Roast Beef Update

It was so nice to get home to dinner already cooked last night!  Here are some pictures of how it turned out...

 I did it a little differently than I described yesterday, so I wanted to tell you that way, too.  It requires a little less attention (well almost none), which is nice.

After you sear all of the edges, add 3 cups of beef broth to the pot and cover.  Put it in the oven at 285 degrees for 4 hours.  Remove it from the oven and dip out about a cup of the broth.  Add 3 Tbsp brown gravy mix to the cup of broth, stir until there are no clumps and pour it back into the pot.  Stir it all and heat over a burner (medium - medium high) for 8-10 minutes. 

Roast Beef with Rice and Gravy

Nothing says Sunday dinner to me quite like roast beef with rice and gravy and a whole smorgasboard of yummy side dishes.  Unfortunately, I didn't think about roast beef this Sunday... I thought about it on Monday.  Not wanting to wait a whole week, I decided I'd let it cook today while I'm at work.

***DISCLAIMER:  I know that it is not really advisable to leave the oven on while you're gone.  I recommend you cook this roast while you're home...so the printable recipe will have the time/temperature/instructions for cooking a roast while you're at home.  Please do not leave dinner cooking in your oven because I told you to.  I am not telling you to.  There ~ do as I say, not as I do (or as I say I do).***

I was supposed to get up early to get the roast in the oven, then run home at lunch to check on it.  Weeeeellllll, me and mornings aren't really friendly.  So I ran home at lunch to put it going.  Here's what I did...

Chop a shallot (or small onion) and 6 or so cloves of garlic (you can read more about my garlic addiction here)

Put the onions and shallots in a small bowl (a ramekin works great, too).  Add salt, pepper, worcestershire and Kitchen Bouquet (go easy on the Kitchen Bouquet...it's rich)

Stir it all up (YUM!)

Cut slits about 1 inch wide and an inch or 2 deep all over the roast

Fill each slit with the onion/garlic mixture

Now sprinkle some salt and pour any remaining mixture over the outside of the roast, and rub it in.

Heat some olive oil (just enough to wet the bottom) in a cast iron skillet over medium high heat.  Sear all sides of the roast.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm........

I threw it in the oven, covered with a bunch of liquid in there.  Since you're STAYING HOME WHILE YOUR OVEN IS ON....

Put it in the oven uncovered for about 45 minutes.  Then add a little water (about a quarter inch deep in the pot, pour it over the meat when you pour it in) and check it again in about 45 minutes.  When all the water cooks out, mix beef broth (1 cup), brown gravy mix (2 Tbsp) and water (1 cup) in a bowl and whisk until all the lumps are gone.  Pour over roast, cover the pot and cook until roast is fork tender (another hour or so).  Serve it over rice.

I got this in the oven in a little under 30 minutes.  When you cook yours (and you should, this Sunday - Dad, or Dad To Your Babies, will LOVE it!) you can throw it in the oven and just give it a little love every now and again throughout the day.  Here's the printable.

By the way. . . while I was home I grabbed some leftover spaghetti and meatballs. . . that's what we had for dinner last night.

Come back tomorrow....I'll let you know the roast turns out!!!

Citrus-Chili Chicken

Have you ever have one of those weeks that was just a little 'off''?  Last week was one of those weeks.  Nothing Earth-shatteringly bad, just a little wonky.  It started early Monday; I got peed on before I even got off the couch (which I had been "sleeping" on since 2am with a restless toddler -- Oddly enough, that was not the child that peed on me).  Then, on the way to a routine checkup for the boy's ears, someone puked in the back seat.  I could have been thoroughly irritated, but it ended up meaning I got to take the day off of work and spend it with my munchkins - so I took it as a win.  We scheduled a tonsilectomy, which we hope will cure the sleeplessness (his tonsils block his airway when he lies down, so he wakes up gasping for air and we end up sleeping upright on the sofa for the night).  So only a few more sleepless nights, and finally (or at least what I hope is the "finally" in a string of non-stop excitement at our house), Bug jumped/fell off a dining room chair that she wasn't supposed to be standing on Thursday night (while I was trying to cook dinner) and lacerated her eyelid.  It looked really bad at first, so everyone got in the car and we headed to the urgent care center.  Alas, no stitches were needed (yay to no needles!) and it was fine by morning.

In the middle of that weird week, I cooked up a little something new.  I can't help it, it's my therapy.  You see, I've had this little jar of THAI Red Chili Pepper Paste staring at me from the pantry for a little while.  It was intimidating me every time I went in there to get gummies (What?  You don't hide in the pantry to eat snacks without the kids seeing you?).  I haven't really cooked much with Asian flavors, and I was scared.  I finally decided to jump right in, and the results were great.  I grabbed some citrus and ginger and some chow mein noodles that were also mean-mugging me from the pantry shelf.  There are some things I'll do differently next time (I'll tell you about that at the end), but overall, we really enjoyed it.

***Here's the printable***

Gather up this stuff (minus the coconut milk...it didn't make its way in there, maybe next time?).

1 - 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless thighs
1 cup plain greek yogurt
2 Tbsp Roasted Red Chili Paste
1 tsp grated ginger
2 tsp salt
2 tsp orange zest (zest from 1 orange)
2 Tbsp lime juice
3 tsp red pepper flakes
1 cup chicken broth

Trim up your chicken first.  I'm a little OCD about the chicken fat, people.  I really can't stand it.  I trimmed it all off and cut the chicken in to little bite-sized pieces.  I'm sorry, there's really no way to make raw chicken look yummy, but I wanted you to see that it's in pieces.

In a separate bowl put your yogurt, chili paste, ginger, salt, orange zest, lime juice and red pepper flakes.

Then wisk them until everything is all blended together,

and pour it over the chicken pieces.

Stir, stir, stir.

Get your pot nice and hot (sorry about the rhyming there, I didn't mean it), and throw in your yogurted chicken.

Cook them all the way, then pour in some chicken broth.  Stir again and reduce the heat to medium for 5 minutes to let the sauce thicken.

That's it!  Serve this over some noodles, and prepare to be adored!

Okay, so if you're eating this and wondering why I would change it because it's SOOOOOOO good the way it is....I want more heat.  I was a little timid with the Roasted Red Chili Paste because I had never used it before, and I had kids to think about.  Definitely would have liked more kick.  Also, I grated the ginger, which basically made it mush.... I think next time I'll mince in instead.  That's pretty much it.  I just wanted more heat.  If you make it hotter, please let me know what you did and how you liked it!


OH - and a June challenge update (I'm apparently not so good at the daily update) ~

Monday, June 6 - Breakfast for supper, remember?

Tuesday, June 7 - Citrus Chili Chicken - super yum!

Wednesday, June 8 - Pizza (we eat with our bible study group on Wednesdays)

Thursday, June 9 - I was in the middle of cooking when we took Bug to the urgent care place to get zero stitches....so we ate a combination of McDonald's and leftovers from mom's fridge

Friday, June 10 - Some crazy good pasta that I was making Thursday night when Bug smashed her eye.  I had to quit cooking mid-recipe, so I'll be re-cooking and sharing that one with you soon.  It had roma tomatoes, garlic and artichoke hearts....you'll love it!

Saturday, June 11 - frozen pizza (yea, I know....but I cleaned out the kids' rooms that day, so no time for cooking.

Sunday, June 12 - frozen popcorn chicken....more cleaning, less cooking this weekend.

Easy Quesadillas

Did I say easy?  I meant super-fast-and-easy-and-every-body-loves-them!  For weeknight dinners fast is an absolute MUST.  The entire mood of the house changes once the bellies are full (kids and adults)!

Here's how we do quesadillas on-the-quick.

Grab a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store (leftover chicken from the fridge works great, too!).

And some black beans... we used Bush's Grillin' Beans this time, they're tasty and it was faster than heating up beans and corn separately.  Use whatever you've got on hand that looks yummy to you!

De-bone the chicken and shred the meat.

Throw the shredded meat in a deep pan on the stove and heat it up with a packet of taco seasoning mix and water.

Grab a small skillet, spray with cooking spray and throw on a tortilla.

Add shredded cheese, seasoned chicken, beans and (you guessed it) salsa

Fold it over and smash it down with a spatula.

Flip to the other side for even heating/browning.  The one below is not brown.  The kids kinda freak out at the grill marks, so I try not to get theirs brown.  I like them, so I leave it a little longer.

Try these today.  You know you don't feel like cooking on a Friday night....it's been a long week!

Off the Wagon Already

So here I am, day 2 of my June challenge, and I'm off the dinner wagon already.  I'll go ahead and confess it --- we had McDonald's for dinner last night *hangs head in shame*.

We were supposed to have our regular bible study, which we do potluck with, but it cancelled at the last minute due to low participation (apparently some people go on vacation in the summer?).  We ended up at dance, which was a blood pressure raising fiasco in and of itself.  So long story short: no time/patience/desire to cook.  We did drive through.

Sometimes a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.

Better luck tonight ~ I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow!

Salsa Pork Chops Over Lemon-Garlic Zucchini

Okay, so you might be noticing a trend here...I use salsa A LOT.  It's a fast way for me to inject a lot of flavor in a little bit of time ~ and my kids love salsa, so it's an easy win.  And really, who doesn't want their kid begging for more tomatoes?  I do recommend using fresh salsa, though.  You can usually find some in the produce section of your local grocery, or you can make your own.  This dish sort of fell together all by itself.  I had pork chops in the fridge, a co-worker gave me some zucchini and when it looked a little boring I used my trusty fallback - salsa.  John & I loved it...the kids ate it, but they didn't seem to love or hate it.  But they're kids, some days that's all we get, right?

So here we go...let's make dinner!

*Get the printable recipe for zucchini*

First, cut your zucchini so it will fit into the tube of the food processor.

Fit your food processor with the shredder blade, and drop them in one at a time.  I just love the look of this...it's like food confetti.

Slice some garlic.  I like a lot of garlic (6 cloves), you may like less (maybe 4 cloves).

Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a pan; add in the sliced garlic.  Let that cook for about 3 min.

Add in the zucchini and a couple pinches of salt; stir.  Let that cook in for about 5 minutes.

Add lemon juice and another pinch of salt; stir; cover; reduce to low.

I went really easy on the pork chops.  Season with salt and pepper,

throw them in a pan over some hot olive oil (about 4 minutes on each side).  Add in some salsa (about 1 tablespoon/pork chop) when you flip to the second side. 

I plated them together for the adults

 And separately for the kiddos

 All in all, it was a simple, but successful dinner.  What are you having tonight?

June's Challenge

I don't know if I've ever explained why I started this blog in the first place.  My good friend Lindsay called me one day about dinner.  She asked me to start sending her a text every morning telling her what I was going to make for dinner that night.  Uhm...okay...no pressure.  Does anyone else struggle with that question every day?  I did pretty well that first week with my daily texts, but they were spotty after that.  Anyway, through the course of our dinner texts there was a lot of, "can you send me the recipe?" from her.  So I decided I'd put it all in one handy place. 

Since starting my blog though, I've had a lot of kitchen anxiety.  'Is that really blog-worthy?'  'Do I have time to realistically cook that after work?'  'Wow!  These pictures are pretty bad.'  Which has resulted in rare posts and even more rare whole meals for my family.  So for the month of June, I'm laying it all out there.  My June challenge is to show you what we eat every night in our house.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  Whatever it is, I'm going to show you.  I hope it helps you answer the, "What's for dinner?" questions some days...and you'll probably get a chuckle as to what constitutes dinner on other days (for instance the other night it was a few slices of sandwich meat, cheese, no bread, applesauce and potato chips) ~ at least they ate, right?

Please join me here in June to see what's for dinner!