Yes, it was 90 something degrees yesterday and hot!  But my youngest came home from her horseback riding not feeling well and said beef stew sounded really good to her if there was any way I could make that for dinner!  At first I said no, thinking of stew cooking for hours and hours, but then I thought well I could at least do a quick dish of something similar to stew if I had some beef in the freezer.  I found one last small piece of tri tip, just about 10 ounces. And I had carrots and potatoes of course, and frozen peas…  I have been watching Jacques Pepin again and pulled out Fast Food My Way, which has a recipe called “Instant Beef Tenderloin Stew.”  I used the tri tip and it came out fantastic!   The potatoes were some tri-colored small potatoes from the farmer’s market, which made it quite pretty I think!

Pepin has you cook the vegetables in one skillet and cook the beef, quickly, in another and then combine them.  This let the potatoes and carrots get browned a bit on the outside so they had a lovely flavor and texture.  His original recipe called for mushrooms, but I had none.  He also suggests a pound of beef tenderloin but of course any tender cut of beef can work.   Just don’t use “stew meat” as I see things labeled as it does need the long cooking time.   I had less than a pound so cut back on the potatoes a bit but used about the same amount of everything else.

• 2 Tbs butter
• 1 Tbs oil
• 1 1/2 cups half-inch diced potatoes, rinsed under cold water
• 1 cup baby carrots (I sliced mine in half as they were a bit thick)
• 1 cup small white button mushrooms if you have some
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 Tbs chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup peas
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pound tender beef, cut in 1″ pieces
• 2 Tbs dry white wine
• 2 Tbs chicken broth

Heat 1 Tbs of butter and the oil over medium high heat in a skillet large enough to hold the vegetables in a single layer. Add the potatoes and carrots (and mushrooms if using). Cook partially covered, stirring periodically, until the vegetables are browned a bit on the outside and cooked through, 8-10 minutes. Add the onion and cook another couple of minutes, then add the garlic, peas and some salt and pepper. Stir it all together and cook another minute, then take it off the heat and set it aside, covered to keep warm.

In a second skillet, heat the other tablespoon of butter over medium high heat. While it’s heating, salt and pepper the beef cubes, then add to the pan, again in a single layer so everything gets to the pan. Cook, stirring, about 3 minutes or so, just until the beef is browned and done to your liking.  Put the beef in a serving dish.

Pour the wine and broth into the pan you cooked the beef and deglaze, stirring to scrape up any bits. Boil for just half a minute or less.  Add the vegetables to the beef and stir to mix, then pour the sauce over it all.

Do Chua

Even our local Safeway carries daikon radishes now, plus I can get them at our farmer’s market too.    I wanted to make  a home version of banh mi sandwich last night so went online to find a recipe. Ended up at the Viet World Kitchen and used the recipe here for Do Chua. Aren’t they pretty?  And tasty too!

For the sandwiches, I barbecued a steak that had marinated in a bit of balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce and olive oil and sliced it thinly.

I sliced up a jalapeno and marinated it in a bit of rice vinegar, fish sauce, soy sauce and sugar a la the recipe here at Cooking Light for banh mi style sandwiches and then added the steak slices to that for a bit as well.

I had chopped fresh cilantro and cucumber (from the garden) as well.

Toasted a French roll for a just a bit then layered with the beef, jalapeno, cilantro, cucumber slices and then the carrot and daikon pickles.   I thought it was really good. Youngest was not so excited about it. oh well.

My Version of a Banh Mi Sandwich

Being a fan of almost anything pickled, I decided to try zucchini pickles. Even though I only planted 3 plants and 1 is not producing, I’m still finding we have plenty of zucchini.  I saw this recipe for zucchini pickles in my Cooking Light magazine and decided to give them a try.

I made these with one large-ish zebra striped zucchini.

• 4 cups 1/8″ zucchini slices
• 1 cup onion, sliced thinly
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3/4 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 3/4 tsp Kosher salt

Bring the vinegar, sugar, red pepper, mustard seeds and salt to a boil and stir, then take off the heat.

Combine the zucchini, onion and garlic in a bowl and mix together. Put it all in a 1 quart jar or other container and pour the vinegar mix over it. Refrigerate 24 hours.

I really like the sweet and spicy combo but I wish there was a way to make the crispier. Still, a nice side dish for a change if you like pickled things.

Pizza Margherita

So apparently Queen Margherita of Italy had to visit Naples in 1899 to escape a cholera epidemic in northern Italy. A local chef made this for her, based on the colors of the Italian flag, and she loved it so he named it after her. True or not, the pizza is a fine example of simple is good.

• 1 recipe pizza dough (I halved this)
• 2-3 large tomatoes, chopped
• 2-4 cloves garlic, sliced very thinly
• a few glugs of olive oil
• some salt
• grated mozzarella to cover the pizza
• 1/4 cup or more fresh basil leaves, sliced thinly (roll them up and then slice them all at once, a chiffonade is the term I think)
• grated Parmesan

I opted to make this a very thin pizza but you could do it however you like.  I took a pizza dough recipe that used 3 cups flour and used half of that for a pizza that fed 2 of us plus 3 slices left over.

Make the dough and while it is rising seed the tomatoes by cutting them in half and squeezing the seeds out, then chop them up and put them in a bowl. Add some olive oil, the garlic and salt and stir then let sit while the dough rises, about an hour.

After the dough had risen a bit, I put some cornmeal on a pizza stone and rolled out half the dough as thinly as I could.  Now, this would be better if I were coordinated enough to handle sliding the pizza onto a preheated pizza stone but I’ve yet to master that!  Mine always crumble up so I just preheated the oven and rolled the pizza out onto the stone.  I’ve also made pizza without giving the dough much time to rise and made pizza with a LOT of rising time. Really, it’s flexible.  Use what time you’ve got.  If you plan ahead, make the dough the night before and keep it in the frig, covered, then pull it out to come to room temperature (and rise some more) about an hour before you want to start the pizza.

Preheat the oven to 500 or 550, as hot as it will go.

Spread some olive oil across the dough, then sprinkle grated Mozzarella  or thin slices of Mozzarella or FRESH mozzarella slices across the dough. Spread the chopped tomatoes out on top. Mine was a bit lean so I took another tomato and sliced it very thinly and added those slices in to fill in the blank spots.

Bake the pizza. If you’ve preheated the stone, it’s probably 8-10 minutes they say.  I never do, so allow an extra few minutes and check periodically until it’s done the way I like. Note: you can also just use a baking sheet or a metal pizza pan. I only bought a pizza stone after making pizzas for many years in metal pans! I do like the stone though.

When it’s done, pull it out and sprinkle some Parmesan cheese across and add the fresh basil slices. Let it sit 5 -10 minutes before slicing.

I didn’t give many measurements here because so much depends! How sauce do you like your pizza?  How large is your pizza? How thin did you roll it out?  Did you prebake the dough a bit (which I might do next time to get around the not being able to preheat the stone)?

I see recipes for grilling pizzas and they always say cook the dough a few minutes, then flip it, and then top it and cook until done. I think I will try the same thing here next time, cooking the plain dough on the unheated stone a few minutes, then flipping it, topping it and finish baking it.

However, even the way I did it, my daughter and I were both marveling over how good it was!  And I’ve made pizza for years, but always opted to make a sauce and usually adding pepperoni or a bunch of veggies or both.  This was so simple but so good!

Rice with Orzo

This was labeled as “Boston Market Spicy Rice”. I did leave out the diced pimientos the original recipe called for but they would hardly add much spice!  This was quite good though. The addition of the orzo made for a nice change in texture from plain rice. Definitely a hit with the kids.

The recipe for rice with orzo is here.

Basil and Tomatoes from the Garden

This is one of my favorite fast suppers in the summertime, with tomatoes and basil from the garden.

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 pounds tomatoes, chopped
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pound mozzarella or cheddar cheese, cubed
• basil to taste, chopped (start with 3/4 cup or so)
• salt to taste
• 1 pound fettuccini, sea shell, or other pasta

Put the olive oil, tomatoes, onion, mozzarella, basil, and salt in a bowl and mix together. Let stand at room temperature an hour or so.

Cook the pasta and drain, then stir into the tomato mixture.

Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes

I made this fantastic chicken curry again the other night, this time with fresh tomatoes and basil right from the garden.

Chicken Curry

I love cookbooks with stories in them more than just collections of recipes. So I loved Hallelujah! The Welcome Table. I’ve made several good recipes from it, including her buttermilk biscuits and smothered pork chops. But the recipes wouldn’t be the same without the stories.

The other night I made her mama’s “Red Rice” and it was good. My youngest loved it. I halved the original recipe as I was only feeding 3, plus leftovers. She ate the leftovers for lunch one day and a mid-afternoon snack after life-guarding another day.

• 3 slices bacon
• 1/2 cup chopped onions
• 1/4 cup chopped red bell peppers
• 1 14.5 oz can chopped tomatoes (reserve the juice)
• 1 Tbs tomato paste
• 1/4 tsp salt
• pepper to taste
• 2 cups cooked white rice
• 1 cup water and tomato juice

Fry the bacon up and then chop up the cooked bacon, leaving about 1 Tbs of grease in the pan.  Cook the onion and peppers a few minutes, stirring, then add everything else. (Drain the can of tomatoes into a 1 cup measuring cup then top off with water.)  Bring to a boil and cook 3-4 minutes. Stir, turn down the heat, cover and cook another 15 minutes or so.

At my niece’s bridal shower the other day, the hostess served this delicious corn souffle. I went online and found what I thought was the recipe. or at least close to it and made this tonight.

I didn’t have Jiffy Corn Mix so used this copycat recipe instead.

Then I used this recipe for the corn souffle, but halved the butter. Next time, I might halve it again and/or cut down on the oil as well.

It tasted great as I made it and was a hit with the 4 teenagers eating here tonight.

Meatballs ready to bake

Meatballs are very flexible and easy to make if you have some ground meat. I’ve used  ground pork and ground beef, only ground beef, or ground turkey.  My favorite is to use half ground pork and half ground beef but ground pork isn’t always easy to find.  The last time I made them with ground turkey at my youngest’s request.  I usually bake them in the oven, then add them to heated marinara sauce.

• 1 pound ground beef or turkey or pork or combo
• 1/2 to  3/4 cup crushed plain crackers or bread crumbs
• 1 egg
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley if you have some
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix all this up and then form into small balls with your hands.  The meat mix will stick less if you wet your hands with cold water before starting to form the meat balls.

Bake at 350 until done, probably 25 to 30 minutes.  You can also fry them in a skillet if you’d rather.  Cut one open to make sure they’re done.

You can often find decent jars of sauce on sale or make your own. Follow this recipe for marinara sauce but leave out the meat or try this spaghetti sauce.  These also make excellent meatball sandwiches, of course.

You can easily double or triple this recipe and freeze these meatballs after cooking.  If you do, flash freeze them so you can pull out just what you need. (Line them up on a cookie sheet and freeze, then put them in your freezer container or bag or vacuum sealer so they won’t be all stuck together.

In addition to the traditional marinara sauce, you can serve meatballs with all kinds of sauces and gravies.  Here are some ideas for what to do with meatballs.