Meaty.... Monday!

Okay, gotta get myself back in meatless mode and blogging mode for that matter.  Sorry for the silence last week.  I am back though and  I have been meaty cooking rather than meatless.  I blame it on winter.  Todays recipe is one  of my new favorites.  Thank you "Our Best Bites"!   I recently made French Dip Sandwiches in the crockpot and they were so damn good!  This is a great meal to serve to company  for a casual gathering.  


Ingredients
1 2.5-3 lb. beef roast (you can use a frozen roast if you want)
2 Tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper
2 1-ounce packages dry onion soup mix
2 c. water
2 cans beef broth
6-8 large buns (or more…6 would be VERY generous servings!)
Swiss, provolone, or mozzarella cheese, shredded or sliced.


The "How To"...
Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat and rub roast with salt and pepper.

When very hot, carefully place roast in pan and sear on all sides. You're not cooking the meat, you're just browning it quickly on all sides to add flavor and seal in the juices.

Place in crockpot and sprinkle with onion soup mixes. Pour water and beef broth over roast.

Cook 8-10 hours on low or cook 4-5 hours on high and another 3-4 hours on low. It's hard to screw this part up; basically, the longer it cooks, the more tender it will be. But you know it's done when you pop a fork in it and the meat just falls apart. When meat is ready, shred with a fork.

Place meat in crusty rolls. Top with cheese and broil open-faced in the oven or toaster oven for a few minutes, until bread is golden and cheese is melty.

Ladle juices into small cups for dipping and enjoy!


I will get you something meatless soon.... I hope.  Until next time....xoxo

S & B.... Sauce & Balls!

Photo Credit

Yes, for the first time I made homemade tomato sauce and meatballs.  Very exciting!  My mother did not have a recipe as she "wings it".  So I hit the web in search of my trademark sauce.  You know... the sauce that will become our family recipe ... the one my daughter will pass down to her kids! :)  


So, I started with the Barefoot Contessa as she can do no wrong.  I took her basic recipe, read all the online reviews, and added what I thought sounded good!  I added more pork (and no veal) as veal was too hard to find.  I ended up with the following recipe that I have to say was pretty damn good.  

Ingredients

For the meatballs:

• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup seasoned dry bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 extra-large egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup minced onion
  5 tbsp minced garlic
  1/2 tsp chopped crushed red pepper
• Vegetable oil
• Olive oil

For the sauce:

• 1 tablespoon good olive oil
• 1 cup chopped yellow onion (1 onion)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1/2 cup good red wine, such as Chianti
• 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes, or plum tomatoes in puree, chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Place the ground meats, both bread crumbs, along with rest of dry ingredients, plus 3/4 cup milk in a bowl. Combine very lightly with a fork. Using your hands, lightly form the mixture into 2-inch meatballs. You will have approximately 14 to 16 meatballs.

Bake Meatballs on a greased (or non-stick) cookie sheet at 425 degrees for 10-15 minutes.  

For the sauce, heat the olive oil pan.   Add the onion and saute over medium heat until translucent, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the wine and cook on high heat until almost all the liquid evaporates, about 3 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, parsley, salt, and pepper.

Return the meatballs to the sauce, cover, and simmer on the lowest heat for at least 25 to 30 minutes.  The longer you let it cook ... the better as the flavors merge together.    Serve hot on cooked spaghetti and pass the grated Parmesan.

I quadrupled this recipe... yes quadrupled (I had hit BJ's Wholesale that day.) and froze it in dinner sized portions. It rocks that every few weeks I can pop a meal out of my freezer that is yummy and homemade!  

Make some sauce and balls for yourself (insert italian accent here)!  Until next time...xoxo

PS: Away for weekend and forgot to bring my Birchbox so could not blog it today!  It will be posted on Wednesday!  Come back and see. :)  

R is for risotto. More risotto!

Photo from Simply Recipes

So, I know I have written before about risotto, but we could a recipe so good it is worth raving about!  Risotto is one of our "date night at home" dishes.  It is not difficult to cook, but takes time and tending to.   Risotto is also one of those things that you can make with one recipe- and add whatever you want.  We typically do sausage and mushrooms or sausage and sun-dried tomatoes.  Well, I felt like changing things up and forced the husband to try something different!

I found a mushroom and gorgonzola risotto recipe.  I substituted blue cheese for gorganzola becuase I had some leftover from another meal.  We also added some shredded chicken as I too had that left over from roasting one on Thursday night.  This mushroom, chicken, blue cheese risotto was AMAZING!  Truly the best one we have made to date!!!

I found a recipe and then made some changes.  Here is my adapted recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 teaspoons butter
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 shallots, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 ounces sliced fresh button mushrooms
• 1 (12 ounce) package Arborio rice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 quart hot chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons crumbled Blue Cheese
• ground black pepper to taste
• Chicken (leftovers of any kind; cubed breast or shredded roast chicken)

Directionsr.

1. Melt butter along with truffle oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, shallot, and garlic; cook and stir two minutes until the onion begins to soften. Add the mushrooms, and continue cooking until the mushroom softens.
2. Add Arborio rice; cook and stir for a few minutes until the rice is well coated with the onion mixture and looks glossy. Stir in the white wine, and cook until nearly evaporated.
3. Reduce heat to medium, and add 1/3 of the hot chicken stock. Cook and stir until the chicken stock has been mostly absorbed, about 5 minutes. The risotto should be simmering gently while you stir in the chicken stock. Add half of the remaining stock, and stir for 5 minutes more. Finally add the remaining stock, and continue cooking until the risotto is creamy and the rice is tender, about 5 minutes more. The rice should not be completely soft, but still have a little firmness when you bite into it. You can add a little water if needed to cook the rice to this state.  You can also add the cooked chicken at this point so it gets nice and moist.
4. Remove the risotto from the heat, and stir in the heavy cream and Gorgonzola cheese. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve.

This was our best risotto yet!  It was sooo creamy and the blue cheese added a nice "something something".  Try it for yourself... until next time.  xoxo

R is for Roaster...

Photo via Food Network

Okay, a long time ago my friend SH told me that she cooks a chicken every week.  I thought... hunh?  This might have been because I was pregnant and for some reason I could not eat chicken when I was pregnant.  It grossed me out... weird I know.  

Well, now able to eat chicken again and am loving roasting a chicken weekly.  SH- it is a brillant idea.  Why?  It is super cheap at like $6-$8 a pop.  You get several meals out of it.  A "roast chicken" meal the night you cook it and leftover meal for the following night.  You can use the meat for enchiladas or chicken pot pie or put in in a salad or whatever!  

My FAVORITE roast chicken is one I blogged about before here.  I recently tried another one of Barefoot Contessa's chickens and it too was delicious.   It was near perfect, but  I made some changes to make it my own (i.e substituted leeks for potatoes).  I would not recognize a leek if it hit me in the head. :)

Ingredients

• 1 (5 to 6 pound) roasting chicken
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large bunch fresh thyme, plus 20 sprigs
• 1 lemon, halved
• 1 head garlic, cut in half crosswise
• 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter, melted
• 1 large yellow onion, thickly sliced
• 4 carrots cut into 2-inch chunks
• 1 bulb of fennel, tops removed, and cut into wedges (I substituted some red bliss potatoes.)
• Olive oil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Remove the chicken giblets. Rinse the chicken inside and out. Remove any excess fat and leftover pin feathers and pat the outside dry. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with the bunch of thyme, both halves of lemon, and all the garlic. Brush the outside of the chicken with the butter and sprinkle again with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. Place the onions, carrots, and fennel in a roasting pan. Toss with salt, pepper, 20 sprigs of thyme, and olive oil. Spread around the bottom of the roasting pan and place the chicken on top.

Roast the chicken for 1 1/2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh. Remove the chicken and vegetables to a platter and cover with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes. Slice the chicken onto a platter and serve it with the vegetables.

Sunday night is roast chicken night in our house... try it yourself!  Until next time...xoxo

C is for Crockpot! Another Crockpot recipe...

So, as I  mentioned last week I am trying some new recipes out while on maternity leave.   I am all about EASY recipes.  One of my favorite EASY cooking tips is using the crockpot.  What is not to love?  You throw it all in the pot in the AM and you have an amazing tasty meal by the end of the day. 


Last week I made Pomegranate Beef.  It was amazing.  It was super super easy in that the only thing you needed to cut was onion and garlic!  I found this recipe on one of my very favorite blogs, A Year of Slow Cooking.  


I took some photos (but they do not look at all appetizing), so I am not sharing.   This photo from A Year of Slow Cooking is much much much more appealing.  So, photo credit goes to that blog!   I followed the recipe as is with the exception of the canned tomatoes.  My grocery store did not carry fire roasted crushed tomatoes, so I substituted Hunts crushed tomatoes with onion and garlic.  The first day I served this over yummy mashed potatoes.  When I served as leftovers, I served it over pasta that I had leftover in the fridge.  It would be super yummy over egg noodles too.   


Here is the recipe:  


1 tablespoon olive oil
1 yellow onion, sliced
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon herbes de Provence
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 pounds beef roast
4 garlic cloves (whole is fine, or you can chop them)
1 (14-ounce) can fire-roasted crushed tomatoes
1 cup unsweetened pomegranate juice
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 cup golden raisins

The Directions:

Use at least a 6-quart slow cooker. Swirl the olive oil into the bottom of the stoneware. Add the onion. Rub the spices on all sides of meat and add to the stoneware with the garlic, the whole can of tomatoes, pomegranate juice, vinegar, and syrup. Sprinkle the raisins on top. 

Cover and cook on low fir 8 hours, or on high for about 5. The meat is done when it has reached desired tenderness. Serve with mashed potatoes and drizzle with the sauce.  

What did the husband rate this recipe?  He gave it an 8....quite  good in husband standards.  He said he would have rated it higher but that my presentation was lacking!  Gotta love him.  He suggested placing meat in "hole" in center of potatoes and drizzle the sauce around the outside of the potatoes.  

Have I mentioned how much I love my crockpot?  Until next time....xoxo 

PCS......Pulled Chicken Sandwiches!

Okay.... these sandwiches courtesy of recipezaar are yummy and are the perfect thing to make if entertaining a large group (and when too cold to BBQ outside). I made these for my sister and brother-in-law a month or so ago and they were a hit. I have a variety of friends who don't eat pork.... so need more chicken than pork recipes! This is another crockpot recipe. I heart my crockpot!

(If your crock pot is large enough, this easily doubles and the leftovers can be frozen.)

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced or 1/2 large onion, thinly sliced
• 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts

SAUCE

• 1 cup ketchup
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
• 1 pinch salt

Directions

1. 1

   Cut the onion in half and slice into thin half rings. Line the bottom of the crock pot with the onions.

2. 2

   Trim the chicken breasts and place on top of the bed of onions.

3. 3

   Mix all of the sauce ingredients together and pour on top of the chicken covering completely. (I make the sauce the night before so that it is a simple dump and run in the morning.)

4. 4

   Cook for 6 hours on low setting. The sauce thickens and turns into a dark rich brown during cooking. At the same time the onions dissolve into the sauce.

5. 5

   When the chicken is falling apart tender, take two forks and shred the chicken.

6. 6

   Serve on top of split buns. I like mine toasted so they hold up better to the weight of the shredded chicken.

7. 7

   Suggested sides include baked beans, corn on the cob, coleslaw or cucumber salad.

My footnote: I would suggest taking the sauce from crockpot and serving in gravy boat so folks can add to the sandwich as they like (soggy or not soggy)

Enjoy! Until Next Time....xoxo