that farm dinners don't require a lot of specialty ingredients or that there are no real recipes involved. Who needs a recipe for a plain cooked vegetable? You fry it up, boil it up, or just plain cook it up. That's what we did.
We wanted to try something a little different with flank steak than our usual marinade. Found Ropa Veija on FoodNetwork. The recipe is courtesy of Sara Moulton. I don't find her tv show that entertaining, but I've always assumed that she knew what she was doing in the kitchen. (She's also been the executive chef of Gourmet magazine. A magazine I love). Ropa Vieja translates into "old clothes." The strips of peppers, onions and meat are to resemble strips of old rags. Use your imagination.
We were able to use one item from our garden: a purple pepper. Besides herbs, our basil is doing quite well thank you, this lone pepper is the only thing to have grown in our garden this summer. We're obviously not the best gardeners. (I don't like bugs or birds). Our tomato plants look good, but we haven't been able to keep the squirrels from eating the tomatoes before we are able to. Any ideas are welcome!
Tonight we had the pleasure of enjoying a Flat Iron Steak. What's this you ask? flat iron steak My mother in law was able to get us this unique cut of beef at an all organic farm. (We have another in the freezer. Yippee!). In a previous post, I shared that husband's favorite cut was ribeye. This may be a new favorite.
With the steak we enjoyed roasted brussels sprouts. My husband's favorite veggie.
Also on the menu: German Potato Salad. One of my favorites!! The new potatoes were provided by my parent's garden. Here's the recipe I used: German Potato Salad
Not feeling full enough, we decided dessert was a must have. Vanilla Cupcakes were the request of husband.
