Tag: beef

Lasagna

I’ve never been much of a lasagna fan, but after seeing this recipe on The Pioneer Woman website, I decided to give it a try.  It’s actually fairly easy to make, and it tasted GREAT!!  So if you are a person that likes lasagna, I suggest trying this recipe on for size….or taste.

Here’s what you’ll need:  (I halved this recipe since I was only making it for 2 people.  We still ended up having over 3 servings left and we were STUFFED!)

1 1/2 lbs ground beef

1 lb hot breakfast sausage

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cans (14.5 oz) whole tomatoes (you can use diced tomatoes if you don’t want such big chunks in your meat sauce)

2 cans (6 oz) tomato paste (I used tomato sauce since I realized I was out of tomato paste at the exact moment when I needed to add it to the skillet)

4 tbsp dried parsely

2 tbsp dried basil

2 tsp salt

3 cups lowfat cottage cheese

2 whole beaten eggs

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 lb sliced mozzarella cheese

1 package (10 oz) lasagna noodles (I used whole wheat lasagna, but you can use whatever you want.  Unfortunately I didn’t have any 5 net carb Dreamfields lasagna)

Preheat oven to 350°.  Add beef and sausage to a large skillet and cook over medium-high heat.

Add garlic to the meat.  I grated my garlic over a microplane, because I think it blends more evenly, and the flavor can saturate the meat more so than if I just chopped it very finely.

Brown the meat and stir to thoroughly combine.

Drain most of that lovely fat.  Can’t you just feel it clogging your arteries just by looking at it?

Add tomatoes, tomato paste (or sauce in my case), basil, 1 tsp of salt, and 2 tbsp of the parsley.

Stir until thoroughly combined, and let simmer for about 20-30 minutes.  I chopped the tomatoes up with my wooden spoon as I stirred.

In a medium bowl add the cottage cheese….

…egg…

…Parmesan cheese…

…and the rest of the salt and parsley.

Stir until thoroughly combined and set aside.

Meanwhile, drop some lasagna noodles into a large pot of boiling water and cook to “al dente” (still has a bite to it).

Now it’s time to assemble the lasagna.  Start by laying the lasagna noodles in a baking dish.  Overlap the noodles as you go.

Spoon half of the cottage cheese mixture over the noodles.

Lay a layer of cheese on top of the cottage cheese.

Spread half of the meat sauce on top of the cheese.  Then repeat the process all over again, ending with a meat layer on the top.

Liberally sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top of the meat.  And if you’re like me….throw a handful of cheese in your mouth.  Yum!

Pop it in the oven for 20-30 minutes, or until it’s all bubbly on the top.

After struggling to keep the square of lasagna you just cut on your spatula and not all over the counter, place it on a plate and eat!  Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Marinated Top Sirloin (Part 2) + Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans

Well, I took a 30 minute power nap on the couch after I finished my last post and while my meat finished marinating.  It was nice, but too short.  Steve woke me up with “Food time, Baby?”  The first words out of my mouth were, “Can you make dinner tonight?”  Ha!  Like that would ever happen.  Steve is good at alot of things, but cooking is just not one of them.  He has surprisingly produced some good eats off the grill, but that’s about his only culinary skill.  I was just so exhausted after 3 full days of gardening that my body did not want to get up from it’s horizontal position on the couch, let alone make dinner AND take pictures during the entire process.  But since I didn’t want to disappoint you all after my last post PROMISING that I would return with the rest of the recipe, I sucked it up and finished what I started.

I’m not going to post these pictures in the order that I took them, because that would just be too confusing since I was making everything at the same time.  So I’ll just keep everything in their own groups and you can determine the timing of everything if you make it all at the same time like I did.

While your grill is heating up, cut up some red skinned baby potatoes.  Don’t you think that red skinned potatoes look like apples when they’re cut up?  Dang it, now I feel like eating an apple.

Put them in a large saucepan and cover with water, then bring to a boil.

When they are tender enough to break apart easily with a fork, drain them and place back into sauce pan.

Mash with a potato masher.

Heat up some milk.  Don’t you like my Brasil (Brazil) mug?  I got it while on a missions trip to Brazil in the summer of 2006.

Add milk in small increments.  You don’t want to add too much, or your potatoes will be soupy.  Remember that you can always add more, but once it’s in you can’t take it out.  Mash milk and potatoes together.

Melt some butter and pour into the potatoes.  Yum.  Butter.

Add some salt and pepper to taste, then grate a clove of garlic over a microplane.  Watch your fingers, you don’t want to grate those!  I learned the hard way.

If you’re feeling really dangerous, add a handful of cheese.  I was clearly feeling dangerous.  Mash it all together.  The hot potatoes will melt the cheese and it’ll all be nice and ooy gooy.

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare your green beans.  Green beans were finally on sale at the grocery store, so I helped myself to some. 🙂

Cut off and discard the ends of the beans.

Blanche the beans for a few minutes in boiling water.

Meanwhile, cut up half of an onion.  If you make small slices one way, then turn and slice the other way you’ll minimize your chopping time and probably your tears as well.

I always have tears pouring down my cheeks while chopping onions.  Normally I have to stop at least 3 times while chopping to wipe my eyes.  Oh how it burns!  It’s a really pretty sight when I’m wearing mascara too.  All kinds of makeup running down my face!  Attractive.

Finely chop some garlic too.  Because onions and garlic love each other.

Throw them both into a pan over medium heat.

Once the onions and garlic have caramelized a bit, drain the green beans and toss together in the pan.  Add salt and pepper.

Heat your grill to medium high heat.

Take your beautiful steaks out of the fridge and bring them out to the grill.  It was dark by the time I grilled these, so I had to use flash on my camera, which I hate doing.  So I apologize if the quality of these photos aren’t as good as the others.  That’s just the nature of the beast.

Depending on how you want your steak cooked you can adjust the timing, but we like our steaks medium, so I grilled these for about 5 minutes on each side.

Look at those beauties!  Oh, and if you’re wondering why there are now suddenly 3 pieces of meat instead of 2 like in my last post, that is because after I had finished placing the meat in the fridge to marinate, Steve decided that he might want an extra piece of steak, so I added it to the marinade and just didn’t tell you about it.  I’m sneaky like that.  And guess what……Steve ate BOTH pieces plus 2 helpings of mashed potatoes and a helping of green beans.  He was a member of the Clean Plate Club 2 times tonight!  Impressive!

What a well rounded meal!  Oh and in case you’re wondering what is in the ramekin, it’s the meat marinade that I strained, added a little water to, and boiled for several minutes to kill any bacteria left over from the raw meat.

Makes a great dipping sauce!  Make this meal.  You won’t be sorry, as evidence of Steve’s double Clean Plate Club. 🙂

Top Sirloin Marinade (Part 1)

Steve and I went to the grocery store today with the sole purpose of picking up some heavy duty trash bags for our demulchification yard project and a case or 2 of bottled water.  As always, when we got there it turned into a full blown grocery store endeavor, where I realized how much we were actually out of. 

“I need to get some fresh veggies, we’re out of bread, you still have cereal at home but no milk, so we should probably get that as well.  Hey, how about some steak?!”

So that is how I came across this meal tonight.  I found this marinade recipe on The Pioneer Woman’s blog, but I tweaked a couple things.  As I type, my meat is marinating in the fridge as it should be.  Normally, I don’t think about the marinade until about 30 min before we’re supposed to eat, so my marinades usually don’t get to soak into the meat like they’re supposed to.  Luckily today I thought ahead!

Here’s what you’ll need:

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup cooking sherry

3 tbsp honey

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

3 cloves garlic

steak of your choice (I used top sirloin….obviously since the title of this post is “Top Sirloin Marinade”)

Start by pouring your soy sauce into a dish that is big enough to house your meat and the marinade.

Pour in the cooking sherry.

Here’s what it looks like for those of you who have never cooked with it before.  You can find it on the vinegar aisle of your grocery store.

Pour in your honey, and if you get some on your fingers, feel free to lick it off.  I won’t tell. 🙂

Next comes the sesame oil.  This is the same ingredient we used for the Teriyaki Chicken & Pineapple Bowls a few days ago.  Give it a good whiff when you open it.  Smells so good!

It’s hard to have a steak marinade without some Worcestershire sauce, so go ahead and throw that on in there.

Add the red pepper flakes for some heat.

I like to grate my garlic on a microplane, but if you don’t have one, feel free to chop it up very finely.

It collects nicely on the back of the microplane while you grate it on top.  If you are a lover of garlic, feel free to add more if you’d like.

Tap your microplane against the rim of the bowl and watch the garlic plop in.

Whisk everything together so it’s fully combined.

Set your steaks in the dish.

Then flip them around on both sides so that they are nicely coated with the marinade.

Cover and pop in the fridge for 2-3 hours.

My meat is still marinating as I type this, so after I finish cooking (and eating) dinner, I will post the second part of this recipe which will include some mashed potatoes and green beans.  Stay tuned!