Recipe # 7, Steak Kebabs

The cooking experiment continues.  I think I am almost caught up with the recipe per week thing.  And, I am now known as the cooking expert by my stepdauhter!  Just add another jewel to my crown of coolness! (slightly inside joke, sorry about that).  I am starting to really like these recipes from a card, because you can take it with you to the store for shopping and you don't have to have a book out on the counter while you are cooking.  The only thing is that I tend to lose the recipe about 4-5 times while cooking, or it gets wet and then is all wrinkly.  At least the recipes I am trying are getting recorded on here so in case I really do lose or ruin them I will have this wonderful blog for all eternity right?

So, down to business. 

Steak Kebabs
Perparation time:20 minutes plus marinating (1-2 hours) Funny how they think marinating time doesn't count, it is not like you can find this recipe, think great, we can eat in 20 minutes and then all of a sudden try to put your family off for 1-2 hours while the meat just sits there.
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Clean up time 4.5 hours! One hour to wash the dishes (ok that is a little generous) and then 3.5 hours to put your oven through a self clean cycle as you try to rectify the damage done from the drippings!  My tip, use the grill, even though it is ungodly hot outside.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp Reduced- sodium soy sauce
2 Tbsp honey (I really did have honey this time!)
1 Tbsp grated fresh ginger or 1 tsp ground ginger
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp grated lemon peel
1/4 tsp crushed hot red pepper flakes
12 oz boneless sirloin steak, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes (we just went with some of the stew meat we had in the freezer, it was a little tougher but good)
8 cherry tomatoes
4 large mushrooms, cut in half
1 green bell pepper, core, seeded, and cut into 8 squares

If your family eats like my family, double this recipe.  We tripled it and were still only left with 3 skewers, just enough for my lunch the next day.

1. In a shallow glass dish, combine say sauce, honey, ginger, garlic, lemon peel, and red pepper flakes.  Mix well.  Add beef; stir to coat.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

2. Preheat broiler.  Remove beef from the marinade. Discard marinade.  Using four 10-inch metal skewers, alternately thread beef, tomatoes, mushrooms, and bell pepper.  Place on Broiler pan.

3. Broil 2 inches from heat, turning 2 or 3 times, until meat is medium-rare and vegetables are lightly browned, about 10  minutes.  Place on serving plates and serve immediately.

The Verdict

I think this recipe is mostly about the marinade, and that got great reviews.  I may add some meat tenderizer to the marinade if I make it with stew meat again so the meat will not be so tough.  Also, I added some onions since there are some people in my family who don't like tomatoes or mushrooms (imagine! sheesh, I am working on that) and they did not cook well with the other ingredients so they wound up under-done. 

I do like the marinade and may find some other uses for it.  I might make this again with just the meat, I think that call that tandori?

Recipe #5 Meat Loaf Supreme

Again in a desperate attempt to play catch-up on recipes I found this one among a set of recipe cards I have gathered from somewhere in my life.  I don't remember where this set came from but I am pretty sure it came in the mail on a weekly or monthly basis and I was supposed to collect a whole ton of them, but fortunately good sense prevailed eventually and I cancelled the subscription because it was just way too expensive of a way to collect recipes.  But since I have them I better use them right.

So here we go.

The Recipe is called Meat Loaf Supreme and usually I can locate it on the Web to do a quick cut a paste so you can have the ingredients, but not this time.  

Preparation time: 10 minute (according to the recipe, it took me a little longer)

Cooking time: 1 hour

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 small onion (in my grocery store it seems like onions only come in one size)

1/2 green bell pepper

1/2 cup milk (we don't keep milk around because nobody drinks it, so I used some powdered soy milk)

1 egg

3/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 tablespoon dried parsley

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef

Topping:

3 tablespoons ketchup

1 tablespoon honey (I really thought we had honey, turns out we didn't so I substituted light corn syrup)

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Line a 9x5 inch loaf pan with foil.  Spray with cooking spray.  Chop onion and bell pepper together in a food processor.

2. Combine milk and egg in a large bowl; add bread crumbs, basil, parsley and pepper.  Stir until blended.  Add onion and pepper, mix well.  Add beef; mix just to combine ingredients.

3. Shape the beef mixture in prepared loaf pan.  Do not pack.  For topping, combine ketchup, honey and Worcestershire sauce in a small bowl.  Mix well.  Spread evenly over the top of the meat loaf.

4.  Bake meat loaf until cooked through, about 1 hour.  Place pan on wire rack; let stand for 5 minutes.  Lift meat loaf out of pan and place on a serving platter.  Remove foil.  Serve immediately.

So it was getting close to 10:00 pm and I was not interested in eating this immediately so I divided it up into containers to take for lunch.  Let me just say, ignore the direction not to pack the meat.  It absolutely fell apart and looked more like meat mush that meat loaf.  I don't know if that is usual or not for meat loaf since this is only about the second I think I have ever made in my whole life.

The topping did turn out very good with the weird substitution I made.  I think it might have actually have been for the best since I do not like my meat to taste sweet.

The Verdict:

I will try meat loaf again, maybe not this exact recipe but I had fun making it.  It was very quick and easy.  Even though it looks a little unappealing it was very tasty.

Please leave me a comment if you know how to keep your meatloaf from falling apart.

Recipe #4 North African Style Burgers

I am falling so far behind in this endeavor I went for a quick and easy recipe to make for my husband as I was heading out to a restaurant for girls night out.  I did not make the full burgers with the bun and stuff the way the recipe says, because this is a Weight Watchers recipe it does get very specific about how to prepare it so you can have your points value all figured out for you.  Since I am not concerned about that any more I really just wanted to try a recipe that sounded different and I was pretty sure my husband would eat.  I was only pretty sure because of the cinnamon.  So here we go.

The ingredients

I used a pound and a half of ground beef because that is what I had in the freezer left over from the Lasagna recipe.  So I increased all the ingredients again by half.  

I then forgot to take any pictures until I had all the patties formed.  It wasn't really interesting so I don't think you missed anything.

Into the frying pan.  My little ring of burgers, aren't they cute?

All done

The Verdict

David said they were okay, because he couldn't really taste the cinnamon.  I tried one and I thought they were interesting.  I don't think I will include cinnamon in any burger recipes again but the cumin and tomato paste were very good.  I will include those ingredients again for sure.

Recipe #2 Lasagna with Meat Sauce

So far so good, two new recipes in two weeks.

This weeks recipe comes thanks to my stepdaughter Ashlee.  I have been trying to cook something with her when we get together after she mentioned that she had never had a cake made from scratch.  So for no good reason we made a cake from scratch, then an apple pie with help from my mother, because I had never made a pie crust from scratch.  Next on the list was a lasagna, my only request was that the recipe include both meat and vegetables.  Meat because then my husband would eat it and veggies for me.

This recipe comes from the weight watchers new complete cookbook (slightly adapted)

Makes 8 servings
9 lasagna noodles
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 pound ground beef
1 onion, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
2 (15 oz) containers refrigerated marinara sauce
1 1//2 c ricotta cheese
1/2 c shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 c grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1. Cook the lasagna noodles according to package directions. Drain and rinse the noodles, then set aside.
2. In a small dry skillet over medium-low heat, cook the fennel seeds, shaking the pan and stirring constantly, until lightly browned and fragrant, 2-3 minutes. (Watch them carefully when toasting; seeds can burn quickly.) Transfer the seeds to a coffee grinder and grind to a powder.  Or pound the seeds between two clean kitchen towels with a mallet until finely crushed.
3. In a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, heat the oil; add the beef, onion, bell pepper and zucchini.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until all the pan juices evaporate and the beef browns, about 10 minutes.  Stir in the marinara sauce and fennel; bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered until slightly thickened and the flavors blend, about 10 minutes.
4. Preheat the over to 375 F. In a 9x13-inch baking dish, spread one-fourth of the meat sauce.  Top with 3 of the noodles; spread with 1/2 cup of the ricotta, Repeat the layering twice, ending with the meat sauce.
5. Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes, Remove the foil and sprinkle with the mozzarella and Romano.  Bake until heated through and the cheeses are lightly browned, about 20 minutes longer.  Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

This link should take you to the recipe as it looks in my book.  Hopefully this is not plagiarism since the exact same information is available with a simple google search.

Link to recipe from Google Books search

Shopping:
Lasagna noodles $1.42
Fennel seeds - got 'em
Olive oil - got it
ground beef - grew it, kind of
onion - grew it
bell pepper - $1.98 (they didn't have organic red so I went with organic orange)
Zucchini - grew it
marinara sauce - $7.76
Ricotta - $4.46 (I went with part skim, in the interest of having the hubby eat it)
mozzarella - Forgot it! I used the cheddar I had at home instead, this is shaping up to be a very orange lasagna.
pecorino Romano - way too expensive I went with a 3 cheese blend that had some romano in it $3.63
total = $19.25

Fun stuff:
Toasting fennel seeds.
Did you know they smell like licorice?  I knew that so I never knew how to cook them, I tried once before with a request from hubby to not do that again.  So toasting and grinding huh?  We will see.

Home grown beef.
We have the butcher trim all of our meat lean, I have no idea if it is 10% fat or less.  We have it bundled in 2 pound packages, so to get 1/2 a pound you cut it into 4ths, at least that is what Ashlee said. :)

It is beautiful seeing it all come together

Getting it all layered up

Hubby was getting hungry so he made sure to point out where I still needed some cheese.

All put together

The Verdict?

See for yourself

Will I make it again.

Definitely, but maybe with the recipe just serving as a guideline.