one pot tortellini with meat sauce

with daylight savings time now in full force and the sun setting later and later, we're making a conscious effort to get the boys to sleep earlier. which means i am on the lookout for simple meals appropriate for adults, a toddler, and a finger-foods-eating baby that can be on the table from start to finish in a max of 30 minutes. most one pot pasta recipes i've tried fit these requirements, but don't always taste great or usually, don't have enough liquid and i end up with too hard pasta and burnt sauce. not good. this one pot tortellini is not one of those meals. while the three of us gobbled it up with our forks, the finger-foods-eating baby was the clear winner: we had to cut him off after three bowls.

cowboy calzones

for the last six months or so, i've made homemade pizza about every other week. while relatively easy and oh-so-delicious, i was getting slightly bored with our toppings and was looking for something else to do with my now favorite pizza dough. one night, over said homemade pizza, jason and i were talking about eating pizza as kids and i mentioned that sometimes i would forgo pizza for a calzone and that i couldn't remember the last time i had one. right then and there i knew calzones would be on the menu for the following week. jason had one and only request: add meat. and because i'm not a huge fan of pepperoni, this cowboy version loaded with ground beef and three cheeses was the next best thing.

secret recipe club: italian sloppy joes

i had a hard time this month making my choice from wildflour's cottage kitchen for the secret recipe club. it was a toss up between savory - italian pizzeria style sloppy joes or philly cheesesteak sloppy joes - or sweet - peanut butter bars with cinnamon or amaretto russian tea cake cookies. ultimately, and somewhat surprisingly, savory won out.

pot roast with mushroom gravy

it was about this time last year that i grew up just a tad bit more and enjoyed ina's pot roast. and while that roast was super flavorful, it had a long list of ingredients, none of them mushrooms. mushrooms are a big hit in our house and mushrooms + beef are one of our favorite combos. lucky for me, claire robinson had a five ingredient pot roast with mushrooms. with the addition of three flavor enhancers from my pantry - garlic, worchestershire, and cornstarch - i have a new favorite. we liked this so much i made it again the following week. not sure what to do with leftovers? freeze them, or blend the gravy completely smooth, chop up the leftover beef, and toss with egg noodles. jason likes that better than the roast!

lasagna bolognese

i make lasagna once, and only once, each winter. and when i do, i make two large pans of it. one for now, one for the freezer. i figure if i am going to go to all the trouble of making it - two homemade sauces, all the layering and dirty dishes - then i may as well get a full four meals out of it. 

but don't let the time and sheet volume of ingredients discourage you. this is the best lasagna. noticeably absent is ricotta. on purpose. we aren't big fans of ricotta around here, and once you have lasagna with bechamel instead of ricotta once, it's the only way you'll ever want it again. trust me.

ina's company pot roast

in all the years i've daydreamed about being an adult, i never pictured myself making a pot roast. it seemed way too grown up for me. which is crazy. since there are few things better than beef that's been slow roasted in vegetables and wine for hours. this is what sunday meals should be made of.

slow cooker chili

one of my unofficial new year's resolutions is to spend less time cooking. sound counter-intuitive? i'm all for spending hours in the kitchen, on occasion, to make great food, but during the week, i want good food, fast. a typical workday for us means we leave the house at 7:30 and get home by 6:30. and the days we stop at the gym after work, it's more like 7:30. the last thing i want to do is spend 45 minutes cooking on a monday night. which is why i'm on the lookout for shortcuts.

and a slow cooker is one of the best kept secrets (ok, maybe you already know how much of a time saver they are, and i'm finally jumping on the band wagon). i've heard it a million times from friends, family, and coworkers, but it's taken me a couple meals to really understand how great it is to spend 15 or less minutes preparing dinner. i love it. so much so, that i've added a slow cooker tag to my recipes so you can get to all of them even easier. even though there are only a few posted now, i hope to continue using mine about once a week.

have a great slow cooker recipe?? leave a link in the comments!

slow cooker french onion soup with beef

i really need to get on the slow cooker bandwagon. what has taken me so long?! it all started with the chicken tacos i made a couple weeks ago - before vacations and conferences and weddings got in the way - and i realized the only thing better than eating a homecooked meal every night, is eating one that's been cooked while you were at work. 

this time i tackled soup. french onion soup. one of my absolute favorite soups. i attempted a garlicky version  a year and a half ago but have yet to master the original. this time i decided to let the slow cooker do the work of cooking down the onions and added beef. yes, i know beef is not traditionally in french onion soup, but around these parts, i knew i needed to add some meat to the soup to get a certain someone to at least try it.

knock off mongolian beef

if you hadn't realized, i was on vacation last week. we ate some really great food and some really horrible food - more on that later - and while i had great intentions of lining up posts before i left, vacation planning and preparing to be away from work for a week took over, leaving me with little time to post. which also means i have a week's worth of cooking and eating ready to share!

giada's quick bolognese [and gnocchi disaster]

this is a tale of two dishes: one perfect masterpiece and one hot mess.

spaghetti stoup

as a follow up to his wildly successful first post, here's the third installment from jason, my best taste tester. i've been making this dish for years, since like others, it's one of those that is so simple and delicious, it finds it's way into my weeknight menu each winter. this time, it's his turn.

Now that the weather is cold and snowy, I've been wanting something that Kate made a long time ago: Spaghetti "Stoup" (as Rachel Ray calls it).

spaghetti & meatballs

it's no secret that i'm not a huge fan of meatballs. silly, right? most of the time when i want pasta, i want the rich garlic sauce or the meaty mushrooms to come through. but there are a few times - when it finally feels chilly outside or it's hovering around freezing in february and there's a foot of new snow on the ground - when spaghetti and meatballs are the perfect food.

i've made them before the alton brown way by baking the meatballs individually in mini muffin cups. sounds clever. and easy. it turned into a big mess. the meatballs stuck to my muffin pan so more than half fell apart while i tried to scoop them out. and the outside doesn't brown the same as when they're sauteed. needless to say, it's a nice idea, it just didn't work so much for me.

so i switched back to the saute pan, cooking the meatballs in batches and monitoring their perfect brownness. just make sure they sit long enough to brown on each side before trying to move them, or they'll break in half.

spaghetti and meatballs
adapted from smittenkitchen, who adapted it from ina garten
serves 4, one hour

2 pounds meatloaf mix. for me, this was 15% pork, 5% veal, and 80% beef.
1 1/4 cups italian bread crumbs
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 egg beaten
olive oil
1 pound spaghetti
your favorite sauce

1. to make the meatballs, mix the meat, bread crumbs, cheese, salt, pepper, garlic, and egg in a medium bowl. add about 3/4 cup water to bring the mixture together.
2. use your hands to form into 1 1/2 inch meatballs. you should have around 24.
3. in a large saute pan, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil over medium low heat.
4. when the olive oil is heated, add half the meatballs. let brown about 3-4 minutes, turn, and continue cooking and turning until all sides are brown. cook the other half in the same way.
5. now is a good time to start your pasta water and cook the pasta according to package directions.
6. when the meatballs are done, add your favorite sauce to the pan. set the meatballs in the sauce, cover, and simmer about 25 minutes. serve with spaghetti and parmesan cheese.

italian stuffed peppers (and tomatoes)

jason has been asking for stuffed peppers for a couple months now that they're a mere $0.25 a piece at the market, i figured it was time to give it a try.

for my first attempt, i chose to make them italian style, since i also had homemade pasta sauce, carrots from the market, and basil and oregano from my garden.

the grated carrots may seem like an odd addition but they add a good sweetness and almost act as a thickener for the filling. i used my microplane ribbon grater to get small pieces that blend in to the rest of the filling. if you don't have a microplane, small holes on a box grater would work.

i didn't make the peppers and the tomatoes on the same day. i refrigerated the filling i had leftover from the peppers and make the tomatoes the next night. i much prefer the tomatoes - their sweeter flavor went well with the filling - and jason much prefers the peppers. to each his own.



overrun by zucchini? i bet this filling would be great for zucchini as well. cut the zuke in half, lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds. fill each half and bake at 375F on a sheet pan for about 30 minutes.

...and if you want to make this one meatless, simply omit the ground beef from the filling.

italian stuffed peppers and tomatoes
1 hour 20 minutes (includes baking), serves 4, makes enough for 4 peppers and 8 sm/med tomatoes

1/2 pound ground beef
1 cup dried orzo pasta
2 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups your favorite pasta sauce (or homemade sauce)
2 finely grated carrots, about 1 cup
2 ounces fresh mozzarella, finely cubed
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon fresh oregano, minced (or a pinch of dried)
1/4 cup fresh basil, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 sweet peppers
8 small/medium (a little smaller than a baseball) tomatoes, use larger tomatoes if you have them

1. preheat your oven to 400F. place a strainer over a square baking dish.
2. brown the ground beef in a saute pan over medium low heat. set aside.
3. bring the vegetable broth to a boil and cook the orzo, about 4 minutes. drain the orzo with the strainer, so the vegetable broth is in the baking dish.
4. in a large bowl, combine the ground beef, orzo, pasta sauce, carrots, mozzarella, parmesan, garlic, oregano, basil, salt, pepper, and olive oil. mix well.

for peppers -

1. cut a small slice off the bottom of the peppers so they sit flat in the baking dish. be careful not to cut all the way through the bottom or the filling will fall out.
2. cut the top off the pepper and remove the insides.
3. fill each pepper and place in the vegetable broth baking dish. cover with foil and bake about 45 minutes. remove foil, dust with parmesan cheese, and bake an additional 15 minutes.

for tomatoes -

1. if the tomatoes don't sit flat, cut a small slice off the bottom. be careful not to cut all the way through the bottom or the filling will fall out.
2. slice off the top of the tomato and hollow it out.
3. fill each tomato and dust with parmesan. bake on a baking sheet for about 10 minutes, or until the filling is hot and the cheese has browned.
   

meatball subs

i've really got to start checking my pantry for things instead of assuming i have them. and not only checking, but checking before i start cooking instead of when i need said item.

i could have sworn we had two jars of pasta sauce. yet somehow, we really had none. luckily i had a small can of diced tomatoes on hand just for instances like this. i sauteed some diced onion and minced garlic in olive oil until the onion became translucent. added the tomatoes and cooked it about 10 minutes, until the tomatoes were broken down. added a good handful of chopped basil and blended it all with my stick blender (a regular blender would work too). it was a perfect replacement. and since it came out a little thicker than the jarred stuff, we used it on the side to dip our sandwiches in.

this was a quick and easy weeknight dinner. make sure you have everything on hand and don't bake your subs too long, or the tops will burn like mine.

meatball subs
meatballs inspired by cook-eat-love

1/2 pound lean ground beef
1 egg
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup italian bread crumbs
1 clove garlic, minced
salt & pepper
jar of your favorite pasta sauce
2 sub rolls
1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese

1. preheat oven to 400F. mix the beef, egg, cheese, bread crumbs, and garlic. season with salt & pepper.
2. shape the meatballs using your hands and place each into a mini muffin tin.
3. bake for 20 minutes, until golden brown and crispy.
4. while the meatballs are cooking, heat the pasta sauce on the stove.
5. when the meatballs are done cooking, keep the oven on and put the meatballs in the sauce and cover with sauce. let simmer about 5 minutes.
6. slice open the sub rolls and line up meatballs inside. cover with mozzarella. bake in the oven about 3 minutes, or until the cheese melts and the rolls have started to crisp. be careful, it will burn fast!

2014.04.06 this was edesia's notebook's pick for the secret recipe club!

my favorite taco salad

i didn't plan it, i swear, but this was our cinco de mayo dinner. yea, i'm a little late posting, i know.

i have been slowly teaching jason spanish words ever since we got together (recently his favorite word was "palabras", no joke) and he has picked up a lot. some questions i ask in spanish he can answer in spanish. and he knows a lot if individual words. so this year for cinco de mayo i decided it was time for a dia espanol. needless to say, it almost lasted the thirty minute drive to work. and it ended something like this -

me: tenemos que ir a la tienda despues del trabajo.
jason: si? you need to go play tennis? since when do you play tennis?
me: no no no. ir a la tienda. the store. this is no good. back to ingles.

that was the end of dia espanol. (but not too bad for someone who hasn't taken a class in 10 years.) just don't ask me about my french.

actually, the salad was the end of the day. and it's good. the only real change i made from the original recipe is using the whole can of beans. what am i going to do with a leftover half can of kidney beans? nothing. so i use them all. and it's not bean overload or anything, so it works out perfecto.

...and if you don't like ground beef or want to change it up, use ground turkey, or thinly sliced chicken breast. one big chicken breast was enough for the two of us.

my favorite taco salad
from eating well serves two

1/2 cup prepared salsa
2 tablespoons reduced fat sour cream
vegetable oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 ounces ground beef or turkey
1 plum tomato, diced
1 can rinsed kidney beans
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
4 cups shredded romaine lettuce (enough for two entree sized salads)
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1. combine salsa and sour cream in a large bowl big enough to hold the lettuce.
2. heat a skillet over medium high heat. add vegetable oil and cook the onion and garlic until soft, about 3 minutes.
3. add beef/turkey and cook through, about 5 minutes.
4. add tomato, beans, cumin, and chili powder. cook until the tomato starts to break down, a couple minutes.
5. remove from heat and stir in two heaping tablespoons of the salsa mixture and cilantro.
6. mix the lettuce with the rest of the salsa mixture.
7. serve the lettuce topped with beef/turkey mixture and sprinkle with cheese.

stuffed shells...again

this time, they're stuffed with beef.

i used the same recipe as my mushroom stuffed shells, except i replaced the mushrooms with 1 pound of ground beef. everything else is exactly the same.

not-so-surprisingly, jason liked the mushroom better than the beef. i think a mixture of the two would be perfect.


2014.09.01 this was cooking mimi's pick for the secret recipe club!

chicken with artichokes, lemon, & angel hair

this is my kind of dinner.

sauteed, flattened chicken tenders. sandwich the tenders between two pieces of wax paper, and if you don't have a mallet, smack with the bottom of a sauce pan until they're the desired thickness. or should i say thinness?

thin angel hair pasta with a lemony artichoke sauce.

perfection.

and an easy weeknight meal.
chicken with artichokes, lemon, & angel hair
adapted from everyday food's chicken with artichokes and angel hair

makes 2 hearty servings in about 30 minutes

1/4 cup flour
1/2 pound chicken tenders, pounded thin
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chicken broth
1 can artichoke hearts, drained, rinsed and coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 pound angel hair pasta

1. cook the pasta according to package directions. while the water is boiling and the pasta is cooking, make the chicken and the sauce.
2. heat 1 tablespoon oil in a saute pan over medium high heat.
3. place flour in a shallow dish & season with salt & pepper. dredge the chicken in the flour and set in the warm oil. do not crowd the pan - cook in two batches if necessary. cook the chicken until brown on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. remove chicken from the pan.
4. add broth to the pan and bring to a simmer. cook until reduced by half.
5. add the chicken and the artichokes. bring to a boil.
6. remove from heat and mix in the butter. cover to keep warm.
7. when the pasta is done cooking, drain. top the pasta with the chicken and sauce.

chili mac & cheese

jason keeps asking me to make "normal" food. i'm not quite sure what that means, exactly (unless he really does mean 1950s food...hmmm...), but when i saw this recipe posted when poking around the internet, i knew it would be a winner.

how can you combine meat, cheese, and pasta and not win?



but there just wasn't enough heat. surprisingly, not enough spice. next time i'm going to double the cumin & chili powder, maybe amp up the pepper jack, and maybe, just maybe, i really shouldn't have omitted the jalapeno from the original recipe.



a couple other tips -

• start the water boiling for the mac when you're prepping for the chili. i started the water later, when i added the turk to the pan, and the chili was done way before the mac. i should have timed it better.
• i didn't let the milk cook long enough to thicken before i added the cheese, so the mac & cheese was pretty runny - not enough to really be bad, but enough to want it thicker. next time, i'm going to wait a bit longer.

and if you think this is good the day you make it, just wait until leftovers the next day. the flavors meld together and it isn't as wet. perfect.


chili mac & cheese
adapted from life's ambrosia

30 minutes start to finish, 4 hearty servings

for the chili:
1 pound ground turkey
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 small yellow onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
14.5 ounce can fire roasted tomatoes, strained (without the juice)
14.5 ounces kidney beans
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce

for the mac & cheese:
2 cups dried macaroni
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups 2% or whole (or a mix) milk
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup shredded colby jack
1/2 cup pepper jack

1. bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook the macaroni according to the directions on the package.
2. in a skillet, cook the turkey, 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, 1/2 teaspoon cumin, and garlic powder until meat is brown. remove meat from the pan.
3. in the same skillet, heat olive oil over medium and cook onions and garlic. cook until onions start to turn translucent, about 5 minutes. add meat back to the pan.
4. stir in tomatoes and beans. add remaining 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, 1/2 teaspoon cumin, and hot sauce.
5. reduce heat to low and simmer while you finish the mac & cheese. if the chili seems dry, add a little water until it's not soaked, but not dry.
6. for the mac & cheese, strain the mac when it's done cooking. put the pan back on medium heat and melt the butter.
7. whisk in the flour for one minute. slowly whisk in the milk and cook for one minute.
8. add the cheeses, season with salt & pepper, and mix until melted.
9. return mac to the pan and stir until evenly coated.
10. remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes.
11. mix the chili into the mac and cheese until well incorporated.
    

sizzling beef

since we both worked late tonight, i had somewhat of a dilemma. i needed something quick, but also something that seems too difficult for jason to make. (he's always afraid i'm going to ask him to cook on the night when something 'hard' is planned.) so an easy stir fry it was.

what worked

1. the recipe called for red bell pepper, but since they cost twice as much as green, i went with the green. easy replacement.
2. definitely easy. definitely quick. probably took me 40 minutes start to serving.

what didn't

1. i forgot to buy ginger at the store, so i skipped it. i'm not a huge ginger fan so i didn't miss it much.
2. my saute pan was too small. had i read the recipe all the way through before starting, i would have realized the rice was mixed with the meat and veg. oh well. lesson learned.
3. a little more soy sauce would do it for me. the 2T is a little dry...maybe one or two additional tablespoons added to the veg before mixing with the rice.

the meal is really really easy to make. no crazy chopping. no constant stirring or pot watching. the only thing to watch is the vegetables - the peppers and scallions should still have a slight crunch to them. no one likes soggy vegetables in their stir fry.

the recipe can really be used as a base for any kind of fried rice. pick your protein - beef, chicken, pork - slice it thin and add vegetables. i'm thinking carrots, maybe some water chestnuts. and garlic, a little minced garlic. hmmm...maybe i'll have to try this sometime with sliced chicken breast too (or maybe jason can take a stab at it.)

sizzling beef and scallions
from everyday with rachel ray, december/january 2010

8 oz london broil sliced into short thin strips
2T soy sauce
1/4c + 2T vegetable oil
10 scallions, greens and whites sliced, separately
2/3c chopped red pepper (i used half a green pepper)
1T finely chopped fresh ginger
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2t sugar
4c cooked white rice, cooled

1. toss the beef with 1T soy suace. in a large (remember, everything will end up in this pan at the end) nonstick skillet, heat 2T oil over medium-high heat. add the beef until cooked through. the original recipe says 2 min, it took me closer to 8. transfer the cooked beef to a bowl.
2. add 1T oil to the skillet and cook the scallion whites, pepper, and ginger for about 2 minutes, until slightly brown on the edges and starting to soften. stir in the peas.
3. push the vegetables to one side of the pan and add the eggs to the empty side.
4. stir the eggs until they set and mix in with the vegetables. stir the mixture until the eggs are thoroughly cooked. add the egg-vegetable mixture to the beef and stir in the sugar and 1T soy sauce.
5. heat 2T oil in the skillet over medium-high heat and cook the rice until heated through. break up the clumps as much as you can. stir in the beef mixture and the scallion greens.