Greek-Inspired Lamb

This weekend, I had a hankering for lamb. Not sure if "hankering" is appropriate when speaking of dead baby animals, because I most assuredly did not want a live one. And I was planning on inviting a friend over that might - just might - out-hanker me in the lamb department, and let me tell you, that is not easy. The highlight of the upcoming trip to Ireland will be the availability of my meat of choice.

So, I've been cooking a lot of Indian-flavored dishes lately and decided to branch out. All the way to Greece. The problem was that I couldn't settle on one recipe. So I took bits and pieces of several and went my own way.

As I told my sister on IM "if I use olive oil, lemon juice & oregano with my lamb, I can just call it Greek".

And that, friends, is the rest of the story.

Greek Inspired Lamb

1 lb lamb, cut into 1"(ish) cubes
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup red wine
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp fresh oregano
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 14 oz can artichoke hearts, drained and cut in half lengthwise
feta cheese

Mix together in a bowl: vinegar, wine, oil, oregano & garlic.



Pour over lamb and stir. Marinate at room temperature for 1 hour, or in the fridge for ...let's say 2? 3?




Pour the whole she-bang into a large skillet and cook for about 10 minutes, moving the lamb around to ensure it's cooking evenly.



Add the tomatoes and bring back to a simmer for about 5 minutes.

Add the artichoke hearts and bring back to a simmer for another 5 minutes.



Serve over brown rice, couscous, etc. and garnish with feta cheese.





MAJOR Note:I was cooking this ahead of time, so when we all returned to the house from a meeting I could just pop it on the stove and heat it up while I cooked some couscous. I tasted it after the tomatoes were added and it was acidic. I freaked out a little bit, and thought "what the hell, I've got a frozen pizza" (discovered later that I didn't, actually) and just added the artichoke hearts and pulled it all off the heat to shove in the fridge.

When I got home, I reheated it as planned - and it was wonderful. Amazingly good. If I try this again - and I probably will, at some point - I might have to play around to figure out how to get the effect without 2 hours of refrigeration.

Tonight's Dinner - what's this called again?

I wanted to say I made carnitas, but that's really just the meat portion of it. So this is maybe a carnita casserole? Or an enchilada casserole with no enchilada sauce? Whatever it is, it made The Professor declare it was good. Since The Professor declares that Mexican food is the lowest on the food chain, I was completely blown away by how much he liked it.

It was kind of a long road to dinner, though, even though I pretty much knew what I was going to do before I started.

I started with a half of a roast (about 2 lb) that was in the freezer, wavering on the edge of being frost-bit. It needed help, ASAP.

The bottle of Jameson's is not intended for this recipe, but if you get the urge, feel free.

I started it's rehabilitation by putting it (after it thawed, duh) in my crock pot.

I dumped in a cup of salsa, a cup of pork stock (no beef in house at the moment, but a can of that would work) a teaspoon of garlic powder, another of ground cumin, a couple of dashes of Taco Bell hot sauce and a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar. I turned it on low and let it go for about 7 hours while I had a lazy Saturday full of much HGTV.

I was disappointed when it came out of the crock pot. I wanted meat so tender that it was falling apart. My meat was most definitely willing to stay together.

But I am nothing if not stubborn, so I persevered. I started shredding it with a couple of forks, pulling out any fat that I ran across.

I took half of the meat and put it in a bowl. Then I got a slotted spoon and started pulling out the solid leftovers from my crock pot (which I had left on while I worked on the meat, so that it might reduce a wee bit. It didn't). When I had about a tablespoon of juicy-tomato-y-salsa-y stuff in with the meat, I mixed it up to keep it from drying out.

Side note - I had also used 2 lonely avocados hanging out in my fridge to make a small batch of guacamole before I started shredding the meat.

Now, I needed some diced tomatoes and some shredded cheese. Cheddar would've been prettier, but I had mozzarella in the fridge. It's healthier, and cheaper. So, Mozzarella is what we use around here.

Now, it's assembly time!

The wine is also purely ornamental. How does all this alcohol keep finding its way into the pics?

I got out my 2 quart round casserole dish and put a soft taco on the bottom.
Spoon half of the meat mixture on top and spread it around, then top it with a handful of tomatoes and some cheese.

Cheese: God's gift to the faithful.

Then do another layer of soft taco, meat, tomatoes and cheese.

Then, just for fun, I did a layer that was just cheese and put another soft taco on top.

I went back to the crock pot and spooned up some more of that lovely liquid - I don't want to waste all of that hard work, after all. More cheese (can you ever really have enough?), another sprinkle of tomatoes, and it was ready for the oven.

After 20 minutes in the oven, I turned on the broiler to get the cheese a little brown and the tomatoes a little toasty.

Note to self: More tomatoes next time.

Half of it went on The Professor's plate (he was sniffing around, getting impatient at this point) with a spoonful of guacamole and another of sour cream.

It's a good thing guacamole tastes so good, cause its not a very photogenic individual.

I think some caramelized onions and maybe a pretty-colored bell pepper would've been awesome, and I'll have to try that next time. Tonight, I just opened a bottle of beer and now....well now, I have a very happy husband.

That Cookbook Thing II

So here I am. Where have I been? Not in the kitchen enough, obviously – or at least, not enough with my camera. But I’m back – over a week late – for the next round of That Cookbook Thing II, where we present you with: Tournedos Sautés Chasseur, or – when spoken without a French accent - Filet Steaks with Mushroom and Madeira Sauce.

This recipe rocked pretty hard for The Professor (although I’m going to have to work hard to find anything else in the book as scrumptious as that chicken dish we did last time). All in all, it’s a good thing that we can’t afford to eat like this every day, for two reasons:

1) I can’t afford that much filet (or tournedos, or whatever similar cut I can find), and
2) Julia = copious amounts of butter.

How in the world have the French avoided massive rates of heart disease? Oh…I bet Julia didn’t spend every waking minute in front of a laptop.

This was startlingly easy – I guess after roasting and setting a chicken on fire, I was expecting something that would require me to be in the kitchen for hours. But this was more than manageable on even a week night.

I’m not going to go into the entire process – Mike’s done a great job of that. And my fellow bloggers have made some great suggestions that I was able to take shameless advantage of:

• Mike and Shaun both commented that the sauce was too tomato-y, so I cut it in half.
• Ruth – I noticed after the fact – made the most perfect looking little potatoes to go with it.
  
• Like Sara, I used sherry instead of Madeira because that’s what I had on hand.
• I haven't done an analysis, but I know that at least one other blogger used filet instead of tournedos - that being what I could find. I asked the butcher at Publix if they made bacon wrapped filets and he promptly did, which kept me from buying a pound of bacon and then "making" myself eat the rest so it wouldn't go bad. God, I love bacon.
  

I also had a lonely red bell pepper that needed something done with it before it committed suicide, so I roasted it in the oven while I cooked and then sliced it up and served it over the top. I don’t care if this makes every French person in the world scream in agony – I love roasted red peppers, and I’ll put them on just about anything.

So now it must be time for pictures. Well, I don’t have any of the finished product – my batteries were all dead and I was too hungry to wait. I got a couple of action shots, though:

The bread, soaking up butter:



The mushrooms, having already soaked up more butter:



The filets - rocking away in yet more butter:


We had nice mixed baby greens salad to go along with it.
And now, if you will excuse me, I have to go run 102094 miles to burn off all that butter.

Venison Casseroles and Rice Balls

I hide it well, but I’m a lazy person. Which is why I have a blog about food and not interior decorating. Because if I had to post pictures of my house, you would be afraid to admit you had even seen the picture. It would taint your color-coordinated, matched-candlesticks soul forever.
{You wouldn’t know this, but that last paragraph wore me out so much, I took a 10 minutes power nap.)

So, when I made the lasagna last month and had about 2 pounds of venison left over, I decided to make a huge casserole for dinner, split most of it up into pans and freeze it. It sounds like I was thinking ahead. In reality, I was thinking of how much more time I would have to lie around on the couch and be lazy on my internets if I had three less dinners to plan in my life. I scrounged around my refrigerator and pantry and found various things to throw in a bowl and call “dinner”.

The frozen version:



The first time I thawed one out, I added some diced tomatoes and tons of basil and oregano; I topped it off with bread crumbs and parmesan cheese, and then baked it until the top was nice and golden. Alas, my laziness made me forget to take a picture.

Last week, I used the second one. After it thawed I added a couple of eggs and some bread crumbs, then formed it into balls and rolled it in more breadcrumbs and cooked them in a couple of inches of vegetable oil.



I made a sauce by heating up a can of diced tomatoes, and then smashing the ever-loving heck out of them with my potato masher, and added some crushed red pepper flakes, thyme and basil.



These rice balls were incredible. So incredible, that I think I’ll do the same thing with the last pan of it that I have in the fridge, although I was planning on adding some corn and chili powder and then topping it off with crushed tortilla chips and cheddar cheese.

The basic casserole:

• 2?? cups uncooked rice
• 2 pounds of ground meat (I used up the venison left
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 2 green bell peppers, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 5 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 four ounce cans of mushrooms
• 1 very large can of cream of mushroom soup

Cook rice.
Brown meat in the skillet.
Sautee the veggies in another skillet.
Mix everything together with some salt and pepper, then divide into dishes.

You can add just about anything to this. The first night, before any of it was frozen, I just dumped some hot sauce on it. The Professor mixed in some barbeque sauce. We were both simultaneously disgusted by the other’s choice, and more than happy with our own.

Something like Shepherd’s Pie (and an apology to all of Ireland)

Can you call something Shepherd’s Pie if:
A) You’ve never seen an actual, honest-to-goodness shepherd in your life?
B) You’re pretty sure there isn’t a shepherd within easy driving distance?
C) You will not be feeding said Pie to anyone who remotely resembles a Shepherd?

To be sure I wasn’t breaking any laws that would get me banned from Ireland for life, I told The Professor to bring out his robe and carry a staff for a while, and maybe shoo the cats from one room to another. I didn’t get very far with any of those requests.

So, Ireland, I want you to know that I tried to be as close as possible to a shepherd, but my husband didn’t feel like “playing any wacky games tonight”.
Oh, and I had no lamb, so I made do with ground beef.
I’m losing you, aren’t I, Ireland?
But I love me some Jameson’s in my coffee, and I absolutely adore the color green. So please let me come back one day if I promise not to call this Shepherd’s Pie anymore?

Something like a Shepherd’s Pie

1 pound ground beef
2 tbsp butter
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
3 carrots, sliced
2 celery stalks, sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 can diced tomatoes
2 tsp time
1 ½ cups of gravy (you can substitute some beef broth and a couple of tablespoons of flour)
Pepper to taste
3-4 cups of mashed potatoes

Start browning the meat in a medium skillet. Cook throroughly.

Melt the butter in a large skillet on medium heat. Add the carrots and cook for about 3-4 minutes. Add the onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic. Cook for about 8-10 minutes or until vegetables are mostly softened.

When the meat is finished browning, drain in a colander and add to the vegetables with the can of tomatoes and the thyme. Pour in the gravy, and mix thoroughly. Add the pepper and pour the whole she-bang into a casserole dish.
Spoon the mashed potatoes on top, spreading to cover.
Bake for about 30-40 minutes.
If you really want to rock someone’s world, serve with some cheese grated on top. OR, add the cheese and pop under the broiler til it gets kinda crispy and yummy.