Carne Asada Soft Tacos

This is a good recipe from the November issue of Cooking Light magazine, (one year for $15 at Amazon).  I couldn’t find the skirt steak they recommended but used a thinly sliced package of beef round tips I saw on sale instead.   The steak came out a bit “limey” if you ate it plain, but in a taco it was fantastic!  So if you were going to adapt this for something else, you might want to cut back on the lime juice or cut it with some olive oil or something. But as I said, in the tacos it was fantastic. I served them to my youngest and her friend and her friend’s father. All thought they were quite tasty!  We did a mix of soft corn tortillas and crispy ones.

Carne Asada

Marinate the steak a few hours in:

• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper  (recipe called for ground red pepper, I used black)

I mixed the marinade ingredients together in a shallow glass dish, then put the steak slices in and moved them around and turned them over until they were well coated, then covered the dish and refrigerated. I pulled the steak out while I started making the salsa.

When the salsa was ready, I heated a cast iron skillet on the stove and cooked each slice of steak a few minutes on each side, then removed to a plate while I cooked the rest. When they were all done, I sliced them into strips then cut the strips into smaller pieces, about 1/2″.

Avocado Pico del Gallo

Avocado Pico del Gallo

• 1 tomato, seeded and diced
• 1/4 cup diced yellow or white onion
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, diced
• 1/2 a jalapeno, seeded and diced (we’re wimpy. you might like more heat.)
• 1 Tbs lime juice
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 avocado, diced
• salt to taste

Mix all the ingredients together and let sit while you cook the steaks and heat the corn tortillas.

Putting It All Together

If you want soft tacos, you can heat the corn tortillas either directly over a gas burner, in a cast iron skillet, or in the microwave (either in a tortilla warmer or wrapped in some paper towels).

If you want crisp tacos you can buy the package of course. Or heat up some oil in a skillet and fry each tortilla, turning once, a few minutes on each side. Drain on a paper towel, folding the tortilla in half so it hardens in a half circle.

Serve with sour cream, grated cheese, and the pico de gallo salsa.

Meatball sandwich

In truth, there’s hardly a recipe for a meatball sandwich. At its simplest, you take a French or hoagie roll, put a few meatballs on it, ladle some spaghetti sauce on it and eat.

If you want to get a bit fancier, you’d use your own homemade meatballs. My favorite recipe uses ground pork and ground beef, plus cheese.  But if ground pork is hard to find or too expensive, just use all ground beef. These days I prefer to bake them rather than fry them. I make a lot, then flash freeze what i don’t need so I have a handy stash in the freezer.

The other night we had company and I went all out and made Sunday Gravy a la the Soprano’s. I made double the meatballs though and froze the extra sauce and meatballs, plus sent some sauce and sausage and meat home with a guest plus sent some over to the neighbor with a broken leg. The recipe makes a lot!

My youngest has been loving having spaghetti and meatballs for lunch every day this week, although she took a break today. Then she came home and asked if we could have meatball sandwiches for dinner! Ha!  Sure…

I put some meatballs and sauce on the stove to heat up, then took the French rolls and opened them up, spread with some butter, sprinkled with some garlic powder and broiled until crispy.   By then the meatballs and sauce were warmed through. I put 3 meatballs on each French roll, ladled some sauce on top, then put some grated Mozzarella over it and put the sandwiches back under the broiler for a bit.

Mmmm.  We broke with tradition and ate dinner while watching Glee on TV.  Served the sandwiches with a green salad and it was a lovely dinner.  What a great way to use up leftovers.

Stuffed Green Peppers and Mini Meatloaf

I got this recipe from my sister. Unlike most stuffed green pepper recipes, it has no rice. I personally think I would like this a bit better with some cooked rice added, but it was good. My daughter was aghast at the idea of eating astuffed  green pepper, so I used the same meat mix in a silicon muffin liner and made a mini meat loaf. I had just bought these Wilton Easy Flex Silicone Baking Cups and they worked great for muffins the other day and for a single meatloaf muffin tonight.

• 3 bells peppers, tops cut off and insides trimmed
• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 1 8 oz can tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 2 Tbs diced onion
• 1/4 cup grated Cheddar cheese for topping

Heat a quart or so of salted water in a pot until boiling. While the water heats, trim the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds and membranes. (Note, you can use red, orange, yellow or green peppers. The non-green ones will be a little sweeter.)

Simmer the peppers in the water 5 minutes and then drain.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Mix together the ground beef, tomato sauce, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and diced onion. (Note: Next time I may add a bit of Worcestershire sauce.)

Place the drained peppers in a shallow baking dish. Stuff them with the meat mixture. Cover and cook 45 minutes. Uncover, top with some grated cheese, and bake another 15 minutes.

French Dip Sandwiches

Here’s my normal French Dip Sandwich recipe, but it requires hours of time, a crock pot and perhaps more beef than you might like (although it does freeze well, especially if you freeze it in the jus/juice).   Driving home from school today, youngest and I talked about dinner and settled on French dip sandwiches.  We swung by the grocery store and picked up some sliced roast beef from the deli and I made a good dipping sauce using some Minors Beef Base, which I buy at Costco. Much cheaper than those little packets of  Au Jus sauce that sell for at least $1 each.  And tastier if I remember correctly.  You could of course just use some warm beef broth to dip the sandwiches in if you’d like, but I think this tastes better.

• 2 Tbs butter
• 1 Tbs flour
• 1 splash of dry sherry (optional, but good!)
• 2 cups beef broth (yours, or Minors or canned)
• 1 French roll per person, split and buttered
• about 2 ounces of sliced roast beef per serving

Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the flour and cook a minute or two.  Add the sherry and cook another minute, then stir in the beef broth. Simmer at least a few minutes , then turn to low while you prepare everything else. At some point, add the slices of roast beef to warm.

Spread the rolls with some butter, then broil a few minutes until lightly toasted.

Lay the slices of roast beef on them and slice each roll in half.  Pour the beef broth mixture into small bowls or ramekins so you can dip your sandwich in them.

I served these with a simple green salad.  It was an easy and delicious meal.

I’ve seen recipes on line that call for cheese and/or grilled onions, but to me a French Dip is nothing but bread and beef and broth. Very simple. The other stuff sounds good but it’s not what I think of when I hear French Dip!

NOTE: For packed lunches, pack the juice and the slices of beef in a thermos. Pack a bun separately.  Lay the slices of roast beef on the bread, then pour the juices into the cup of the thermos and dip!

If  you end up with lots of broth leftover, freeze it to use in soups or for making gravy or pot pies or hash.

Eldest is off for her first year of college. Youngest chose Cheeseburger Soup as our first meal together with just the two of us.  I took shortcuts tonight, using a can of cream of mushroom soup instead of making my own white sauce and using some chopped mushrooms. Original recipe is here. Here’s what I did tonight.

• 3/4 pound of ground beef
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 stalks of celery, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 3 potatoes, peeled and diced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 14.5 ounce can of cream of mushroom (or whatever) soup
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 8 ounces cubed or shredded American or Cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup sour cream

Brown the ground beef, breaking it up as it cooks. Add the onion and cook 5 minutes or so.  Drain the fat off and add the carrots and celery and cook, stirring periodically, another 10 minutes or so.

Add the broth, potatoes, salt, pepper, basil and parsley. Bring to a low simmer and cover. Cook, stirring now and then, about 20 minutes, until the potatoes are soft.

Stir in the cream of mushroom soup, stirring until heated through. Stir in the cheese and then just before serving stir in the sour cream.

This is not health food. But it is hearty and filling and relatively cheap per serving.  There are LOTS of leftovers and it will provide us with many lunches this coming week, plus another dinner.

I had some rib eye steaks in the freezer, a shame to freeze them I know but they were vacuum packed. I’d bought a Max Pack when they were on sale. After defrosting them, I marinated them in a  mix of steak sauce, balsamic vinegraitte and minced garlic.

• 1/2 cup steak sauce (I used Country Bob’s but I think A1 would be similar)
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinaigrette (make your own or I used Paul Newman’s)
• 2 cloves minced garlic

I marinated them for just an hour or two, then grilled about 4-5 minutes per side (about 1″ thick). Yum!

Served them up with:

• marinated cucumber salad
• sliced tomatoes with olive oil and some herb mix sprinkled on top
• microwaved corn on the cob (leave it in the husk, microwave a few minutes, then husk it. The strings will come right off!)
• baked potatoes

A fantastic summer dinner. I forgot to take pictures though…

Tonight’s dinner was a total throw-together based on a request for “something Mexican” and what I had in my freezer and refrigerator.  I thought of past burrito recipes and modified several. You could easily turn this into a Mexican burrito casserole kinda dish if you wanted to cook up the beef, bean and salsa mix, heat the tortillas, lay a few spoonfuls of meat and bean mix down the center, top with some cheese, lay in a baking dish, then top with a bit more salsa and cheese and bake until heated through. Just depends on whether you like wet burritos or not!

As it was, I cooked up some ground beef, onions, garlic and red pepper, then threw in some chicken broth and tomatillo salsa and a can of drained black beans.  I served this in a bowl with grated Monterey Jack cheese, a bit more salsa (red and green!). I would have added sour cream and guacamole or sliced avocados if  I’d had either or both of those but we were out.

You can read the full green burrito recipe here or just wing it depending on what you’ve got on hand in your frig!  Let me know about your favorite Mexican inspired recipes in the comments. I’m always on the prowl for new recipes.

Dinner tonight was just two of us so I made my youngest’s favorite: Swiss patty melts.  You can make these with Jack cheese too but we like them best with Swiss cheese.

From the garden, I had fresh sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. I drizzled them with a bit of olive oil, then sprinkled with an Italian herb mix I’d bought a while back when shopping up at the Vacaville outlets with my mom and sister.  So far I’ve made fantastic croutons with several of the mixes. This is a jar with about 5 different combos of herbs in different sections. Tonight I sprinkled the tomatoes with the Sicilian mix. Mmmm!

It was just youngest and I for dinner tonight so we opted for a great salad with some sliced barbecued steak.  She’s been into nibbling walnuts lately so I thought some candied walnuts would be a nice addition.   I found this recipe and they came out great. My only issue was that the wax paper stuck to some of the walnuts. Maybe I should have stirred them in the pan a bit more before dumping out to cool…  Hardly a recipe for the rest of the salad. It was:

• chopped red lettuce
• alfalfa sprouts
• sliced radishes
• chopped avocado
• sliced mushrooms

The steak was a small tri tip strip I’d frozen previously. After thawing it, I put a bit of olive oil on it, then sprinkled both sides with seasoned pepper and garlic salt.  Barbecued about 4 minutes each side, let rest while I finished the salad, the sliced thinly.    I have some bottled dressings left over from various parties so I didn’t even make the salad dressing.

Great quick and filling dinner.  Plus I’ve got leftovers for lunch tomorrow, always a bonus.

I’m gearing up for a large graduation party and am trying to figure out what to fix. I’m also trying to clear out my frig and freezer so as to make room for party food. By my current guess, we’ve at least 5o coming for an open house/barbecue.   I’m thinking hot dogs, burgers, and maybe ribs (cook those first as they take a few hours).  I was browsing through the book Desperation Entertaining! and got some great ideas. You can also browse through their site for new recipes at Kitchen Snoop.

So tonight I thought I’d experiment with their Carolina Chili Dogs. These were very good and I think a nice option to add for a cookout when you’re doing burgers and dogs.  They suggested that Southeners preferred their chili finely ground. To get this texture, they suggested cooling the mixture 20 minutes or so and then using your blenders or food processor. I just pulled out my immersion blender (love that thing!) and it did the trick just perfectly!  I used a pound of ground beef rather than their 1.5 p0unds because that’s what I had. And I upped the Worcestershire from 2 tsp to 1 Tbs because (a) I’d just used the tablespoon and b) we like Worcestershire.

• 1 pound ground beef (extra lean)
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 2 cups water
• 1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 Tbs chili powder
• 1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp vinegar (cider or white)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Put the water and ground beef in a Dutch oven or soup pot over high heat and bring to a boil. Peel and chop the onion while waiting for this to boil.  Add the onion, reduce the heat to medium, and stir to break up the meat a bit.

Add the tomato paste, ketchup, chili powder, Worcestershire, vinegar, salt and pepper and stir until the tomato paste is dissolved and everything is mixed well, breaking up the meat chunks as you go.

Simmer over low heat about 15 minutes, until very thick, stirring now and then.

Serve on hot dogs with grated Cheddar cheese if you want chili cheese dogs. They didn’t suggest that so maybe it’s not a Carolina thing, but around here you get chili cheese dogs if you get chili on hot dogs.

NOTE: If you like boiling ground beef, I’d think you could reduce the water a bit and skip the blending because the ground beef will already be fairly fine.

You can definitely make the chili ahead of time and freeze in portions that your family will find useful. They suggest 2 Tbs per hot dog, so maybe 1/2 cup for a family of 4-5.