Baked Meatballs

My husband loves Meatballs! He keeps buying them from the store...ug! Who knows what could be in those! My early attempts at meatballs were tasty but decidedly lacking in execution, the fry in oil method was NOT working for me and we certainly did not need the added oil in our diets!

When we were on Vacation at a cabin in Montana we decided to try to make our own. Here is the recipe we came up with and the resulting pictures!

Preheat oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with foil

Mix together
1/2 C. Milk (or water)
2 eggs
1 t. Salt
1/2. t. Pepper
1/2 t.Garlic Powder
1 t. Italian spices
1 T. Parsley (fresh if you have it all chopped up)
Add:
1/4 C. canned or fresh breadcrumbs and soak for a few min till the crumbs are soft
ADD:
1/2 C. Parmesan Cheese
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground bison (you can use any other lean meat like chicken or turkey)

Now,  mix this well and get out a cookie scoop. I use a 18/9 (whatever that means!) it makes a good sized meatball. If you do a smaller meatball you may need to adjust cooking time.
Scoop the meat and pop out onto a cookie sheet lined with foil. Roll the meatball in your hands to get it as round as possible. It's important to get them close to the same size so that they cook evenly.
Put them on the cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 20 min.

When they are done, they will not be beautiful till you clean off the drippings. At this point you can eat them, refrigerate them, freeze them or do what we did and pop them into some spaghetti sauce and let them get all nice and toasty and saucy then serve them for dinner!

Enchilada Casserole-Tupperwave Cookbook

This is an OLD family favorite from back when I sold Tupperware. It's in the Tupperwave Stacked Cooked recipe book. My Hubby recently asked me to find it....lol I think he's missing some of the old favs... I am thinking of trying this one in the oven, I will post pics and let you know how it works out!

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 Med. Onion
1 can (10 oz ish) Enchilada Sauce (get whatever heat rating your family likes I do mild for me)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper
6 corn tortillas cut into 8 wedges
1 1/4 cup shredded Cheese (cheddar/jack preferably)

Brown Meat and Onion in skillet then transfer to 2 qt. microwavable casserole dish.
Stir in Sauce, garlic powder, pepper.
Gently fold in Tortilla Wedges and  1 cup of  Cheese
Cook in Microwave on High for 6 to 8 min till heated through.

Serve with a little extra cheese on top and some sliced green onions.

TIP: Buy a LARGE package of ground beef at Costco, Sam's or your favorite grocery store and cook it up when you get home. Divide into 1 lb approx. freezer containers and Freeze! For recipes like this one I just pull out one of those containers from the freezer and defrost it in the microwave and use in the recipe. If I am thinking ahead I actually pull it out the night before and let it defrost in the fridge!

TIP 2- If you do a lot of recipes that call for Beef and Onions....Cook the onions with your ground beef and you have 2 steps done!!

TIP 3- Corn Tortillas freeze really well!!

London broil in a dutch oven

Hubby brought home a heavily discounted London Broil today! It needed to be cooked asap! I found this recipe online and decided to try it and it was good!

Here is the link to the video I had to watch like 10 times to get the recipe since I could not find one to print!

http://www.ehow.com/video_2336145_ingredients-london-broil-recipe.html

This marinade smelled SOOO good, I seriously wanted to take a sip....sigh....or dip in some good french bread!

Marinade your London Broil in this:

1/4 C. EVOO

1/3 C. balsamic Vinegar

3 T. soy sauce

3 T. brown sugar

1/2 med. onion chopped into small pieces (not as small as a dice)

6 cloves of garlic minced (or equivalent from jar)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Let sit in marinade at least 1 hour but preferably 24 hours.

To cook:

Pre-heat oven to 400

This is where I got out my meat to bring to room temp.

bring out the dutch oven and lg pan to sear meat in first. (although thinking about this, You could probably do the searing IN the dutch oven on the stove......HMMMM

Scrape off onions and sear meat in hot pan with EVOO one to two min on each side to get a nice brown color.

Add marinade to lg. dutch oven then add the meat back in and bake for 30 min to 45 min depending on how lg. your meat is.

Beef Stroganoff

It's been a few years at least since I made this recipe but it's a favorite of mine and it tasted wonderful tonight so Here goes!

(Serves 6-ish)

1 lb ground beef
1 med onion diced fine
1 pkg sliced mushrooms (for me I leave them sliced for the family I chop them very small!)
3 cloves of garlic minced
2 can's Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 Can Milk
8 oz tub of Sour Cream (or half of the 16 oz container etc. you may like it with more or less...)
1 T Worcestershire sauce (or more!)
2 t. Parsley Flakes

salt
Pepper


Proceedure:
In a large Skillet
Brown 1 lb of ground beef When it is about 2/3 Cooked add:
Onions
Mushrooms
Cook till they are soft and add Salt and Pepper to taste
NOW add the minced garlic...yum
Add the Worcestershire sauce
(If your meat had a LOT of fat you may wish at this point to drain that off and add a little more sauce)
When the meat is all cooked add:
Soup
Milk
Cook for 10 min on med/low to a nice consistancy

This is a good time to boil your noodles! I use a 1 lb bag of curly noodles. I have heard that mashed potatoes or rice will work too.

When your noodles are done add the sour cream and Parsley Flakes to the gravy and stir to combine. Serve over the noodles and enjoy!

Easy Crock Pot Roast

For my Large crock pot this is what I do:

Add in this order:

1 med. bag of Baby carrots
5 to 6 med white potatoes (cleaned and chopped into cubes) Other potatoes work too.
1 med. onion rough cut
1 lg. roast
1 beef/mushroom gravy mix, mixed with 1 cup water. I pour this over the entire bowl.
Liberal amount of Worcestershire sauce on just the roast.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Cook on high 6 hours or low 8 hours. About half way through I stir the veggies and turn the roast and add more Worcestershire sauce to it and more salt and pepper to taste. (Make sure to TASTE it!)

For a smaller crock pot I would half this recipe!

If you like more carrots, or more potato add it! If  you want to try some herbs I would try Thyme maybe a very small amount of rosemary or toss in some itallian seasoning. It's very easy to adjust to your family's taste!!

GRAVY!
When done, remove veggies to a bowl, beef to a cutting board and cut up. Heat the remaining juice in a microwave safe bowl to boiling with 2 beef bullion cubes. Add mixture of 1/2 C. Water and 1/4 C. flour well whisked and cook 1 min, whisk, cook 1 min more, whisk and taste for salt. Add more if necessary .... serve!

Janey's Taco's/Burrito's

We LOVE Taco Dinner Night! We love it so much that we often have visitors that find out we are making Taco's and show up! Enjoy!

Taco's

2 lbs ground beef cooked well and drained

Add:

one Cup of water and one pkg of Taco Seasoning mix

1 16oz can of Tomato Sauce

Heath through and set aside on low to keep warm

(This mixture should be runny you will see why later!)

Warm up a large can of refried beans or two or 3 smaller can's

Chop up

Lettuce

Tomatoes

Grate Cheese

Pull out the sour cream and salsa and hot sauce!

Serve meat with a slotted spoon!

Serve with flour tortillas for soft taco's or Fry Flour tortillas in veg. oil for that crispier texture.

Layer:

Beans

Meat

Cheese

Lettuce

Tomatoes

sour cream or salsas etc.

When everyone is done.....

Make Burritos!

Mix the leftover beans, with the leftover meat (this is where the sauce comes in handy)

Add about 1/3 C. Bean/meat mixture into a flour tortilla and roll,

place in 9x13 or 9x9 pan (depends on the ammt. of leftovers)

Continue till pan is full then pour the remaining mixture over the burritos (there needs to be enough to cover all the burrito's.

Add the leftover cheese to the top grate more if needed.

Cover in foil and pop in fridge till tomorrow!

Bake at 350 for 30-40 min till cooked through and bubbly.

If you are going to wait a few days to bake this wait to put the cheese on till the last 15 min of cooking.

Herb Crusted Rib Eye with Balsamic mushroom sauce

I have a small herb garden. One day I was looking for something, anything really, to use the herbs for. I created this receipe on the fly and we really enjoyed it. My inspiration was a few different dishes from a few different restaurants and love of steak!!

2 T. Olive Oil

4 Rib Eye Steaks-room Temp very lightly salted

2 T. fresh Thyme leaves Chopped

2 T. fresh Parsley Chopped

2 t. Kosher Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 box sliced mushrooms

2 shallots sliced thin

2 T. dry Sherry

2 T. Balsamic Vinegar

Crumbled or sliced Gorgonzola Cheese (Optional)

Mashed Potatos

Preheat Oven to 450

Mix Chopped Herbs with Salt and Pepper and set aside

Heat a large skillet on med-high heat and add olive oil.

Sear Steaks until browned on each side, (Reserve skillet it's not done yet!)

Transfer to a cookie sheet lined with foil Put a thin layer of the Herb mixture over each steak.

Bake in the oven for about 8 min for Med. (adjust for thickness of steak, use a meat thermometer to check for desired doneness)

OPTIONAL: Add the gorgonzola for the last minute or two of cooking to melt over the top of the herb mixture.

When the steak is done it needs to sit for 5 min to rest.

While Steak is cooking add the mushrooms and shallots to the skillet. Add a touch more olive oil if needed. Cook for about 2 minutes till the mushrooms and shallots are to taste. Deglaze with the sherry, cook for a minute or two then add the Balsamic and reduce by half.

Remove from heat and set aside.

Serve with Mashed Potatoes

Renee's Hamburger Pie

 
 Notice there are 2 pies...I have to double this recipe now so that we have enough!

Make your favorite pie crust for 2 crusts (top and bottom)

Place bottom crust in deep pie plate.

Brown 1 lb ground beef-set aside

Melt 1/4 C. margarine in skillet and add:

1 med. onion chopped

4 small potato's sliced and chopped small

1 lg  carrot chopped small (diced, or grated works too. Personally I like the carrots chunked)

some mushrooms (optional I use mushroom gravy to get my mushroom fix then the kids don't complain!)

Cook till veggies are tender

Add in the ground beef

Stir in:

1 t. mustard

3 T. katsup

a few sprinkles of Worcestershire sauce (or more! to taste of course)

1 package of mushroom or beef gravy mixed to package directions

cook for 2 to 5 min and pour into bottom pie crust

Add top crust, seal edges and bake for 50 min at 325.

My Meat Loaf

This is a reduced fat meat loaf recipe that I have tweaked! To keep with the healthy stuff, don't add the katsup or the potato suggestion at the bottom!

1 lb ground beef or combine ground beef and ground turkey.

1 C. low fat cottage cheese

1 egg

1/2 C. bread crumbs

1/3 C. each:

minced celery

chopped fresh parsley

1 t. italian seasoning

1/4 C. water

2 T. minced onions

1 T. worcestershire sauce

1/2 t. Salt

1/4 t. Pepper

Combine ingredients, shape into loaf, Cover with Katsup (Optional) Transfer to a rack in roasting pan

Bake at 375 for 45 to 60 Min.

*Option: I made this once and put cut potatoes on the bottom of a crock pot and cooked the meat loaf on top. It was VERY yummy!