Sunday, December 30, 2012

Jacki’s Tangy Tomato Beef, Crash Hot Potatoes, Glazed Carrots.

Happy New Year to you all and I hope you had a merry Christmas.  I made these recipes for dinner today and thought they were good although I did make some changes.  For the Tangy Tomato Brisket I used a beef roast instead because the briskets were all huge and cost $6/pound – didn’t want to spend that much.  The flavor was still good and the roast shredded nicely.  I cooked it in the crock pot instead of the oven – very easy. 
The Crash Hot Potatoes were a nice change from regular baked potatoes and I liked the crispiness.  They were easy to make.  I omitted the rosemary. 
The Glazed Carrots were very yummy but I omitted the whiskey because it just isn’t something I keep around the house :).  They took longer than 10 minutes to cook though – closer to 20 minutes total. I also used less butter and brown sugar than the recipe called for and it was fine – I could have probably used even less. 
All three recipes went together well to make a tasty meal.

Jacki's Pics 015

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Pizza and Stew

We thought that the steakhouse pizza was good although the steak I used was a little tough.  We had to cut the pieces much smaller and that worked out better.  I only used a forth of the amount of onion they recommended and I thought that was plenty.  It was a fun change to pepperoni pizza.

We also had the beef stew a week or so back.  We really liked it! I omitted the beer and didn't add any extra liquid in place of it.  A few days later I made the Shepard's Pie recipe since it uses the leftover stew with mashed potatoes on top.  That was tasty too!  I much prefer this to other Shepard's pie recipes I have had before. Sorry no picture of either of those. 

Monday, December 17, 2012

Jacki’s Steakhouse Pizza

I made this Saturday for dinner and we both thought it was good but decided steak just doesn’t belong on pizza.  I used a flat iron steak and it was very tender – it just wouldn’t work to use a steak that might be tough. I cooked my steak under the broiler.  Audrey had warned me  the recipe calls for a lot of onions so I only used one - perfect.  I don’t like a pizza with a ton of sauce so I only ended up using about a cup of the marinara sauce.  I also only had 8 ounces of fresh mozzarella so I used some grated mozzarella as well.  I used the cheap ol’ grated canned parmesan instead of freshly shaved.  I must say I love the pizza dough recipe in the book.  I have used it several times and it always turns out well. ( I do tweak it and add just a bit more salt and use half olive oil and half canola oil and I just add the oil when I add the yeast/water mixture – easier).  Oh, I also added some canned mushrooms because steak and mushrooms just go together.  I thought the pizza was good when we had it on Saturday night but I thought it was even better when I had a leftover piece yesterday (heated up).  I hope you all get a chance to try the recipe  and let us know what you think!  Sorry about the blurry picture:)

Jacki's Pics

Saturday, December 15, 2012

New Recipes for week of December 16th

I put together a hearty meal, since my son will be home from college this week!
Tangy Tomato Brisket pg.180
Crash Hot Potatoes pg. 217
Whiskey-Glazed Carrots pg. 224
Hope these taste as good as they look :)

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

New Recipe for week of December 9th

Let's fix Steakhouse Pizza, pg 142.  It has several things to fix in that one dish, so that will keep us busy! I think that our guys will enjoy this meal also since it is steak and pizza in one recipe :)

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Heidi's stew


I fixed the beef stew today for dinner.  It was pretty good.  Don't know if it will make it in our regular rotation without some changes.  I thought there was way too much beef.  I would only use 1 lb of stew meat next time.  It was also quite runny and it didn't seem to thicken up very easily. I would use less beef stock. Overall it had a good flavor.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Tarin's Stew

So I don't know if I've mentioned that my husband loves to hunt so after this hunting season I've got a huge freezer full of bear meat so I was so excited that we had the opportunity to make stew this week.

So I pulled out the meat and seared it on the stove top.


I moved it into the crockpot and added in the beer...okay so I went with the non-alcoholic variety.



I cooked it on low for 7 hours. Right before I served it I pulled it out to thicken it. And then let it cook on high for another 20 minutes. I still wish I had been able to let it thicken for longer.

I was also out of potatoes and I wish that I had put the carrots in sooner. But it was still good. The meat was really moist and tender. I thought it was a pretty good recipe, I didn't think that it was that amazing, but it was still good. Worth doing it again with a couple changes.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Jacki’s Chicken and Noodles and Beef Stew

I made the Chicken and Noodles last week and it was excellent although I must admit I altered the recipe a bit.  First off I used a rotisserie chicken with some of the meat still on.  I put it in the crock pot, covered with water and added some salt and pepper and garlic and let it cook for several hours.  I then took the chicken out, picked off the chicken and put the broth in a big pot. I diced up the carrots, celery, and onion and sauteed them all together til softened and then added to broth along with the thyme.  I didn’t have any turmeric.  I thought the thyme added a good flavor.  Instead of using the frozen egg noodles I made my own (easier than running to the store).  I omitted adding the flour or cream and just left it like a soup.  I am sure using the rotisserie chicken added to the good flavor.  It was really tasty.

Jacki's Pics 003

I made the Beef Stew last night and it was also quite tasty.  I did make a few changes though.  I omitted the beer (I didn’t even replace it with the beef broth).  I also omitted the tomato paste.  I used less meat than called for and a little more potato.  It still had a really good flavor although I had to add twice as much flour to make it somewhat thick and I didn’t even add all the liquid since I didn’t use the beer.   It made a good, simple meal.  This would cook well in a crock pot too.

Jacki's Pics 005

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Two Meals

I made the chicken noodle soup the week after Thanksgiving using some leftover turkey.  Since I didn't boil up the chicken and have the broth, I just used some already made broth, about 8 cups.  There isn't really a gluten free version of egg noodles so I just used a different kind of pasta and let it boil for its recommended cooking time in the soup.  The soup was delicious and I liked the idea of adding flour to thicken it just a bit.  Perfect for the "cold" front we experienced last week in Houston:)

On Sunday night I made the Rigatoni and Meatballs. For the meatballs I used half ground beef and half pork sausage and a gluten free bread to make the crumbs. It baked the bread for about 25 min and then ground it up even though it wasn't really all that dried out.  Seemed to work out okay though.  Summer helped me by rolling out all the meatballs.  I decided to just broil them for about 15 minutes and not deal with the mess of frying them.  Like my mom said the sauce wasn't anything special but it was really easy to make, mostly just opening two cans and simmering! This was good! 


Sunday, December 2, 2012

Recipes for 12/2

Lets try Beef Stew this week - Page 165.