CREMINI MUSHROOM MEATLOAF

Posted in Beef by sallybr

As Anne Burrell often puts it: brown food tastes good. I fully agree, but it is a nightmare for food bloggers. Why? Taking a good picture is quite tricky. Granted, photography is not one of my fortes, but I am aware that even those who know their way around a camera need to work a little harder when faced with beef stews, chocolate brownies, and – case in point – meatloaf. This one maybe even trickier as the beef is mixed with cremini mushrooms. Double decker brown for you! Still, no matter the quality of the photos, I had to share this recipe because it is totally worth it. The mushrooms not only provide extra moisture to the meat loaf, but they add that enticing umami-ness. The recipe comes from Cooking Light magazine which is one of my favorite sources for weeknight recipes. Never too rich, always packing great flavor.

CREMINI MUSHROOM MEAT LOAF
(adapted from Cooking Light)

1 pound cremini mushrooms

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 shallot, minced

1 garlic clove, minced

2 tablespoons dry sherry

2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

1/4 cup almond flour

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

8 ounces ground sirloin

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Cooking spray

1/4 cup ketchup, divided
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Heat oven to 375°.
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Place the mushrooms in a food processor; process until minced. Do it in two batches if necessary.
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Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add minced shallot; sauté 3 minutes. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add mushrooms; cook 7 minutes or until liquid evaporates and mushrooms begin to brown. Add sherry; cook 1 minute, stirring frequently. Remove from heat; stir in thyme. Cool slightly.
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Combine mushroom mixture, almond flour, and next 4 ingredients (through egg), mixing until well combined. Shape mixture into a free-form loaf on a foil-lined baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake at 375° for 20 minutes. Remove from oven; brush with half of ketchup. Bake an additional 10 to 15 minutes or until a thermometer registers 160°. Remove from oven; brush with remaining ketchup, if desired. Cut into 8 slices.
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ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

One of the changes I made in the recipe from Cooking Light was using almond flour instead of Panko. If you prefer a more traditional take, go for breadcrumbs, same amount. I served the meatloaf with mashed cauliflower and spinach, a recipe that I blogged about not too long ago. This was a simple, but delicious meal. You can prepare the mushroom mixture in advance, even a couple of days earlier to speed up dinner preparation. One of the best things of this meal: leftovers. My lunch next day was a couple of slices of meat loaf with a hard-boiled egg, and an avocado. The type of lunch that doesn’t make me sluggish during the afternoon. Love it!

ONE YEAR AGO: Roast Chicken with Clementines

TWO YEARS AGO: Eight-Ball Zucchini: The Missing Files

THREE YEARS AGO: Grilling Ribbons

FOUR YEARS AGO: Peppery Cashew Crunch

FIVE YEARS AGO: Ossobuco Milanese: an Italian Classic

24Aug2014

SECRET RECIPE CLUB: TACO SALAD

Posted in Beef, Salads, Secret Recipe Club by sallybr

This is the last Monday of August. We are about to say goodbye to Summer, and I cannot stand the thought of it. Only Reveal Day of The Secret Recipe Club can bring me some joy under the circumstances. My assignment this month was Flying on Jess Fuel, and I had a blast stalking it and making a list of possibilities to blog about today. Jess met her husband Nick at a Mexican restaurant, and apparently he went nuts over her jalapeno-eating skills. What a great way to fall in love! They lived in many different places while Nick went to flying school for the Navy, including Enid, a location quite close to Norman, our former home in Oklahoma.

For some reason, I usually pick sweets for my Secret Recipe assignments, but this time I took the road less traveled and went with her Taco Salad, considering that Mexican food would be a fun way to celebrate the way they met. I find it amusing that some recipes that I order in restaurants on a regular basis are never part of my own cooking at home. Taco Salad is one of those. For the most part, Tex-Mex restaurants offer dishes over-loaded with cheese, and served with a humongous portion of rice, beans, plus a few flour tortillas for good measure. Taco Salad is my default request to avoid feeling like a bloated whale as I leave the restaurant. I made just a few changes in her recipe, and decided to pump up the presentation by making my own tortilla bowls. Now, that was a ton of fun, but some unexpected problems were encountered. As I was frantically trying to figure out which cups would be appropriate to shape the tortillas, one of my custard cups fell from the cabinet and crashed on the granite (yes, glass flew everywhere), but not without first hitting my head. OUCH! And, going on with my usual modus operandi in the kitchen, I burned myself not once, but twice baking those tortilla bowls. Sometimes I even amaze myself… However, I can tell you it was all worth it! This recipe rocks, my friends….

JESS’ TACO SALAD
(slightly modified from Flying on Jess Fuel)

1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup yogurt
1/2 cup salsa
1 Tablespoon grapeseed oil
1 lb ground beef
2 tablespoons bulk taco seasoning mix (or 1 packet)
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 large head romaine, chopped
4 tomatoes, chopped
1 bunch scallions, chopped
Black kalamata olives, chopped (to taste)
Shredded Mexican blend cheese (to taste

To make the dressing, combine sour cream, yogurt and salsa in a small bowl. Set aside.

Heat the oil on a skillet and cook the meat for a few minutes. Season with salt (in case your taco seasoning doesn’t have salt already), then add either a packet of store-bought taco seasoning or 2 Tbs of a bulk product such as Penzey’s. Cook for a couple of minutes, add the amount of water recommended by the mix, and cook further just to thicken it slightly. Add the beans to the pan in the last 2 minutes of cooking.

If serving cold, let the meat and bean mixture cool to room temperature. In a large bowl, place half the lettuce, half the tomatoes, half the scallions and half the olives. Top with half the dressing. Top with the meat and bean mixture (you can reserve a little bit for decorating the top, if you want to be fancy). Sprinkle half the cheese on top. Add the rest of the veggies, dressing, and cheese (and meat mix if you reserved some). You can also serve it warm, adding the cold ingredients to the hot meat/beans mixture.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Here you can see some photos of my burning adventure with tortilla cups. You can do this in several ways, but I recommend the muffin tin + custard cup combo. Using the two custard cups nested together requires that they both fit just right not to tear the tortilla, and also makes it a lot harder to remove the top cup to brown the tortilla in the final moments of baking.

MAKING TACO BOWLS: Warm a corn tortilla very quickly over an open flame on your stove (I heard you can also use the microwave, but I haven’t tried it). Spray both sides of the warm tortilla very lightly with canola or olive oil spray. Immediately place in the muffin tin (or over a custard cup), and place another container on top to keep the shape. Bake in a 375 F for about 15 minutes, removing the custard cup in the final 5 minutes. Let cool over a rack.

We loved this recipe! Actually, Phil was raving about it non-stop, and begging me to make it again, and do it soon. The tortilla cups make it very festive, but the taco stands on its own without any problem, it is fresh, bright, the dressing mixing sour cream and salsa was incredibly tasty! I used a home-made salsa given to us by Mr. and Mrs. K (thank you, guys!), and it had just the right amount of heat. Use any store-bought salsa you are fond of, or make your own if you have a chance.

Jess, I loved being assigned to your blog! This has been one super busy month for us, but I made sure to compose this post within one week of getting the email notification. I fell in love with this recipe right away, and you can bet this will be in a regular rotation in our Bewitching Kitchen!

To my readers: if you want to see what the other members of my group cooked up this month, poke the blue frog at the end of the post.

ONE YEAR AGO: Semolina Sourdough Boule

TWO YEARS AGO: Forgive me, for I have sinned

THREE YEARS AGO: Cracked Wheat Sandwich Bread

FOUR YEARS AGO: Au Revoir, my Bewitching Kitchen

FIVE YEARS AGO: French Bread

27Mar2014

PRIME RIB ROAST, MEXICAN STYLE

Posted in Beef by sallybr

A prime rib is not cheap. Actually, I should be glad that we live in Kansas, where meat is of excellent quality and, compared to other places in the country, quite affordable. Still, it would be terrible to mess it up, something easy to do if you over-cook it. I normally keep seasoning to a minimum, but for our dinner last Christmas we went with a recipe from Marcela Valladolid, that gave the roast her unique Mexican twist. Yes, it is March. Yes, it took me three months to blog about it. Better late…. than never! 😉

PRIME RIB ROAST, MEXICAN STYLE
(from Marcela Valladolid)

1 (4 rib) prime rib roast with ribs (9-10 pounds)
Salt as needed
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup assortment of ground peppercorns
1 tablespoon ground chile de arbol
4 garlic cloves, smashed
2 tablespoon ground rosemary
Beef broth as needed

Heat oven to 400°F. Let roast stand for 1 hour at room temperature. Season the roast heavily with salt.

In a separate bowl, mix the rest of ingredients (up to rosemary) to form a paste. Rub all over prime rib roast.

Place prime rib roast on a roasting rack, add 2 cups beef broth to the roasting pan. Roast for about 30 minutes, until it is browned. Remove from oven, and reduce heat to 350°F. With aluminum foil, form a tent over the prime rib roast to cover it. Make sure the aluminum foil does not touch the prime rib, since it can damage it crust that it is forming. Return to oven and roast for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until thermometer registers 110°F. Add broth to the pan while roasting if liquid begins to evaporate.

Remove from oven and let rest, uncovered, for a least 20 minutes before carving and pour pan drippings into a separate bowl, reserve and set aside for gravy. Internal temperature of meat should rise to 130°F for medium rare.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

What to serve with it? You can go simple with a humble veggie like green beans decorated with toasted almonds, or you can tell yourself what I did: there’s only one month of December in the year, and December means festive… Therefore, green beans were out, cheese souffle was in. However, there is also a single month of April in the year. May? Another only child. Those are important things to consider when planning a side dish. In case I convinced you to indulge, follow this link for my default cheese souffle recipe. 😉

This was a wonderful meal, the prime rib was perfectly cooked, with a delicious spicy coating, not so strong as to mask the flavor of the meat. I strongly advise using a meat thermometer because just like Beef Wellington, a prime rib must be cooked medium rare and a few minutes longer in the oven can pretty much ruin it. Marcela Valladolid did it again, another winner recipe at our table!

Dinner is served!

ONE YEAR AGO: Sourdough Bread with Walnuts and Dates

TWO YEARS AGO: Braised Brisket with Bourbon-Apricot Glaze

THREE YEARS AGO: The Real Vodka Sauce

FOUR YEARS AGO: Pork Tenderloin and Blue Cheese

9Mar2014

RICOTTA MEATBALLS

Posted in Beef by sallybr

Vegetarians will have to forgive me, but I firmly believe a person cannot have too many meatball recipes. They cook quickly, can be served with many different types of sauces, and leftovers taste as good or better as the first time around. This version was originally published in The Meatball Shop Cookbook, but it is also available online. I added my own twist to it, using almond flour instead of bread crumbs. I don’t have gluten allergies, just happen to love playing new twists on a classic.

CLASSIC RICOTTA MEATBALLS
(adapted from this version)

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds 80% lean ground beef
1 cup ricotta cheese
2 large eggs
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground fennel
about 2 cups simple tomato sauce (store-bought or home-made)

Heat the oven to 425°F.

Combine by gently beating together the ricotta, eggs, almond flour, parsley, oregano, salt, red pepper flakes, and fennel in a large mixing bowl. When the mixture seems homogeneous, add the ground beef and mix by hand until incorporated.

Roll the mixture into round, golf ball-size meatballs and place on a rack over a baking dish, allowing some space in between them. Roast for 20 minutes, or until the meatballs are firm and cooked through.

While the meatballs are roasting, heat the tomato sauce in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring often. Add the meatballs to the saucepan, and simmer gently for 10 minutes.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click

Comments: I do not remember the last time I fried a meatball. Baking works so much better! I am not even talking about excess fat consumption, but the whole preparation is much more user-friendly. Recently I found this cute baking dish with an insert that is perfect for cooking meatballs, as they sit elevated and the hot air circulates all around them. No need to mess with them once you start baking. After they are brown and almost cooked through, I add them to my sauce of choice, simmering them gently until serving time.

The almond flour and the ricotta gave these meatballs a wonderful texture, creamy but not at all heavy. You can make them smaller if you prefer, but I like them to be more substantial. The tomato sauce I used was very simply prepared: a can of tomatoes simmered with sautéed shallots, celery, and carrots. Salt and pepper. A touch of orange zest at the end.

Almond flour is not cheap, but where we live for some odd reason every once in a while it goes on sale. When that happens, I grab a couple of bags and stick them in the freezer. It is a wonderful ingredient for both sweet and savory dishes. One of my favorite cakes ever is this one, in which the almond flour shines in all its nutty glory. 😉

ONE YEAR AGO: Farro Salad with Roasted Leeks

TWO YEARS AGO: It all started with a roof

THREE YEARS AGO: Carrot and Sweet Potato Puree

FOUR YEARS AGO: Impromptu Pasta Dinner

26Sep2013

BEER-MARINATED GRILLED SKIRT STEAK

Posted in Beef by sallybr

When grilling meat, I normally follow the Brazilian rule of using only salt as seasoning. We are all about the flavor of the beef, preferring not to mask it with spices and rubs. But, I thought that Marcella’s take on skirt steak was too tempting to pass. She marinates the meat in beer and soy sauce, and also adds orange slices to the party. I normally reach for lemons or limes, but whenever I use oranges in cooking I am surprised by how much I enjoy their subtle citric tone, a tad less aggressive. We both loved the flavor they imparted to the meat… the beer definitely comes through loud and clear. I marinated the meat from early morning to dinner time.

BEER-MARINATED GRILLED SKIRT STEAK
(adapted from Mexican Made Easy)

1 orange, thinly sliced
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, smashed
2 + 1/2 pounds skirt steak
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
1 cup light-colored beer (preferably lager style)
1/2 cup soy sauce
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In a wide, shallow glass baking dish, scatter half of the orange slices, half of the onion slices and the garlic on the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle the steak all over with salt and pepper and put in the dish on top of the orange and onion slices. Scatter the remaining orange, onion and garlic over the steak and pour in the beer and soy sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and marinate for 1 hour at room temperature or up to overnight in the refrigerator.

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Prepare a grill on medium-high heat. Remove the meat from the marinade and discard the marinade. Grill the steak to your taste, about 4 minutes on the first side and 3 minutes on the second for medium-rare.
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Let the meat rest, tented with foil, for 10 minutes before slicing it.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here
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Comments: Skirt-steak is one of the busy cook’s best friend! Less than 10 minutes on the grill and you are on your way for a tasty dinner. Now, if not only you are very busy but you also don’t have a functional kitchen, this type of meal will be a life-saver. I like to wrap the meat in large butter lettuce leaves, top with salsa and/or guacamole, but this time I made it even simpler and only added fresh, juicy tomatoes, salt, pepper, and a sprinkle of grated Cotija cheese, just to keep it on the Mexican environment… 😉 Of course, corn or flour tortillas, fajita-style are the most authentic way to go.

The same marinade worked great on chicken thighs, as you may remember from a recent post. I marinated the chicken the whole day in the beer-soy-oranges, roasted low and slow with the skin side down, then flipped the pieces to have the skin up, and finished them off under the broiler.

ONE YEAR AGO: Secret Recipe Club: Corn Chowda

TWO YEARS AGO: Page-A-Day Calendar (Pits and Chief 5 minutes of fame…)

THREE YEARS AGO: Home Sweet Home (our beloved Pits in one of his last photos)

FOUR YEARS AGO: Marbled Rye