Dinner on the Table with a Little Help from my Blogger Friends

Tags

beef, beef & broccoli, beef stew, beer stew, caramelized onions, cauliflower soup, cheesy cauliflower soup, chicken, Guinness stew, oriental beef & broccoli, stew

This past week has been somewhat challenging for me in terms of getting dinner on the table. If it were up to me, I’d be happy with a bowl of cafè-latte and some toasted baguette slices slathered with some salty butter to dunk into my hot drink. I’d even settle with a bowl of cereal topped with banana slices or berries. But what kind of mother would I be if that was indeed what I served my girls? Oh, not to mention hubby’s reaction! So, I turned to my blogger friends for some inspiration. The only criteria was that there were few ingredients involved, and it had to be simple and quick.

The week started off with this fast and simple Beef and Broccoli, thanks to Conor over at One Man’s Meat. This is a favourite of both my girls when we do take out. His recipe is actually called Easy Oriental part 8 – Take out the take-out with Beef and Broccoli. And Conor delivered. Served with fragrant Jasmine rice, it was easy indeed and oh-so-better than take-out any day!

The next evening featured Caramelized Onion Herbed Chicken from Bam’s Kitchen. I have to admit, Bam had me at caramelized onion! Served alongside some mashed potatoes, this chicken was tender, juicy, delicious, and so simple! How good does that look? And it tastes even better!

Hump Day was a real bummer. Being out and about most of the day, I came home with a chill I just couldn’t shake. A lie down under a warm and cozy blanket didn’t do it. So I turned to Sandra, over at Please Pass the Recipe, and her Cheesey Cauliflower Soup.  Served with broiled baguette slices topped with sharp cheddar, this flavourful soup was cheesy, velvety, comforting! Oh, that did the trick all right. All warmed up after that yumminess!

On the menu for last night’s dinner was Spezzatino di manzo alla birra, pere e mostarda. Oh all right! I’ll give you the English version, although I think it sounds fabulous in Italian. Beef stew with beer, pears and mustard. You will even find the French version of Margherita’s stew over at La petite casserole. I used that gorgeously black Guinness beer for this stew. Served with smashed red and yellow baby potatoes with a little butter, this out-of-this world stew was fantastic! Oh-so-flavoursome and just perfect!

So, thank you my friends for helping me feed my family in a proper manner. And now you must be wondering what I’ve got planned for dinner on this final day of a most difficult week? Why, left-overs of course. After all, it’s Friday! Have yourselves a wonderful weekend!

Niku’jaga from Fae’s Twist & Tango

Tags

beef, beef and potato stew, Japanese, Japanese stew, potatoes

Fae’s Twist & Tango kindly nominated my blog for the Awesome Blog Content Award back in June, for which I am truly honoured.  Being given an award from someone whose blog I greatly admire is truly awesome!  If you have yet to check out her blog, I urge you to do so.  She is a wonderful storyteller, constantly enlightening me with the history, legends and her personal stories about the foods she presents to us.

Such as this beautiful and delicious Japanese dish which I made.  Niku’jaga.  A meat and potato-type stew.  Mine may not have looked as beautiful as Fae’s with her carrots cut into the shape of flowers, but I’m pretty sure it was just as yummy!

Niku’jaga / Meat Potato

½ lb.  (230 g) of thinly sliced beef, such as Rib Eye (I used Sirloin)
1½ lb. (750 g) of boiling potatoes 
1 large onion
1 medium-large carrot
12 snow peas, strings pulled off if needed (I used a little more)
1 package of yam noodles (shirataki), 7 oz/200 g
3 Tbsp of vegetable oil
1 ½ cups of hot water

Seasoning:
2 2/3 Tbsp of sugar
6 Tbsp of low-sodium soy sauce (I used regular tamari and it was perfect)
4 Tbsp of mirin

Peel and cut the potatoes into bite size pieces.  Cut the onion in half and then into 1/2-inch slices.  Peel and cut the carrot into 1/4-inch thick slices.  You can also use a flower cutting mold with the carrot to make it look pretty, as seen in Fae’s photo here.

I was not able to find thinly sliced Rib Eye beef at the grocer’s, therefore I got some Sirloin and sliced it as thinly as I could.  Proceed to cut the beef slices into 3-inch length pieces.

In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil.  Add a pinch of salt and add snow peas, cooking for one minute.  Drain, rinse with cold water and set aside.  In the same saucepan, repeat the exact same process with the carrots.

Remove the yam noodles (shirataki) from its package and drain.  Give them a good rinse with cold water.  In same sauce pan as above, add fresh water and boil the noodles for 5 minutes.  Drain and rinse, allowing to drain in the colander.  Use kitchen scissors to cut into the shirataki, making noodles shorter and thus easier to eat.

In a small bowl, combine soy sauce and mirin.

In a medium non-stick pan, add 1 Tbsp of oil and sauté the onions over medium heat until lightly browned.  Remove them and transfer to a plate. Always using the same pan, add 1 Tbsp of oil and sauté the potatoes on medium heat for 1 or 2 minutes.  Transfer to plate.

Add the last 1 Tbsp of oil to the same pan and on medium heat, sauté the meat until it starts turning brown.  Add sugar and stir well.

To the meat, add half of the sautéed onion, all of the sautéed potatoes, the shirataki noodles and hot water, a 1/2 cup at a time, just enough to cover the ingredients half way (you may not need to use all 1 1/2 cups of water).  Bring to a boil and lower the heat to medium-low.  Let simmer for 5 minutes.

Add soy-sauce and mirin mixture and continue to simmer until the potatoes are cooked (when poked with a fork, it should go through smoothly).

While still simmering, add the snow peas, carrots and the remaining sautéed onions.  Stir gently, simmer for one more minute and turn off the heat.  Keep a lid on the pan until ready to serve.

Frugal Feeding with Moroccan Meatballs

Tags

beef, Cooking with kids, frugal cooking, meatballs, Moroccan dish, Moroccan meatballs, North African cooking

I came across this great recipe from a blog that I follow, Frugal Feeding. A young man living in England, Nick inspires us with an array of delicious, wholesome foods while striving to remain thrifty about it. His fabulous photos of Moroccan Meatballs enticed me to give this recipe a try.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 300g ground beef

• 3 tbsp chopped fresh herbs

• 1 egg

• 40g breadcrumbs

• Salt, a pinch of

• Pepper, a pinch of

• 2 tsp cumin seed

• ½ tsp ground cinnamon

• 3-4 tbsp olive oil

• 2 cloves of garlic, mashed

• 1-2 chillies, finely chopped

• 1 onion, finely chopped

• 1 stick of celery, finely chopped

• 3 bay leaves

• 1 green bell pepper, roughly chopped

• 1 red bell pepper, roughly chopped

• 1 28 oz/796 ml can of peeled plum tomatoes

• 1 tbsp tomato purée

• A large handful of raisins

• 200g chickpeas

• 1 tbsp honey

I started with about 450 g of ground beef and just upped the ingredients a little. I love leftovers. The fresh herbs I used were cilantro and mint. Very Moroccan. Cilantro and parsley are the most popular herbs used in Moroccan cuisine, with mint a close second since it is used to make Moroccan tea. I did not have fresh chillis therefore I used harissa, a North African red, hot chilli paste. I minced the garlic, used fresh bay leaves because I had them and used a yellow and orange pepper, also because I had them. Trying to be frugal, right?

I have to say that preparing dinner during the week is a true demonstration of my multi-tasking talents. As I was reading and preparing this recipe, giving Emma her English spelling bee and answering Charlotte’s math questions, I inadvertently mucked the recipe up. Just a tad. They say you should always read a recipe through first. I say, if you’re using delicious ingredients to begin with, does it really matter what order they go into the dish? The end result will be delicious regardless.

Mix the meat, herbs, egg, breadcrumbs and seasonings in a large bowl. Which I did, including the ground cumin and cinnamon. Only they weren’t supposed to go into the meat mixture. The end result though was a delicious Moroccan meatball. If you have children, do have them make the little meatballs. Nothing better than little hands rolling out little meatballs! Or any meatballs, for that matter.

What actually needs to be done with the cumin seeds is to toast them in a pan until they release their aroma, 2 or 3 minutes over medium heat, and then crush them with a mortar and pestle, or an electric spice grinder. Which I went ahead and did anyway. The tomatoes will welcome these spices and give it that Moroccan flare. So, heat the oil in an oven-proof pot over medium heat and fry the ground cumin and cinnamon in it for about a minute. Add celery and onions and cook until translucent. Add garlic and chllis, or harissa, and cook for a couple of minutes. Add bay leaves, peppers, tomatoes and puree. Cook, covered, over a gentle heat for about an hour. Turn the oven on at 325 F. Add raisins, chickpeas, honey and meatballs to the sauce. Earlier that day, I mistook a can of cannellini beans in my pantry for chickpeas…so, no chickpeas for me! And I forgot to add the honey! I was doing homework, remember? Although Nick did say to fry the meatballs first, I did not. At this point, I was just too frazzled! You can go ahead and fry them first in a little oil, or just do as I did and throw them into the sauce raw.  Cover the pot with foil and bake 30 to 40 minutes.

In the end, this recipe turned out to be quite delicious. I served it over a bed of couscous, which the girls absolutely love. Hope you give this a try. And remember, don’t be doing any homework with your children!