Atrocious Frozen Beef Makeover

I realized it was my night to make dinner close to noon today, so I hope I'm not cutting it too close using the crock pot. I'm going to start it on high for a few hours before turning it down to low later on... though I'm sure whatever this is would taste better cooked on low for 8-10 hours. I found a package of badly freezer-burned thin beef steaks in the freezer and am trying to reconcile them with the beef gods for dinner tonight.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds of old, frozen beef something-or-other
2 shallots, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3/4 bag of baby carrots
2 medium/large red potatoes, chopped
1 tsp parsley flakes
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
a few shakes of seasoned pepper and seasoned salt
1 cup leftover red wine (ours was a zinfandel)
1 cup frozen green beans

Unwrap the beef atrocity, thawing a little under warm running water to get the wrapper off and using leverage to break the frozen meat in half, or however it will fit into the crock pot. Add all the other ingredients on top of the meat, and cook either on low for 8-10 hours or high for 3 hours and then low until dinner time (another 3-5 hours) In the last 20 minutes of cooking, toss in the green beans and then mix in with the rest of the stuff before serving.

Let's hope this turns out well and rescued... it looks like it'll serve about 3-4 people.
UPDATE: Though it could have used a little more salt, it was actually pretty decent, as a sort of stew/potage.

Burritos!!!

The older the baby gets, the easier it is to entertain her. All i had to do is clean the kitchen floor so it was safe, then give her some plastic ring links and set her on it. She can sit there for quite awhile banging the rings on the linoleum floor.

Anyway, I thought burritos would be fun to make, and after seeing some amazing ones at a restaurant on the Travel channel I tried to make some hearty stuffed ones of my own. This is a pretty cheap meal; for about $10 or so you can feed at least 5-6 people.

Ingredients:

about 1 lb lean ground beef (or you can use any ground meat)
1 can black beans
Medium salsa
1 packet McCormick Burrito Seasoning (not necessary, but it does add a nice flavor to the meat)
1 cup brown rice
1 large ripe avocado
1/4 tsp garlic salt
light sour cream
shredded cheddar cheese
large flour tortillas

Prepare the rice as directed (usually 1 cup rice to 1 3/4 cups water, boil, then simmer at least 30 minutes on low). About halfway through the rice cooking, start browning the meat in a large frying pan.
While that cooks, cut the avocado in half and pit it, then peel it and chop the avocado. Mash in a bowl with the garlic salt. This is your guacamole.

Once meat is mostly done browning, add the can of beans, 3/4 cup of water, and the seasoning packet (cut out the water if you're not using the seasoning packet). Mix all together well and cook on low until the rice is done.

Heat a tortilla on a plate in the microwave for about 12 seconds. Top with meat/bean mix, then some rice, then salsa, guacamole, cheese and sour cream. Try not to fill it too much or the tortilla won't close. Wrap it up as tightly as you can and eat! Very tasty.

Easy Beefy Noodles for Two

I took a walk in the sunshine with the baby today and stopped at the market down the road to pick up some cabbage for tomorrow night. While there, I perused the meat section, mostly out of curiosity as this was one of those hole-in-the-wall markets rather than a big chain. I found a package of lean ground beef, just under a pound, for a few bucks and picked it up. Then, with the baby enjoying playtime in her playpen, I whipped this up in about 15 minutes.

Ingredients:

About a pound, or a little less, lean ground beef
3/4 to 1 cup milk
1 tsp parsley flakes
1/4 tsp seasoned salt
1/8 tsp. ground black pepper
2 Tbsp. flour
Half a bag of egg noodles

Brown the ground beef in a large frying pan on medium heat, breaking into smaller pieces as it cooks.

Start cooking the egg noodles in a separate pot as you cook this; it helps if you start the water boiling before you begin to prepare the meat. Drain the meat if you want; I didn't, but I like animal fat. Once the beef is mostly cooked, add all other ingredients and simmer on low until egg noodles are done.

Drain the water out of noodles and fill two bowls, topping with the meat mixture. Serves two, and kinda tastes like Hamburger Helper only without all the processed crap. I recommend also serving a side of greens or something for fiber intake. Quite tasty, and easy.

Beef Stew in the Crock Pot Plus a Special Ingredient

The baby is much better behaved in the mornings, so that's why it's much easier to make Crock Pot meals. I start it in the morning when she is content to sit in her chair and watch me, and can get everything prepared with little fuss over her. Today is another "clean out the cabinets" type stew, since tomorrow I'll finally have money to go grocery shopping again. I had a shallot in the cupboard so I decided to add that to my normal recipe for beef stew, found HERE. Shallots really suck to peel and cut, as they make you cry worse than regular onions, but they taste absolutely fabulous once cooked. Plus I had a few extra potatoes, and since I didn't want to have just two or three red potatoes sitting lonely in the cupboard I threw them all in.

It's a starch-heavy beef stew today. And I'm glad I always keep bouillon cubes in the cabinet. A can of beef broth tastes better, but when you either forget to buy one or simply run out, some bouillon cubes will do the trick.

The addition of the shallot turned out to be an incredible bonus, adding a sweet tang to the broth. I think I'll be putting a chopped shallot or two in my beef stew from now on!

Beef Teriyaki

Alright, give me a break, it was a Saturday night, and after 9 months of not drinking followed by barely drinking anything the last four months you can't blame me for getting drunk off one glass of wine! The recipe I was using called for 2 tablespoons of white wine, so I figured I might as well open a bottle of reisling and drink as much of the rest of the bottle as I could. My point is, I forgot to take any photos of the process or result. I can draw a picture if you want me to. Suffice to say, this stuff is delicious; my husband hates teriyaki but told me this was the best teriyaki sauce he'd ever had. Oh, and I was missing several items from the recipe I had so I substituted some ingredients to make this my own.

Ingredients:

1 1/2-2 lbs blade steak, sliced thin
ground black pepper
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp white wine
2 tsp cornstarch
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
2 scallions sliced thin or 3 Tbsp minced onion

Slice up steak. Drop veggie oil into large frying pan and heat on medium, then brown steak in pan. In small pot add all other ingredients and whisk together, heating on low-medium, until it comes to a boil. Simmer 2 minutes, then add sauce to the browned meat and cook on low another 2-3 minutes til heated through.

Serve over hot bowls of Nishiki rice, then sprinkle each serving with sesame seeds. Serves 3-4, depending on exact poundage of meat.

Slow Cooker Pot Roast

Today's dinner is brought to you by the "I haven't been shopping in so long that this is all that's left in my refrigerator" club.
Thankfully, I started putting this together so early in the morning that I didn't even disturb the baby's normal 8am nap.

Ingredients:

2-3 pound round rump roast (beef)
3 fat carrots, peeled and chopped into large chunks
2 large red potatoes, cubed/chopped into large chunks
1 sm-med sweet onion, sliced vertically into strips
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3/4 cup water
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp dry parsley
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp ground sage
1/4 tsp garlic pepper
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp seasoned salt

Set meat into Crock Pot fat side down. Surround with chopped vegetables. Pour in the water. Sprinkle first 6 spices over top of meat, shake the rest over all meat and vegetables. Cook on low 6-8 hours.

Oxtail Stew

The last two nights were filled with leftovers and cheater meals, like McCormick spice mix chicken wings. But today I am finally trying something new, which means I need to follow a recipe. Actually, I'm combining two recipes I found for Oxtail Soup/Stew; one from Stephanie O-Dea's Make it Fast, Cook it Slow, and the other from Vol. 14, #3 of Renaissance Magazine, along with a few additions of my own.
My husband went on leave Friday afternoon and will be home for two whole weeks! So he watched the baby this morning while I got an early start on this recipe, which will take two days.
I thought it would be pretty cheap to prepare, assuming ox tails were a beef part about as desirable as tongue or hock, but I was wrong. I got 2 1/3 pounds of ox tails at just over $10, given them being $4 something per pound! Both the recipes I had called for 3 pounds of ox tails, but I'm a cheapskate so I altered the recipes to approximate the amount of meat I actually had available. I'm using my 7 quart Crock Pot (the lid on which broke yesterday and is now being held together by super glue until I buy a new crock pot today).

Ingredients:

2-3 pounds ox tails
1 pound (or about 7) carrots, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
5-6 small red potatoes, cut into inch chunks
1 1/2 stalks celery, sliced down the middle then chopped
12 oz. worth of canned diced tomatoes
1 cup dry white wine (like Chardonnay)
1 can low sodium beef broth
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
3 green onions or 2 leeks, chopped into rings (leaving out the last inch or two of dark green)
3 fat garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning (or, barring that, a few shakes worth to cover the meat of parsley, rubbed sage, basil, and oregano)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cumin (I only had cumin seed so I ground the 1/2 tsp up with my mortar and pestle)
3 sprigs rosemary
a sprig of fresh oregano, if you have it
sea salt
black pepper

Pour the olive oil into the bottom of the Crock Pot and rub it around with your fingers to cover the bottom. Rinse off the ox tails then plop them in on top of the olive oil. Cover with all the ground spices and 2 of the sprigs of rosemary, as well as a few shakes of sea salt and pepper. Pour in the beef broth, wine, and spread the tomatoes on top of all that. Add the vegetables and top with a few more shakes of sea salt and pepper. Break up the last sprig of rosemary and pull the leaves off the fresh oregano and scatter over the top.
Cover and cook on high for 5 hours, then turn off and let cool. Put the crock pot (just the ceramic part) into the refrigerator overnight to let the fat congeal and rise to the surface. In the morning, scrape off the fat (and throw out), then put the pot back into the heating element and cook on low for 6-8 hours to reheat and allow the flavors to mesh and the meat to get nice and tender.

Second Day: Skim the fat off the top, trying to get around the vegetables as best you can, then start it up again on low.
End result: Bloody delicious! The meat was falling off the bone...yum!

Spicy Crock Pot Chili

I've made this before and it turns out differently every time, depending on how many shakes of spices I decide to use. I estimated measurements on the spices for you, though, and put the baby in her high chair beside me in the kitchen to watch me prepare. She loved watching the beef brown in the frying pan!
You can turn this into a vegetarian chili quite easily by simply replacing the pound or so of ground beef with a large eggplant all chopped up. My dad always said eggplant was the meat of the vegetable world.
By the way, last night we just had a lamb steak with some packaged veggies, and I prepared the lamb the same way I prepared the rack of it in that earlier post.

Ingredients:

1-1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 small red jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
1 whole sweet onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped or minced
1 14-15 oz. can red kidney beans, rinsed
1 14-15 oz. can black beans, rinsed
2 14-15 oz. cans diced stewed tomatoes (I use the can with the zesty chili spices)
1 tsp. seasoned salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
dash of garlic pepper, if you have some
dash of cumin seed
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1 Tbsp parsley flakes
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp Tabasco sauce

Brown the ground beef in a frying pan (at least most of the way), breaking up into small chunks as it cooks. Or alternatively, peel and chop the eggplant into 1-inch cubes and add to pot. Drain before adding it to the Crock Pot. Drain the cans of beans and put into the pot, and throw in entire contents of the two tomato cans. Chop veggies while meat is browning and throw all into the pot, followed by the spices (adding a little more cayenne pepper if you like your chili super spicy). Stir well with a long wooden spoon and then cook on low for at least 6 hours stirring once in the middle of cook time, or high for at least 4 hours.

I made mine while the baby was awake and fascinated by either me cooking or the magnets on the refrigerator around 9:30am, so it's going to cook at least until 5pm. This chili is best served with either corn bread or Pillsbury crescent rolls.

As a bonus today for missing yesterday's post, I give you a link to my eHow article on my Amazingly Tasty Hamburgers recipe.

Meal's Beef Stew

Hooray for the Crock Pot! A mom's best friend. I used the 30 minute nap the baby was taking around 10:30am to put this one together for later tonight. This recipe changes almost every time I make it, depending on which spices I feel like throwing in, but this is the base of my amazing beef stew. Or soup....sometimes it's not so stew-y....

Ingredients:

1 lb. (or thereabouts) stew beef, cubed (I buy the package ready-made at the store)
5-6 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2 lb. frozen peas
1/2 lb. frozen corn
8 baby red potatoes or 4 large
1 sweet onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 celery stalk, halved down the middle (long way) and chopped
2 beef boullion cubes (or one can beef broth)
1/2 tsp rubbed sage
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp oregano
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. Lawry's seasoned salt
1 tsp. coarsely ground black pepper
5 cups water (4 if you're using a can of beef broth)
3 Tbsp cornstarch

Get out your large Crock Pot for this one! Make sure the beef cubes are about inch wide pieces. It's up to your taste whether to peel the potatoes or not; sometimes I do, but today I didn't, since I was using baby potatoes and it's just too much work to peel them. Leaving the skins on retains the vitamins anyhow.
Pour the liquids into the pot first, then add the boullion cubes and spices. Throw everything else into the pot and mix well with a wooden spoon. Cook on low in the Crock Pot for at least 7 hours.
My mom always said whoever finds the bay leaf in their bowl has won the prize, so we say the same thing at our house.