sandr077

Okay, gotta get myself back in meatless mode and blogging mode for that matter.  Sorry for the silence last week.  I am back though and  I have been meaty cooking rather than meatless.  I blame it on winter.  Todays recipe is one  of my new favorites.  Thank you "Our Best Bites"!   I recently made French Dip Sandwiches in the crockpot and they were so damn good!  This is a great meal to serve to company  for a casual gathering.   Ingredients 1 2.5-3 lb. beef roast (you can use a frozen roast if you want) 2 Tbsp. olive oil salt and pepper 2 1-ounce packages dry onion soup mix 2 c. water 2 cans beef broth 6-8 large buns (or more…6 would be VERY generous servings!) Swiss, provolone, or mozzarella cheese, shredded or sliced. The "How To"... Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat and rub roast with salt and pepper. When very hot, carefully place roast in pan and sear on all sides. You're not cooking the meat, you're just browning ...

Photo Credit Yes, for the first time I made homemade tomato sauce and meatballs.  Very exciting!  My mother did not have a recipe as she "wings it".  So I hit the web in search of my trademark sauce.  You know... the sauce that will become our family recipe ... the one my daughter will pass down to her kids! :)   So, I started with the Barefoot Contessa as she can do no wrong.  I took her basic recipe, read all the online reviews, and added what I thought sounded good!  I added more pork (and no veal) as veal was too hard to find.  I ended up with the following recipe that I have to say was pretty damn good.   I ngredients For the meatballs: 1 pound ground  pork 1 pound  ground beef 1 cup panko bread crumbs 1/4 cup seasoned dry  bread crumbs 1/2 cup freshly grated  Parmesan cheese 2 teaspoons kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1/4 teaspoon ground  nutmeg 1 extra-large egg, beaten 1/4 cup minced onion...

Photo from Simply Recipes So, I know I have written before about risotto , but we could a recipe so good it is worth raving about!  Risotto is one of our "date night at home" dishes.  It is not difficult to cook, but takes time and tending to.   Risotto is also one of those things that you can make with one recipe- and add whatever you want.  We typically do sausage and mushrooms or sausage and sun-dried tomatoes.  Well, I felt like changing things up and forced the husband to try something different! I found a mushroom and gorgonzola risotto recipe.  I substituted blue cheese for gorganzola becuase I had some leftover from another meal.  We also added some shredded chicken as I too had that left over from roasting one on Thursday night.  This mushroom, chicken, blue cheese risotto was AMAZING!  Truly the best one we have made to date!!! I found a recipe and then made some changes.  Here is my adapted recipe: Ingredients 1 1/2 teaspoons ...

Photo via Food Network Okay, a long time ago my friend SH told me that she cooks a chicken every week.  I thought... hunh?  This might have been because I was pregnant and for some reason I could not eat chicken when I was pregnant.  It grossed me out... weird I know.   Well, now able to eat chicken again and am loving roasting a chicken weekly.  SH- it is a brillant idea.  Why?  It is super cheap at like $6-$8 a pop.  You get several meals out of it.  A "roast chicken" meal the night you cook it and leftover meal for the following night.  You can use the meat for enchiladas or chicken pot pie or put in in a salad or whatever!   My FAVORITE roast chicken is one I blogged about before here .  I recently tried another one of Barefoot Contessa's chickens and it too was delicious.   It was near perfect , but  I made some changes to make it my own (i.e substituted leeks for potatoes).  I would not recognize a leek if ...

So, as I  mentioned last week I am trying some new recipes out while on maternity leave.   I am all about EASY recipes.  One of my favorite EASY cooking tips is using the crockpot.  What is not to love?  You throw it all in the pot in the AM and you have an amazing tasty meal by the end of the day.  Last week I made Pomegranate Beef.  It was amazing.  It was super super easy in that the only thing you needed to cut was onion and garlic!  I found this recipe on one of my very favorite blogs, A Year of Slow Cooking .   I took some photos (but they do not look at all appetizing), so I am not sharing.   This photo from A Year of Slow Cooking is much much much more appealing.  So, photo credit goes to that blog!   I followed the recipe as is with the exception of the canned tomatoes.  My grocery store did not carry fire roasted crushed tomatoes, so I substituted Hunts crushed tomatoes with onion and garlic.  The firs...