Easiest Crock-Pot Roast Beef Ever

I love an easy recipe. Even better, one that requires almost no effort on my part, yet still gets rave reviews from my family. This roast beef fit the bill on all levels.

Easiest Crock-Pot Roast Beef Ever

1 chuck roast, 3-4 pounds
1 package Italian dressing mix
1 package Brown gravy mix
1 package Ranch dressing mix
1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons corn starch
1/4 cup cold water

Put the roast in the crock-pot (browning beforehand is optional). Mix the three mixes and the 1/2 cup water, then pour over the roast. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 4 hours. When done, remove the roast and put on a cutting board, allowing it to rest before slicing. Meanwhile, mix the corn starch and cold water in a bowl, then add to the gravy in the crock-pot. Turn crock-pot to High and stir, until gravy thickens.

This was so tender, you could cut it with a fork. The gravy was AWESOME and definitely made the beef way more flavorful. Easy and quick, my favorite kind of cooking!

Shirley

Perfect for Fall's Chill: Oven Baked Beef Stew

There's just something about fall that has me in the kitchen, cooking. I love the smells of things in the oven, love hunkering down with my loved ones and enjoying a dish I've made myself. This oven-baked Beef Stew is one of my all-time favorites and one of those things I crave as soon as the temperatures dip. I've made it a couple dozen times (which is a miracle in my house, because I'm always trying something new!).

Oven-Baked Beef Stew

1 pound round steak, cut into 1-inch cubes

2-3 cups red wine (I use a Shiraz, or a Merlot, something we would normally drink; enough to marinate the beef)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
3 large potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 pound carrots, chopped
2 small onions, chopped
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups red wine (same wine; but NOT the wine in the marinade; I basically dump the rest of the bottle in)
3 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 cup cold water
3 tablespoons corn starch

Marinate the beef in a zip-lock bag for 1 to 3 hours, depending on when you remember to start this ;-). Remove from marinade, then heat olive oil and cook beef until browned. Remove from pan. Cook garlic and vegetables until browned, remove from pan. Melt butter, add flour and make a roux (the base for a sauce, if you don't know what this is, you can go here for the basics). Add the wine gradually, stirring with a whisk. Then the chicken stock and tomato paste. Put the beef, vegetables and liquid into an oven-safe Dutch Oven or other large pot/pan and bake at 375 for two hours (you can also put this in the Crock-pot).

Just before you're ready to serve, you can thicken the stew. I like a really thick stew, so I mix the water and the corn starch, then stir this into the hot stew. It makes it nice and thick, really yummy . I serve it with biscuits and that's enough for a mega meal. Okay, this is totally not Weight Watchers friendly but when it's 25 below outside, I really don't care ;-)

 

Enjoy!

 

Shirley

Oven Baked Beef Stew

I absolutely LOVE this stew. I've made it dozens of times. The original recipe ran in Parade or one of those Sunday newspaper insert things. I've tweaked it over the years to suit my family, but it's a sure hit every time!

No pic, since I'm making it tonight, but if I remember, I'll upload a pic later.

Oven-Baked Beef Stew

1 pound round steak, cut into 1-inch cubes
3 cups red wine (I use a Shiraz, or a Merlot, something we would normally drink)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
3 large potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 pound baby carrots
2 small onions, chopped
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups red wine (same wine; the recipe says to use the marinade wine; I think that's gross, so I use the rest in the bottle for the recipe)
3 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 cup cold water
3 tablespoons corn starch

Marinate the beef for 1 to 3 hours, depending on when you remember to start this ;-). Remove from marinade, then heat olive oil and cook beef until browned. Remove from pan. Cook garlic and vegetables until browned, remove from pan. Melt butter, add flour and make a roux (the base for a sauce, if you don't know what this is, you can go here for the basics). Add the wine gradually, stirring with a whisk. Then the chicken stock and tomato paste. Put the beef, vegetables and liquid into an oven-safe Dutch Oven or other large pot/pan and bake at 375 for two hours (you can also put this in the Crock-pot).

Just before you're ready to serve, you can thicken the stew. I like a really thick stew, so I mix the water and the corn starch, then stir this into the hot stew. It makes it nice and thick, really yummy . I serve it with biscuits and that's enough for a mega meal. Okay, this is totally not Weight Watchers friendly but when it's 25 below outside, I really don't care ;-)

Meatball Stroganoff

Since Beef Stroganoff is a big hit in my house, I thought I'd try a variation on the dish with this Meatball Stroganoff recipe. I've been watching Sam the Cooking Guy lately, and he makes dinner look impossibly easy. So I picked up one of his books (Awesome Recipes and Kitchen Shortcuts) and saw this recipe for Meatball Stroganoff. I had nearly all the ingredients on hand, and when I got to the end of the day today and had that panicked "what am I going to make for dinner" moment at 4:00, I turned to this recipe.

It was good. I had good reviews from all family members. The youngest said he likes this better than my Beef Stroganoff (I think it's because my BS has mushrooms in it and he hates those). I personally like BS better, but this is a great in-a-pinch dish, that was quite delicious. Sort of like Swedish Meatballs on noodles.

Here's what I used for this:

Meatball Stroganoff

1 tsp. olive oil

1 small onion, diced

1 pound frozen meatballs (just plain old frozen meatballs, no fancy flavoring), defrosted

1 12-ounce jar beef gravy

1 cup light sour cream

2 tablespoons horseradish sauce (he said to use regular horseradish, and I had forgotten that when I went to the store, so I used that sauce you buy near the mayonnaise)

1 tablespoon dried dill

1/2 package wide egg noodles, cooked (I used the wheat ones)

Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the onions and cook until translucent and soft. Add meatballs, gravy, sour cream, horseradish and dill and cook, stirring occasionally, until cooked thru. Toss with cooked noodles and serve.

Now, if you want my regular Beef Stroganoff recipe (which is always a huge hit in my house), it's on the blog. I definitely enjoyed Sam the Cooking Guy's take on this recipe, and it'll go in my "what the heck am I going to make for dinner" file. We all have those OMG, it's 4pm and there's nothing to eat moments--use this recipe to get something warm and yummy on the table in like 15 minutes total.

Shirley

Paula's Yummy Enchiladas

I made a recipe my friend gave me the other day and it was a huge hit with everyone in the house. My daughter, who LOVES Mexican food, particularly burritos and enchiladas, went back for seconds, and had the leftovers the next day. The only change I made was to add some cheese to the beef mixture (and also top it with cheese as instructed) because we love cheese ;-)

For me, this recipe made two 13" X 9" pans of enchiladas--I think it was about 12 or 14. They were eaten pretty fast, LOL, so I didn't really pay much attention. Because I had so many, I used extra enchilada sauce, too. So here is Paula's recipe, with the amounts I used added by me :-)

Paula's Enchiladas

2 packages soft tortilla shells ( I like the corn but the flour are bigger usually and the rest of the fam likes them better)
1 can Enchilada sauce
1 can Cream of mushroom soup (i know, sounds weird but it works)
1 pound Ground Beef or Ground turkey
1 can refried beans
grated cheese (any kind you want, I usually use the "mexican blend" or cheddar)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook the beef, heat the shells in the microwave to make them soft. LIGHTLY coat the bottom of a flat baking pan with the enchillada sauce. Mix the soup and cooked beef and refried beans in a bowl. [I added cheese here, about 3/4 of a cup of shredded Mexican blend]. Lay the tortillas and spoon in your mixture. Roll them. Place them in the pan and then use a spoon to spoon over a light coat of the echillada sauce over each tortilla. Then apply cheese generously :) Wrap baking pan in foil , then just before they are done take off foil for another couple of minutes.

You can pretty much wing it on the baking time as its already cooked you just need to heat it up and make the cheese melt. [all together, I think mine spent about 20 minutes in the oven; just until everything was bubbly and the cheese was all melty].

Thanks to Paula for a fabulous recipe that I'll definitely be making again! She was right about the soup--you don't taste it in the final product; it just adds that extra creaminess factor. I use the same kind of thing in my Mexican Catalina Bake.

Enjoy!

Shirley

A Quick and Easy Stir-Fry

At this rate, I'm going to have to get a second wok, I swear ;-). I've been a Chinese food cooking fan lately, making tons and tons of it.


This picture definitely doesn't do the dish any justice. I had to rush to grab a snapshot before the family dug in. They were hungry, and the scents of this dish were very tantalizing. Oranges, plum sauce, soy, beef...


Plus I had homemade fried rice, a recipe I've posted before on the blog. This time, I also roasted a boneless pork chop with some hoisin sauce, putting it on an oven rack over a pan of water (if you look up how to make Chinese barbecued pork on Google, they recommend that to dry it out), and chopped that up to add to the fried rice. Carnivore heaven that night, I guess ;-).

Anyway, this Orange Beef and Broccoli recipe was another one of those Rachael Ray recipes. I did everything, except I cut the jalapeno chile in half, and only added half of what the recipe called for, because my kids aren't big on really spicy food. And I used frozen broccoli that I defrosted in the microwave first, because...that's what I had on hand. :-)


I also used peanut oil to cook with, because that's what I tend to use when I make Chinese food.

I think that's all the substitutions I made :-). Either way, both my kids had seconds, and got mad that there weren't any leftovers. Geez, can't please everyone. ;-).


Shirley
PS: Don't forget Writing Advice Mondays, with your chance to win a copy of one of my books!

Another Asian Night Hit

Last month's Woman's Day magazine had a featured they called "stir crazy" which gave like four stir fry sauce recipes, and then a sort of mix and match stir fry plan. So far, I've tried two of the sauces. Loved both sauces, but didn't have great luck with the combination of food with the second sauce (I made the sweet-and-sour sauce, and then stir-fried it with chicken and veggies. I didn't have the cherries or pineapple you normally get in a Chinese restaurant, and I think that would have made a huge difference, so I'll try it again with those and report back. Plus, we're sweet-and-sour pork people here and I did chicken).

First thing I made turned out GREAT. Ginger-Soy Beef with the ginger-soy sauce, beef, mushrooms, carrots, asparagus and edamame.

There was an adventure finding the edamame in my supermarket -- I finally got it in the organic frozen section. Edamame is high in soy, very good for you. And I snuck it in with success into this dish. Not a single child noticed. I think they thought they were peas (they look like peas).

Ginger-Soy Beef Stir Fry

Sauce

1/2 cup orange juice

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 Tablespoons honey

2 Tablespoons water

1 teaspoon grated ginger (that's the real thing, folks; the one that looks like a root)

1 teaspoon minced scallion (I had no scallions, so I minced up shallots)

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon sesame oil (found in the Oriental/Asian section of the supermarket)

Stir Fry:

1 pound beef, cut into 1/4 inch strips (I used a sirloin steak)

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3 tablespoons oil (I almost always use peanut oil, but you can use canola or vegetable)

veggies of choice -- I used:

1 pound asparagus, cut into thirds

1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced

1/4 pound carrots, sliced

1 cup edamame, shelled

In a zip bag, shake cornstarch with meat. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in wok or large skillet over medium-high heat. Stirfry until browned, then remove. Add 2 more tablespoons of oil, then add veggies and stir-fry until crisp-tender. Add sauce and bring to a simmer. Add meat back in and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes. Serve with noodles or rice.

I served this with homemade fried rice, which is the recipe I ran before. Easy to make, and the more you do it, the easier it gets ;-). Here's a picture of it, all done and cooked by moi.

My son really wants to learn how to make it, so next time I make fried rice, I think I'll have a helper. It's pretty easy -- and once you see how easy, you'll never pay to order it again!

Shirley

Every Time is Exciting

My latest book is in stores as of yesterday and as I wrote on my Amazon Connect blog, every time I see one on shelves, it's a really exciting event. I *still* can't believe that's my book I'm seeing. Still can't believe I wrote that book and still can't believe someone actually published it. And when a fan writes me e-mail, I still can't believe someone actually wrote to me.

It's weird. Authors, well, at least this author ;-), write books, NEVER expecting anyone to actually READ them. When someone does and then writes to me, telling me they liked it (hopefully saying that, LOL), I am truly stunned.

So, to see the book in bookstores is as exciting as it was when I saw my first book in stores. I have a signing at the Valparaiso, Indiana Barnes and Noble on Saturday from 11 to 1 p.m. CST on this Saturday (if you're nearby, come on by and say hi and get a free pen ) and you can bet I'll be marveling at the book, still stunned that I'm actually holding those words I penned back in September 2005.

I've been offline for a couple days, battling another migraine (ugh, ugh, ugh). But better today and back at work. I did get to the gym for three days in a row. Got on the elliptical machine, did some weights. Felt pretty good. I skipped yesterday because the weather was so hideous (the wind chill here was 25 below zero) that I wasn't going to even get out of the car unless someone paid me ;-). But that meant I ended up cheating and eating a ton of Cheez-Its and graham crackers, which showed on the scale, so back at it today.

However, because of the cold, I did make my all-time favorite cold weather meal. Beef stew. This is not your ordinary beef stew. It is a kick-butt beef stew to beat all beef stews. Yum-O, as Rachael Ray would say ;-). I got the recipe from a Parade magazine years ago and tweaked it over the years to be my own.

Oven-Baked Beef Stew

1 pound round steak, cut into 1-inch cubes

3 cups red wine (I use a Shiraz, or a Merlot, something we would normally drink)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon garlic, minced

3 large potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes

1/2 pound baby carrots

2 small onions, chopped

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup flour

2 cups red wine (same wine; the recipe says to use the marinade wine; I think that's gross, so I use the rest in the bottle for the recipe)

3 cups chicken stock

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1/2 cup cold water

3 tablespoons corn starch

Marinate the beef for 1 to 3 hours, depending on when you remember to start this ;-). Remove from marinade, then heat olive oil and cook beef until browned. Remove from pan. Cook garlic and vegetables until browned, remove from pan. Melt butter, add flour and make a roux (the base for a sauce, if you don't know what this is, you can go here for the basics). Add the wine gradually, stirring with a whisk. Then the chicken stock and tomato paste. Put the beef, vegetables and liquid into an oven-safe Dutch Oven or other large pot/pan and bake at 375 for two hours (you can also put this in the Crock-pot).

Just before you're ready to serve, you can thicken the stew. I like a really thick stew, so I mix the water and the corn starch, then stir this into the hot stew. It makes it nice and thick, really yummy . I serve it with biscuits and that's enough for a mega meal. Okay, this is totally not Weight Watchers friendly but when it's 25 below outside, I really don't care ;-)

Have a great day and stay warm!

Shirley

Oh yeah, the Beef Stroghanoff Recipe!

I totally forgot to post this, even though it's been on a BRIGHT PINK post-it on my desk.

Lower-Fat and Calorie Beef Stroghanoff (and hey, if I spelled that word wrong, too bad, it's a blog, not a spelling test ;-)

1 lb. beef, cut into 1-inch chunks (I used a cheap cut of steak
2 tablespoons low-fat margarine or butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 can beef broth (whatever the size is that's the smaller one)
1 package onion soup mix
2 small cans sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup fat free sour cream (I like Breakstones the best)
16 ounces egg noodles, cooked (I used whole wheat ones)

Brown the beef on all sides, then remove from the pan. Melt the margarine, add the flour and make a roux. Add salt and pepper, stir in broth gradually with a whisk, boil for one minute until thickened. Add onion soup mix and mushrooms. Re-add beef and re-heat. When noodles are done and beef is done, add the sour cream at the very end, then serve over the noodles. Easy and quick.

If you can't tell already, I'm all about easy and quick dinners ;-) I'm not one to spend ten hours in my kitchen. I have books to write, after all ;-)

Shirley

Making it Quick: Dilled Meatballs with Veggies

Popping in with a quick recipe. I, for one, am finally, officially sick of both Thanksgiving leftovers and sad to say, pie. I am a pie maniac -- I love it in all forms and types, so it was with great sadness that I had to admit I had had my fill. And went back to a healthy breakfast yesterday. Sigh.

I'm also on deadline (book due Monday) which means I'm scrambling for fast dinners. This is one of my fastest, and easiest. I know I had talked about lots of cookie recipes, but I'm still battling the five pounds from Thanksgiving (okay, yes, eating pie every day for breakfast can do that ) so I'm not baking cookies. Nor do I have time to when I should be writing ;-)

So here is my quickie dinner recipe with NO hint of anything remotely related to turkey!

DILLED MEATBALLS WITH VEGGIES

1 lb. ground beef or turkey
1 cup bread crumbs
2 teaspoons dried dill
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
salt and pepper

1 16-ounce bag frozen broccoli, cauliflower and carrots (California blend, it's sometimes called)
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved (optional)

[Note: If you are totally out of time, use frozen, already done meatballs. I have done it more than once and no one in my family knew, cared or noticed.]. Mix first five ingredients together, form into meatballs about one-inch round. In a non-stick pan, brown meatballs and cook through. Add veggies and chicken broth, simmer until everything is done and cooked. Top with tomatoes if you want them. Serve with pasta if you want some carbs ;-)

That's it! It's very good, really. I usually sprinkle extra dill over the veggies when they're cooking because I really like dill.

Enjoy!

Shirley

P.S.: A note about the picture. I used that one because it reminds me of my son and what he looked like for most of his meals, especially spaghetti and meatballs, when he was younger. We have a running joke around here that if Mom is wearing white, it must be a tomato-sauce dinner night. It never fails that I wear a white shirt and end up making something red for dinner. I think I have this subconscious need to destroy my clothes...so I can go shopping and buy more, of course! ;-)