Korean Beef

One vital skill to have when meal planning is flexibility. Not the bend over and touch your toes variety, but the fly off the seat of your britches flexibility. Tonight one such night. When planning our menu for the week I did not take into account the fact that I would have a MASSIVE eight page paper due soon. Then when Saturday rolled around, I was half way through the day before I realized I did not get the planned dinner into the crock pot. DRATS! Fortunately, Hero said he would take care of dinner. Take care of dinner he did!

Tonight my culinary talented husband made Korean beef. We did not eat it with the noodles as suggested in the recipe, instead we enjoyed it over a bed of rice with sautéed mushrooms and grilled red onions. Hero added garlic to the marinade. Also, instead of frying the meat as directed in the recipe, Hero grilled our skirt steak and then sliced it thinly against the grain to insure a tender morsel with each bite.

While we enjoyed our Korean beef, we did decide that next time we would like it with a smidge less heat and more sweetness. If you have ever enjoyed Korean cuisine you know they are hugely into pairing tastes--hot & sweet.

Enjoy!

Mini Meat Loaves

I  have an obsession with love recipes, recipe blogs, cookbooks. Many hours are easily spent trolling the Internet for the next new recipe to try--the next recipe my family will enjoy. When we first arrived in South Korea and moved into our home we did not have fast Internet, I was using my cell phone as a hot spot. It worked, but not as fast as my mind switches gears. Therefore, I discovered the cookbook section at the library on base--much to my husband's delight. See, book checked out of the library means that (1) I didn't spend money and (2) it eventually has to go back and thus keeps my cookbook obsession under control. One day while perusing the shelves I stumbled upon Betty Crocker Quick & Easy Cookbook, I swear promise, I saw the heavens part, a ray of light shone down on this enormous spiral bound book and just dared me to take it home. To appease the culinary gods I checked out that immense cookbook and about 4 of her best friends. Why only 9? Because the library has a limit on the number of books you can check out once and I had to let the kid get a few books too. *sigh*

Anyway, from that book I stumbled upon a few recipes I would be willing to use my family as guinea pigs for--this is one of them. I made them for the first time a few months ago. We ate them for dinner one night and I froze the rest into packages of three for future meals. Now three months later we are out of mini meat loaves in the freezer, so, it's what's for dinner tonight. As always my thoughts and changes are in red.

Mini Meat Loaves

Prep Time: 10 minutes  Start to Finish: 30 minutes  

6 servings(2 loaves each) My husband can eat two loaves, Meghan and I share a loaf.

• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 2 Tbsp packed brown sugar
• 1 lb. lean ground beef (at least 80%) since this recipe also has ground pork I spent the big bucks and got the really lean ground beef
• 1/2 lb. ground pork 
• 1/2 cup Original Bisquick mix 
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 small onion, chopped (1/4 cup) (I don't know where they found their small onion, but I have NEVER come across a small onion that only yielded a 1/4 cup when chopped...just saying)
• 1 egg
• Garlic....must have garlic, I minced two cloves for this amount. Tonight I will be doubling this recipe and will most likely do four to five cloves, but we love our garlic.

1. Heat oven to 450*F. In small bowl, stir ketchup and brown sugar until mixed; reserve 1/4 cup for topping. In large bowl, stir remaining ingredients and remaining ketchup mixture until well mixed.
2. Spray 13 X 9-inch pan with cooking spray. (I just take my cookie sheet and cover it with tin foil so when I am done cooking I can toss the foil. I know wasteful and increasing my carbon footprint, but as I have already said a couple of times--I am lazy.) Place meat mixture in pan; pat into a 12 X 4-inch rectangle. Cut lengthwise down center and then crosswise into sixths to form 12 loaves. Separate loaves, using spatula, so no edges are touching. Brush loaves with reserved 1/4 cup ketchup mixture.
3. Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until loaves are no longer pink in center and meat thermometer inserted in center of loaves reads 160*F.

Tonight I am going to serve this with garlic mashed potatoes, I TOLD you we love our garlic, and either a salad or green beans. I also have some lovely Korean pears, I might cut one of those up...my mouth waters just thinking about it.

Enjoy!

Elaine's Sweet and Tangy Loose Beef

I got this recipe from www.allrecipes.com. That is one of my favorite recipe websites. It allows you to adjust the ingredient list to suite the serving size you need. I cut the recipe as you see it in half.

Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 10 Hours Servings: 28

Ingredients:

• 7 pounds beef chuck roast
• 1 cup water
• 3 TBsp white vinegar
• 4 TBsp brown sugar
• 2 tsp dry mustard
• 4 TBsp Worcestershire
• 3 cups ketchup
• 2 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 6 cloves garlic, minced

Directions:

1. Place the roast into a slow cooker along with the water. Cover, and cook on LOW for 2 to 4 hours, or until beef can be easily shredded with a fork. (I found that after 6 hours my roast was still hard to shred. So either my slow cooker is about to go capoots or my raost was just a rough cut of meat. Next time I think since I am up until 1am anyway, I will just put the roast on low all night long.)
2. Shred the beef, removing fat as you go. REmove 1/2 cup of the broth from the slow cooker, and reserve for later. Add vinegar, brown sugar, dry mustard, Worcestershire sauce and ketchup. Mix in the salt, pepper, cayenne, and garlic. Stir so that the meat is well coated.
3. Cover, and continue to cook beef on low for an additional 4 to 6 hours. Add the reserved broth only if necessary to maintain moisture. Serve on toasted buns. The meat can be frozen for future use.

After our dinner I sealed the remaining BBQ beef in Food Saver bags. When we want BBQ beef again we just put a pouch in boiling water, let boil for a few minutes. If you boil frozen it takes a little longer. Cut pouch and serve....easy peasy!

Mushroom Bolognese

Serves: 6 Prep: 7 min. Cook: About 10 min.

Even Miss M loved this recipe...but then again she loved pasta. I got this recipe from an Eating Light magazine, I know this issue is from around 2005, but I don't recall the specific issue.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. rigatoni pasta
• 10 baby carrots (about 1/2 cup)
• 1 medium onion, quartered
• 1-1/2 tsp olive oil
• 1 pkg (5 ounces) shiitake mushrooms
• 1-1/4 lb ground turkey (optional) (Hero doesn't do ground poultry, so I used ground beef and it was yumm-o)
• 1/2 cup dry white wine (I used beef broth)
• 1 medium yellow squash, qartered lengthwise, sliced
• 1 jar (26 oz.) marinara sauce

Directions:

1. Cook pasta in a large pot of lightly salted boiling water as package directs.
2. Meanwhile put carrots and onion in a food processor; pulse until finely chopped.
3. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet. Add carrots, onion and mushrooms; cover and cook over medium-high heat, stirring often, 4 minutes or until almost tender.
4. Add turkey, if using and cook, breaking up clumps, 3 minutes or until no longer pink. Stir in wine and squash; boil 1 minute.
5. Stir in marinara sauce; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 2 minutes or until squash is tender. Pour over drained pasta; toss to mix.
   

Italian-Style Shepherd's Pie

Unforturnately this recipe and a few more to follow don't have an y corresponding pictures. I will try to do better in the future at remembering to get pictures before I am doing dishes and dinner is all done. Sometimes I get so caught up in hurrying up and feeding my family, that I forget to take pictures.

I got this recipe from a Betty Crocker check out stand cookbook. As in the past I will note any changes I made to the original recipe in red.

Prep Time: 20 Min. Start to Finish: 50 Min.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb beef boneless sirloin, trimmed of fat, cut into 1-inch cubes. DO NOT use stew meat, this does not cook long enough to make the meat tender.
• 1 cup sliced onions (about 1 medium)
• 2 medium carrots, sliced (1 cup)
• 1/2 tsp seasoned salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 1/2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1 jar (14oz) tomato pasta sauce (any variety) (1 1/2 cups)
• 1/2 package (7.2oz size) Betty Crocker roasted garlic mashed potatoes (1 pouch) Phillip doesn't like instant potatoes, so I used a package of Ore-Ida steam in a bag potatoes that I had in the freezer. I think they were a garlic mashed type flavor. It was more than the recipe called for, but I used the whole bag. Followed the directions on the package to make the mashed potatoes and then used them in the recipe as directed.
• 1 cup hot water (this is for the potatoes that I didn't use)
• 2/3 cup milk (for the potatoes I didn't use)
• 2 TBsp butter or margarine (for the potatoes I didn't use)
• 2 TBsp shredded fresh Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375F. Spray 2 quart casserole or 11x7 inch glass baking dish ith cooking spray. Heat 12 inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add beef, onions, and carrots to skillet; sprinkle with seasoned salt and pepper. Cook 3 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently until beef is brown.
2. Stir in mushromms and pasta sauce. Heat to boiling. Cook over medium heat 5 minutes, stirring occassionally. Spread in casserole.
3. Make potatoes as directed on package for 4 servings, using 1 pouch Potatoes and Seasoning, water, milk, and butter. Spoon into 8 mounds around the edge of hot beef mixture. Sprinkle cheese over all. I had more potatoes than needed, so I just layered them in one layer on top of my meat mixture.
4. Bake uncovered 25 to 30 minutes or until bubbly and potatoes are light golden brown. 4 servings (1 1/2 cups each)

Mexican Lasagna

I got this recipe from www.sparkpeople.com, you can find the recipe here. This is another of our favorite meals that we enjoy eating and freezing.

As in the past, I will notate the changes we make to the recipe in RED.

1 lb. ground turkey (I use lean ground beef because Phillip doesn't like ground poultry.) 1 tablespoon olive oil 3 garlic cloves, minced (Today I used 5 cloves, but we LOVE garlic in this house) 2 onions, chopped 2 10 oz. cans black beans, drained and slightly mashed (my cans of beans were larger, but that's okay because we like this recipe with more beans, I think the cans I had were 14.5oz) (in the past I have used one can of black beans and one can of Rosarita Black Bean refried beans, and it turned out great) 1 tablespoon chili powder 1 tablespoon ground cumin 2 cups tomato sauce (my can of tomato sauce was 15oz, I figured that was close enough) 1 10 oz. can stewed tomatoes, coarsely chopped (I never seem to have stewed tomatoes in the house when I need them, so I just used diced.) 6 medium whole wheat tortillas (I cut my tortillas in half to enable me to put them in the pan with the cut edges along the side of the pan, therefore getting better coverage) 1 cup low fat shredded cheddar cheese (along with garlic, we LOVE cheese, so I use way more than this, about double if not more)

Directions

1. Preheat oven 350 F.

2. Saute 1 onion, 1 garlic clove on high heat while breaking up meat. Cook until meat is no longer pink. Stir in black beans. Set saute pan aside.

3. Heat oil in another saute pan over medium heat. Saute remaining onion, until soft. Add remaining garlic, chili powder and cumin, saute for 30 seconds. Add tomato sauce and tomatoes with juice. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, simmer partially covered for 20 minutes or until sauce is slightly thickened. Transfer all but 1/2 c (I usually set aside 3/4 cup) sauce to meat and beans; Mix well.

4. Dip half the tortillas, one at a time, in the hot tomato sauce. Lay tortillas in the bottom of an 8.5 x 11 casserole dish.


Spread half meat and bean mixture over tortillas. Sprinkle half the cheese over meat and beans.

5. Add another layer of tortillas and meat & beans mixture. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake 35 minutes or until bubbly and cheese is melted. Let stand 5 minutes. (Today I made the lasagna in the morning, stopping at the I would bake. Instead I put the lasagna in the refrigerator and will bake for about 45 minutes before serving.)

Serves 6.

Freezer tip: We like to eat on this for two nights, and then freeze the rest. What I do is cut the lasagna into thirds. After the baked lasagna has been in the fridge overnight and before I reheat it I put 1/3 of the lasagna on a sheet of tin foil that I placed on a cookie sheet. Removing the lasagna from the pan works much better if you use two spatulas. I then wrap the lasagna in the tin foil I set it on and place the cookie sheet with the lasagna in the freezer. Usually I let it freeze overnight. The next morning I take the cookie sheet with the frozen lasagna on it out of the freezer and vacuum seal it using my food saver. When I want to eat it, I take it out of the freezer and set it on the counter for about 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes I carefully remove the lasagna from the vacuum sealer bag and the tin foil. Then I place it in a small pan coated with cooking spray. Top the pan with tin foil and put the pan in the refrigerator to finish dethawing.

Hope you enjoy!

Taco-Filled Pasta Shells

I got this recipe from the Taste of Home, "No-Fuss Freezer Meals", Fall 2008 book. This recipe comes from a Marge Hodel of Roanoke, Illinois.

I will give the recipe as it is on the recipe card. However, I cut the menu in half to test whether or not we liked it before we make a bunch to freeze. We liked it so I will be making a full batch to put in the freezer for Phillip and Miss M for after I have my WLS.


You will need:

• 2 pounds ground beef
• 2 envelopes taco seasoning (we use the low-sodium kind in this house, and I was glad I did, I think it might have been too salty otherwise)
• 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese cubed
• 24 uncooked jumbo pasta shells
• 1/4 cup butter, melted

Additional Ingredients (for each casserole)

• 1 cup each salsa and taco sauce
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 cup (4ounces) shredded Monterey Jack cheese (I just used the Cheddar and Jack blend shredded cheese you can buy in the dairy case)
• 1-1/2 cups crushed tortilla chips
• 1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
• 3 green onions, chopped

1. In a Dutch oven, cook beef over medium heat until no longer pink; drain. Add taco seasoning, prepare according to package directions. Add cream cheese, cook and stir for 5-10minutes or until melted. Transfer to a bowl; chill for 1 hour.
2. Cook the pasta according to package directions; drain. Gently toss with butter. Fill each shell with about 3 tablespoons of meat mixture. Place 12 shells in a freezer container. Cover and freeze up to 3 months.
3. To prepare remaining shells, spoon salsa into a greased 9-in. square baking dish. Top with stuffed shells and taco sauce. Cover and bake ay 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle with cheeses and chips. Bake 15 minutes longer or until heated through. Serve with sour cream and onions.

TO USE FROZEN SHELLS: Thaw in the refrigerator for 24 hours (shells will be partially frozen). Spoon salsa into a greased 9-in. square baking dish. Top with stuffed shells and taco sauce. Cover and bake ay 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 40 minutes. Uncover and continue as above.

I forgot to add the tortilla chips. When we sat down to eat I realized I for got them. Phillip just crushed chips over the top of our dinners. I had a bite before he did this, the chips make a difference for the better. I served this over a bed of shredded lettuce...Yummy!

Guess my secret is out of the bag with this picture...I really don't like my food to touch.

Enjoy!

Fast Marinated Flank Steak

This is one of our favorite grilled dinners. I cut the recipe out of the , Great American Home Cooking magazine years ago. I will post the recipe as it was found in that magazine, but I will add notes in red on how we have changed the recipe to suit our tastes.

Fast Marinated Flank Steak
Marinade:

• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar We use a lot more than this, probably close to 1/2 cup
• 2 tsp each olive oil and mustard We use a lot more of each of these, probably closer to 2TBsp of the oil and at least a 1/4 cup of the mustard. Dijion mustard gives the taste a little bit of warmth, but we prefer to use ground mustard for a tangy taste.
• 2 garlic cloves, minced Again we use more, usually about 4 cloves
• 1/2 tsp each salt and pepper

1. Mix the marinade in a resealable plastic bag. Add steak; marinate for 30 minutes. We have found that we like this to have a strong taste, you can not get that in 30 minutes. We prefer to marinate this steak for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator, the longer the better. HOWEVER, not longer than 24 hours.
2. Pour the marinade into a small saucepan. Boil the marinade for 1 - 2 minutes, then spoon over the steak. We found that since we marinate the steak longer, we didn't need or like to do this.
   
3. Broil the steak 4 inches from the heat, 6 minutes per side for medium-rare. We prefer to grill this steak. Flank steak is a steak that is meant to be eaten medium-rare to rare. You can cook it longer if you need to eliminate any trace of "rare", but the longer you cook it the tougher it will get. Let the steak stand for 5 minutes, then thinly slice on an angle. You want to cut Flank steak against the grain to help with it's natural toughness, when cutting against the grain it will be almost fork tender. The thinner you can slice it the better.

I like to serve this with mashed potatoes, usually Ranch Mashed Potatoes or Garlic Mashed Potatoes.