Just recently, Shannon said, “You oughta put some meat on Kitchen Scrapbook again.” As I thought about it, it did seem like it had been awhile, so just for kicks, I checked… and was surprised… in the last 27 posts, the only thing with meat in it on here was Haystacks! And that’s not a dish where the meat is really monopolized on. So, here we go, something with meat… a main dish, for something different. I know it’s not a CHUNK of meat, but hey, there IS meat here.

One main dish in 27 posts shows you a bit where my interests lie. I don’t churn out full course meals as often as you might think. I like cooking meals, I really do. But you know what I LOVE? Baking, desserts, decorating cakes, and playing around with food. It’s hard to do fun stuff with main course dishes. And main course dishes are necessary… the sweet things aren’t… and we all know that somehow there’s always more fun and passion in unecessary things. I should add in a clause here about meat… I’ve heard and seen enough from the guys I’m around that I DO understand that there is fun and passion in smoking and grilling chunks of meat… but I don’t know a flippin’ thing about doing it, so I’m quite happy to stay on the eating end of it rather than on the fire end of it.

This is the first time I’m posting one of Pioneer Woman’s recipes on my site, even though I’ve made quite a few of them. One I still need to try is the cinnamon rolls. I just need to see for myself that it’s just as good or better to sprinkle on white sugar instead of brown sugar just before rolling them up. When I do try them, I think I’ll do some with white and some with brown… and compare. The best part of all that is that it entitles me to TWO cinnamon rolls. Anyway… why am I talking about cinnamon rolls?! Back to the thing of posting a Pioneer Woman recipe on my site… It’s sorta like what’s the point because it’s already posted in much more finery and humor already on her site. It’s not that I feel threatened by her… because you can only feel threatened by people or things that are in your league. So, here is the link to the recipe on her site: Pioneer Woman’s Sloppy Joes. And in case you don’t feel like clicking to go over there, I’ll post it here, too.

I actually just grabbed my cell phone to take pictures of these because, well, my camera battery needed charged. Also, I made a half batch, in case the quantity in the frying pan looks small to you… you know what I thought of right now, I should’ve made a full batch and put half of in it the freezer for another meal!

Pioneer Woman’s Sloppy Joes

2 Tbsp. butter
2 1/2 lbs ground beef
1/2 onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups ketchup
1 cup water
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. chili powder (more to taste) I actually cut back on this because I wasn’t sure how much kick it would give it.
1 tsp. dry mustard
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (more to taste)
Worcestershire sauce, to taste
2 Tbsp. tomato paste (optional)
Tabasco sauce (optional; to taste)
Salt; to taste
Black pepper, to taste
Kaiser rolls
Butter

Add butter to a large skillet or dutch oven over medium high heat. Add ground beef and cook until brown. Drain most of the fat and discard. Add onions, green pepper, and garlic. Cook for a few minutes, or until vegetables begin to get soft. Add ketchup, brown sugar, chili pepper, dry mustard, and water. Stir to combine and simmer for 15 minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste.

Also add tomato paste, Worcestershire, and Tabasco if desired. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. Spread rolls with butter and brown on a griddle or skillet. Spoon meat mixture over the rolls. And then I added a slice of provolone cheese and put it under the broiler for a few minutes.

These are hands down THE BEST sloppy joes I’ve ever made or eaten! Dancing with flavor. I backed up the spicyness a little and I think it was just right… in my world, sloppy joes aren’t supposed to be spicy. But a little zing was perfect. So, anyway, this will now be my sloppy joe recipe unless I find another one to kick it out of 1st place.

In other news, we’re grilling tonight. Not sure what we’ll grill, but I think I’ll feature it in the next post, whatever it ends up being. The meats we have on hand to choose from are: burger, chicken breast, fish, and a 1.14-lb sirloin steak. Oh, and when I say “we’re grilling”, I am, as usual, using the term ‘we’ very loosely.

What are you grilling tonight? And feel free to use the term ‘you’ very loosely.

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On a more serious note…

This dish, on the other hand (as opposed to the last post), graces our table quite often.

Even the kids love it… at the end I’ll show you how to make it kid-friendly!

Did you ever have steaks on the grill?
They were just delicious, but you had 1 steak leftover… now, what to do with it.????  If you keep it, it might get tough when you reheat it.  If you throw it away, it might bug you that something you spent good money one just went in the trash.  Here’s what I do: Slice it thin and put it in a bag in the freezer. Then, the next time you make fajitas, pull it out and add it to the other meat.

Steak Fajitas

1 lb or so of thinly-sliced steak (I either buy it thinly sliced or slice a couple steaks up. If I have any left over from grilling, I add that too.)
1/3 each of a green, yellow, orange, and sweet red pepper, sliced into strips (Or 2 or 3 colors, whatever you have on hand.)
1/2 of an onion, sliced and separated
Tortillas
Shredded lettuce (I don’t keep shredded lettuce on hand, I just cut it thinly off of a head of lettuce.)
Tomatoes, cut up
Shredded cheese
Sour cream
Salsa

Spray the skillet with cooking spray or use oil, depends on if you want it more healthy or not. I’ve done it both ways.  Add the steak, peppers, and onion. Sprinkle with some salt and pepper and seasoning. I use Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Meat Magic seasoning .

About 15 minutes before serving time, turn skillet to about 300. Cover. Stir about every 3 minutes. Fry for about 12 minutes total or until it looks done. While it’s frying, get the other things around… cut the tomatoes, shred the lettuce, etc. Stack tortillas on a plate with a paper towel between each one. Microwave until warm and soft, about a minute or so.

Now you’re ready to eat! How’s that for a ready-in-15-minutes meal! …which is one reason why I like it. If your supper time varies (like ours does), you can get everything cut up and in the skillet awhile, then it’s pretty fast from there. And now, for the kid-friendly version… Cut 3 1/2″ circles out of a tortilla.

Fill it and roll up.
Fits in their hands nice and works great,

until they start playing with it!

There are a bunch of different variations to making fajitas, I’m sure. We don’t have the fried rice and refried beans and guacomole (ok, I can’t make that word look right, where’s my dictionary?!). All that stuff would make it more complicated, plus we don’t really like 2 or 3 of those things.

This recipe came from my mother-in-law. It’s really good!!!!! Try it!

Wet Burritos

1 lb hamburger
1 sm onion
1 pk taco seasoning
1 can refried beans
8 soft tortillas (9 inch)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 cups sour cream
8 oz grated cheese

Fry hamburger with onion. Add seasoning and beans. Put 1/8 of meat mixture in each tortilla. Roll up. Mix mushroom soup and sour cream. Put 1/2 of it into greased 9×13 pan. Put rolled tortillas in next,

 then put rest of sauce on top, then the cheese.
  Bake at 350 for 40 min.
 Serve with sour cream and salsa. It’s so easy to make! With good babies and all, you can go from nothing to eating within an hour! In the 40 minutes it’s baking, you can easily get the rest of the meal around.

We had crescent rolls and salad with it.
  I make my own croutons instead of buy them because I don’t like the hard ones that you can’t stab with a fork. It’s so easy… just take a couple pieces of bread, cut them into chunks with a pizza cutter. Put some melted butter in a pan (however much you want, I usually do around a Tablespoon, maybe a little less), then dash a few spices in, like oregano, basil, and onion power, or garlic powder. Throw the bread cubes in and mix them around till they seem to be pretty much coated with the butter. Put the pan in the oven for about 10 minutes, more if you want. Sometime during that time, I take the pan out and shake it around a little to try to get some of the croutons to flip over. They have a crunch, but yet you can stab them with a fork. Perfect!!!

In researching how to make stromboli about 6 years ago, I found there are alot of different variations out there (different kinds, different shapes, braided tops, spiral-rolled, etc. So, I experimented with it and here is the result… a recipe of my stromboli, tried and true, we love it! I’ve only ever made 2 different kinds… pizza and steak. Tonight was steak.

Steak and Cheese Stromboli

1 loaf frozen bread dough, thawed
14 oz pkg thinly sliced beef Philly steak
Montreal steak seasoning  *edit* or seasoning of your choice
1 tsp. oil
1 green pepper
1/2 of an onion
Handful or 2 of sliced mushrooms
3/4 cup pizza sauce
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
Butter
Parmesan cheese

Put the oil in an electric skillet and turn to 300. Cut up green pepper and onion into approx. 1 1/2″ x 1/4″ pieces and fry for a few minutes, stirring often`. Add steak and sprinkle steak seasoning on it
 and fry a few more minutes until no longer pink. Throw the mushrooms in and stir it.
Put it on simmer while you roll out the bread dough into a rectangle about 12″ x 8″ x 1/2″. (This measurement is a wild guess, by the way. ) Spread pizza sauce on it.
Then spoon meat mixture on it, then put cheese on top.
Now, the dreaded part… getting it closed.   Pull the edges up around to the middle (the edges are usually fatter, so it’s got some extra to give) and pinch to seal. Then seal the ends too. If any holes break open, patch them up, or the problem will magnify as it bakes! I always have one hole somewhere somehow.
Then flip it over onto the pan… a quick smooth maneuver would be good here.   Butter the top with very soft butter or melted butter and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
 Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

YUM!

To make the pizza variation , trade the steak, seasoning, oil, grn pepper, and onion for an 8 oz pkg of pepperoni. Then if your taste buds allow, sprinkle some crushed red pepper on the cheese before closing it up. It gives it extra zip.  Do everything else the same. No frying involved though… that’s handier.

What style and flavor of stromboli do you make?

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Posted on November 20, 2006
Filed Under Beef, Main dishes

My first entry WAS going to be some for exotic yummy-lookin’ entree or dessert… to impress you all , but 5:00 this evening found me staring in the cupboards, fridge, and freezer. Then, I spotted the “Jiffy all purpose baking mix” box with recipes on it. So, I scanned them and thought the Mozzerella and Beef Puff sounded good.

There won’t be all that many casserole-type dishes on here. Neither Shannon nor I like them… but for different reasons. His reason: the same taste the whole main course, and the throw-everything-in-the-trough effect. My reason: I never know what else to put with it… all the food groups are in there, so do we go double on the veggies or the bread? In my mind, a meal should have at least 3 things on the table. So, if there’s a casserole, I need to come up with 2 more things!

Mozzerella & Beef Puff

Crust:
1/4 cup butter or magarine
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup JIFFY baking mix
3 eggs

Filling:
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 can (7 oz.) mushrooms
3/4 cup onion (chopped)
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 can (10 3/4 oz) cream of mushroom soup

1 to 1 1/2 cups shedded mozzarella cheese (I did 1 1/2)

Preheat oven to 425. Grease 10″ round baking dish. Brown ground beef, onion, and mushrooms. Drain, add seasoning and mushroom soup, and set aside. For crust, bring water and butter to a boil. Add baking mix all at once, beat with wooden spoon until mixture is smooth and forms a ball. Remove form heat. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Spread dough onto bottom and up sides of pan.

Fill w beef mixture. Bake 25 minutes until golden brown and puffy. Sprinkle with cheese and bake 5 minutes more. Yeild: 4 – 5 servings.
 Mine got baked a little longer because my Mom called and I was talking to her when I should’ve got it out. But it turned out good because the cheese got nice and brown around the edges. It’s VERY filling.

My take on it: I’m not going to cut it out of the box to add to my blank cookbook (which isn’t so blank anymore). It was VERY good, but nothing exceptional. The garlic added some pizzazz. A huge plus for it is that it takes very common ingredients and is very easy to make short notice… like, you can grab frozen hamburger out of the freezer and have it fried up in 15 minutes.

To round out this meal, I cooked frozen broccoli (there were no veggies in the main dish) and then we topped it off with banana splits for dessert.
 We don’t always have dessert, but the toppings and bananas and ice cream scoop were some more things to help fill up my ’empty’ table problem, what with having casserole and all!

I should add somewhere on this site, that Shannon is a better cook than me! When Tiffany was born, he worked from home some for the first week and made alot of the meals, and we ate some good stuff!!! Much better than when I’m in charge! Where he shines most is the grill. He grills year-round, but of course more in the summer. He has a baked bean recipe that is just awesome, and he’s famous for those beans among our family and friends. My sister Jan requested them at her wedding and my mom just called me this evening (remember overbaked puff above) and asked if he could make them for our T-giving dinner this year. He also makes a killer pork chop open faced sandwich. I will ask him make a ‘guest appearance’ on here once in awhile!

There are some things in the comments from my last post that I want to come back to sometime, but I’ll leave it at this for now. I’ll most likely be updating before Thanksgiving, so I won’t wish you a Happy Thanksgiving yet! If I don’t make anything before, I plan to make a cinnamon roll recipe that madisonsmom2 messaged to me. I’ll make it for brunch since our T-giving dinner is an early supper (I think to accomodate the hunters). This is not just any cinnamon roll recipe… it’s got a couple ‘surprise’ ingredients in it.   …That was all just to whet your appetites.