Chili and the 2011 Chicago Blizzard...

Even though it's mid-April, I decided to post my go-to chili recipe because it's so freaking cold in Chicago today!  When I woke up this morning, there was actually a tiny bit of snow on the ground :(  WTF!  Why won't spring just come already?

Here's a look back at a few pictures I took around our condo during "The 2011 Chicago Blizzard."  I'm so glad that it's (hopefully) going to be warm soon!   Here's a picture of all of the snow accumulating on our deck mid-way through the blizzard:

It took a couple of days before the city even plowed our side street.....I was student teaching at the time (which I drove to in the suburbs), and I was so glad that school was cancelled for two days because there's no way I could have gotten my car out!  Luckily we have an enclosed garage spot, but there was no way I would have been able to get through our alley. 

The sidewalks were too deep to walk through at first, so we took Windy down the tire tracks in the middle of the street for her walks.

I had to take a picture of the car below because I couldn't believe how high the snow drift was!  I feel bad for whoever had to dig this car out....

There were gigantic piles of snow everywhere after our sidewalks got plowed.....

Windy's loving the snow :)

Anyway, back to the chili.....if it's cold where you are, and you want one last pot of chili before it gets warm for good, give this recipe a try.  This is my favorite basic chili recipe (with no beans, but you could certainly add some if you like that).  As always, make sure to taste while you cook and season with plenty of salt and pepper!  I love making this on a Sunday so that we can eat up leftovers during the week.  I have also frozen leftovers to eat later, and this freezes very well.

Ingredients:

2 pounds ground beef
2 onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. chili powder
1 T. cumin
1 T. dried Italian Seasoning
3 (14.5 ounce) cans stewed tomatoes
1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 bottle or can of good beer (IPA's are my personal favorite for drinking and cooking)
salt and pepper, to taste
shredded sharp cheddar cheese, saltine crackers, and cilantro (for serving)

Directions:

1.  Drink half of your bottle of beer.....yummy....then set the other half aside.  Combine ground beef, onion, and garlic in large stockpot. Cook and stir over medium heat until beef is brown. Drain.

2.  Stir in chili powder,cumin, italian seasoning, tomatoes, tomato sauce, and the remaining half of your bottle of beer; break up tomatoes while stirring. Taste and season with salt and pepper to taste (sometimes I'll also add more chili powder and cumin if it needs it).  Heat to boiling, reduce heat to simmer, and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour.  Taste again and re-season as needed.

3.  Serve with shredded cheddar cheese, saltine crackers, and cilantro.

Source:  Adapted from Allrecipes

Italian Meatloaf

Now that it's wintertime, I've been craving some of my favorite comfort foods like chicken noodles and dumplings, bread pudding, and the italian meatloaf that I made the other night.  I'm still working on finding a traditional meatloaf recipe that I love, but this italian meatloaf is great (sorry, the picture above isn't the prettiest).  I found this recipe a few years ago from Michael Chiarello.  My mom makes a really good italian meatloaf too so sometime I'll have to make her recipe and compare the two.  I always serve this italian meatloaf with garlic mashed potatoes and some fresh bread.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter or EVOO

1 red pepper, seeded, small diced
1 small onion, diced (I used a half of a medium sized yellow onion)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 pound ground beef
2 eggs
3/4 cup bread crumbs (I used italian style bread crumbs)
1 cup grated Parmesan
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped basil leaves
1 tablespoon chopped parsley leaves
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper (always use fresh cracked pepper!)
1 to 1 1/2 cups marinara sauce

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the butter or oil in a saute pan over medium heat and add the peppers, onions and garlic. Saute until just soft, remove to a plate and cool.

When the peppers and onions are cool, combine all of the remaining ingredients together except for the marinara. Pack the meat mixture into an oiled loaf pan, if you do not have a loaf pan, form the meat mixture into a loaf shape on an oiled oven tray or baking dish. Top with the marinara making sure to spread evenly over the top.

Bake for approximately 50 to 60 minutes or until an instant-read thermometer registers 160 degrees F in the middle of the meatloaf. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes. Sprinkle the top with parmesan cheese, and then slice and serve.

Pizza Cups

I took my first foods class when I was in middle school, and there is one recipe that I learned in that class that I remember and still make to this day.....pizza cups (it's a little hard to tell from the picture above, but these are little deep dish pizzas baked in a muffin pan)!  After learning to make these, I would always volunteer to make dinner for my family, and eventually they all got super sick of me making pizza cups every single time :)  Regardless, I love these little pizza cups and still make them about once a month on a weekday because they only have a few ingredients and always taste great (I also bet kids would love them)!  The recipe below makes 8 pizza cups (muffin sized) which feeds 2 hungry adults, but a lot of times I'll make a double batch so that I can use a whole pound of ground beef and have leftovers for lunches.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound ground beef
1 cup tomato sauce (we usually use store bought unless I have some leftover sauce in the freezer)
1/2 cup yellow or white onion, diced (optional)
1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic (optional)
1 can refrigerated biscuits - 8 biscuits (we usually use the pillsbury buttermilk biscuits)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
salt, pepper, and italian seasoning, to taste
pam or olive oil to grease the muffin pan

Directions:

1.  In a large skillet, add ground beef, onions, and garlic.  Heat over medium heat until beef is browned through and onions are softened.  Remove from heat, and drain excess grease.  Stir tomato sauce into the beef mixture and season with salt, pepper, and italian seasoning to taste.

2.  Meanwhile, take each refrigerated biscuit, and flatten with your hands and stretch out a bit.  Press each biscuit on the bottom and up the sides of a greased muffin tin (so the biscuit will form a little cup and come all the way up the side of the tin).

3.  Put a pinch of cheese in each biscuit cup.  Then spoon the beef and tomato sauce mixture to fill each cup.  Sprinkle the top with more shredded cheese.

4.  Bake at 350 degrees until biscuit cup edges are golden and cheese is melted (this usually takes me between 18-22 minutes).  If you love pepper like I do, put a little fresh cracked pepper on top of the pizza cups.  Let pizza cups cool for a few minutes and serve.

Meatball Subs

This isn't really a recipe, but I just love meatball subs!  Whenever I make spaghetti and meatballs, I always make sure I'll have some extra meatballs to freeze and use later.  It's so easy to pull together for a quick, weeknight meal, and it's perfect in the winter when you're craving a hot sandwich. 

For these sandwiches, I just bought some sub rolls and stuck them under the broiler with some provolone cheese until the cheese was all melted and the bread was toasted.  Then I added some heated up meatballs with a little tomato sauce and you have a 10 minute meal :)

Beef Tenderloin

This turned out to be a really good main dish to make when having people over.  Since I haven't ever made beef tenderloin, I was a little nervous about how it would turn out since we had Kevin's parents over and it's a pretty expensive cut of meat to mess up, but it turned out good.  I would definitely make this again for a nice dinner.  Our meal was made up of crab dip for an appetizer, beef tenderloin, twice baked potatoes, salad, dinner rolls, and an apple tart that Kevin's mom brought for dessert.  Everything was REALLY good, and Kevin and I used the leftover beef tenderloin to make steak sandwiches the next day.  I made a mustard sauce to go with the beef tenderloin, but it was so juicy that it actually didn't really need a sauce.  My mom gave me this recipe that my Aunt Kathy gave her, and the marinade had a great flavor.

Ingredients:

3-4 lb. beef tenderloin, trimmed and silver skin removed (I actually cheated and bought the already trimmed and prepared tenderloin from costco, but it is cheaper to do it yourself)

4 or 5 slices of bacon

fresh cracked pepper

Marinade-

3/4 cup unsweetened pineapple juice

1/2 cup steak sauce

1/3 cup worstershire sauce

1/3 cup port wine

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 teaspoons seasoned salt

1 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper

1 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning

1 teaspoon dry mustard

Directions:

1.  Mix marinade ingredients together in a large, ziploc bag.  Add beef tenderloin and marinate for about 8 hours (you could also do this overnight).

2.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

3.  Place beef tenderloin on a roasting rack with marinade in the bottom of the pan.  Rub cracked pepper on the tenderloin and top with a few slices of uncooked bacon.

4.  Bake (uncovered) for about 35-45 minutes or until meat reaches your desired temperature.  Baste with the marinade twice during cooking.  Remove bacon and let stand for about 15 minutes before carving.  Slice into 1/2 inch slices and serve.

We wanted our beef tenderloin to be medium rare so we took it out of the oven around 123 degrees and then by the time we let it rest and sliced it, it was about 128 degrees.

French Dip Sandwiches

Last night's dinner literally took me less than 15 minutes from the time I started slicing my onions to the time we sat down to eat.  This is a perfect weeknight meal to throw together with only 5 ingredients to buy from the grocery store.  Although I will say that I haven't bought deli meat in awhile and I didn't realize that a pound of roast beef was $11 at my grocery store (Dominicks)!  That seemed like a lot so I tried to cut a few bucks off by only getting 3/4 of a pound which worked out fine for us.  I adapted this recipe from http://www.allrecipes.com/.  The things that I changed from the original recipe are:  I added some sauteed sliced onions to the sandwiches, I seasoned the beef consomme with a little fresh cracked pepper and some garlic powder, and I only used 1 slice of provolone on each sandwich because my slices were pretty big and had a strong flavor.

Ingredients:

1 (10.5 ounce) can beef consomme

1 cup water
1 pound thinly sliced deli roast beef
8 slices provolone cheese
4 hoagie rolls, split lengthwise
1 white or yellow onion
EVOO to saute onion

Directions:

1.  Slice up an onion and saute in a little olive oil until softened (about 10-12 minutes)

 

2.  Meanwhile, heat your beef consumme and water in a saucepan over medium head until slightly boiling (at this time I seasoned with a little pepper and garlic powder).  Reduce heat to low, place the roast beef in the broth, and warm for about 3 minutes or so.

 

3.  Put the cheese slices on your hoagie rolls and broil on low for a few minutes until cheese is melted and bread is toasted.

 

4.  Add some roast beef to each sandwich and either drizzle with some of the broth or serve the broth on the side for dipping.

This was REALLY good.  The beef consumme gave the roast beef a great flavor.

Spaghetti, Meatballs, & Italian Sausage

So this recipe came from my mom who got it from my Great Grandma Jean. Grandma Jean came over to America from Italy was she was just a baby, and she had some great Italian recipes. I can't believe I haven't actually made this recipe myself before last night, but my mom would make this a lot for us when we were growing up. I promised Kevin last week that I would make spaghetti and meatballs for our Sunday dinner so yesterday I called my mom and she talked me through the recipe. It turned out really great and we have tons of leftovers.

Ingredients:

Meatballs -
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
3/4 cup grated romano cheese (or you could also use grated parmesan)
3 T minced garlic
1 onion, chopped very finely in the food processor
5 slices good italian bread with crust taken off and then soaked in warm water for a minute or so, then wring as much liquid out as you can once you are ready to use
2 eggs
1/4 cup fresh italian parsely, minced
salt and pepper to taste (but be generous)

Tomato Sauce -
3 (12 oz) cans tomato paste (you can adjust this amount depending on how much sauce you want and just also adjust the amount of water you add)
water (you will use a 3 to 1 ratio of water to tomato paste so since I used 3 cans of tomato paste, I used 9 cans of water)
1 onion, chopped
3 T minced garlic
1/4 cup sugar (can adjust to taste)
salt, pepper, and italian seasoning to taste (but again, be generous)

Other -
EVOO
1 lb spaghetti
1 package italian sausage (we used hot, but sweet would also be really good)

Directions:

1. Mix together all of your meatball ingredients with your hands and then form meatballs into about the size of golf balls.

2. In batches, brown meatballs in a little EVOO until almost cooked through. Set on paper towels to drain, but reserve the oil and meatball grease in the pan (at first, I had a little trouble with my meatballs falling apart when I tried to turn them so be gentle with them and make sure you have enough EVOO in the pan for the first batch.  Also, next time I make them I'll make a little smaller because I think that might help them hold together better.)

3. Meanwhile, cook italian sausages until almost cooked through (I boiled mine in a deep skillet for awhile, then drained the water and added some EVOO to brown on the outside). Set on paper towels to drain and then cut to desired size (I cut each sausage into thirds).

Here's what the meatballs and sausages looked like after browning:

4. In meatball skillet, saute your chopped onion, garlic, and italian seasoning until softened (about 5 minutes).

This is what my onions and garlic looked like:

5. In a large stockpot, mix together 3 cans of tomato paste and 9 cups of water and bring to a boil. Sauce will thicken a bit, but if it looks too thin or too thick you can add a little more tomato paste or water.

6. To the sauce, add the sauteed onions & garlic, sugar, and salt & pepper to taste. Keep seasoning until you are happy with the flavor of the sauce (make sure you add enough salt - when I first tasted my sauce it didn't taste good at all and then once I added quite a bit more salt it tasted amazing!).

7. Carefully add in the meatballs and italian sausages to the sauce and simmer over low heat for about an hour.

Here's what my sauce looked like:

8. Meanwhile, cook 1 lb of spaghetti according to the package directions.

9. Once you are ready to eat, serve each plate up with some spaghetti and top that with the sauce, meatballs, and italian sausage.

To serve, we grated a little parmesan on top and served with some garlic bread and a green salad. It was a perfect Sunday dinner!  The sauce was soooo good....awhile back I had made some of Giada's marinara sauce and wasn't that happy with the flavor of it so this is going to be my go-to tomato sauce.

Slow Cooker Pepperoncini Beef

I'll admit that last night was the first night I have ever used my slow cooker to make dinner. I've used it before to keep cheese dip warm, but for some reason I haven't found a lot of slow cooker recipes that I have wanted to try.

I recently started a masters program, and I'm at night class 3 nights a week so I was trying to find some recipes that I could make ahead of time that my husband could eat when he gets home from work and then I could eat once I got home from class. Kevin (my husband) has a lot of great qualities, but he doesn't have a lot of experience cooking for himself unless it involves putting a frozen pizza in the oven. I decided slow cooker recipes would suit our needs so I'm going to try to make 1 slow cooker recipe per week or a casserole recipe that he can just stick in the oven when he gets home.

Here is the first slow cooker recipe I decided to try. I was really happy with how incredibly easy it was and how good it turned out. It was definitely a hit! I found the original recipe here on http://www.allrecipes.com/, but I made just a couple small adjustments.

Ingredients:

1 (3 pound) beef chuck roast
4 teaspoons minced garlic
1 (16 ounce) jar pepperoncini
1 onion, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
hoagie / sub rolls
sliced provolone cheese

Directions:

1. Season the roast with salt and pepper to taste.
2. Place roast in the slow cooker, and pour the entire contents of the jar of pepperoncini, including liquid, over meat. Add in the minced garlic and sliced onion.
3. Cover, and cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours (I cooked on low for about 7 hours and then set my slow cooker to warm until we were ready to eat).
4. To serve, put sub rolls with provolone cheese under the broiler for a few minutes to melt the cheese and toast the bread. Add as much of the meat mixture as you want and enjoy :)

Here's what the meat looked like in the slow cooker:

It was a very easy weeknight meal!

Sloppy Joes

So tonight was the first time that I have ever made homemade sloppy joes. Usually in the past I have just used the Manwich sloppy joe sauce but I found this recipe on http://www.allrecipes.com/, and I had all of the ingredients so I decided to give it a try. It turned out very easy and really tasty so I think I'll go with this recipe from now on!

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground beef
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
3/4 cup ketchup
3 teaspoons brown sugar
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

In a medium skillet over medium heat, brown the ground beef, onion, and green pepper; drain off liquids.

Stir in the garlic powder, mustard, ketchup, and brown sugar; mix thoroughly. Reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

The original recipe can be found here. I doubled the recipe so that I could have leftovers to freeze for another meal. I also added a splash of worcestershire sauce, a splash of red wine vinegar, and a couple tablespoons of good BBQ sauce. I served them on onion rolls that I toasted under the broiler with a little aged cheddar cheese.

Very tasty!