Brisket

One of my favorite meals that my mom used to make was brisket made in the crockpot. There's nothing quite like walking into a house warm with the fragrance of something good to eat waiting for you. I begged my mom for her recipe and it couldn't be easier. There are two hard and fast rules for making brisket like my mom's. First, the meat is labelled "brisket" on the label. Second, the barbeque sauce has to be dark. I used KC Masterpiece this time. That really is steam coming off of the plate. I just took a picture of my plate before I started eating so I could put it on the blog because I really thought I'd need to make brisket more than once before I posted it, but the brisket really is that easy to make.


Ingredients:

Brisket, mine was 4 pounds
1 bottle of dark barbeque sauce
1 cup water

Trim as much fat off of the brisket as you can. If there's a sweet yellow dog at your house, microwave the fat and trimmings and pour them over the dog food still in his bowl. He will love you and stay out from under your feet while you're finishing up the brisket, not that it's going to take you much longer anyway. Pour about 1/2 cup of barbeque sauce in the bottom of the crockpot (use a crockpot that's appropriately sized for your brisket). Put your trimmed brisket directly into the crockpot (no, you don't need to brown the brisket first) and add in up to 1 cup of water. You don't want the brisket swimming in sauce, but just shy of that point. Cook on high in the crockpot for about 8 hours. Slice and enjoy as is or in a hamburger bun.

Stir Fried Beef

It's been forever since I posted a recipe and I thought I'd share one of my favorites. This recipe is very versatile and I usually chose the ingredients based on what looks good in the produce section. The most important tip I can share is that you DEFINITELY need to have everything chopped, sliced, and diced before you even think about turning on the stove. Ok, not diced. I never dice anything. You really want larger pieces in this dish.

And, thanks to the stats option of blogger, I just found out that someone from Russia has been visited my blog. How awesome is that?

Absolutely necessary ingredients:

2-3 Tbsp Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced (or a good spoonful from your jar of minced garlic)
1/2 lb steak or chicken, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 Tbsp garlic powder
2-4 Tbsp ginger powder (Yes, TABLESPOONS)
1/2 cup soy sauce, plus more to taste

Optional ingredients, but chose at least 3

1/2 head of cabbage, cut into 1 inch squares
1 bag of broccoli florets (Don't hate me. Buy the whole thing and chop it if you want.)
1-2 zucchini, cut in half longways and sliced (depending on size)
1-2 yellow squash, cut in half longways and sliced
1 pkg button mushrooms, sliced
1/2 lb green beans, trimmed


Heat your wok over medium heat. Get your wok hot before you ever put the olive oil in it. The instruction manual on your wok says to do this. Trust me. Pour in the olive oil. You want about 1/8 inch of olive oil in the bottom of the wok. Toss in the garlic and let it cook for about 30 seconds. Add in the steak or chicken. Add in the granulated garlic and the ginger powder. Stir the meat mixture to get it cooked on all sides, 3-5 minutes. Take the steak or chicken out of the wok and put it in a bowl. Add in the cabbage and/or broccoli. Stir to coat it with the spices still in the wok. Put the meat or chicken on top of the cabbage and/or broccoli. Pour in the soy sauce. If you're using cabbage, add in about 1/2 cup of water. Let this cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionlly. Once the cabbage and/or broccoli is softened, add in any of the other vegetables. Stir to combine. Add in more soy sauce, if needed. Let the whole mixture cook for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

If you're using steak, you don't need to add in any other sauces.

If you're using chicken, the dish is better with some kind of sauce. My favorite is peanut sauce. We also like plum sauce.

Enjoy!

Meatballs!

Every great once in a while (read 2-3 times per month), I pour a large glass of red wine and cook for a couple of hours. This occasionally produces some blog-worthy food. I'm not a professional blogger, so all of this food gets eaten, regardless of Big Daddy Awesome's opinion of said food. These meatballs, however, are delicious!




First, pour yourself a large glass of your favorite red wine!

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef
1 lb hot Italian sausage (5 links), casings removed
1 Tbsp oregano
1 egg
1/4 bread crumbs (scant 1/4 cup)
1/4 cup shredded Romano or Parmesan or Asiago cheese

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Mix all of the ingredients together with your hands, incorporating the ingredients well.

Form int 1-2 Tbsp meatballs and bake at 400 F for 20 minutes.

At this point, you can add the meatballs to preheated marinara sauce or cool, preparing to freeze.


Ed likes to use the meatballs with store bought marinara sauce with 1 Tbsp of brown sugar and 1 can of diced tomatoes.

I like to use 10 lbs of meat and make enough to freeze for nights when I work and Ed has to cook dinner.

Serve the meatball and marinara over the pasta you love best!

Mulligan

When I met my husband, his family had a few very well developed recipes. One of those recipes is Mulligan. Wikipedia defines mulligan stew as "an Irish stew, that typically includes meat, potatoes, vegetables, and whatever else can be begged, scavenged, found or stolen." Said stew was also typically cooked in a pot over a fire. The Mulligan cooked by my sweet husband and his parents had evolved a great deal in their family. No longer are any of the ingredients stolen or foraged. Although I do frequently have to beg for an onion or bell pepper from my mother in law!



My sweet husband looks like this when I tell him I'm making Mulligan! Which is reason enough to make Mulligan.






This munchkin smiles for any reason at all! He ate sixteen bites and twenty crackers. Silly munchkin!




The lineup:

1 onion
1 bell pepper
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 TBSP olive oil
1 - 1 1/2 lbs ground beef
1/4 - 1/2 cup of Worchestershire sauce
2 cans of English peas
2 cans of corn
2 cans of Rotel tomatoes
8 oz of cheddar cheese, grated
saltine crackers

Dice the onion and bell pepper. Heat the olive oil in a stock pot and cook the onion, garlic, and bell peppers until golden and soft.

Meanwhile, cook the hamburger meat over medium heat until browned through. Drain off the fat from the hamburger meat. Pour the worchestershire sauce over the meat, cover, and cook for about 5 minutes, until onions and bell peppers are softened.

Pour the seasoned meat over the onion/bell pepper mixture. Open all of the cans of vegetables and pour into the stock pot without draining the liquid off of them.

Put the lid on the pot and leave on medium heat for about 15-20 minutes to allow the flavors to meld.

Stir and the scoop into bowls. Add cheddar cheese. Scoop with the saltine crackers and forego using a spoon!

Slumgulion

One of the first dishes I ate with Ed and his parents was slumgulion. Slumgulion is actually defined as a stew with meat and potatoes. Ed's grandfather originally came up with the dish in the 1940's using things he just happened to have in the pantry. The dish morphed over the years into a very specific dish that I now cook for Ed and the boys at least once a month. My mother-in-law and I both use this dish as a standby for company.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb ground sirloin
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, or 2 tsp minced garlic
3 Tbsp chili powder
1 cup red wine
salt
pepper
2 cans pinto beans with jalapenos
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can rotel tomatoes with chilis

Brown the ground sirloin, adding the chili powder while the meat is still pink. This sounds like an insanely huge amount of chili powder, but it is necessary to get the right flavor for the dish.

Meanwhile, add the olive oil to a dutch oven over medium heat. Add the garlic, onion, and green peppers and cook until soft. Add in the ground meat and the red wine. I usually use whatever kind of red wine I have in my kitchen. Merlot or Shiraz work well, but really, whatever you have will be delicious. When I first learned how to make this dish, it was made with a "punch" of salt (roughly a tablespoon). I don't think the dish needs that much salt, so I use about a teaspoon. You can always add more salt later if you think the dish needs it. Let this simmer for about 5 minutes while you open all of the cans.

Drain the juice off of the beans only. Add in the contents of all of the cans. Stir to combine and put the lid on the pot and cook at medium heat for 10-15 minutes. Turn the heat down to low after the slumgulion has come to a good boil and stir again. Serve with cheese and crackers.

We frequently use sharp cheddar sliced or grated with whole wheat saltine-type crackers.

This dish easily serves 8, or 4 with plenty left over for another meal.

This is an easy way to sneak in alot of vegetables to unsuspecting munchkins. Mine love it!

Mexican Pizza

My mother and I went out to eat with the boys a few weeks ago and tried out a Mexican food chain restaurant. I wasn't familiar with this restaurant and the munchkins are reading now, so when they saw "Mexican Pizza" on the menu, they got really excited and there was no changing their minds about their upcoming culinary experience. I'm sure they thought they were going to get some tremendous concoction. Since we were planning on seeing a movie in a very short amount of time, Mom and I decided to have the beef nachos. I was, of course, shocked when the food came out. I had asked what the Mexican pizza was because I couldn't quite picture it in my head and had not been told that it was just the beef nachos which were not cut in half! So we basically all had the same thing on our plate. Trip, being a more particular eater, took one bite, decided he hated the "pizzas" and only ate his beans. Logan, who I am convinced does not possess a single taste bud on his little tongue after this experience, ate his "pizza" and Trip's too. This arrangement works out for them because each boy usually gets his fill of whatever he likes by the amount of food on the two plates. I would not have known how awful this dish was, but I was eating the EXACT SAME THING. Yuck! I would have sent it back and asked for something entirely different, but we had a movie to see. The beef nachos/mexican pizzas were fine in theory, but completely lacking in taste. I came up with a significantly better recipe at the table and here it is!

Ingredients

Flour tortillas
1 - 1 1/2 lb ground sirloin (hamburger meat)
1-2 packets of taco seasoning
canned enchilada sauce
fresh cilantro
queso fresco (this is a soft Mexican cheese)
shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat your oven to 400. Put 6 flour tortillas on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, prick the tortillas with a fork, and bake for 5 minutes.

While the tortillas are baking, brown a pound of hamburger meat and add the taco seasoning and water as per the directions on the package.

In a separate pan, heat up a can of enchilada sauce.

Chop up some fresh cilantro and crumble the queso fresco.

Take the torillas out of the oven, spread a spoonful of the enchilada sauce on top. Top with a few leaves of the cilantro. Sprinkle 1/8 to 1/4 cup of the taco meat on top. Sprinkle on queso fresco for the more adventerous eaters or grated cheddar cheese for the picky eaters.

Put the pizzas back in the oven for 2-3 minutes to melt the cheese.

There will be very happy children in my house tonight!