Oven Roasted Meatballs

Homemade meatballs are indeed time-consuming, I won’t lie ……. BUT once you have eaten homemade meatballs  you just can’t possibly go back to store-bought!  I hate the messy greasy job of  frying them in the pan, so I eliminated that step by throwing them in the oven instead.  To get the softest meatballs I have used a ratio of 3:1 (3 eggs for 1 lb of ground beef) Also this is where you want to splurge on calories and get 80/20 ground beef. Of course the addition of milk and bread crumbs also adds to the texture.

I usually buy a huge package of ground beef from Costco 7 lbs or so and I make a huge batch and take the morning to cook them up and then I have many meals of meatballs that I freeze.  I love just eating them with a bit of marinara sauce and fresh cheese, meatball subs, spaghetti and meatballs, sweet and sour meatballs etc 🙂

• Servings: 15-20
• Time: 3hrs
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

• 4 lbs of ground beef 80/20
• 12 large eggs
• 2 cups of milk
• 2 cups of panko bread crumbs
• 1/3 cup of fresh garlic chopped fine
• 1 1/2 cups of finely chopped onions
• 1/3 cup of parsley finely chopped
• 1/4 cup of basil finely chopped
• 1 cup of grated parmesan cheese
• 2 tsp of freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tbsp of kosher salt

Directions:

Turn oven on to 375 . Mix all ingredients in a large bowl.  In this instance clean hands will be your best friend to really get it mixed up well.  I use a cookie size scooper for getting the perfect amount of the mixture every time.  Roll in a ball and place on a lined half sheet pan.  Cook for 20 minutes. Allow to cool slightly and enjoy 🙂

TIPS:

• If you have a food processor use it for all the chopped ingredients, it really goes soooooo much faster.
• I take tinfoil to line my half sheet pans and use pam spray so they don’t stick!
• A small ice-cream scooper really get the perfect amount of meatball mixture every time so they cook evenly
• Don’t overcook! If you want that soft melt in your mouth texture watch the clock! I actually under cook them a bit because once you take them out of the oven to rest the heat will still be cooking them as they sit! Also if  I am going to freeze them, well-done meatballs will give you a firmer texture when you go to rewarm them.

Beef Chili

The trick to get bright taste from this chili is to bloom your spices with your veggies from the beginning.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef
• 2 Tb of chili powder
• 2 onions chopped
• 1 bell pepper chopped
• 2 tsp of cumin
• 1 tsp of smoked paprika
• 1 tsp of chipotle chili powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 garlic cloves minced
• salt to taste
• 1 (28 ounce ) can of tomato puree
• 1 (28 ounce) can of diced tomatoes
• 1 can of vegetarian beans (I use bush’s it is in a tangy brown sugar sauce)
• 1 can of red kidney beans
• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Directions:

Heat oil in a large dutch oven till hot then add your vegetables and spices. Cook until vegetables are softened. Stir in the garlic at the end for 1 minute.

Add your ground beef and cook the beef breaking up the chunks. Cook till beef is no longer pink.

Add your tomato puree, diced tomatoes and both beans. Bring to a simmer.

From here if I am not pressed for time I would transfer the mixture to a crock pot and cook on low for 6 hours. Otherwise I would put your covered dutch oven in a 325 degree oven for a few hours. Enjoy!

 

Beef Chili

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 2 1/2 hours(crockpot 6hrs)
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef
• 2 Tb of chili powder
• 2 onions chopped
• 1 bell pepper chopped
• 2 tsp of cumin
• 1 tsp of smoked paprika
• 1 tsp of chipotle chili powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 garlic cloves minced
• salt to taste
• 1 (28 ounce ) can of tomato puree
• 1 (28 ounce) can of diced tomatoes
• 1 can of vegetarian beans (I use bush’s it is in a tangy brown sugar sauce)
• 1 can of red kidney beans
• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Directions:

Heat oil in a large dutch oven till hot then add your vegetables and spices. Cook until vegetables are softened. Stir in the garlic at the end for 1 minute.

Add your ground beef and cook the beef breaking up the chunks. Cook till beef is no longer pink.

From here if I am not pressed for time I would transfer the mixture to a crock pot and cook on low for 6 hours. Otherwise I would put your covered dutch oven in a 325 degree oven for a few hours. Enjoy!

French Onion Soup

I love, love, love onions. I read about deglazing your pan more than once when caramelizing onions to maximize flavor and I am confident you will be in love with this recipe! It’s all about the technique here, not any secret ingredient to make it taste this good. I hope you follow me on this journey of great comfort food!

Tip: Do not use sweet onions for this recipe. They will be to sweet after the caramelization process.

Ingredients:

• 6 large cooking onions
• 1/4 cup of butter
• 2 tsp of kosher salt
• water for deglazing the pot
• 1/4 cup of sherry
• 1/4 cup of vermouth
• 4 cups of water
• 4 cups of chicken stock
• 2 cups of beef broth
• spring of fresh thyme
• 2 bay leafs
• salt and pepper to taste
• toasted sliced baguettes
• Mozza or Gruyère cheese

Directions:

First off I put my butter in a dutch oven and melt it on the stove top then turn the heat off.  Cut all your onions in even size slices, and put in your dutch oven. Sprinkle with the kosher salt. The onions  should almost reach the top of a standard size dutch oven. Give it a bit of a toss to coat the onions and sides of your dutch oven with the butter, and distribute the salt.

Now put the lid on this and place in a 425 degree Fahrenheit oven for 1 hour to start softening them and cook them.

There is reason why we do this:

1. In the oven this will cook evenly as there is heat from all sides of the pot and no caramalization will take place. Which is a good thing at this point because we don’t have to worry about burning the onions before they start to cook.
2.  It decreases the amount of time you are stuck stirring them on the stove top and making sure they don’t burn. Remember black is bad, brown is good.

Ok so after an hour has passed there will be a lot of liquid and they will have become somewhat translucent, and softened.

Now turn on your stove top to medium high. The first 20 minutes or so will require little stirring as there is a lot of liquid to be reduced before any caramelization takes place. Once the liquid evaporates you need to plant your feet in front of that burner and start keeping a closer eye on these babies.

Stir often!! Remember black=bad, brown=good. When your onions start to lose their structure and deepen in color and no liquid is left you need to start scraping the BROWN fond off the sides of your pot and the bottom.

Now we are ready to deglaze our pot with the first 1/4 cup of water. Stir that in and keep stirring and scraping the brown bits back into the onions.

Once that water has reduced your onions should take on a deeper color:

Lets do this again shall we:

Wow check out that color and the smell!

Now if you think the color needs to deepen a bit more by all means deglaze the pot with water a third time. Repeating the whole process described above.

Our final deglaze will be with the sherry and vermouth. I like using vermouth along with the traditional sherry because vermouth is a fortified wine made with various herbs and spices.

Once the alcohol has been reduced I then add the water, chicken and beef broths and my spring of fresh thyme, and salt and pepper to taste.

Turn your burner down to simmer and cook this for an additional 30 minutes to blend flavors.

Now comes the best part! Take your oven proof soup bowls and add a toasted baguette slice or two or three 😉

Ladle some soup in there, darn I missed the million dollar shot! Add Gruyère or Mozza  cheese to the top and place in the oven under broiler till cheese is melted and bubbly. Enjoy!

 

French Onion Soup

• Servings: 8
• Time: 3hrs
• Difficulty: medium
• Print

 

Ingredients:

• 6 large cooking onions
• 1/4 cup of butter
• 2 tsp of kosher salt
• water for deglazing the pot
• 1/4 cup of sherry
• 1/4 cup of vermouth
• 4 cups of water
• 4 cups of chicken stock
• 2 cups of beef broth
• spring of fresh thyme
• 2 bay leafs
• salt and pepper to taste
• toasted sliced baguettes
• Mozza or Gruyère cheese

Directions:

First off I put my butter in a dutch oven and melt it on the stove top then turn the heat off.  Cut all your onions in even size slices, and put in your dutch oven. Sprinkle with the kosher salt. The onions  should almost reach the top of a standard size dutch oven. Give it a bit of a toss to coat the onions and sides of your dutch oven with the butter, and distribute the salt.

Now put the lid on this and place in a 425 degree Fahrenheit oven for 1 hour to start softening them and cook them.

After an hour return the dutch oven to the stove top remove the lid and turn the burner on med-high.  The first 20 minutes or so will require little stirring as there is a lot of liquid to be reduced before any caramelization takes place. Once the liquid evaporates you need to plant your feet in front of that burner and start keeping a closer eye on these babies.

When your onions start to lose their structure and deepen in color and no liquid is left you need to start scraping the BROWN fond off the sides of your pot and the bottom.

Now we are ready to deglaze our pot with the first 1/4 cup of water. Stir that in and keep stirring and scraping the brown bits back into the onions.

Once that water has reduced your onions should take on a deeper color. Deglaze a second time with another 1/4 cup of water.

Our final deglaze will be with the sherry and vermouth. I like using vermouth along with the traditional sherry because vermouth is a fortified wine made with various herbs and spices.

Once the alcohol has been reduced I then add the water, chicken and beef broths and my spring of fresh thyme, and salt and pepper to taste.

Turn your burner down to simmer and cook this for an additional 30 minutes to blend flavors.

Now comes the best part! Take your oven proof soup bowls and add a toasted baguette slice or two or three 😉

Ladle some soup in there, add Gruyère or Mozza  cheese to the top and place in the oven under broiler till cheese is melted and bubbly. Enjoy!

Braised Beef Short Ribs

Beef short ribs are relatively a cheap cut of meat and with some tender loving care they are fall off the bone delicious. My cut which I bought at Costco were boneless. The best thing about braising these low and slow is the aromatherapy it produces.  You will call in sick just to stay home, whiff this all day while wiping the drool off your chin! I have other recipes that will follow in the next coming days that accompanied my short ribs.

My menu started off with wedge lettuce salad with homemade blue cheese dressing topped off with  crispy shallots and turkey bacon bits. Main dish was of course the  braised short ribs served over a bed of creamy polenta, and collard greens. For dessert I made a rustic skillet apple pie.

I hope you enjoy my journey through these recipes this week.

Ingredients:

• beef short ribs
• 3 pieces of bacon (I use turkey bacon)
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 2 celery stalks chopped up
• 2 carrots diced
• 2 garlic cloves minced fine
• flour for dusting your ribs
• generous sprinkles of kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 2 heaping tbls of tomato paste
• 1 tsp of soy sauce
• 1 tsp of worcestershire sauce
• 2 cups of dry  wine
• 2 cups of beef broth
• fresh herb bouquet( I used thyme and rosemary)

Tip:

If you have a small hand-held grinder/blender it works great for grinding pepper. I don’t have the patience to hand grind a ton of black pepper on my food, so I always keep a bit ground up in my magic bullet container.

Directions:

First off, we are going to GENEROUSLY sprinkle our meat with the kosher salt and fresh black cracked pepper.

Don’t be shy with the seasoning honestly this is a lot of meat and the salt helps tenderize the meat and adds flavor to the braising liquids. If you are using regular salt vs kosher salt then DON’T use as much salt because it will be way too salty. 1 tsp of kosher salt is equal to 1/2 tsp of regular table salt.

Let your meat rest for a half hour and come to room temperature while we do some prep work. We will dice up our bacon, onion, celery and carrots.

Now we can dust our meat in the flour:

So my thought process with the bacon was to add another depth of flavor and smokiness. Sort of like what you do with beef bourguignon. So we are going to fry up our bacon I used a bit of vegetable oil because turkey bacon is very trim and no fat is really rendered.

Once your bacon is cooked and crispy, scoop it out of your dutch oven and set aside (I used half of the cooked bacon to top off my blue cheese wedge salad:) the rest will go back in our pot later)

Now take your beef short ribs and brown them really good in batches. Once browned on both sides set aside to rest.

Ok a word about how to add extra beefiness and compliment the flavors of beef: tomato paste, soy sauce, and  worcesteshire sauce. These 3 ingredients are a great key to adding boatloads of rich beefy flavor.

So we want to cook our tomato paste in the pot for a few minutes. I add a small handful of onions to get some moisture in the pot to help along the tomato solids. You will immediately smell a difference in the once weak tomato paste as well as the deep rich color it turns as it is cooking. The smell intensifies and sweet meets full-bodied tomato! Caramelizing the tomato solids like this will provide much complex yummy flavors to our braising sauce.

So after a few minutes of stirring the tomato paste you will add the tri-vegetables you chopped up. By the way a lot of stews start off with a combination of these 3 vegetables. They are powerful flavor enhancers. I love onions! When I was a little girl I asked my mom to make me onion sandwiches for my lunch! No wonder I wasn’t popular lol.

Ok as you can see we cook this till the vegetables become translucent and soft (it will be quite thick due to the tomato paste in there.)  At the very end we throw our chopped up garlic and cook for 2 more minutes.  Now onto deglazing the pan with some red wine. Choose a dry wine that you would also drink. Remember if it tastes horrible to drink, it won’t taste any better cooked!

I love the name of this wine. Although covered in flour(I’m a horribly messy cook) and smelling like beef stew I don’t think is too sexy. Right? Well I was sipping on this fabulous wine while cooking and please take special note of the paper towel close to my burner in the picture above.

All of a sudden I  felt much more intense heat and thought “WOW I am having a hot flash already” (as I do when I drink alcohol, do all women in menopause get that? Or is it just me?) Any how, some flames caught the corner of my eye and for a second I thought I have to take a picture of this! and I proceeded to try to “blow out the paper towel” which of course fueled the flame more and like any logical person would do while I was looking over the mountains of mess in my kitchen I was trying to find my camera I was trying to find something to smoother the flame 🙂

End result

Ok back to cooking! Alright once the wine has reduced a bit after 5 minutes or so we add the 2 cups of beef broth

To this we will add our bouquet of herbs (thyme and rosemary).  Then add your meat and cooked bacon bits.  Put your lid back on the dutch oven. We are ready for the oven!

Place in a preheated 300 degree oven and braise those baby’s for approximately 3.5 hours. You can check on them halfway through the cooking process and flip them in the braising sauce. They will be fork tender when done and basically falling apart if you stare at them too hard. 😉

Bon Appetit!

Braised Beef Short Ribs

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 4hrs
• Difficulty: medium
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Ingredients:

• 2 lbs beef short ribs
• 3 pieces of bacon (I use turkey bacon)
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 2 celery stalks chopped up
• 2 carrots diced
• 2 garlic cloves minced fine
• flour for dusting your ribs
• generous sprinkles of kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 2 heaping tbls of tomato paste
• 1 tsp of soy sauce
• 1 tsp of worcestershire sauce
• 2 cups of dry  wine
• 2 cups of beef broth
• fresh herb bouquet( I used thyme and rosemary)

Directions:

First off, generously sprinkle your meat with kosher salt and fresh black cracked pepper.

Let your meat rest for a half hour and come to room temperature while you do some prep work.  Dice up your bacon, onion, celery and carrots and mince your garlic.

Dust your meat in some flour. Fry up your bacon in a frying pan and once your bacon is cooked and crispy, scoop it out of your dutch oven and set aside.

Now take your beef short ribs and brown them really good in batches. Once browned on both sides set aside to rest.

Cook your tomato paste in the pot for a few minutes with a small handful of onions to get some moisture in the pot to help along the tomato solids. Caramelizing the tomato solids like this will provide much complex yummy flavors to your braising sauce.

After a few minutes of stirring the tomato paste you will add the rest of the vegetables you chopped up.

Cook this until the vegetables become translucent and soft (it will be quite thick due to the tomato paste in there.)  At the very end  throw your chopped up garlic and cook for 2 more minutes.

Deglaze your pan with the red wine. Choose a dry wine that you would also drink. Remember if it tastes horrible to drink, it won’t taste any better cooked!

Once the wine has reduced a bit after 5 minutes or so,  add the 2 cups of beef broth.

To this add your bouquet of herbs (thyme and rosemary).  Then add your meat and cooked bacon bits.  Put your lid back on the dutch oven. We are ready for the oven!

Place in a preheated 300 degree oven and braise those baby’s for approximately 3.5 hours. You can check on them halfway through the cooking process and flip them in the braising sauce. They will be fork tender when done and basically falling apart if you stare at them too hard. 😉

Remove from oven discard the herb bouquet and serve.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Super simple easy soup

Ingredients:

• 2 butternut squash
• 3 medium cooking onions
• 2 apples(if you like a bit more sweetness to shine through)
• 1/4 cup of butter
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp of fresh rosemary chopped fine
• 1 tbsp of fresh thyme
• 1 tsp of red chile pepper flakes
• 8 cups of chicken stock

Directions:

Turn your oven onto 425 degree Fahrenheit

Chop up your onions, butternut squash and apples in medium size pieces. This will make a lot! I divided it between two half sheet pans.  Then season to taste with salt and pepper. Add your knobs of butter and drizzle with olive oil.

After 20 minutes in oven, stir up veggies so they caramelize on all sides. Once fork tender remove from oven. Total cooking time approximately 40 minutes.

Let your veggies cool off then in batches puree them with some chicken stock and place in soup pot:

Once all the vegetables are pureed add the rest of your chicken stock to your soup pot and stir.  Let simmer on medium low heat. Taste your soup to see if you need to season it more. At this point you will also add your fresh herbs and my favorite ingredient to give the soup a bit of a kick.

 

At the very end of the cooking process I add a bit of half and half maybe 1/2 cup and use an immersion blender to get the soup silky smooth.

I serve this with croutons in the soup and fresh grated parmesan cheese on top! Enjoy! (I also saved the seeds and roasted them for a garnish)

 

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

• Servings: 10-12
• Time: 1hr
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

• 2 butternut squash
• 3 medium cooking onions
• 2 apples(if you like a bit more sweetness to shine through)
• 1/4 cup of butter
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp of fresh rosemary chopped fine
• 1 tbsp of fresh thyme
• 1 tsp of red chile pepper flakes
• 8 cups of chicken stock
• 1/2 cup half and half

Directions:

Turn your oven onto 425 degree Fahrenheit

Chop up your onions, butternut squash and apples in medium size pieces. This will make a lot! I divided it between two half sheet pans.  Then season to taste with salt and pepper. Add your knobs of butter and drizzle with olive oil. Place your sheet pans in the oven.

After 15 minutes in oven, stir up veggies so they caramelize on all sides. Once fork tender remove from oven. Total cooking time approximately 30-45 minutes.

Let your veggies cool off then in batches puree them with some chicken stock and place in a soup pot.

Once all the vegetables are pureed add the rest of the chicken stock to your soup pot and stir.  Let simmer on medium low heat. Taste your soup to see if you need to season it more. At this point you will also add your fresh herbs and chili pepper flakes.

At the very end of the cooking process add a bit of half and half, maybe 1/2 cup and use an immersion blender to get the soup silky smooth.

I serve this with croutons in the soup and fresh grated parmesan cheese on top! Enjoy!