The 21 Best Recipes to Cook for Father’s Day: BA Daily: Bon Appétit.
Looking for something great to make for Dad for Father’s Day dinner this year? Bon Appetit has put together 21 recipes of some great entrees and side dishes to make for dinner that any Dad is sure to love. There’s plenty of beef, fish, chicken, lamb and more to choose from as a main course, so check them out and see if you find something to make.
Making a one-pot meal for dinner has some great advantages to it. Not only does it make cleanup after the meal simple and easy, but cooking everything together in one pot or pan gives all the food the chance to meld flavors. As soon as I saw this recipe in bon appétit Magazine, I knew I was not only going to give the recipe a try, but that I was going to add vegetables to it so we could have the complete meal together.
Roast Provençal Chicken with Roasted Vegetables
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/4 cup herbes de Provence
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 3 1/2 to 4 pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
4 parsnips, peeled and chopped
2 onions, peeled and cut into quarters
2 sweet potatoes, chopped
2 Yukon gold potatoes, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 475°. Mix the garlic, herbes de Provence, oil, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Rub the mixture all over the pieces of chicken, covering the skin on both sides. Place the chicken on a wire rack.
Add the carrots, parsnips, onions, sweet potatoes, and potatoes to the roasting pan. Mix the olive oil with the vegetables, tossing to evenly coat everything. Season with salt and pepper. Place the chicken on top of the vegetables and roast the chicken in the oven until the skin begins to brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350° and roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the largest piece of chicken registers 165°, about 30 to 40 minutes longer. Remove the chicken from the oven to a separate platter and cover to rest for 10 minutes. Put the roasting pan back in the oven to allow the vegetables to roast longer and caramelize for another 10 minutes. Remove the vegetables and place on a separate serving platter.
If you didn’t want to cut the chicken up beforehand, you could certainly leave it all and then rub the herb mixture inside and outside the chicken before you roast it. If you like your vegetables a little crisper, when you place them back in the oven after removing the chicken you could turn the heat up on the oven to 450° and let them roast at a higher temperature for a little bit longer. I particularly like the way the spices came out on the chicken itself. They tasted great with the vegetables and you could use any vegetables that you like here, although vegetables work best for this type of roasting because they can sustain in the oven a little bit longer than the other vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower or the like.
That’s all there is for today. Check back again next time to see what other recipes I use for the week. I still have a couple of other things planned for the coming days so hopefully I can get to them. I know I’ll be making something with Italian sausage, some type of chicken sandwich and I also have a couple of pork recipes that I want to try out soon so keep checking back to see what I decide to make. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
While you can get soft-shell crab until about the month of September, the best time of year is to get it between June and July. The local fish market that I go to just recently started having it in and since I was there yesterday I decided to get some. Ideally, if you can get the crabs live that is the best way for you to get them. Most fish places will then clean it for you, which usually involves them trimming off the eyes and mouth and cleaning out the gills. Soft-shell crab should be eaten within 24 hours of purchasing that way you can be sure that it is good and fresh. Most recipes you will come across involved sautéing or frying the crab in some way. I decided to use this recipe that I’ve found from Tyler Florence that makes a soft-shell crab BLT with a special lemon-pepper mayonnaise.
Soft-Shell Crab BLT with Lemon-Pepper Mayonnaise
Lemon-Pepper Mayonnaise
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 lemon, juiced
1 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons cracked black pepper
1 handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
Crabs
2 cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon crab boil seasoning
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 medium soft-shell crabs, cleaned and rinsed
Vegetable oil, for frying
2 cups all-purpose flour
Sandwich
4 soft bread rolls, such as brioche or croissants, split and lightly toasted
4 red leaf lettuce leaves
1 fine-ripe tomato, sliced
8 slices hickory-smoked bacon, cooked
1 avocado, halved, pitted, peeled, and sliced
To make the mayonnaise, in a food processor, combine the egg yolks, salt, dry mustard, and lemon juice; process together to form a stable base. With the motor running on the food processor, add a few drops of the oil through the feed tube, until the mixture begins to thicken. Begin adding the remaining oil in a thin, steady stream. Scrape down the sides of the food processor and pour the mayonnaise into a small bowl. Mix in the black pepper and the parsley, cover, and refrigerate. The mayonnaise may be kept for up to 3 days.
To prepare the soft-shell crabs, pour the buttermilk in a shallow bowl large enough to hold all the crabs. Season the buttermilk with crab boil seasoning, salt, and pepper. Lay the crabs in the buttermilk mixture and marinate, covered, in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Soaking the crabs in the buttermilk will help them plump up when cooked. Remove the crabs from the milk bath and let the excess drip off.
Pour 2 inches of vegetable oil in a heavy frying pan or large pot and heat to 350°. Put the flour in a pie dish or plate and season with a fair amount of salt and pepper. Dredge the crabs in seasoned flour to coat, shaking off the excess. Lay the crabs in the hot oil in a single layer without crowding; you may have to fry them in batches. Be careful since the crabs have a tendency to pop and spatter (if you have a splatter screen, now is a good time to break it out and use it). Cook the crabs for about 3 minutes on each side, turning once, until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
To build the sandwich, spread the lemon-pepper mayonnaise on both halves of the toasted bread. Add the lettuce, tomato, bacon, and avocado. Lay a fried soft-shell crab on top and close up the sandwich.
I love the way this sandwich came out. The crab tasted great with the bacon and avocado and the lemon-pepper mayonnaise added just the right flavor to the sandwich. I did season the flour a little bit with some Old Bay seasoning to add some extra flavor. One word of warning when making the mayonnaise – when you’re going to use raw egg yolks, I would recommend that you use eggs that have already been pasteurized to avoid any risk of salmonella. You could also make the lemon-pepper mayonnaise by using store-bought mayonnaise and simply mixing and the lemon juice, dry mustard, pepper and parsley yourself and avoid the problem altogether. Mayonnaise itself isn’t that hard to make if you have food processor or a really strong wrist for whisking, so you should give it a try sometime if not this time. I also added a little bit of sliced red onion to the sandwich. I served the sandwiches with some homemade coleslaw and it was a perfect meal for a hot night.
That’s all there is for today. Check back again during the week to see what other recipes we decide to use. I did go shopping yesterday and I do have some plans this week to make some chicken, some pork chops and I did get some ground beef and some sausage, though I have not yet decided what to do with them. So check back and see what comes along. Until the next time, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Even though it’s been quite hot here this week, I’d been having a hankering for some meatloaf. I haven’t made one in quite a while so I went out and bought the meat and then started looking for a new way to make it. There is nothing wrong with the recipes I’ve used in the past; every once in a while I’d just like to try something different. That’s when I came across this recipe from Tyler Florence. It was listed on the Cooking Channel’s website and it looked pretty interesting so I thought I would give it a try.
Meatloaf with Tomato Relish
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 bay leaves
2 red bell peppers, cored, seeded, and finely diced
2 tomatoes, halved, seeded, and finely diced
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
12 ounces ketchup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 slices white bread, crusts removed, torn into chunks
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 pound ground pork
2 eggs
Leaves from 2 fresh thyme sprigs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 to 4 bacon slices
Preheat the oven to 350°. Coat a large skillet with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and place over medium heat. Sauté the onion, garlic, and bay leaves for a few minutes to create a base flavor. Add the red peppers and cook for 2 to 3 minutes until softened. Add the 2 tomatoes and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the parsley, ketchup and Worcestershire; season with salt and pepper. Simmer the relish for 5 minutes until all the flavors meld. Remove the pan from the heat; you should have about 4 cups of relish.
Place the torn white bread in a bowl and add the milk to just barely cover. Swish the bread around in the milk and allow it to sit while you gather the rest of the ingredients for the meatloaf. In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground beef and pork with 1 1/2 cups of the tomato relish, the eggs, and the thyme; season with salt and pepper. Squeeze the excess milk from the bread and add the soaked bread to the meat mixture. Toss the ingredients with your hands and mix together to blend everything well.
Lightly oil a cookie sheet. Transfer the meat mixture to the center of the cookie sheet and format into a log about 9 inches long and 4 inches wide. Coat the top of the meatloaf with another 1/2 cup of the tomato relish. Lay the bacon slices across the top of the meat lengthwise.
Bake the meatloaf for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until the bacon is crisp and the meatloaf is firm. Rotate the meatloaf while it is baking every 25 minutes to ensure that the bacon browns evenly. Remove the meatloaf from the oven and allow it to cool for 5 minutes before slicing. Serve with the remaining tomato relish on the side.
I have to say I was a little bit skeptical as to how the meatloaf itself would come out without having a lot of spices in it, but I was pleasantly surprised. The tomato relish adds a really nice flavor to the meatloaf and keeps it very moist. The great thing is that there’s always leftovers with meatloaf that you can use for sandwiches later on. I served this with mashed potatoes and corn and made a a simple beef gravy with 2 cups of beef stock, 1/4 cup of flour, 2 tablespoons of butter and some salt and pepper. I poured in some of the drippings from the meatloaf with the butter and flour, whisked it together to make a quick roux and then slowly added the beef stock, whisking the whole time to make a nice gravy. To me, you can’t have meatloaf and mashed potatoes without any gravy. I would definitely make this recipe again.
That’s it for today. Check back again next time to see what recipes come along. I have a few ideas for the coming week but I still need to do my shopping for next week so I’m not quite sure if everything will work out the way I hope. We’ll have to see what kind of ingredients I can get and what we decide to make. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Everyone loves to have a hamburger of some sort. There are thousands of different recipes all over the place using all kinds of different meats, cheeses, sauces, condiments and rolls. I have posted links just within the last week of many different burger recipes you can use for this summer on your grill. One in particular that struck me and made me want to give it a try was one that was posted by the Food Network. The recipe specifically is from Marc Murphy, a well-known chef and restaurant owner many may be familiar with the as one of the judges on the show “Chopped.” He offered up a recipe for what he calls “The Big Marc.”
The Big Marc Burger
Homemade Cheddar and Black Pepper Buns
1 cup warm water
1 1/2 ounces fresh yeast
1/2 cup sugar
4 ounces butter, melted, plus more for greasing
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 to 5 cups all-purpose flour
8 ounces shredded cheddar cheese
1 and freshly cracked black pepper
Spiked Ketchup
1 head garlic
Olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 1/2 cups ketchup
5 ounces vodka (about 2/3 cup)
Burgers
2 1/2 pounds 80/20 ground beef, formed into six 6-ounce patties
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons canola oil
3 ounces melted butter
Bread and butter pickles
For the buns, stir the water, yeast and sugar together to activate the yeast. You can tell when the yeast is activated-little bubbles will have formed, which will take several minutes. Add the melted butter and 3 of the eggs and mix until incorporated.
Add 4 cups of flour and the salt to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment. Mix together on low speed, then stop and add the wet ingredients. Continue to mix until the dough is very smooth, about 5 minutes. You may want to add a little bit more flour as you mix; the dough should be sticky but workable. Transfer the dough to a bowl. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel, place in a warm area and let rise until the dough has doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
After the dough has proofed (risen), turn it out onto a lightly-floured countertop and knead in the cheddar and black pepper. Try not to overwork the dough; once the cheese is mixed in you can stop. Cut the dough into 6 equal portions and shape them into round balls. Place on a buttered baking sheet and flatten them with your hand. Cover and let rise again in a warm area until they have doubled in size, about 30 minutes more. When they are almost doubled in size, preheat the oven to 350°. Beat the remaining egg in a small bowl and brush the tops of the rolls with the egg. Bake until golden brown, rotating halfway through, about 10 to 15 minutes.Cool the rolls on a wire rack.
For the ketchup, turn the oven down to 250°. Cut the garlic in half crosswise and sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Wrap the garlic in aluminum foil and roast until soft, about 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the garlic from the skins and mix into a paste. Reserve 1 tablespoon for the ketchup, and keep the remaining garlic for another use. Whisk together the mayonnaise, mustard and roasted garlic in a bowl. Add the ketchup and vodka and mix until incorporated. This will keep for up to 6 days in the refrigerator.
For cooking the burgers, heat a skillet over high heat or heat an outdoor grill to high. Sprinkle the patties with salt and pepper. Coat with oil and sear or grill until medium rare, about 3 to 5 minutes per side.
Slice the buns in half horizontally and brush with the melted butter. Toast in the skillet or on the grill. Arrange pickles slices on each bottom bun and place a hamburger on top. Slather 1 to 2 tablespoons of spiked ketchup over the burger and set the top bun in place. Serve with the remaining ketchup on the side.
Just a few things about this recipe. Number one, I’ve never made any type of buns like this before so it was a new experiment for me. I have to say it was pretty easily done and they came out quite nice. I did eliminate putting the cheddarr and black pepper into the rolls because I wasn’t sure how they would come out and wanted to try them just plain the first time around. We all liked the hamburger buns better than anything you would buy at the supermarket. As is noted in the recipe, however, the recipes for the buns and the ketchup are quite large. The buns themselves come out big when they are finished and are probably more than what you need for a hamburger unless you really like a large roll. I actually ended up cutting the recipes for the buns and the ketchup in half of what is shown here and still ended up with a lot of ketchup and big buns. Next time, I think I will portion the buns out to make them even smaller and see how they come out and maybe even just do 1/3 of the ketchup recipe. You could go for completely homemade in this recipe and grind your own beef with a mixture of chuck and sirloin and form your own patties that way. Of course, you can serve any condiments or sauces that you like on the side. We actually made ours with some crispy bacon and some onion rings.
That’s the recipe for today. Check back next time and you can see the meatloaf recipe I tried out recently that comes from Tyler Florence. I also have a few other recipes for the coming days and weeks so you want to keep checking back and see what comes up. Until then, try to stay: this heat wave were experiencing in New York and enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
I love making ribs of all kinds no matter what time of year it is, but as the summer approaches it gets to be more and more the type of thing that people want to cook on the grill. Unfortunately, living in a condominium here in New York limits the grilling that we can do since we can’t have a charcoal or gas grill here. This means that I have to try to find ways to do this type of cooking indoors. I am always on the lookout for new recipes for ways to make spare ribs or baby back ribs (which are my personal favorite) and I came across this one from Williams-Sonoma on their website so I thought I would give it a try.
Baby Back Ribs
2 racks baby back ribs (about 5 pounds total)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup ketchup-style chili sauce
1/2 cup peach or apricot preserves
2 tablespoons dark molasses
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
Preheat the oven to 350°. Cut each rib rack into 2 or 3 sections. Mix together the salt, paprika, oregano, thyme, granulated garlic, onion powder and pepper. Sprinkle the mixture on both sides of the ribs and rub it into the meat.
Arrange the ribs, overlapping slightly if necessary, in a large roasting pan. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil, place in the oven and cook for 30 minutes. Remove the foil, turn the ribs and return them to the oven. Continue cooking until the ribs are tender and browned, about 30 minutes more.
Meanwhile, make the sauce. In a small saucepan, stir together the chili sauce, peach preserves, molasses, vinegar, mustard and hot pepper sauce and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Remove from the heat and set aside.
If you are you using a grill, prepare the grill for direct-heat cooking over medium-high heat. Lightly oil the cooking grate. Brush both sides of the ribs with the sauce. Place on the grill, cover and cook, turning once, until shiny and glazed, about 3 minutes per side. Alternatively, if you are planning to use the oven, increase the oven temperature to 425°. Pour off the fat in the roasting pan, then return the ribs to the pan. Brush the ribs with some of the sauce and cook until the ribs are shiny and glazed, about 5 minutes. Turn, brush the ribs with more of the sauce and cook to glaze the other side, about 5 minutes more.
Transfer the ribs to a carving board and let stand for 5 minutes. Cut between the bones into individual ribs, heap on a platter and serve with any of the remaining sauce.
You could easily use spare ribs for this recipe instead of the baby back ribs. Just keep in mind that the spare ribs tend to be larger and a little tougher than the baby back ribs so they will take more time to cook. You should allow for about 45 minutes of covered baking, another 45 minutes uncovered and then 15 minutes after you put the sauce on for glazing. I think they came out great cooked just in the oven but if you have the opportunity to put them on the grill after starting them in the oven I think you could get nice flavor from that as well. I like the glaze and the combination of the apricot preserves (which is what I had on hand), the chili sauce, the mustard and the hot pepper sauce. It made a nice combination and gave a great flavor to the ribs. I served this with sweet potatoes and corn on the cob, although you could easily do it with coleslaw and potato salad, which go great with things like ribs.
That’s all there is for today. Check back again next time and see which recipes that I will post. I tried a new method for burgers yesterday and made my own homemade hamburger rolls and a special ketchup, both recipes that I got from Marc Murphy, and I think they turned out great. Check in next time and I’ll be posting those recipes. I am also planning a few other things for the coming days and weeks so you want to keep checking back and see what comes along. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
It was a cool and rainy day here in our part of New York yesterday. I know parts north of here actually got snow, which sounds ridiculous for Memorial Day weekend, but it did happen. I’m sure that had something of an influence in the type of dinner I decided to make last night. I chose this recipe from America’s Test Kitchen for a maple-glazed pork tenderloin. It was very quick to make and would be excellent for a weeknight meal and the time of the year.
Maple-Glazed Pork Tenderloin
3/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup molasses, light or mild
2 tablespoons bourbon or brandy
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch ground cloves
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
2 pork tenderloins (1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds each)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 375°. Stir 1/2 cup of maple syrup, molasses, bourbon, cinnamon, cloves, and cayenne together in a 2-cup liquid measure; set aside. Whisk the cornstarch, sugar, salt, and black pepper in a small bowl until combined. Transfer the cornstarch mixture to a rimmed baking sheet. pat the tenderloins dry with paper towels, then roll them in the cornstarch mixture until they are evenly coated on all sides. Thoroughly pat off any excess cornstarch mixture.
Heat the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until just beginning to smoke. Reduce the heat to medium and place both tenderloins in the skillet, leaving at least 1 inch in between them. Cook until they are well browned on all sides, about 8 to 12 minutes. Transfer the tenderloins to a wire rack set inside a rimmed baking sheet.
Pour off any excess fat from the skillet and return it to medium heat. Add the syrup mixture to the skillet, scraping up any browned bits with a wooden spoon, and cook until the mixture is reduced to 1/2 cup, about 2 minutes. Transfer 2 tablespoons of the glaze to a small bowl and set aside. Using the remaining glaze, brush each tenderloin with approximately 1 tablespoon of glaze. Roast the tenderloins until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the tenderloins registers 130°, about 12 to 20 minutes. Brush each tenderloin with another tablespoon of glaze and continued to roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the tenderloins registers 135 to 140°, about 2 to 4 minutes longer. Remove the tenderloins from the oven and brush each with the remaining glaze; allow to rest, uncovered, for about 10 minutes.
While the tenderloins rest, stir the remaining 1/4 cup of maple syrup and mustard into the reserved 2 tablespoons of glaze. Brush each tenderloin with 1 tablespoon of the mustard glaze. Transfer the meat to a cutting board and slice into 1/4-inch-thick pieces. Serve, passing the extra mustard glaze at the table.
Rolling the tenderloins in the cornstarch mixture really did make a difference in making sure that the coating and glaze adhered well to the meat. It also helped to give a nice crunch to the outer coat of the meat and glaze. Make sure you use real maple syrup and not the imitation stuff most of us use on pancakes and waffles. The imitation will be way too sweet for this type of recipe. I love the way it all came out and that it did have a little bit of sweetness to it because of the syrup and molasses and you could even taste a little bit of the bourbon in the recipe. I served this with noodles and corn on the cob.
That’s all there is for today. I’ll have some more recipes this week, including a few desserts that we made for a classic pound cake and Michelle’s famous oatmeal cookies. We also did a nice homemade breakfast today that included some nice home fries, some sausage and scrambled eggs, a basic breakfast but it was all homemade. Check back later in the week for all of that. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day today and enjoy your meal!
I know it’s not the ideal start to a long weekend when two days ago it was 85° out and I was looking to turn the air conditioner on and then we wake up this morning and it’s 42° outside and windy and rainy. Since the weekend doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better until Monday, today is a good day to do a recipe for a classic spaghetti and meatballs. This recipe, from Cook’s Illustrated, is designed if you’re cooking for a large crowd so you want to keep that in mind if you are going to use this recipe. When I do it for just the three of us I generally have to adjust it down a little bit and we still end up with enough sauce and meatballs left over where we can freeze some for another several meals.
Classic Spaghetti and Meatballs for a Crowd
Meatballs
2 1/4 cups panko bread crumbs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
3 tablespoons water
2 pounds 85% lean ground beef
1 pound ground pork
3 large eggs
3 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated
6 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Sauce
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, grated
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
3 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
6 cups tomato juice
6 tablespoons dry white wine
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup minced fresh basil
3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
Sugar
3 pound spaghetti
2 tablespoons salt
Grated Parmesan cheese
For the meatballs: adjust oven racks to the lower-middle and upper-middle positions and heat the oven to 450°. Set wire racks into aluminum foil-lined rimmed baking sheets and spray the racks with vegetable oil spray.
Combine the bread crumbs and the buttermilk in a large bowl and let sit, mashing occasionally with a fork, until a smooth paste forms, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, sprinkle the gelatin over the water in a small bowl and allow it to soften for 5 minutes.
Mix the ground beef, ground pork, eggs, Parmesan, parsley, garlic, salt, pepper, and gelatin mixture into the bread crumb mixture using your hands. Pinch off and roll the mixture into 2-inch meatballs (about 40 meatballs total) and arrange on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the meatballs are well browned, about 30 minutes, switching and rotating the baking sheets halfway through the baking process.
For the sauce: while the meatballs bake, heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering. Add the onion and cook until softened and lightly browned, about 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the garlic, oregano and pepper flakes and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the crushed tomatoes, tomato juice, wine, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper, bring to a simmer, and cook until the sauce thickens slightly, about 15 minutes.
Remove the meatballs from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 300°. Gently nestled the meatballs into the sauce. Cover, transfer to the oven, and cook until the meatballs are firm and the sauce has thickened, about one hour. The sauce in the meatballs can be cooled and refrigerated for up to 2 days. To re-heat, drizzle 1/2 cup of water over the sauce, without stirring, and re-heat on the lower-middle rack of a 325° oven for 1 hour.
Meanwhile, bring 10 quarts of water to a boil in a large 12-quart pot. Add the pasta and salt and cook, stirring often, until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water, then drain the pasta and return it to the pot.
Gently stir the basil and parsley into the sauce and season with sugar, salt, and pepper to taste. Add 2 cups of sauce (without meatballs) to the pasta and toss to combine. Add the reserved cooking water as needed to adjust the consistency. Serve, topping the individual portions with more tomato sauce and several meatballs and passing the Parmesan cheese
As I said, this recipe makes a lot of food. They outline it as having enough to serve 12 people, but if you make the full recipe I think it could even serve more than that. I have always gotten more than 40 meatballs out of the recipe so we always have plenty left over for uses down the road. Their recipe also calls for some prosciutto to be used in the meatball mixture, which I leave out. I do like the way that the meatballs come out when they are baked in the oven and then the entire concoction with the sauce is placed in the oven again. The thickness of the sauce and the taste of the meatballs seems to be a lot better to me. You could easily served this with any type of pasta that you wish and I love to make some garlic bread to go along with it.
That’s the recipe for today. We did some shopping this morning so I did get a few things and to make over the next few days or so. Tonight I’ll be making a pork tenderloin dinner so you can check back for the recipe on that one. I also picked up some baby back ribs and the makings for some meatloaf so will be having those this week as well. I do plan to head up to Adams and see if they have anything else interesting that we might use for dinner this week. Check back and see what we come up with. Until then, enjoy the rest of your rainy day and enjoy your meal!
I try to make a stir-fry recipe at least once a week now. It is always an easy dinner to make and comes in handy when we may not have a lot of time to put a meal together. I had seen this recipe posted on the website run by Marcus Samuelsson, who many view of probably seen on the Food Network or may have even read his book “Yes, Chef.” As soon as I saw the recipe I was intrigued about how it would turn out in new I wanted to give it a try. It is a recipe for Ethiopian-style beef stir-fry.
Ethiopian-Style Beef Stir Fry
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup thinly sliced red onion
1 1/2 pounds hangar steak or beef tenderloin, cut into half-inch cubes
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 garlic cloves, cut into quarters
3 tomatoes, chopped, or 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped canned tomatoes
2 jalapeño chili peppers, seeds and ribs removed, thinly sliced
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 red onions, sliced
1/2 cup peanuts, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 pounds baby spinach
Mix all of the dry spices in a bowl and add the meat. Toss well to combine and set aside. Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until they begin to color around the edges, approximately 2 to 3 minutes. Add the meat, sprinkle with salt, and stir-fry until the meat is browned on all sides, about 3 minutes on each side. Carefully add the tomatoes, jalapeños, peanuts and wine. Allow to simmer for one minute, then season with salt if necessary. Stir in the spinach and cook until the spinach is just heated through and starting to wilt, about 2 minutes. Season with salt to taste and serve.
The combination of the cardamom, ginger and chili powder on the meat added some great flavor. You could certainly eliminate the jalapeños if you didn’t want them added to the recipe, but I think they add a nice little hint of heat to the dish and go very well with the tomatoes. Also, you could eliminate the peanuts if you have any type of allergies to deal with. I think they added a nice crunch to the meal and added them in. I served this with white rice as I do with many of the stir-fries I make, but you could certainly use brown rice instead. Chef Samuelsson actually recommends serving it either just with some crusty bread or with a side of couscous, which I think would also be quite nice. The whole meal itself literally takes minutes to prepare so it’s great for a weeknight meal.
That’s all there is for today. I hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend and gets to do some grilling. It’s supposed to rain here in New York for most of the weekend so I don’t know how much grilling will get to do. We’ll have to see what happens. I still have to plan out next week’s menu is so I don’t really have a good idea to yet of what I’m going to try, but check back and see what comes up and what I decide to post. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Okay, so I probably want a little overboard with dinner for our anniversary last night, but it was certainly worth it. It was a lot of work to get everything prepared and it was an awful lot of food for just the three of us (of course Sean joined us for dinner), but everything tasted great so I had nothing to complain about. I went to the store yesterday morning and picked out some nice-looking rib-eye steaks to make and with a little help from Denise Landis of The New York Times I was able to put together a quick port wine pan sauce to go with the steaks. Both were pretty easy to do.
Pan Seared Rib-eye Steaks
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 (8-to 10-ounce) rib-eye steaks, 1 to 1 1/4 inches thick
Salt and pepper
1 recipe Port Wine Pan Sauce (to follow)
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Meanwhile, pat the steaks dry with paper towels and season both sides generously with salt and pepper. Lay the steaks in the pan, leaving 1/4 inch between the steaks. Cook, without moving the steaks, until well browned, about 4 minutes. Using tongs, flip the steaks and continue to cook until the meat registers 115 to 120° (for rare) or 120 to 125° (for medium-rare), 3 to 7 minutes. Transfer the steaks to a serving platter and tent loosely with aluminum foil to rest or while preparing the pan sauce, then serve.
Port Wine Pan Sauce
1 small shallot, minced
1 small onion, minced
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup ruby port
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
In the same skillet that the steaks were seared in, add the shallot, onion and mushrooms. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions begin to soften, about 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the vegetables from the pan. Deglaze the pan with the ruby port, stirring to loosen any browned bits. Add the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, and gently swirl into the sauce until well blended, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the vegetables back into the pan, season with salt and pepper to taste, and stir in till slightly thickened about 1 to 2 minutes more. Off the heat, add in the fresh thyme and gently mix. Serve the sauce on the side with the steaks.
The steaks were cooked perfectly and have great flavor to them even though the only spices I added were salt-and-pepper. I actually cooked them for about 2 minutes longer so they were closer to medium, but you want to make them to your own personal preference. The pan sauce was just right for the steaks. I love the taste that the port wine adds to the sauce on it blended well with the shallots, onion and mushrooms. It also tasted great on the mashed potatoes that I made to go along on the side.
And the other dish that I made to go along with the meal was a very simple bacon wrapped shrimp. This doesn’t have to be a messy project or a big production; there are really only three ingredients to the entire recipe and most of the work goes into the preparation and not the cooking itself.
Bacon Wrapped Shrimp
24 large uncooked shrimp, shelled and deveined
6 slices bacon, cut into quarters
1 tablespoon Montreal Steak seasoning
Preheat the oven to 450°. Cover the bottom of a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. Insert a wire rack into the baking sheet. Spray the baking sheet with nonstick vegetable spray. Wrap each shrimp in a 1/4 slice of bacon, being sure to wrap the bacon tightly. Secure the bacon with toothpicks if necessary. Place the shrimp on the wire rack in the baking sheet. Sprinkle the shrimp with the steak seasoning on both sides.
When the oven has come up to temperature, place the baking sheet inside the oven and bake the shrimp until opaque and the bacon has begun to crisp, approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
It doesn’t get much easier than this one. There are a couple of notes to take into mind when making this for yourself. First, make sure that you using large shrimp for this particular recipe. The size of the shrimp will take just about as long to roast in the oven as the bacon will to crisp so you won’t end up with any rubbery shrimp. If you are using smaller shrimp such as a medium-sized shrimp, you may want to think about cooking the bacon slightly before you wrap the shrimp to make sure that the bacon will be crisp at the same time the shrimp is done. You don’t have to use the steak seasoning if you don’t want to, although I think it added a nice flavor to the shrimp and the bacon. You could also use a barbecue sauce instead of the seasoning if you wanted to try something a little different. Having the shrimp up on the wire rack in the pan allows the air to get underneath and the heat to get underneath so that the bacon and the shrimp both cook on both sides. You could also put the shrimp on a skewer if you didn’t want to use toothpicks, or if you wrap the bacon tight enough, as I tried to do, you don’t really need any toothpicks at all.
I also served a side dish of roasted asparagus for the vegetable. Overall, I think it was a pretty good meal and we all seem to enjoy it. There were some leftovers of course but will be able to re-purpose them for another meal.
That’s all there is for today. Check back next time this see the recipes I use for dinner tonight. I’m hoping to get to the Ethiopian stir-fry tonight; I’m curious as to how well that one will turn out. Check back and see how it goes. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
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