Beef and Tomato

A copy of Better Homes and Gardens was floating around the office a couple days ago. I flipped through it and saw a recipe that involved beef steaks, cherry tomatoes, potatoes and olives. I figured I'd try it.

In my hasty scribbling, I failed to note what exactly I was supposed to do with the olives, so I just added them to the tomatoes. Seems to've worked. The oregano too. I also eliminated a pan - you're supposed to fry the steaks, then put the tomatoes on the same pan to cook, while you fry up the pre-microwaved potatoes in a separate pan. I did meat, potato, then tomato. The meat is a bit cold, but otherwise, this came out really well :-)

Day Late St Patrick

Apparently it's been a while since I posted. I know I've cooked since the beginning of the month.

At any rate, today I made corned beef. Boil it to death. Add potatoes, boil it some more. Add some cabbage, carrot, onion, boil again. Take it out, add butter to the veggies, and eat.

Well, simmer after most of the boils.

Either way, I could have done it in the crockpot, but I'm glad I didn't. It would not have fit. It also took a lot less time, obviously. It worked.

It's pretty tasty, but oddly, I like the veggie part better than the beef part. Kind of surprises me, because I usually like meat a lot better. The cabbage was quite good, even. Of course, adding butter to it all probably had something to do with that...

Meat pie

Christmas eve dinner was a Spanish meat pie (at least, that's what the recipe is called; it's from a newspaper clipping my mother clipped years ago). Ended up making the crust using whole wheat flour instead of white flour; it's kind of dry and heavy. However, the inside of the pie was tasty.

Dessert is to be a chocolate yogurt cake made by my sister. Hopefully it will be yum.

Braciola

I found a recipe for Braciola on a forum I'm on. It involves flank steak, Mozzarella and Provolone cheese, Prosciutto, Italian seasoning, tomatoes, garlic, onions and carrots. It's supposed to involve celery (but I don't like it) and mushrooms (which I forgot). It's also supposed to involve a food processor and pasta, but I don't have the former, and didn't feel like the latter. Oh, and I don't have any pre-made Italian seasoning, but I do have herbes de Provence, so I substituted.

One is supposed to pound out the steak so it's about 1/2" thick (I didn't quite make it there, and next time I should use something heavier than the end of my quite lightweight rolling pin), line it with the cheeses, the Prosciutto, the seasoning, roll it up, tie it up, brown it, and put it in the crock pot. One then sautes the vegetables, then puts them in a food processor with whole canned tomatoes, which is then added to the pot and the whole thing cooked on low for 8 or 10 hours. I used pre-chopped canned tomatoes, and didn't really mix the veggies with the tomatoes before adding it all to the pot.

It came out quite tasty. The best bits are the bits with the seasoning in it. I added a touch of salt, but didn't need to have - the cheese and Prosciutto probably supplied enough. Also, when making rolled steak things, don't cover the entire surface - leave a margin on the side being rolled toward.