Showing posts with label beef. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beef. Show all posts

Easy Meatballs (for spaghetti)

If you don't like to get your hands dirty, this recipe is not for you. The binders in this recipe are bread crumbs, milk, and egg. If you are gluten-free or vegan, this recipe really isn't for you either. I don't have and am not willing to create a vegan "meat" ball recipe. Get your inner carnivore on because we're going to play with meat in this recipe.

I have seen all sorts of meat ratios for this recipe. Sure, you could probably combine equal amounts of ground pork and ground beef, heck toss in some lamb or veal as well; but by then the cost of the meat will exceed your entire spaghetti recipe and that's not good for anyone's food budget.

Note to future self: use lean ground beef. I used 80% meat/20% fat ground beef for this attempt, and well, the meatballs exuded a lot of oil when cooking. 

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef (93% lean should work)
1/2 c milk
1/2 c fine breadcrumbs
1/2 c Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 c fresh Italian parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
1 large egg
1 tsp salt
1 garlic clove, minced
freshly ground black pepper

Easiest way is to add all the ingredients to a large bowl and mix by hand. Stirring it together with a fork will only get you so far.

Use a tablespoon to scoop out some of the meat and form it into a ball with your hands. Set it on a plate and repeat until the plate is full.

Directions - in sauce

If you have just made a pot of spaghetti sauce, transfer some of the sauce sans meat to a skillet and add the meatballs in a single layer. Cook for about 20 minutes then transfer everything back to the pot that has the spaghetti sauce and simmer for an additional 10 minutes or so.

Directions - oven baked 


Preheat oven to 400F.

On a lipped baking tray, arrange meat balls in a single layer and bake for 25-30 minutes. Check on the meatballs to make sure they don't burn. If they burn, none of them will come off the tray without a spatula scraping them off.

Chuck all the cooked meat balls into the spaghetti sauce. Or set onto paper towels to drain the oil. Can also store these into a quart-size bag and freeze for later.

Yes, I really did two batches of meatballs, one cooked in a sauce and baked the other, then tossed both batches into the already-completed spaghetti sauce.

Beef and Bean Burritos

I will probably not be making this as a lunch week batch any time soon, or maybe if I do, I certainly won't be eating them every day for lunch.. again. Filling but boring. My burrito wrapping skills, like most recipes that call for wrapping food in something else (e.g., tamales, zongzhi, dumplings, etc.) needs a lot of work. The biggest difference in taste, besides my inept wrapping skill, is that restaurant-quality burritos are typically served warm. You just can't slap together cold ingredients, wrap it up, and call it a burrito. I suppose you could, but it doesn't taste like effort went into it. Anyhow, I ended up making a week's worth of lunch burritos with this attempt.

The Foodening Blog: behold! a burrito in the making
Ingredients

12" flour tortillas
1 lb ground beef, seasoned and prepared
tomato-based salsa, any style
16 oz can of refried beans or salsa-style refried beans
1 to 1.5 c cheddar cheese, grated
sour cream, to taste
shredded lettuce, optional

Directions

If you're making this for lunch, toast the tortilla before assembling the burrito. If not, skip the toasting step.

Lightly toast a flour tortilla on a griddle, or otherwise flat-enough frying pan surface so that your 12" tortilla can lie flat and be heated up. Flip and toast the other side before it burns.

Preparing the ground beef

There are two ways to do this, the quick way (use a taco seasoning packet) with the ground beef before frying it up and draining out the oil. Or, the more authentic way and mix in spices (minced garlic cloves, chili powder, ground cumin) and taco sauce with the ground beef before frying and draining out the oil. Yes, for this step I cheated and used Trader Joe's taco seasoning packet. Aside from what's in the packet, you'll probably also note that a lot of my adapted Mexican recipes do not contain onions. This is on purpose. If you like onions with your beef, go ahead and use it. You'll need one cup of chopped onion per pound of ground beef.

On a plate, begin your assembly.

In the lower 1/3 of the flour tortilla, add the refried beans. This will be your liquid barrier between the tortilla and the rest of the ingredients. Spread the beans like the paste it is across the bottom third, leaving a 1" space to the edge of the tortilla.

Next, add 1/3 cup of prepared ground beef. Spread it around on top of the beans.

Top the meat with 1/4 c grated cheddar cheese, salsa, and garnish with 1 tbsp of sour cream.

You could add shredded lettuce to this step, but not if you intend to freeze the burritos. Lettuce freezes poorly and it'll be a soggy, terrible mess if you include it for not-eaten-same-day burritos.

Folding the burrito

If only I had read this before both writing and doing the recipe. 

Start rolling from the bottom-up, once you pass the filling part, fold in the right and left sides and continue folding up.

Not eating today? Wrap for later.

For each burrito, wrap it up in a sheet of foil large enough to house it. Use a marker on the foil to label what it is and when it was made. Put it in a resealable plastic bag, and freeze.

To reheat

This was interesting since I don't own a microwave, and it seems like a waste of energy to use the oven for one burrito. Let your burrito(s) thaw in the refrigerator. Pan fry on low heat in a covered pan. Make sure to check your burrito so that the tortilla does not burn. Burnt tortillas taste awful.

Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage

This is the only time of the year when beef brisket goes on sale for St. Patrick's Day. Depending on where you shop, this cut of beef can be as low as $2/lb in the Pacific Northwest and is already seasoned. This fake food holiday is celebrated in the US because of two things: alcohol and food. I mean really, what other holidays do we have where we aren't consuming these two items. Anyhow. The average cut is about three pounds and while this may seem like a lot of food for a single person, a lot of it will turn into very tasty sandwiches.
Corned beef, all sliced up after resting for 10 mins

Ingredients

3 lb beef brisket, brined
1 packet of pickling spices
3 organic carrots, cut into thirds
3 organic celery stalks, cut into thirds
1 bay leaf
1 small onion, quartered
2-3 tbsp red wine
1 green cabbage, cored and cut into wedges

Directions

1. In the bowl of the slow cooker, place brisket fat-side down, add carrots, celery, onion, bay leaf, and pickling spices. Cover and set cooker to 8 hours on LOW.

2. An hour before the timer is done, add the cabbage wedges to the top of the stewing corned beef and replace lid. Let it cook until the cabbage leaves are fork-tender.

3. Remove brisket from slow cooker and let rest on a plate for 10 minutes before carving.

Corned beef, cabbage, carrots
and a side of garlic sourdough bread

Slow Cooker: Beef and Vegetable Soup

Soups are good make-ahead meals. This batch makes about three quarts of soup. I thought it tasted a bit spicy, so I may leave out the paprika and black pepper next time.

Ingredients

1 lb beef stew meat
1 qt organic vegetable or beef broth
2 14-oz cans of organic diced tomatoes
4 organic carrots, sliced
3 potatoes, diced
1 oz red wine
1/4 c unbleached white flour
1/2 c pearl barley (optional)

herbs & spices:
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 whole bay leaf
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp paprika (optional)
1/2 tsp organic granulated sugar (optional, if soup tastes acidic)

Directions

1. Combine ingredients except for flour and pearl barley in the slow cooker, starting with the chopped vegetables, followed by meat, herbs and spices.

2. Cook for 6 hours on "high".

3. (optional) In a separate pot, bring a 1.5 cups of water to boil. Add pearl barley, cover the pot and cook on low-medium for 45 minutes. Turn off heat. Fluff with a fork and add to slow cooker. Stir to distribute the pearl barley evenly throughout the soup.

Oven Roasted Hamburgers

This method is for those of us who don't own a backyard grill. It's not the best solution and these burgers come out less greasy than if they were to be pan fried. If only I had some brioche buns to go with these. I picked up some lean ground sirloin when it was on sale. Although, with today's meat prices, I'm not sure if "sale" really describes it. These were about $3.50/lb. Try to not knead the meat too much as you mix in the spices. Working the meat too much can make it tough when it cooks.

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef
1 tsp sea salt or kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce

Directions

Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.

In a bowl, mix all the ingredients together. Form into 3" diameter patties that are no more than 1" thick. Place patties on a broiler pan. Roast for 14 minutes, or less, depending on how done you want these to be.

An internal temp of 130 to 135 degrees will yield a medium rare burger patty. Once removed from the oven and as the burger cools, it will continue to cook. So, keep that in mind for anyone who enjoys a "medium" or well done burger.

Corned Beef with Cabbage

This is the first year I haven't taken the lazy uninspired route of making this dish...which typically meant going to the grocery store and buying the corned beef already brined in a neat little package. What is a little distressing is that the spices I had to acquire for this dish costed almost as much as the brisket; and the meat was on sale for St Patrick's Day. This dish is an expensive cooking experiment (roughly $15 in ingredients, excluding spices already on hand). I hope I don't screw it up too badly. 

Brisket is a pretty unforgiving piece of meat that needs to be slow roasted for its connective muscle tissue to break down into delightful pleasures of eating. If you cook it too fast on high heat, the meat gets tough. If you cook it too slow on high heat, the meat is still tough. But, if you don't want to bother with basting the meat every 40-50 minutes while it roasts in the oven there is another modern convenience called the slow cooker; or as it says on my unit...a Crockpot. I am using Steamy Kitchen's recipe process for this because it looks really easy to do. One of my beer friends advised against using a Guinness dark beer so I am using Pike's Naughty Nelly artisan ale instead. No, I still don't drink beer. I don't care for bitter in my beverages, and while I love the smell of fermenting hops (smells like bread, go figure) it's just not for me. Beer is great in recipes though, like beer can chicken, steamed with clams or mussels, or in chocolate stout cupcakes.

Beef and Eggplant Ragu

The taste reminded me a lot like a ratatouille. The sauce was burdened by eggplant flavor, however. Perhaps one large aubergine was too much for this simple beef recipe. Also, I couldn't taste the fennel at all. So maybe next time I should use fresh fennel instead of fennel seeds and dice the eggplant into smaller bits. This ragu is traditionally served over pasta, but fried brown rice is an acceptable substitute.

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef
1 large aubergine, diced
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tbsp EVOO
One 15 oz can organic diced tomatoes
1/3 c. tomato paste
1/2 c. dry marsala wine
1/2 tsp organic granulated sugar
1 tsp each fennel seeds, garlic powder, dried oregano, dried basil, dried thyme
freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. In a heavy-bottomed pot, brown garlic, ground beef, and olive oil together over medium heat. When all the pink is nearly gone in the beef, add the eggplant, tomatoes, and tomato paste. Let this mixture simmer for 10 minutes before adding the wine, sugar, and spices. Cover and let cook for 20 minutes, or until the eggplant is cooked.

Stovetop Sloppy Joes

I read that this is an American classic, but I didn't start eating nor making it until well after college. I suppose it's an evolution of sorts from frying ground beef and mixing in liberal amounts of catsup and Chipotlé hot sauce. This batch came out sweeter than I expected, probably because of the red bell peppers instead of the traditional green bell peppers. 

This version doesn't use onions, although if you enjoy such flavorings, you could add a chopped onion. The recipe ratio is slightly more elaborate and still tastes fine between toasted bread, buns, sliced hoagie rolls, or whatever other source of bread-like material you have on hand. It is thick enough to be eaten with saltines or other types of crackers. Serving size depends on what you think an adequate serving size is from how much ground meat is used. If you're only using a pound of meat, then it'll be roughly four servings for the batch.

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground meat, tastes best with beef
6 oz tomato paste
1/2 c. water
1 red (or green) bell pepper, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp cooking wine
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp dry yellow mustard
1/2 tsp smoked chipotlé powder (or chili pepper)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

1. In a large pot, heat olive oil until it spreads easily across the bottom of the pot. Add the bell pepper and garlic and fry until the oil is fragrant. If you are using chopped onions, they go in this step too. Add the ground beef and brown the sides before breaking it up into smaller chunks with a heatproof utensil.

2. When the beef is mostly cooked (very little pink showing), add the tomato paste, water, Worchestershire sauce, paprika, dry mustard and chipotlé powder. Season with sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper.

3. Simmer on low heat for 20-30 minutes. Toast some bread and slather butter onto it, or serve over hamburger buns, with crackers, or over more cooked meat.

This can also be made in a crockpot. The process is largely the same, except the water is omitted and the sauce cooks on low for 6 hours, after the meat has been browned in another pan.

Lemongrass Beef Meatballs

When I was at the Oregon Convention Center for the foodservice show, I stopped by a Japanese shop (Anzen Hiroshi's) that happened to be right across the street. I picked up a jar of lemongrass powder because I never have fresh lemongrass in the pantry. This recipe is fairly basic and uses this powder in lieu of fresh lemongrass. I made this to be an appetizer for a "stake" themed potluck. Since I had goose lard available that day, these were deep fried in an oil base of goose lard and EVOO.

Use a meat thermometer to ensure that the internal temp of the meatballs is 160 degrees F.

Makes 12 medium or 30 mini meatballs.

Ingredients

1 lb organic ground beef
2 tbsp lemongrass powder
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp organic granulated sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp Chinese five spice powder

fresh lard and/or olive oil for frying

Directions

1. In a bowl, mix together: ground beef, garlic, soy sauce, black pepper, sugar, cornstarch, oyster sauce, sesame oil, lemongrass powder, and Chinese five spice powder.

2. Take a small portion of the meat and roll it into a ball. Set aside, and repeat until no more mix is left.

3. Heat lard and olive oil in a small saucepan. This works in small batches and you don't have to use much oil. Use a spoon to rotate the meatballs so they cook evenly. It shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes per batch on medium heat.

When the meatballs are evenly browned, check the largest meatball with a meat thermometer. Remove finished meatballs to a paper towel-lined plate and let the excess oil drain before final plating for serving.

Beef stew, or something


Earlier in the year I picked up some fresh giant enoki mushrooms. I thinly sliced and air dried the mushrooms, and put them into a glass container for later use. The flavor that they added to this soupish-stew was pretty decent, a bit earthy.

I don't like how soggy pasta gets in most noodle soup dishes, so I cooked the pasta and the soup separately, adding the cooked pasta right to the soup immediately before serving. I think this ingredient combination came out quite well. You'll find all sorts of traditional vegetable ingredients missing from my soups/stews because I simply don't like them, but adapt away if you like. I also like my pasta cooked just past al dente.

The ingredients:

4-6 cups of water
1/2 cup red wine
1/3 lb beef stew meat
1/4 to 1/2 cup dried or fresh mushrooms
generous dashes of garlic powder
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 cup tomato sauce, fresh or canned*
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup cut corn
1-2 organic carrots, roughly chopped

1. Bring water to boil. Add all ingredients except for the corn and pasta.

2. In a separate pot, boil as much water as you want to cook pasta. You don't have to use celantini pasta, you can use any type of small bite-sized pasta if you wish. I am using celantini pasta because I've never cooked it before and thought I'd give it a try. When the pasta is done, either by the pasta's instructions or your measure of taste, drain and set aside.

3. When the soup is just about done, add the corn and cook for about 3-5 minutes. When you're about to serve the soup, stir in enough pasta for each person (about 1/4 to 1/2 cup cooked pasta per person). Serve hot.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes to mosh all the flavors together

*For canned tomato sauce, try to use one that has natural or no sugar in it and no corn syrup.
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