Noodle Frenzy

Our spring calendar has filled up rapidly.  With the warmer weather comes the start of soccer season for M and the start of O’s first year of baseball.  Luckily the soccer schedule is consistent at one night of practice during the week and one game on the weekend.  Baseball is scattered all over the calendar.  This week, O has two games and a practice in the middle and that’s not a rare sight on the calendar.  I’ve had to look at the meal plan and make sure that on nights where there are practices and games, I have make-ahead or quick dinners planned.  I can’t spend an hour making dinner when we get home from baseball or soccer anywhere between six and seven. Dinner needs to be quick to prepare or ready to serve when we get home so that we have time for homework, bath time, and keep bedtime on schedule.  The crock pot has helped out more than once on these nights, but I do have a few quick dinner recipes up my sleeves.

I love a good casserole every so often, but not using canned “cream of ____” soups or many other processed foods means they aren’t always a time-saver.  This noodle bake is as quick as browning some beef and boiling some egg noodles.  Start to finish, including twenty minutes to bake the cheese to melted perfection, this took about half an hour.  It’s a lot like a lasagna with cheddar cheese, or a way better version of lasagna Hamburger Helper.  It may not make for the prettiest picture, but when I had to get up to scoop out second helpings for the kiddos, I knew this recipe was a keeper.

Beef and Noodle Bake

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 15 oz. can tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp. salt
•  fresh ground black pepper, to taste
• 8 oz. egg noodles
• 1/2 C. sour cream
• 1 1/4 C. small curd cottage cheese
• 1/2 C. thinly sliced green onions (more or less to taste)
• 1 C. freshly grated sharp cheddar cheese

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the egg noodles.  Cook to al dente while cooking the beef, then drain and set aside.

While the noodles cook, brown the ground beef in a large skillet, then drain the fat.

Stir the tomato sauce into the skillet with the ground beef.

Add 1/2 tsp. salt and ground black pepper to taste.  Add any other seasonings if desired (garlic powder, basil, oregano etc.)

Stir, and leave to simmer while you prepare the rest of the casserole.

Combine the sour cream and cottage cheese in a medium bowl.

Add ground black pepper to taste and stir.

Add in the green onions and stir to combine (start with 1/4 C., taste, and add more if desired).

Pour the mixture over the cooked noodles and stir to coat the noodles thoroughly.

To assemble the casserole, place half of the noodle mixture into a baking dish.

Top with half of the beef mixture, then sprinkle on half of the cheese.

Repeat layering the noodles, then beef, then cheese.

Bake for 20 minutes, until all cheese is melted.

Makes 8 servings.

Source: adapted slightly from The Pioneer Woman

Burrito Took a Dive

When I mentioned to Lane that I was making chili cheese burritos for dinner, I was treated to a brief education on the Taco Bell chilito.  Apparently the chilito, or chili cheese burrito as it later became known, was once a popular item on the Taco Bell menu and it is now extinct.  There are rumors that some Taco Bells in remote areas still have chili cheese burritos available, but even then you have to “know a guy.”  There are Facebook pages dedicated to those who remain hopeful for the return of the chili cheese burrito, and there are message boards where people lend their support and gloat that they have located the almost-mythical item but that it wasn’t on the menu, they had to ask the right person.  I had no idea that this was a “thing.”  I made these having no idea how they’d compare to the fast food variety, but I didn’t make them to be a replica, I made them because when I decided to try out homemade tortillas and refried beans, I needed to do something with them.  So whether or not this resembles the original I can’t say, but I’m guessing it’s close-ish at best.

Using homemade refried beans and wheat tortillas and combining that with lean ground beef makes these much healthier than the Taco Bell variety for one thing.  Don’t think that because they aren’t a Taco Bell menu item replica they’re a failure.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  While I was worried that the sauce turned out too spicy for the kids to take more than two bites of these, I carried on as planned and they were completely fine.  Mixing the sauce with the refried beans and meat tamed a lot of the spiciness (and in fairness, it wasn’t that spicy; I’d compare it to a mild Buffalo wing).  Because I didn’t want the filling to be very runny, I did only use half of the sauce.  I included the full recipe below because you may want to add all of the sauce to the beef and bean mixture.  I served these with crock pot Spanish rice, and there were nothing but clean plates on the table when dinner was over.

Chili Cheese Burritos

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 C. refried beans (or one 16 oz. can)
• 1 lb. lean ground beef
• 8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
• 6 oz. can tomato paste
• 2 1/2 C. water
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 2 1/2 Tbsp. chili powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. cornstarch
• 2 tsp. distilled white vinegar
• 2 Tbsp. minced onions
• 8 burrito tortilla shells

Directions:

Brown the ground beef in a skillet, breaking up the meat with a fork or potato masher, then drain the fat.

In a saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the tomato paste and water until smooth.

Add the cayenne pepper, chili powder, salt, cornstarch, vinegar, and onion and whisk to combine.

Heat the mixture to a boil, then continue to cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes and remove from heat.

Add the refried beans to the beef.

Slowly add the tomato sauce mixture (again, I only added half and these were great.  Add all of the sauce for a thinner burrito filling).

Add half of the cheese, and cook over low heat for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

Warm the tortillas.

Spoon 1/2- 3/4 C. of the chili into each tortilla and top evenly with the remaining cheese.

Roll up the tortilla into a burrito and serve warm.

Makes 8 burritos.

Source: adapted from Delicious Meliscious

Academy Award

The 85th Academy Awards air tonight from the Dolby Theater in Hollywood and before I settle in to catch all of the red carpet action, I want to share a round-up of the film-inspired recipes I’ve shared over the previous twelve days.  It wouldn’t be a round-up without some Oscar trivia:

Nine-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) is the youngest actress ever nominated for Best Actress in a Lead Role, taking the distinction from actress Keisha Castle-Hughes who was nominated at thirteen for her role in Whale Rider.  She competes against Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), who at eighty-five is the oldest nominee in the category.

The youngest actor ever nominated is Justin Henry, who at eight years old was nominated for his role as Billy Kramer in the 1979 film Kramer vs. Kramer.

Silver Linings Playbook is the first film since the 1981 film Reds to earn nominations in all four acting categories as well as Best Director and Best Picture.

Les Miserables is the first musical nominated for Best Picture since Chicago in 2002, and prior to Chicago no musical had been nominated in the Best Picture category since Oliver! in 1969.

Composer John Williams, nominated this year for his work on Lincoln, still holds the record for the living person with the most nominations at forty-eight.  Next in line is Woody Allen with twenty-three.

Three of this year’s Best Actor nominees: Bradley Cooper, Denzel Washington, and Hugh Jackman, have previously been named People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive.

For this year’s 12 Days of Oscar feature, I selected four movies that have been nominated for but did not win Oscars, four films that have won at least one Oscar, and four films hoping to win an Oscar this year.

Pleasantville, Salisbury Steak

I Am Sam, Crepes

When Harry Met Sally, Chef Salad (with oil and vinegar on the side!)

My Week With Marilyn, Roasted Chicken Salad

The Aviator, Banana Ripple Ice Cream

Marie Antoinette, Cream Puffs

Chicago, Deep Dish Pizza

Titanic, Chicken Lyonnaise

Moonrise Kingdom, Lemon Butter Pollock

Les Miserables, French Bread

Silver Linings Playbook, Crabby Snacks

Lincoln, Mary Lincoln’s Apple Bread Pudding

Across the Universe

After Friday’s blizzard, I am happy to have some good news today.  We’re twelve days from the Eighty-fifth Academy Awards and I have a new lineup of movies and recipes to share for this year’s 12 Days of Oscar feature.  This year, I limited the films to those that have at least been nominated for an Oscar.  In years past, this has been a popular feature and I’m thrilled to do it again for a third year.

This year’s first film is one of my guilty pleasures, Pleasantville.  The 1998 film finds teenage siblings David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) transported into the fictitious 1958 television show Pleasantville.  In Pleasantville, David and Jennifer pretend to be Bud and Mary Sue Parker, characters on the show.  I won’t give away why it happens in case you haven’t seen the film, but slowly the characters on Pleasantville change from black and white to color. The town fathers dislike the changes to the town and begin to create rules including a ban on going to the library or using paint in colors other than black and white.  Pleasantville was nominated for three Academy Awards.   In the categories  for Best Art Direction- Set Decoration and Best Costume Design, Pleasantville lost to Shakespeare In Love.  In the Best Music, Original Dramatic Score category, Pleasantville lost to Life is Beautiful.

There are various scenes where Betty Parker (Joan Allen) who is the sitcom’s mother figure holds up plates full of pancakes or Rice Krispie treats to the camera.  This is reminiscent of a real 50′s era sitcom when blatant product placement was a common form of advertisement.  As a nod to the film centering around a 1958 sitcom I made a tv dinner classic, Salisbury steak.  Salisbury steak doesn’t have to be the hardly identifiable meat slab drowned in something that can only loosely be called gravy that used to be a tv dinner staple.  This is a much more modern and tasty take on the classic.  The onion gravy for this is amazing and so easy to make and the steaks cook in just ten minutes which makes this great weeknight comfort food.  In keeping with tv dinner tradition, I served this with mashed potatoes and peas and there wasn’t a plate on the table that wasn’t clean by the time the meal ended.

Salisbury Steaks

Ingredients:

for the steaks:

• 1 1/2 lbs. lean ground beef
• 1/2 C. seasoned breadcrumbs
• 2 tsp. dry ground mustard
• 1 cube beef bouillon, crumbled
• 4 dashes Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Tbsp. ketchup
• salt and pepper
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil, for frying
• 1 Tbsp. butter, for frying

for the gravy:

• 1 medium yellow onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
• 2 C. beef broth (plus more if needed for thinning)
• 4 dashes Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp. corn starch mixed with a little water to make a thin paste
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients for the steaks except for the olive oil and butter.

Knead lightly until thoroughly combined.

Form into 6 equally portioned, oval shaped patties.

Heat the oil and butter together over medium high heat in a large skillet.

Place the steaks into the skillet and cook for 4-5 minutes, then flip the steaks and cook for an additional 3-5 minutes until they are no longer pink in the middle.

Remove the steaks from the pan and pour any extra grease out of the pan.

Reduce the heat to medium and put the onions in the pan.

Cook, stirring, for several minutes until golden brown and somewhat soft.

Add beef stock, Worcestershire, and ketchup to the pan and stir to combine.

Cook, stirring, for several minutes while the mixture reduces.

If needed, add 1-2 teaspoons of the cornstarch mixture to the skillet to thicken the gravy slightly (you don’t want the gravy to be very thick, so only add up to 2 teaspoons if needed), or add more beef broth if the gravy needs thinning.

Season to taste with salt and pepper if needed.

Place the steaks in the pan with the gravy.

Spoon the gravy, including onions, and let them simmer for a few minutes until heated through.

Makes 6 servings.

Source: The Pioneer Woman

Burgundy City

Beef Bourguignon started out as a way for peasants in the Burgundy region of France to tenderize tough cuts of meat by stewing them in wine.  Considering that the temperature here has been hovering in the single digits, having a pot of stew in the oven and then on the stove was quite welcome.  Previously, I made Julia Child’s beef bourguignon recipe and it was amazing.  I decided for the sake of comparison, I’d make Ina Garten’s recipe this time.  I can safely say that I’m equally pleased with Garten’s simpler version.  I did leave out the step in Garten’s version where Cognac is added and ignited then blown out mainly because I didn’t have Cognac in the house and wasn’t venturing out in the cold at that point.  I didn’t feel like anything was missing in the end result, but I’ll have to make it next time including this step and report back.

Unlike Julia Child’s recipe, this makes use of frozen pearl onions.  This alone was a huge help, because fresh pearl onions aren’t available in any of the three grocery stores I visited.  The stew simmers for a little more than an hour as opposed to the three to four hours called for in Child’s recipe, and the beef here was sufficiently tender after a little more than an hour in the oven.  The depth of flavor in the results of either recipe was the same.  All things considered, I’ll be sticking with Garten’s recipe because it proves that just because a recipe is less involved doesn’t mean you’re sacrificing flavor.  This is a favorite, so I’m thrilled to have an easier recipe to work with.  Almost as thrilled as I was to put this over egg noodles (it’s also great over mashed potatoes) and enjoy it on a freezing cold night.

Ina Garten’s Beef Bourguignon

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp. good olive oil
• 8 oz. dry-cured, center cut, applewood smoked bacon, diced
• 2 1/2 lbs. chuck beef cut into 1-inch cubes
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 lb. carrots, sliced diagonally into 1-inch chunks
• 2 yellow onions, sliced
• 2 tsp. chopped garlic (2 cloves)
• 1 (750 ml.) bottle good dry red wine (I used a Beaujolais but a Pinot Noir would work well)
• 2 C. beef broth
• 1 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 tsp. fresh thyme leaves (1/2 teaspoon dried)
• 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter at room temperature, divided
• 3 Tbsp.  all-purpose flour
• 1 lb. frozen whole (pearl) onions
• 1 lb.  fresh mushrooms, stemsdiscarded, caps thickly sliced

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.

Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven or large heavy bottomed pot.

Add the bacon and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the bacon is lightly browned.

Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and place it on a large plate.

Pat the cubes of beef dry with paper towels and then sprinkle them with salt and pepper (if you do not dry the meat, it doesn’t brown).

In a single layer (you will need to do this in batches- don’t crowd the beef in the pot), sear the beef in the hot oil for 3 to 5 minutes, turning so it browns on all sides.

Remove the beef with a slotted spoon onto the same plate with the bacon and continue until all beef is seared.

Toss the carrots, and onions, 1 tablespoon of salt and 2 teaspoons of pepper in the fat in the pan and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are lightly browned.

Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute.

Put the beef and bacon back into the pot with the juices.

Add the bottle of wine and enough beef broth to almost cover the meat.

Add the tomato paste and thyme, and stir to combine.

Bring the stew to a simmer and cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid.

Place the pot into the oven for about 1 1/4 hours or until the meat and vegetables are very tender when pierced with a fork.

In a small bowl, mash together 2 tablespoons of butter and the flour with a fork and stir into the stew.

Add the frozen onions to the pot.

In a medium skillet, saute the mushrooms in 2 tablespoons of butter for 10 minutes over medium heat until lightly browned and then add to the stew.

Bring the stew to a boil on top of the stove, then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Season to taste.

Serve over egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or toasted crusty bread.

Makes 6 servings.

Source: adapted from Ina Garten

The Assistant

Let’s just admit that we’re all familiar with Hamburger Helper.  Okay, if you’re not familiar with the boxed pasta (with powdered sauce, that you “just add ground beef!” to, while the four-fingered, gloved hand waves at you from the front of the box), just view this commercial and that should bring you up to speed.  I haven’t had Hamburger Helper since I was a kid, and once I started making my own dinners I didn’t give Hamburger Helper much thought.  I learned how to make pasta with beef or other meats, and to make complimenting sauces of various kinds without putting in much more effort than stirring up some Hamburger Helper.  Then one night last week, M informs me that “Hamburger Helper isn’t too bad if you add peas.”  After I stood there blinking for what felt like an eternity, I decided to go with that thought.  It’s only fair that if I expect them to give new things a chance, I need to give some old things a chance as well.  I wasn’t about to stir powdered sauce into ground beef and call it dinner just yet.

I remembered a recipe I made a long time ago that reminded me of  (a healthier, tastier) Hamburger Helper and decided to try that out on the kiddos.  It worked like a charm.  I even used lean ground turkey instead of ground beef, and there were zero complaints at dinner time.  You can use packaged taco seasoning but that does defeat some of the purpose of ditching the box of Hamburger Helper.  The worst thing about the nutrition content of Hamburger Helper is all of the sodium.  Since salt is prevalent in most packaged taco seasonings (it usually makes the top three ingredients in the list), you’re better off making your own, and it stores well for other uses.  Be sure to save one cup of the pasta cooking water before you drain the pasta, as the starch from the boiled pasta helps to thicken this nicely.  Also, ground beef works well for this, I only swapped in lean ground turkey because it’s what I had on hand.  This makes generous servings, so ditch the box and bring an appetite.

Taco Mac (a.k.a. I Can’t Believe it’s Not Hamburger Helper)

Ingredients:

combine the following to make your own taco seasoning (makes 3/4 C. seasoning, store in an airtight container):

• 4 Tbsp. chili powder
• 3 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. paprika
• 3 Tbsp. ground cumin
• 1 Tbsp. plus 2 tsp. onion powder
• 1 Tbsp. garlic powder
• ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper

to make the taco mac:

• 1.25 lbs. lean ground turkey or beef
• 8 oz. dry pasta
• 1 C. reserved pasta water
• 1 can (14.5 oz) petite diced tomatoes, with juices
• 4 Tbsp. mild taco seasoning (from above recipe or packaged)
• 3 oz. cream cheese 
• 1/2 C. sour cream
• salt & pepper
  

Directions:

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook pasta per package directions, reserving one cup of pasta water before draining.

Over medium heat, brown ground turkey or beef until no longer pink.

Stir in taco seasoning and diced tomatoes.

Allow to simmer over low heat for 5 minutes.

Add cooked pasta, reserved water, cream cheese and sour cream.

Stir the mixture well until the cream cheese is melting and incorporated.

Simmer over low heat for 5-10 minutes until sauce thickens.

Season with salt & pepper, as desired.

Makes 6 generous servings.

Source: adapted from delish, with taco seasoning from Annie’s Eats