Beef and Beer October 31, 2008

I bet you can’t guess who made this meal.

If that isn’t the title of a man’s meal, I am not sure what is.

Ross went grocery shopping toinght and came home and made dinner. I was very excited, it smelled so good and seemed like the perfect dinner for a Fall night.

The original recipe is one he found last year I believe, and I am pretty sure it was from allrecipes.com. He made it tonight with a few changes, and it was even better than it was last year. Here it is the way that he made it for us tonight.

Beef and Beer

1 1/2 lbs stew meat
salt and pepper
1/2 c flour
1 T vegetable olive oil
12 oz beer (we used 24 oz)
1 1/2 c beef broth 1 can of beefy mushroom soup
1 T rosemary
1 pinch dill weed
1 large onion, chopped
2 stalks celery
3 carrots, chopped
(we also added 2 potatoes, chopped into large chunks)
3 cloves garlic, minced

Ross added:
8 oz fresh mushrooms
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can tomato paste

Boil the potatoes and carrots for a little bit until they are just slightly tender.

Season the beef with salt and pepper, coat in flour. Heat oil in a large pot (Dutch oven works well), add beef, brown on all sides. Remove beef from pot and set aside. Add onion, garlic and celery. Cook until onions are clear and starting to brown. Return meat to pot. Add beer, tomatoes and broth, stir. Add rosemary, dill, carrots and potatoes. Bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat 1 1/2 hours. Add mushrooms toward the end of cooking.

Hot Fudge Cake October 30, 2008

This is one of my favorite “I need chocolate and I need it now” recipes. 

 

When I first moved to NC and lived on my own for the first time in my life, I found myself craving chocolate badly one night, but didn’t have the dorm stash of junk that I was used to and didn’t have Mom’s home baked desserts always waiting on the counter.  I also didn’t have eggs.  I started searching the labels of the baking ingredients in my apartment for a recipe I could make without going to the grocery store late at night.  I found the recipe for Hot Fudge Cake on the inside of the Hershey’s cocoa label.  (I find it hilarious now to think of myself alone in my tiny apartment tearing apart labels at 10 pm trying to find a recipe I could make with chocolate and without eggs.  I must have really been in a rough spot that night). 

 

Well, as we were sitting here tonight playing the Wii, I felt a strong need for some chocolate and I knew I wanted this cake.  It is quick and easy and soooooo good.  It is very much like Molten Lava Cake that some random restaurant serves.  But better, of course, because it is homemade.   It ends up being like a homemade chocolate brownie/cake with a hot pudding like goo running through it. Sounds gross yet delicious at the same time, right? It is best served with vanilla ice cream, but is also good with homemade whipped cream, which is what I am about to make while this bakes in the oven.

 

Hot Fudge Cake

1 c flour

3/4 c sugar

6 T cocoa (divided)

2 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1/2 c milk

2 T vegetable oil

1 t vanilla

1 c brown sugar

1 3/4 c hot water

 

Combine flour, white sugar, 2 T cocoa, baking powder and salt.  Stir in milk, oil and vanilla until smooth (I stir this together right in the 8×8 pan that I bake it in to save washing a bowl).  Spread in ungreased pan. 

Combine brown sugar and remaining 4 T cocoa.  Sprinkle over batter.  Pour hot water over all.  

Bake at 375 35-40 minutes.

 

Allow to cool, but eat while still warm or re-heat!

 

Also, this is a good time to mention one of my other favorite cooking tools.  This Oxo measuring cup is the coolest ever.

It is slanted so that you can look straight down at it and see how much stuff you have in it.  You don’t have to bend over and get at eye level so that you can make sure you have the right amount.  Call me lazy, but I think that is the best thing ever.  Thanks, Mark!

A dismal failure October 29, 2008

Emily and I are in a training that started yesterday and goes through this afternoon.  As she was on her way to pick me up yesterday, I realized that I had pork chops in the fridge for dinner but didn’t know what I was going to do with them.  I got to thinking that I wouldn’t feel like coming up with something at 6:30 when I got back from Raleigh, so at 8:57, 3 minutes before Emily was due to pull in my driveway, I decided to literally throw a bunch of stuff into the crockpot.

 

I placed the pork chops in the crock pot and looked into the pantry to see what else I could dump. Here’s where I went wrong… I literally did just dump.  I put a can of pumpkin, some ground sage, a little white wine, salt and pepper, a couple splashes of balsamic vinegar and a little heavy cream.  By this time, Emiy was in the driveway so I turned the pot on low, set the timer for 8 hours and left. 

 

On my way home, I talked to Ross.  I asked him how the dinner looked and his response was “well, I don’t think it is gonna be one for the column”.  Uh oh.  He said that it smelled burnt and it looked like there was a dry paste on top of the meat.  Lovely.  When I came home and tested it, the flavor itself wasn’t bad, but I had to hurry to the closest beverage… red gatorade… to actually get the dry meat to go down my throat.  Not a good mixture, and not  a meal I wanted to sit down to.  

 

So, we went to Joe’s and we each had a cup of French onion soup and a grilled Buffalo chicken sandwich.  It was so tasty, and washing it down with a Jack and Coke was much better than pumpkin pork and red gatorade.  That’s for sure.

 

I think this recipe still has hope.  I think what I should have done is mixed all of the ingredients together in a bowl first, including enough wine and cream to make more of an actual sauce.  I think some sliced onion would have been good in there, too. 

 

Moral of the story:  Crock pots are good when you need a quick meal, but don’t be in such a hurry when you are putting it together for the first time!

Chili on a chilly day October 28, 2008

Chili is one of my very favorite Fall meals.  It is so comforting and so delicious.  Chili is fun, because it is one of those meals that can be made a million different ways and each person has their own specialty.  My chili recipe (or actually, it is my Aunt Patty’s) is a sweeter version, with cinnamon and cloves in combination with the spicy chili powder and cumin. 

 

Since I’ve met Ross, we usually include beer in our chili, just like his father has always done.  Larry makes some prize winning chili that is hard to compete with, but we try to take some tips from him to capture some of the flavor. 

 

On my way home tonight, I was kind of dreading coming in the door and starting dinner right away so that it would have time to simmer.  Luckily, Ross had already come home, taken care of the dogs and prepared our meal.  That was by far the best part of my day.  As much as I love to cook, it sure is nice to have a day off here and there, yet still have a nice hot meal at home to sit down to.

 

I’m not sure exactly what he did, and he’s too busy playing his new early birthday gift…the Wii (thanks a lot, Ed and Emily for getting us addicted) for me to ask him, but I think this was the general idea.  The new ingredient was 3 bars of the Hershey’s miniature dark chocolate that we had in the fridge from when my parents were here (thanks, Dad!).  I don’t think we’ll make chili again without adding that one little ingredient.  It was great.

 

He started out by browning the ground beef with a half of an onion, minced.  Ross likes to season, so who knows what spices he put in there.  He added some tomato sauce and tomato paste.  He put a can of whole tomaotes, drained, in the blender along with some jalapenos to get them nice and chunky, but not quite pureed, and tossed them in the Dutch oven with the other ingredients.  A bunch of chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper, about 3/4 a bottle of beer, and some dark chocolate topped it off.  We let it simmer for awhile while we played a round of Mario Kart before we enjoyed it with pepper jack cheese and a dollop of sour cream.  It was so good that I had to have seconds even though I was stuffed. 

 

I guess I better go work it off on the Wii.

Fall Fun Party October 25, 2008

Ross and I are going to my sister’s tonight for dinner and game night.  Kara has planned dinner around a Fall theme, so when I asked what I could bring, the answer was an appetizer… a FALL appetizer.  So, I began my search for something tasty and Fall-ish, a little bit different but not “weird”.  Also, as I’ve mentioned, Kara is a vegetarian, so there couldn’t be any meat in the recipe.

 

It’s no secret that allrecipes.com is my favorite go-to place for new recipes.  There is a little bit of everything on there.  I like that it has review and ratings of the recipes, and often times other user’s comments are very helpful, offering suggestions to tweak the recipe to your liking.  I love the recipe box feature, which allows you to save any recipes that you’ve tried and liked or ones that you see and want to remember to try another time.  When I make my grocery list each week, I usually visit my online recipe box to see if I’ve saved anything that I’m ready to try at that time. 

 

Another perk to this website is that it is constantly updated to include highlighted seasonal recipes.  During the holiday season, you can just click on “Thanksgiving appetizers” or “Christmas side dishes” and have a wealth of selections to choose from.  There wasn’t anything special on there for Fall today (although the website is decorated cute for Halloween) but I just entered “Fall appetizers” into the search bar and had a ton of choices appear.

 

My selection was Mini Pumpkin Sage Balls with Balsamic Creme Fraiche.  These sound fancy, but are easy to make.  I just threw them together, and I am going to bake them when I get to my sister’s tonight.  The balls are made up of pumpkin, onion, garlic, sage leaves, an egg, breadcrumbs and some salt and pepper.  The dipping sauce is simply sour cream, heavy cream, sugar and balsamic vinegar.  I had to dip my pinky in there to taste it and it is good. I think I want to use this as a base for trying a creamy balsamic salad dressing in the near future. I can’t wait to taste it with the pumpkin balls dipped in it.  The last step is to fry up some fresh sage leaves to crumble and sprinkle on top.  The ingredients and presentation are nice for a gathering because they are a little fancier, but the recipe is no harder to make than many other dips or appetizers I’ve made.  In fact, I think it’s easier than many.

 

Tomorrow, I will provide an update on the gathering, including Kara’s Fall vegetable mix, “Fall Apple Thing” (as she explained it to me) and the one I’m most anxious to try… Pumpkin Creme Brulee.  Ooh la la.

Dinner and a Friday Treat October 24, 2008

For dinner tonight, we had another Rachael Ray recipe found in the May ‘08 issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray.  Ironically, the recipe came to me today in the weekly menu planner that Rachael (yes, she herself I am sure is the one who sends the messages) sends me.  The recipe is for Pepper Steak, and it was pretty good.  Not knock your socks off good, but tasty.  I don’t know what shell steaks are, so I bought some NY strips and they came out very tender and juicy. 

 

This week at work has been very, very rough for lots of reasons.  I felt like everyone could use a Friday treat, so I decided to make a recipe I found several years ago for pumpkin cookies.  I wanted to spice them up a little bit, so I added some cream cheese frosting to them.  I have to admit, I’ve already eaten one.  I mean, they wouldn’t all fit on the platter that I am taking to work, so what was I supposed to do with the extras?  I think I might need to eat another one in a few minutes.  They are gooooooood.

 

Pumpkin Cookies

1 box yellow cake mix

1 can pumpkin puree (I bought pumpkin pie filling by mistake and just used a little less than what was called for and they are fine).

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I didn’t have any, so I added some cinnamon, a little nutmeg and a few shakes of cloves)

1/4 c butter or margarine, softened

You can also add some raisins, chocolate chips (my personal favorite) or oats if you’d like.

 

Mix all ingredients, drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 11-12 minutes.

 

For the frosting, I just looked at a few different recipes and made this up with what I had at home.  I like it a lot.  Good texture for cookies or cakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 c 10x sugar

8 oz cream cheese

1/4 c butter or margarine, softened

1 t vanilla

Mix all ingredients together until smooth.

 

Happy Fall!  I love pumpkin stuff!!!

Orange Beef and Broccoli October 23, 2008

Tonight’s dinner came from the May ‘08 issue of the Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine.  I had to go to the grocery store tonight to buy stuff for the next few nights and I really wasn’t in the mood to search around for recipes.  I went to my stack of magazines,looked through and quickly found a few.  I wasn’t in the mood for chicken, Ross wasn’t too into the idea of ground turkey and we’ve recently had pork chops and ham.  So that left beef.  I don’t really make a lot of beef dishes.I like it ok, but I just have never cooked a lot of red meat.  I found this recipe and thought it sounded like a nice alternative to the typical stir fry type meal we usually make.  It was quick and easy to make and tasted very good.  I was actually surprised that I liked it as well as I did.  It had just enough orange flavor to add to the taste, but not so much that it overwhelmed it.  If you don’t like things spicy, still add the jalapeno because it adds a nice flavor… just take out the rib and seeds and it isn’t spicy at all (just remember to wash your hands after you do this… if you’ve ever done that and then wiped your eyes you know that it is not a pleasant experience).  I actually kind of wish I didn’t take them out, it would’ve been nice a tad bit hotter for me.

 

Anyway, here’s the recipe. Give it a try!

 

Orange Beef and Broccoli

1 bunch of broccoli

1 1/4 c beef broth

3 T hoisin sauce

2 T soy sauce

2 T plum sauce (I couldn’t find this at Lowe’s so I just added a tiny bit more hoisin and soy)

1/4 c cornstarch

Grated peel of 1 orange, juice of 1/2 orange, plus wedges for serving

One 1 3/4 lb boneless sirloin steak

1/4 c vegetable oil

1 jalapeno chile, thinly sliced

 

1.  In a large skillet, bring 2 cups salted water to a boil.  Cut the broccoli into 1 inch florets.  Boil until crisp-tender, about 3 mkinutes; drain the broccoli and rinse under cold water.  Reserve the skillet.

2.  In a small bowl, stir together the broth, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, plum sauce and 1 tablespoon cornstarch.  Stir in the orange peel.

3.  Slice the steak 1/4 inch thick, then cut the slices crosswise into thirds, toss with the remaining 3 T cornstarch.  **TIP** If you don’t have a pair of kitchen scissors, I think they are the best thing ever.  Cutting raw meat with a knife is not fun, but cutting it with scissors is a million times quicker and easier.  It’s also nice to have a second pair for herbs.

4.  In the reserved skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat.  Add the steak and jalapeno and cook, turning, until the meat is barely pink, about 2 minutes.  Transfer to paper towel lined plate; discard the excess oil.  Add the broth mixture to the skillet and cook, stirring, until thickened, about 2 minutes.  Stir in the meat, broccoli and juice from the 1/2 orange and cook until heated through, about 2 minutes.  Serve  with the orange wedges. 

 

We served it over rice and topped it with chow mein noodles because they are one of my favorite foods!

Mmmmmmexican! October 22, 2008

Tonight for dinner we tried a recipe that was posted on another blog I frequently read, The Peppertree.  The recipe for Creamy Black Bean Soup sounded delicious, and I immediately e-mailed the link to Ross and told him we had to try it.  We decided that tonight was the night.  We both really loved this soup.  It has a great flavor and the fresh cilantro added at the end makes it taste very fresh.  It is easy to put together and pretty cheap to make.  Making this soup reminded me once again how much I love my new Mario Batali Dutch oven.

Not only does it cook wonderfully, but I am amazed at how well it cleans up.  I don’t have a single dish, pot or pan that cleans up more easily than this.  It really just wipes clean.  I absolutely love it, and in the 3 months that we have had it we have used it a ton of times.  They are pricey, but I can tell that it will last forever and we use it so often that it makes it well worth it (not that we paid for it, it was a very generous gift from my Aunt, Uncle and cousins, but still… it was their money well spent)!

 

Along with the soup, I decided to make paninis.  We might as well put our other favorite kitchen appliance to use.

I bought some nice, fresh sub rolls from Lowes and made a mixture of sour cream, green onion, cilantro and a little bit of cumin.  With a spatula, I spread a thin layer of it on the bread.  On top of that on each half of bread I put a slice of pepper jack cheese.

In a skillet with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, I sauteed some peppers and onions, sliced very thin.  I added 2 chicken breasts, cut into strips.  I cooked them most of the way through and added a tiny bit of taco seasoning mix and a little bit of water, then let it finish cooking. This mixture was placed on top of the bread, the top was slapped on and we put it on the panini maker to grill.

 

It was soooooooo good along with the soup.  We used the sour cream/green onion/cilantro mixture to top the soup with some cheddar cheese and it was so tasty.  We will have this meal again for sure.

 

I seem to be in a picture mood tonight and the camera was sitting on the counter when we sat down to eat, so I snapped this picture.  There is spilled soup on the counter and the presentation is nothing fancy (this is why I don’t normally take pictures of what we make), but it still looks good.  And it was.  Mmmmm.

Creamy Ham, Veggies and Pasta October 20, 2008

I am slightly obsessed with the dinner we had tonight.  I don’t know why, because it wasn’t anything all that special, but it just tasted so good to me.  I started out making a recipe that I got from my Mom, and I wrote on the recipe card that it was from my Aunt Molly, so I guess that is where it originated.  I ended up straying from the recipe quite a bit, part on purpose and part accidentally.  I am going to post the original recipe first, and then post what I actually did.

 

Ham and Vegetables Mostaccioli

1 1/2 c mostaccioli pasta

2 c sliced zucchini (can use peas, too)

1/2 c sliced green onion

4 tsp cornstarch or flour

1/4 tsp dried marjoram

1 13 oz can evaporated skim milk

1 c cooked ham cut into strips

 

Cook pasta, set aside.  In saucepan, combine vegetable, onion, 1/4 c water.  Bring to boiling, reduce heat.  Simmer, covered 4-5 minutes until veggies are tender.  Drain well, return to saucepan. Meanwhile, for sauce, in small saucepan, combine cornstarch or flour, marjoram and a little evaporated milk.  Add pepper to taste.  Stir in remaining milk all at once.  Cook and stir until thick and bubbly.  Stir sauce, ham and pasta into veggies.  Heat through.

 

Well, here’s what I did.  I haven’t made the original recipe in awhile, but I think I ended up liking this better.  Once I had to stray at first to accommodate the ingredients I had, I just figured I’d just start adding random stuff, since that is the main reason I love to cook.  It was good!

 

2 c cellentani pasta (’cause it was cute and swirly looking)

2 c sliced zucchini

1/2 onion, diced (I didn’t realize the recipe said green onion, so this was a mistake, but I liked the flavor)

8 oz fresh mushrooms (saw them sitting in the fridge and figured why not)

3 T flour

3 T butter (call me Paula Deen, but cream sauce needs butter)

couple shakes of dried thyme (what is marjoram anyway?  I sure don’t have any, so I picked my own spices)

couple shakes of dried sage

1 13 oz can evaporated milk

1 1/2 -2 c cooked ham, diced

3/4 c mozzarella cheese (noodles and cream sauce need cheese if you ask me, but if you don’t like it or are allergic, it isn’t necessary for the consistency of the sauce)

salt and pepper to taste

 

Boil pasta.  In a large skillet, saute onion, zucchini and mushrooms in 1/4 c water until tender.  Drain, season with salt and pepper.  Return to burner on low heat.  Meanwhile, for sauce, melt butter in medium saucepan.  Whisk in flour. Slowly add evaporated milk, whisking as you add it.  Stir in thyme and sage and salt and pepper if desired.  Once thickened, add mozzarella cheese until melted.  Add cream sauce to vegetable mixture.  Stir in ham and allow to heat through. Once pasta is finished cooking, Add veggies and sauce to drained pasta in stockpot.  Stir and serve.  Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top if you want!

 

This took less than 30 minutes to make.

Brands I Love October 20, 2008

I am not a huge brand name person.  I shop at Target (more often Wal Mart now that I live in Sanford and there is no Target), I’ve never owned a designer purse or pair of shoes, and I will most often times buy store brand products to save money.  There are, however, a few products that I just have to purchase a particular brand of.  Listed below are some brands that I’ve found I like best in the kitchen.

 

• Anything Crate & Barrel.  We registered here for our wedding and were fortunate enough to get tons of stuff from this store.  Our dishes are wonderful, our silverware strong and solid, our kitchen gadgets useful and easy to use and our small appliances, Dutch oven and other dishes are all of excellent quality.  I love their stuff.
• Daisy sour cream.  It is the creamiest and tastiest.  Love it.
• Wal Mart frozen veggies.  I don’t know why, but they are the crispest, most flavorful frozen veggies we’ve tried.
• Toll House chocolate chips.  They’re the best.  I love to make chocolate chip cookie bars, and they turn out the best with these chips.  They have the best cookie recipe on the back of the bag, too. 
• Jack Daniels.  Ok, so I don’t really cook with it, but Jack joins me in the kitchen while I’m cooking every now and then.  He’s a great friend.
• Hunt’s tomatoes.  When buying canned tomatoes, Hunt’s by far have the best flavor.  My Uncle Todd told me when he taught me how to make his version of homemade salsa that it can only be made with Hunt’s.  I’ve carried this over to anything that calls for any type of canned tomato product.
• Heinz ketchup.  This somewhat negates the above statement, but ketchup isn’t canned so it is ok.  I don’t understand why Hunt’s has the best canned tomato products but their ketchup tastes nasty.  I loveketchup.  Sometimes I go out to eat and order fries just because I am craving ketchup.  If I see that they bring Hunt’s to the table, I feel like I might as well just cancel my order of fries.  Eeeww.  Has to be Heinz.
• Pepsi.  I don’t even really like soda that much, but I can’t stand coke.  It tastes like chemicals.  Coke Zero is acceptable, only because it tastes more like Pepsi.  Coke = blech (unless mixed with my friend Jack above).
• Campbell’s soups.  Store brand doesn’t compare.  I can’t explain further really, but it just isn’t the same.
• Cracker Barrel cheese.  I do buy other brands because I am cheap, but Cracker Barrel is the sharpest and most delicious.
• Iams dog food.  We don’t eat it, but Sully and Luna love it and it makes their coat so soft and shiny.  Anytime they’ve eaten something else we can tell a difference.
• Duke’s mayonnaise.  This is more of a Ross thing, but when we moved in together he told me that is all I was allowed to buy so that is what I get.  It’s good.
• Yoplait yogurt.  Creamiest and best flavor.  Store brand yogurt is not quite good enough, unless being used to make a smoothie or something.
• Barilla pasta.  I can’t explain it and I am sure it wouldn’t make sense to a lot of people that one brand of pasta is better than another, but it is by far the best.
• Bertolli sauce.  Particularly the vineyard line.  Mmmmmm.
• Seattle’s Best coffee is our favorite.  Ross is a pretty easy going guy, but he is very particular about his coffee.  He won’t even drink the coffee that I make.  Seattle’s Best (Henry’s Blend) is a staple in our house.
• Tortilla chips:  Multi-grain Tostitos.  It is weird, because I don’t think anyone else buys these.  Whenever people come to our house and have them, they love them, but nobody has ever heard of them.  Try them, they are super delicious!
• Edy’s ice cream.  Oh so creamy.  Mint chocolate chip is my favorite, and as my Dad taught me, it HAS to be green.  White mint chocolate chip doesn’t make sense and doesn’t taste as good.  Not even close.

 

OK, I am sure there are more, but that is good for now.   If you have any favorites, let me know!  Maybe there is a great brand out there that I am missing out on!