Currently viewing the tag: "recipes"
Thanks to the Boston Brunchers I got a chance to have a delightful meal with several other parent bloggers and meet Katie Workman, who’s just released the Mom 100 Cookbook.
There is so much to like about this cookbook. I know pictures in cookbooks are a big deal for a lot of us. There’s a picture of EVERY recipe in here. And Katie (we’re on a first name basis now) builds the whole book around specific kinds of meals a Mom needs. There are 20 categories of meals, with 5 recipes each. She also gives recommendations for “fork in the road” meals, where you can separate the blander kid-style meal from the more complex adult-style meal. Because who wants to eat boring kids food?
When I flip through a cookbook, if I think about a third of the recipes are interesting it’s worth a purchase. But with this one, I wanted to make tons of the recipes. I expect it’ll provide our meals for the next few weeks.
The first recipe I decided to make was an easy choice: One Skillet Cheesy Beef and Macaroni. Yes, it’s “kid” food. But I have a serious soft spot for one-pot meals with meat, cheese and pasta. What can I say? I find that these recipes can be hit and miss. Some pasta bakes are tasteless. Others are inexplicably wonderful (Mark Bittman’s baked ziti, for example, doesn’t look like anything special but I adore it). This recipe takes a different approach. Instead of a bake, you keep the whole thing on the stovetop in your skillet.
Given the state of my kitchen, I like to use as few dishes as possible. So I was all in.
Right off the bat I was pleased to see 3 cups of veggies in this recipe.
She calls for onion, pepper and carrot. I had some extra celery in the pantry so I threw that in, too. You could easily add leeks. Or some zucchini and yellow squash, letting them saute for just a minute or two. Or peas and corn, you could toss a pack of frozen ones in just as you add the tomatoes. With this kind of recipe, depending on how picky your eaters are, you can chop bigger or smaller pieces and change out veggies as needed.
She also uses a 12″ skillet. My biggest skillet isn’t that big so I decided to use my giant go-to pan instead. It was a good choice. She’s not kidding about this recipe making a large amount.
Once you’re done chopping your veggies, this recipe is easy peasy. Brown your meat, saute your veggies, add everything together for a simmer, then top with cheese until it’s all melty. You don’t even have to cook the pasta in a separate pot!
When I was all finished it looked like this:
Hello, cheesy goodness!
Compare that to the picture from the book:
Not bad, eh? I love that it looks the way it’s supposed to look. I often find the pictures in cookbooks look nothing like my finished product.
I have to say, I gobbled this down. It had a lot more flavor than I expected. I suspect the secret is the chili powder, which she lists as optional, but which I added even though I’m not a big chili powder person. Plus letting everything simmer together meant the flavors all soaked together nicely. I didn’t get to add the worcestershire sauce (there wasn’t any in my fridge, how did that happen?) but I’m sure it would make a nice addition, too.
This is definitely going to be a standard in our house.
Stay tuned for some more recipe reviews from the Mom 100 Cookbook over the next week or two. I’m really excited to try more of the recipes.
She uses lots of pantry staples, which I love. And at least with this recipe there was plenty of room to adjust. I added a liberal dousing of creole seasoning, as I am wont to do. I was short on tomatoes and I had a little more beef, but it all turned out great anyway. I honestly don’t know how anyone could NOT love this simple dish.
Here’s my adapted version of the recipe, based on what I had on hand in the kitchen.
2.5 lbs ground beef
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 cup chopped carrot
1/2 cup chopped celery
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 tsp dried basil
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp chili powder
3/4 lb macaroni
2 c. water
salt, pepper, creole seasoning to taste
2 c. shredded sharp cheddar
As I said before, the work is easy. Brown your beef, drain and wipe down your pan. Saute veggies in the oil for about 5 minutes on Medium heat. Add all other ingredients except cheese. Raise heat until it reaches a simmer, then lower heat and cook covered for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add cheese on top, cook covered for 1 minute or until cheese is melty.
Devour.
Related Posts:
Making up a recipe is something I never would’ve considered a little while ago. That’s what cookbooks are for, right? But my confidence in the kitchen has grown. And my biggest source of inspiration for this project is food blogs. I see them throw something together that comes out amazing and I think, “I could do that. Right?”
Mostly it’s a matter of finding something where I don’t have an adequate recipe and figuring out how to put one together. I’m still not a person who can just throw things together. If I’m going to make it I want it to be just right. My spaghetti sauce was made up mostly on the fly and I’m still tinkering with it to this day. I’d really love to be able to write it down when I’m done and say, “Here it is!”
Step 1: Inspiration
The other day I got a frozen Black Bean & Veggie Enchilada for lunch and liked it more than I expected. I did wish they’d used less tofu and more beans or veggies, but I thought… Hmm, I could do this.
Step 2: Background Info
Next comes a little research. I’m not the kind of person who just throws stuff in a pot. I haven’t made enough enchiladas to know just how to do them and I’ve only made them with meat & cheese.
First, I pulled up the product page for the enchiladas I ate. Mostly I wanted their list of veggies, though I already had my own planned. Zucchini, corn, tomatoes, onions and peppers were on my list. I wasn’t too far off. These are the veggies I normally use in my Calabacitas (Mexican veggies, mostly zucchini). I could use frozen/canned corn and canned tomatoes. Plus I use zucchini, onions and peppers often enough that I feel comfortable with them. Just a good dice and I’d be covered. And I’ve got plenty of cans of black beans in my pantry.
When I’ve made enchiladas before, the longest part has been making the filling. Cooking and shredding chicken doesn’t happen in a flash. It seemed to me that these could potentially be done a lot faster and easier if all I had to do was a little chopping.
Step 3: Search other recipes
I thought I’d see if anyone had any recipes already out there that I could riff off of. To search I went through Allrecipes, which has pretty basic recipes and a huge database. Then I googled things like “black bean enchiladas” and “vegetarian enchiladas.”
I found these zucchini enchiladas at Allrecipes. Definitely different than what I had in mind, but I knew I’d need the most help with seasoning and sauces, so I definitely stored this one away. Plus it uses jack cheese, which was my plan as well. It uses a cheese sauce with the zucchini–an interesting thought–but doesn’t have a real enchilada sauce. I’d definitely prefer enchilada sauce. I’d use canned if I must, but I definitely wanted to see more.
I avoided recipes like these black bean enchiladas, which calls for picante sauce and salsa. It’s always been my understanding that enchiladas are made with small corn tortillas and have either a red or green enchilada sauce. It was clear right away that a lot of what I’d find online would have flour tortillas and jarred salsa, which are definitely not the same.
These black bean enchiladas have an interesting seasoning mixture, though I’m not a big fan of cilantro. I’ll keep them in mind. They did bring up an important question: should I do any cooking of the beans and veggies in advance? This one puts everything in just plain and then bakes. But with the veggies would I need a light saute first?
These enchiladas have peppers and beans and don’t pre-cook their filling, either. Otherwise, this recipe and I don’t see eye to eye. I only use taco seasoning for tacos because, well, I’m not really trying to get terribly authentic with those.
There are some drool-worthy candidates, especially in the green-sauce department. If I made my own sauce, it would be amazing to knock-off this from Rick Bayless, who I learned from Top Chef Masters is the king of Mexican food.
Here’s one last recipe that helps me put my plan together. This one has a make-your-own red enchilada sauce that seems pretty simple. A good alternative if I’m not quite Bayless-level ambitious. Plus, yet again, no pre-cooking of the filling. I like the style of this recipe, not a ton of ingredients, lots made from scratch.
Overall, I felt like my idea to put this recipe was good. Most enchilada dishes I found are just for smothered burritos. (They’re different, people! I’ll forgive you for not knowing, but just this once.) And even though they’re mostly vegetarian, the fillings seem to be mostly beans without nearly as much veg thrown in. I think I could make these pretty darn awesome.
The only real question that remains is what to do about the sauce. I pull up a couple more salsa verde recipes for inspiration (this one, another one that claims to be just like the sauce at Cafe Rio and one from my foodie crush, the Homesick Texan) and now I just have to finalize my plan. Oh, and Salsa Verde is NOT the same as “salsa.” Okay? (I usually sub out salsa in recipes for Ro-Tel anyway.)
Next I have to make a plan for ingredients and cooking. Then to cook!
Part 2 will be very exciting, I can already tell…
Related Posts:
There is only one recipe I’ve ever created. And this is it.
I guess that’s not quite accurate because I’ve made so many variations on this recipe that I’m not quite sure what the base even is anymore.
This weekend I prepped a new version with a few changes that turned out particularly well. I thought I’d walk you through it.
If you buy spaghetti sauce, you should really really think about making your own. It doesn’t take long (If I make it, it definitely doesn’t take long) and it tastes so much better. I made this up when Eric and I were still dating and he insisted it was better than the spaghetti he’d get from the Italian place by his apartment. I still don’t agree, but it sure was cheaper. Also, you can freeze it and make it whenever you want. Or you could throw it in the crock pot for a few hours. You really can’t lose.
I decided to try adding more veggies to our sauce, since I have trouble getting enough veggies in my diet. Normally I only use one onion and some garlic. This time I threw in some more.
The onion is still there (I used sweet instead of yellow just for kicks), but I threw in a green pepper, a zucchini, and a bunch of baby carrots I had, since I keep a stash around to snack on. I chopped them all up but made sure to separate the zucchini. It doesn’t take as long to cook and you don’t want it to get super super mushy. So I put my onion, pepper and carrot together and sauteed them in some olive oil on Medium.
They say having a lot of colors in your meal is good, right? I like the colors already.
While the veggies are sauteeing, I pull out my sausage. I never ate meat sauce growing up, but I find it makes the meal a little more substantial and Eric definitely prefers it. Normally I use turkey sausage but I couldn’t find any at the store. So instead I just got pork. (Good thing I’ve added all those veggies.) To be honest, the pork gives you more flavor but I try to only use it once in a while.
I always use hot sausage. In fact, you may have noticed I haven’t added any seasoning at all. I won’t add any later, either. Using hot sausage means I already have all the seasoning I need. If you decide to opt for sweet sausage or go meat free, you can season with whatever you’d like. (I’d add it to the sauteeing veggies.)
Make sure you remove the casings from the sausage, and use about a pound.
But before I add the sausage, I throw in a couple cloves of minced garlic and my zucchini that’s been sitting all alone. Give the garlic a couple minutes to be nice and fragrant, and make sure the zucchini gets heated and coated with just a little oil.
Normally I add the sausage to the veggies, but that’s with only one onion. With so much more veggie in the pot, I had to remove most of them and add them again when the sausage was starting to brown. I like the veggies to get plenty of the flavor from the sausage. The biggest hassle about making spaghetti sauce is getting the sausage all bite sized. For this I have a very special piece of kitchen equipment.
I make sure I have a good spatula and I call Eric into the kitchen. He breaks it up for me and my arms get a little break.
Once the sausage is browned you’re almost done. If you’d like, you can add red wine to the cooking sausage. I always do when we’ll be having a bottle with dinner. (Not this time, of course.)
Then you pull out a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes. I’ve found these to have the best consistency for sauce, and there’s no extra ingredients or herbs. Along with the crushed tomatoes I’ve tried a wide variety of others. Puree, sauce, diced, but this time I decided to go with a 15 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes, it seemed to be appropriate for my garden-style sauce. Make sure you drain the whole tomatoes first or else you’ll be waiting a long time for all that liquid to simmer off. I try to break up the tomatoes with a spoon, but you don’t have to work too hard. They should break up through simmering a little bit. You can also add a little tomato paste or basil now if it suits you.
The key is to make sure you haven’t started the spaghetti yet. I make this mistake almost every time. I always try to rush this recipe, but the best sauce is one that’s had plenty of time to simmer so it’s not too watery and it’s super flavorful. If you can give it a good 45 minutes or hour, that’s awesome. Then just make your spaghetti when you’re getting ready to eat. We usually do whole wheat noodles with this recipe.
Then once your pasta is cooked and your sauce is simmered, you’re all done.
I didn’t chop everything super small, just small enough so it would saute nicely. If you’ve got veggie-averse kids you can always dice it up smaller so they aren’t as obvious.
Both Eric and I agreed this was one of my better efforts. I definitely need to incorporate more veggies into our sauce on a regular basis, especially since this is such a staple in our house and I usually serve it without any side dishes. The only thing missing was a healthy sprinkling of parmesan on top. But I can’t be too mad about that. It was only gone because Eric tossed it while cleaning out the fridge, and while I love my parmesan, I also REALLY love having a clean fridge. I love it even more when I wasn’t the one to clean it.
The hot sausage gives this just the slightest kick, it rarely leaves it actually hot. If I’m in the mood for a spicy sauce, I throw in some crushed red pepper with the sausage and sprinkle cajun seasoning in with the tomatoes.
This leaves plenty of leftovers (we generally have a good 4 cups left over). We’ll be having it again tomorrow and I doubt either of us will mind in the least.
Now if only I had a decent camera, I’d almost look like a real foodie.
Related Posts:
New feature today! If you follow me on Pinterest (see new button to the left!) you probably know that I enjoy collecting recipes I find online. If you have ever read this blog, you probably know that I don’t find much time to cook these days. When I get home I have 1 or 2 hours before Graham goes to bed and I don’t really want to spend all that time cooking. So we usually eat late or I just give up.
Lately I’ve been trying to bring easy meals back into rotation. Of course, the “easy” is in quotes since I am, apparently, THE SLOWEST COOK IN THE UNIVERSE. I used to blame my old stove, which was definitely not helping. But with my new stove I’m still more of a tortoise than a hare for reasons I can’t quite figure out.
Anyway. New feature. Recipes I love that don’t take super long (unless you’re me). I have only created one recipe myself (which will be coming up next time I make it) but for now I’ll treat you to other people’s recipes that are worth putting in your own personal store.
And today–extra treat!–I will show you many of the little tips I’ve learned along the way, since I need all the help with speed I can get.
Today’s recipe (and last night’s dinner) is Smoky Sloppy Joes courtesy of one of my favorite food blogs, Pinch My Salt. Nicole calls this “The Ultimate Manwich.”
We make these a lot. Sloppy Joes are a kind of comfort food. And these are a great twist on an old favorite, with a sweet, smoky and spicy sauce unlike any Sloppy Joe you’ve ever had. (You can easily adjust the spicy-factor if you are feeding kids.) I will seriously never eat any other sloppy joe. This is it, the pinnacle of them all.
This recipe makes enough for two of us to eat for a couple days, so you should easily have enough for a family of 4 or so. (The recipe only calls for 1 lb and we usually get ground turkey, which comes in packs of 1.2 pounds, so you can adjust that, too.)
I’ll post the full recipe at the end.
To start, we’ll need to do some chopping. I LOVE chopping. I grew up in a house where we always had random knives floating around so I didn’t quite learn how to properly chop. I took a class a few years ago and it was a very very very good investment. (Seriously. If you spend any time in the kitchen. Take a knife skills class.)
For this, we’ll need to chop up 1 onion, 1 red pepper, 2 cloves of garlic and 1 chipotle chili. The chili comes from a can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, so it’s already very soft and easy to cut. You can mince the garlic in a mincer if you like. And all of this is going through the blender shortly, so it doesn’t really matter how well you chop.
Nevertheless, let’s talk chop.
First, ignore my messy counter. And my un-edited phone pictures.
Put on your yoga pants and a smile.
And get out a good knife. You don’t have to have a super fancy knife. I got by just fine for several years with an $80 set of knives I got from Bed Bath and Beyond. But after I took my knife skills class and I had the ability to use my knife well, I wanted more. So I bought this puppy. (Or rather, my baby bought it for my birthday.)
You definitely want to go for a knife test drive. I recommend a good kitchen equipment store, like Sur la Table. (When I was there, they brought out a cutting board and a carrot for me. So nice. And they also do sharpenings!) There are heavy-style German knives and light-style Japanese knives and they’re very different. I didn’t expect to go Japanese, but I did. And I love my Global knife. I just want to add a couple more to my collection someday…
So get out a decent sized chef’s knife and your onion. Hate chopping onions? I will show you my secret way of chopping onions fast that I learned from some kind soul on Youtube.
1. Cut off the stalk-y end and leave the rest of the onion with the hairy end. (That is the technical term.)
I would recommend getting a dish just for scraps. Makes cleanup much faster.
2. Cut the onion in half vertically, so you have half the hairy end on each side.
3. Take one of your halves, peel it, and lay it down with the hairy end towards your left hand and your knife in your right. Imagine the half of the onion is half of a clock and make cuts for the hours. Make sure you don’t cut all the way to the end, leave a half inch or so of space or your onion will just fall apart.
I love this approach because you’re letting the onion work for you. Since it’s already got it’s layers, it saves us extra cuts.
4. Now just slice your onion from right to left. (Obviously you change directions if you’re left handed.)
And voila! Chopped onion. You’ll have a little stump left over on each half. Don’t sweat it.
Next on our chopping block (literally) is a red pepper. I’ve always hated dealing with these, but I learned a super-fast way from the chef who taught our knife skills class. Here’s the secret:
Yup, you just cut off the top and the bottom. Easy as pie. Some people gawk at the amount of pepper you’re not using, but given the time you’ll save I think it’s worth it. Also, consider it motivation to make stock or compost.
So with the remaining torso of your bell pepper, look at where the seedy-part meets the edge and make some nice slices where it’s all clear. Like so.
From here, it’s very simple to make a little space, and make a nice soft slice through that seedy part leaving you only with your nice clean seed-free edges.
From here, just make a few slices long-wise through your pepper and then bundle them up and chop on through.
As I mentioned before, the chiles will come from a can. Never fear. This stuff is great, and you’ll find yourself with more uses than you’d expect.
The only brand in my store was Goya and in Spanish. But in many other stores you’ll see multiple brands. The can is rather small and stumpy. I usually find it in either the Mexican/Ethnic section or close to the canned tomatoes.
But before I start chopping my chile and garlic, I usually start cooking because your first ingredients are just your pepper, onion and some olive oil in a nice saute on medium heat for a few minutes. For this recipe I like my trusty gigantic non-stick pan.
While the peppers and onions are going, I go back and forth between the occasional stir and a quick chop. You only need to pull one sad little chile out of its mushy home. It’ll be very soft and very easy to cut up.
Note: if you want to keep down the spice, I may only add half of a chili. Or you can opt to skip the chili all together. Though it adds SUCH a lovely smell when you throw it in the pan.
Once the onion and pepper are soft, you’ll add your chili and garlic for just a minute or two. Then you can turn off the heat and add all the rest of your sauce ingredients: 15 oz tomato sauce, 6 oz tomato paste, 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1 tbsp adobo sauce (from the can with the chiles, don’t worry, it’s not spicy), 2 tbsp brown sugar…. and then you start a frantic search through your pantry because you must have brown sugar, right? Surely you have brown sugar. How can you not have brown sugar??
Phew! You can probably tell I do very little baking. In fact, I think I use most of my brown sugar just for this recipe. Don’t worry, it’s kept well and is still nice and moist.
Oh, and don’t forget 1/2 tsp of cumin, 1/2 tsp of kosher salt and a dash of cinnamon. (I usually nix the cumin because I find there’s plenty of flavor already. And I may add 2 or 3 dashes of cinnamon.)
Once you get this all stirred together, your sauce is almost ready. Now you just pour it into your blender.
May I politely suggest that if you do not have a blender or if you have a very sad blender, that you get yourself a very nice one? It is a worthy investment. I was given this advice when we registered for our wedding and I’m very glad I took it. 4 years in and ours is still going strong despite all the smoothies, baby food, etc. it’s come in contact with.
I generally let it sit in the blender for a while so it can cool. And I may or may not use a spatula to get every last bit of sauce out of the pan. Not just because it’s so tasty but because you can just do a quick wipe and rinse and use the same pan for the next steps.
While your sauce cools, take your ground beef (or turkey, if you’re us, I think turkey works great here with the nice strong sauce, plus turkey was Buy 1 Get 1 free at the store this week!) and brown it. Be sure to season with salt, pepper and a sprinkling of crushed red pepper. (Again, if you are feeding kids, maybe skip the red pepper. Eric and I, however, sprinkle it quit liberally.)
Drain the fat. Puree your sauce. And then throw the whole mix together.
At this point, you want to set the heat to medium and allow some time for your sauce to thicken until it looks hefty enough for some not-quite-so-sloppy Joe’s. When it’s done, throw in a cup of grated cheddar cheese. We usually go sharp. Yesterday I used the leftover Mexican cheese from our burritos earlier in the week. The cheese mellows out the taste and thickens the sauce a bit. I’ve made it without cheese before and it’s still excellent, but with a much stronger bite. So if that’s your thing, go for it.
And you’re ready to throw it on some buns and chow down.
Overall, this whole rather simple process took me an hour. Because I am inexplicably slow despite my knife prowess. It shouldn’t take you more than 30 to 45 minutes.
Here’s the link to the original recipe again (her pictures are way awesome-r than mine), and I’ll give you the short version:
Smoky Sloppy Joes (via Pinch My Salt)
Olive oil 2 tbsp brown sugar
1 onion ½ tsp cumin
1 red bell pepper Cinnamon
2 cloves garlic 1 lb ground beef or turkey
1 can chipotle chiles in adobo Kosher salt
15 oz can tomato sauce Pepper
6 oz can tomato paste Crushed red pepper
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar 1 c. grated sharp cheddar
Chop the onion, red pepper, garlic and one chile from the can.
Heat approx. 2 tbsp olive oil on Medium heat. Add onion and red pepper. Saute until soft and onions are translucent. Add garlic and chile, continue to heat for 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat. Add tomato sauce, paste, vinegar, brown sugar, cumin and cinnamon. When well mixed, puree until smooth.
Season meat with salt, pepper and crushed red pepper. Brown the meat, drain fat. Add the sauce back to the pan. Allow to simmer and thicken on Medium heat until desired consistency is reached. Turn off heat. Add cheese and mix well.
Isn’t it funny that I have a million-word blog post on such a simple recipe? Like I said. I am slow. The adobo sauce gives these such a great smoky flavor that I know you’ll love. I haven’t made this for anyone yet who hasn’t really enjoyed it.
Hope you give it a try and peruse the recipe list on Pinch My Salt!
Related Posts:
Find the Mess
My Life’s a Mess and That’s Okay
Jess is a procrastinator, a former working mom who is suddenly staying at home, a Dr-Dr's wife, a non-practicing lawyer, an Autism Mom, a devoted reader, a penny pincher, a coupon clipper, a new New England-er, a low-key agnostic, a nice girl, a top-notch speller, a hardcore blogger and a Twitter fiend.
The blog covers everything from coupon tips to Autism support to adorable toddler pictures to hilarious tales of my daily grind with the occasional review & giveaway thrown in for good measure.
My Networks
