Getting on the Pioneer Woman Bandwagon

This week I was organized. I had a menu plan. It was a great menu plan.

But then last night, driving home from work, I realized that even though it was Thursday, I didn’t want meatloaf. It was too pretty outside to make meatloaf. Meatloaf should be made when its cloudy and drizzly. Not when its bright and sunny and almost warm.

So I had to change my plan. Quickly.

Then I remembered my friend Ree. OK, I guess that in order to call her a friend, we ought to have had some kind of two-way conversation. So far our friendship was defined from me reading about her photography, food and life on her blog. And if that makes me a friend, she’s got a LOT of friends. ‘Cause everyone’s reading her blog it seems.

Everyone also seems to be cooking her recipes and raving about them, like her Pork Tenderloin over at The Big Red Kitchen, her Pasta Carbonara over in The Kitchn, and several of her dishes at Lauren’s Kitchen.

I remembered one of her recipes I’d seen for BBQ Meatballs. And, as usual with her blog, I remembered the photo looked Drool-inducing, want-to-lick-my-monitor, amazing. Then I pulled up the recipe, and my mind was set on making this recipe the moment I read this line:
“You’ll know they’re done when your house smells so good you want to marry it.”
C’mon. Really. Who could resist a promise like that?

And the promise was fulfilled. After about 20 minutes in the oven, the boys started appearing in the kitchen asking what smelled so good. I popped the oven door open to see if they were finished yet, and my mouth immediately started watering from the smell.

She was right. I wanted to marry my kitchen.

Then, as we ate dinner, I realized that I was wrong. I can’t marry a kitchen, no matter how good it smelled.

I want to marry the meatballs.

Or maybe just a torrid love affair.

Missin’ Texas

First, let me start by saying we LOVE living where we do. The greeness of everything…being close to family…life in the country…almost everything.

What we don’t love, however, is the lack of Tex-Mex food. Most of the restaurants around here are Cal-Mex. If you don’t think there’s a difference, then you’ve never had Tex-Mex. Less cilantro, more cheese. Less grilled, more fried. Less veggie, more meat.

I was in the mood for some real Tex-Mex food. Some remember that great restaurant-we-used-to-go-to-food. Some hearty, beefy taquitos. And the only place to get them around here is at my own dining table.

To make your own taquitos, you will need:
Day One:
- Roast (4-5 pounds). Choose a roast that would be good for pot roast (chuck, round-bone, etc.)
- 1 can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (in the Mexican Food section of every grocery store I’ve
ever looked for them in)
-2-3 cloves garlic
Day Two:
-1/2 onion (sauteed)
1/2 pound cheddar cheese
1 pkg corn tortillas (probably about 20)
oil

Day One:
So yesterday I did some preparation. I whizzed the chipotles, the included adobo sauce and the garlic cloves around in my food processor. This mixture was dumped over the roast in the crockpot and after I turned the roast over a time or two to distribute, I plopped the lid on the crockpot, set it to low and walked away for about 6 hours.

After 6 hours, I pulled the roast out, and put it in a bowl in the fridge. The sauce that was left behind in the crockpot I poured into a separate container and also refrigerated it.

Day Two:
Fast forward to tonight. Pulled the roast out of the fridge and Nick and I hand-shredded the meat, pulling the chunks of fat & gristle out. The sauce was de-greased (easy since the fridge chilled it into a layer on the top of the container and I just had to lift it out and throw it away). The sauce then went in a saucepan with some sauteed onions and reduced about 1/2. The reduction went into the food processor and was whizzed around until smooth.

At this point, you’ll have to make a decision as to how much heat your family wants. I added all the sauce to the bowl of meat, but next time I’ll probably just add 1/2 of it. It was pretty spicy. Of course, if you would rather have little spice, you could use a mild taco sauce or even just tomato sauce. Grate about 1/2 pound cheddar cheese and mix that in with the beef and chipotle sauce also.

Pour 1/2″ or so of oil into the bottom of a pan and set it on a medium burner to heat up.
Turn the oven on to 425 and set out a rimmed baking sheet.

When the oil in the pan is warm, it’s time to begin. Place a tortilla in the oil until the tortilla starts to bubble up, and immediately remove tortilla to a board covered with a couple paper towels. This warms the tortillas up enough that they won’t crack when you roll them. Place about 3 T of the beef mixture on the tortilla, and roll them up into a tube shape. Set them on the baking sheet with the edge down to keep it rolled. I did them in batches of 3.

Please note, this will make a mess! Your stove will be covered in dripped oil.

Once you have used either all the tortillas or all the meat, pop the baking sheet in the oven. Bake about 15 minutes, then pull them out and turn them upside down to continue crisping for another 10 minutes or so.

Serve with sour cream, guacamole (if you’re not allergic like me) or salsa.
Then close your eyes and imagine you’re in Texas.

Setting the World on Fire … well, my steak at least

When I started really cooking, it was kind of a big deal if I made a meal that had nothing to do with boxes. I remember several years ago purchasing a box of roasted potato seasoning mix. Seriously. I cut up potatoes and then sprinkled this box of seasoning over them. What an eye-opener it was for me when I one day realized that I could use the spices in my own cupboard and achieve the same, if not better, results!

But I would do things like spend hours making Chicken Cordon Bleu, and then serve it with Rice-a-Roni and canned green beans on the side. Or make the most delicious and fluffy mashed potatoes from scratch, and then drown them in a packaged gravy mix.

Now, I’m not so snobby as to say that convenience foods don’t have a place. Even as I type this, I must admit that there are cheap, frozen pizzas in my freezer and canned chili in the pantry (that’s for Paul’s chili dogs). But I have gotten to the point where I realize that for the most part, someone with even a moderate amount of experience in the kitchen can make a meal entirely from scratch that will WOW almost anyone.

It sometimes just takes a bit of bravery.

Last month, I got into a conversation with Temperance, one of the founders of Recipes to Rival. I have been particularly lax in participation of the recipes over the last couple of months. Part of that is because of my crazy life. But I was also a little uncertain of some of the recipes that were chosen. Not that I thought they were bad choices…don’t misunderstand me! It was more the fact that I didn’t know if my family would eat them, and it sure seemed like a whole lot of work for something that was such a gamble.

Basically, I was being a wuss.

But during this conversation with Temperance I realized that I really didn’t have a right to complain if I wasn’t prepared to do something about it. And when Temperance told me that her planned co-host for March’s challenge had to back out, I felt compelled to step up and put my money where my mouth was. So I became March’s Recipes to Rival co-host.

Because it was so last minute, we had a very short amount of time in which to choose a recipe. I wanted something that had a classic technique that would challenge, but not frighten (too badly). Temperance wanted something special for her birthday month. After a couple days of debate, inspiration hit.

Flambe’!


Temperance thought it sounded like a great idea, a quick recipe search found a delicious sounding Steak Diane Flambe’ recipe, and we were set. Ready to light the world on fire. Or at least, beef and mushrooms on fire.

It was fun. I had a hard time getting a good picture of the fire, it doused itself out so quickly, but the results were stupendously delicious. A couple weeks later I flambe’d some mushrooms for dinner and it was just as good.

I guess that means I need to make sure there’s always brandy in the house.

Oh, the sacrifices I make.

But, what this showed me is that while flambe’ sounds scary, it’s really pretty approachable and quite fun. I look forward to an opportunity to Flambe’ For Friends. (Sounds like a fundraising event, doesn’t it?)

Here’s the official link to the Recipes to Rival Steak Diane Flambe’ post, recipe included.

Enjoy!

THE FINE PRINT DISCLAIMER: I do not require that you flambé, if you choose to flambé and burn down your kitchen, don’t sue me. If you choose to flambé try and get a picture (I recommend getting someone to help). Remember when playing with fire keep a fire extinguisher close and never use water on a cooking fire.

Matured Tastebuds

When I was littlewe had Koolaid every night for dinner. My siblings and I fought over the honor of choosing the flavor packed and mixing it up. Red was my favorite. It was as much a part of getting ready for dinner as the plates and silverware. That pitcher just had to be on the table.

And there were many Sunday mornings that before we left the house for church, Mom would throw a roast in the oven for later that day…like 4 or 5 hours later. I remember those roasts. Well done (VERY well done), with roasted potatoes and carrots, all covered in gravy. The roast was terribly dry, but that’s what roasts are like…right? That’s what gravy is for, after all!

I left home with the idea burned in my brain that meat…all meat…was to be cooked until there was nothing left to cook. This included roasts, steaks, hamburgers, pork loin, everything! When Paul and I got married, if we ever went out for a “fancy meal” all steaks were ordered well done. And we would have sent it back if it came any other way.

Somewhere, somehow our tastes started to change. I stopped thinking that KoolAid was a great additions to meals, and I realized that with the sole exception of pot roasts, beef is best somewhere between barely and really pink, depending on its application. And along with the pink comes juiciness, tenderness and flavor!

I also realized this last week that a roast can be part of a weeknight dinner, even if its not cooked in the crockpot. Somehow, even though I discovered that roasts should not be cooked through and through, I never made the leap to the one hour of cooking can be done after work.

But this week, the stars were aligned. When I asked Paul to pull a roast out of the freezer, in my mind I was thinking a chuck roast to go in the crockpot, but instead he grabbed a sirloin tip roast and I knew that if I crockpotted that thing, it would turn into a lump of petrified wood. So, resigning myself to a late dinner, I came home from work, looked the cooking time up online and was thrilled to see a one-hour cook time. By 7:15, we were sitting down to a juicy, delicious roast. A little later than normal, but not too much. And man…was it worth it!

Try it yourself and see. But may I suggest pairing it with a nice red wine rather than KoolAid.

Too Tired to Think of Dinner

Thursday night I came home from work exhausted. I feel guilty saying that. After all, I don’t do manual labor. I don’t stand on my feet all day. I don’t even interact with customers. I sit at a desk and … and … well, I write a lot, I go to meetings, I research some, I review and revise budget numbers, make the occasional phone call and I do absolutely nothing that should lead to the type of total mind and body numbing exhaustion I felt last night.

Add that to the fact that I hadn’t pre-planned dinner, and I was lost. Nothing thawed from the freezer and nothing was inspiring me.

I didn’t worry too much really. Paul usually has an idea or two of what sounds good to him.

Nope. He’d had a big lunch and wasn’t very hungry.

Now, at this point, I could have just let it go and told everyone they were on their own. But the problem with that was that I didn’t want to be on my own for dinner. I wanted a warm and comforting family meal. Oh, and quick and easy.

I poked around online a little bit to see if anything caught my fancy. My limitations included avoiding heavy tomato sauces and spice since Mom was eating with us. So no spaghetti, no Tex-Mex.

Finally I found an eggplant/tomato/cheese/pasta recipe that I thought would be usable, despite not having any eggplant. I figured I’d just substitute ground beef in and it would be fine.

But when I got the package of pasta down out of the cupboard, my eye caught sight of the recipe on the back. It was titled something like “Beef, Tomato and Basil Pasta Bake”. Exactly what I was going to wing from the other recipe!

Now, I’d love to type the recipe here for you, but I can’t. I have tried to teach my kids to put trash in the trash can and sometimes they remember to do that better than others. This was one of those times.

But believe me when I say that it was good. Here’s what I did:

I browned ground beef, onion and garlic. Added several cut-up Roma tomatoes. Added some 1/2 & 1/2, chicken broth, salt and pepper. Then I mixed in 2 big handfuls of chopped up fresh basil. Mixed in the cooked pasta and little pieces of fresh mozzarella. Dumped it in a buttered baking dish, sprinkled it with parmesan and ran it under the broiler to get hot and bubbly.

It was warm and comforting, but not heavy. And it was really done quickly. Everyone ate it, most had seconds. And I’ll add it to my “I should make this again” file.

And so should you.