Mongolian Beef

Mongolian beef is an easy weeknight dinner that tends to be a crowd pleaser. The ingredients are easy to find and the flavor is fantastic. Leftovers reheat well, and I have even frozen this when I have made too much for grab and go lunch options later in the month. Serve with rice or noodles.

Pin It Now!

Midwestern Chili

This recipe comes from my friend who grew up in the Midwest. It's what I consider a very traditional American chili. We've made it ahead of time for camping trips and it has always been a success. It makes a great chili dog option too. It tastes even better on day 2. 

Pin It Now!

Santa Maria Style Tri Tip

I have to confess that tri tip has been off my radar for a while. I used to love it and forgot about it until recently. I was having some friends come over and was looking for a red meat option to grill that was not steak (I am admittedly terrible at grilling steak). I found this tri tip recipe and wanted to give it a try. I was a little skeptical about it just being a dry rub and not having a specific sauce for the meat, but it turns out I never felt like a sauce was missing. You can serve with with BBQ sauce but I did not find it necessary. The rub adds a great flavor to the meat and, when grilled well, the meat will still be juicy inside. I made the rub and covered the meat in this the day prior to grilling, so not only does the flavor really come through, but you have less work to do they day your guests arrive.

Pin It Now!

Sweet and Tangy Cocktail Meatballs

I usually like making a few heartier dishes when I invite friends over for drinks and appetizers. Cocktail meatballs tends to be a hit and I have tried a few different varieties over the years. I most recently tried these when looking for a quick recipe with ingredients I already had at home. The recipe link includes three sauce varieties but the recipe below is the only one I have tried so far. These are very easy to make, and if you're really in a pinch for time, you could even use 2 pounds of frozen cocktail meatballs.

Pin It Now!

Red Wine Braised Brisket

Brisket is one of those foods I often forget about, but when I do make it, I always love the delicious flavor and how easy it is to cook. I made this brisket after looking for a simple recipe, with simple ingredients I already had at home. I was so happy with the end result and the house smelled amazing from the hours of baking. Once you sear the meat and mix the ingredients for the sauce, all you have to do it slow bake the brisket and baste with the sauce every now and then. You can't go wrong with this!

Pin It Now!

Garlicky Cocktail Meatballs

These may not look very pretty, but they are a great cocktail meatball to serve when you're looking for something other than the often too-sweet jelly style meatballs or traditional marinara sauce. I wanted to try these when I had some friends coming over and they were a hit. Again, they're not the nicest looking, but my friends tend to trust what I make and were pleasantly surprised by these. You can roll out the meatballs a day prior to making this and have a quicker prep time the day you serve them.

Pin It Now!

Easy Spaghetti and Meatballs

Last month I went to Lake Tahoe to visit a friend of mine who is lucky enough to call that area home. After a fun day of skiing and snowboarding we decided we wanted to cook dinner, but didn't want to make anything too labor intensive and we were starving.  She suggested making spaghetti and meatballs I was convinced this would be the perfect comfort food. We did a quick search for an easy meatball recipe and came across a very thorough meatball tutorial on The Kitchn. The recipe looked simple and the cooking technique was the easiest I've ever used. I have to admit that I never knew you could put an uncooked meatball straight into your pasta sauce and cook it that way. It is by far the easiest method I have ever used (no mess from frying, no heating up the oven). If you've never made meatballs before click on the link to the recipe and learn all there is to learn about meatballs and the many ways of preparing them.

Pin It Now!

Baked Eggplant and Ground Beef

My mom has been making this recipe for quite a while. My dad and I are both huge eggplant fans, so this dish is always a hit with us. The main ingredients are similar to mousakka, but this recipe is seasoned differently. This feeds about 6 to 8 people. It also reheats well and I have happily eaten the leftovers many times. This is one of my family's go-to dishes for gluten free meals. It is very filling and does not need any kind of starch to be served with it.

Pin It Now!

Hoisin Cocktail Meatballs

I sometime find it really hard to come up with appetizer ideas. I think I rotate the same few ideas and realized that lately I'm tired of those. Recently one of my friends just moved and had a housewarming party where everybody brought an appetizer/finger food. I wanted to make something new and began looking around. I knew I wanted to make meatballs of some sort, but didn't want your classic Italian style option.

I came across this recipe after looking through many, many Asian meatball ideas. I knew I wanted to serve them with a sauce, which surprisingly is not included in many recipes. I also knew that I didn't want to do anything too complicated or with too many ingredients I didn't already have. All I can say is that these meatballs are pretty amazing. This was one of the first dishes to be eaten at the party. Some people didn't even notice the sauce next to them and still loved them. I personally find that the sauce makes these meatballs. It would also make a great marinade if you have some leftover (which I did). If you want, you could even chop in come hot peppers or Thai chilis for an added kick.

Pin It Now!

Simple Chili con Carne

While I was visiting my sister this autumn, we made a giant batch of this chili. This is my sister's go-to recipe for chili and it was definitely a keeper. The ingredients are simple, the spicy factor can be turned way up or way down, and you really can't mess it up. Unfortunately my camera was on its last leg when I was making this chili, so half of the pictures are out of focus. Luckily my main chili picture is clear, otherwise this would be a pretty sad looking post.

I made a batch of cheese biscuits to serve along with this chili and they complemented each other perfectly. As with all Tex-Mex style food, you can top these with cheese, sour cream, cilantro, or anything you'd put on a plate of nachos (I am sure that comment has offended any true Tex-Mex cooks out there). I usually love adding a dollop of sour cream or a sprinkle of cheese to counteract the red pepper flakes in my chilis since I tend to use a generous amount.

Pin It Now!

Three Bean and Beef Chili

Chili season is slowly making its appearance. The mountains are getting their first signs of winter, and leaves are falling everywhere. I decided to make a pot of chili one cold evening and was instantly brought back to my childhood when we used to order chili in a bread bowl at our local ski area. This recipe makes a generous serving of healthy chili. I love the adobo sauce flavor that comes through, but if you're not a fan or you'd rather have a mild flavor, you can scale back the amount of chipotle chilis and adobo sauce you use. The ingredients for this recipe are simple. I couldn't find black beans or pinto beans when I made this, so I just added extra kidney beans and cannellini beans.

As with all chilis, this freezes really well and can be served with biscuits, bread bowls, rice, or you can just eat it plain. If you're trying to keep it healthy, use a lean ground beef, like 90% lean. In Switzerland I don't have the option to see how much fat is in my ground beef, so I'm sure mine was more of an 80% lean beef. If you have never cooked with chipotle chilis in adobo sauce, don't worry about the extra chilis you will have left over. They freeze really well and once you get hooked on the flavor, you will find many other was to use them up. The picture below if proof of just how cold it was in my town. There are actually really big mountains behind those clouds.

Pin It Now!

Stir Fried Beef with Bell Peppers and Snow Peas

I remember when I was visiting my sister this past Spring and found this recipe in her collection of Fine Cooking Magazines. OK, it's not really a collection, but I had never heard of Fine Cooking Magazine and I decided to go through about 6 months worth of recipes. Even after reading tons of recipes, this one stuck out. Based on the ingredients, I knew I'd love it, but I wasn't so sure about the other people I was cooking for. My grandma tends to prefer basic comfort foods and my sister is not crazy about spicy food, but I made it anyway. As it turns out, everyone loved it.

Ever since making this stir fry, I have been dreaming about it. As usual, I cannot find some of the key ingredients in my little village (nor in the nearby larger town). I'm getting hungry as I am writing this post, and realize that I cannot wait to go back to the States and live off of various homemade Asian dishes during my first week there. This one will definitely be high on the list. The leftovers taste great too, so I may even add a bit more of everything when I make this next. If you don't eat beef, this would taste great with tofu or just a mix of various veggies. The sauce is delicious, so try not to skip those ingredients. If you don't have flank steak, use what you have on hand. I used a pack of sliced rump steak and found that it worked well, though the meat would probably be even more tender from a different cut.

Pin It Now!

Grilled Steak with Avocado Salad

I've been visiting my family and friends back at home this past month and have been on an avocado kick the whole time. We're lucky to have readily available, delicious avocados here in California, so I've been taking advantage of it. I can't even count how many times I've made guacamole or sliced avocado into a salad. The other week I was flipping through the pages of Sunset magazine and came across this steak recipe. It looked delicious and luckily I had almost everything at home to try it out (I used yellow onion instead or red onion for the sake of not going to the grocery store).

I ended up loving this recipe and didn't do the best job of sharing the avocado salad. Sadly, I didn't have any tortillas at home, but this would be delicious wrapped in a warm tortilla. If you're not a fan of red or yellow onions, you could always use scallions instead since they have a milder flavor, which I sometimes prefer. This is a great dish to make for any kind of summer barbecue, whether it's for a few people or if you increase the recipe and make it for guests.

Pin It Now!

Betty Bossi's Bolognese

Betty Bossi, the Swiss goddess of food (though she's not actually a real person), calls this recipe "Super-Sugo". It's pretty super, so I guess I have to agree with this silly name for an old school recipe (the cookbook was printed in 1981). The recipe comes from my mom's collection of 70s and 80s Betty Bossi cookbooks. Over time she has made some changes to it to suit our family's taste buds. She exchanges the 1980s addition of mortadella for mushrooms, adds fresh herbs, and throws in some extra garlic. With those changes, there's nothing left to do but get cooking.

Bolognese is one of those comfort foods that almost every meat eater loves. It's a great cold weather meal that has never let me down. The longer you cook your sauce, the more flavorful it will be, so don't try to simmer it for less than an hour. I always sneak a taste here and there since I can be extremely impatient when it comes to waiting for food, but this is worth the wait, especially with a spinkling of Parmesan cheese on top.

Pin It Now!

Japanese Style Stir Fry

This recipe is another oldie but goodie. It's been in circulation for over 32 years (yes, that's longer than I have been alive). My mom picked up the recipe when she worked in a printing and lithography studio. Apparently my mom and her coworkers used to smuggle food into the dark room so their bosses wouldn't catch them with their constant feasts. This recipe is one of the many dark room dishes that was created back in the day. Her coworker brought a portable wok to work one day and cooked everyone a Japanese inspired dish. It was such a success that we are still making, and enjoying, this meal decades later.

What I love about this stir fry is that it is really healthy, even though it was created before knowledge about health food became more widespread (think of common late 70s food: deviled eggs, pigs in a blanket, quiche, ranch dressing). Almost all of the flavor comes from the marinated meat, so make sure you leave plenty of time for that step. The veggies can be switched up easily, but I love this combination. The celery seems odd at first, but somehow it works.

This stir fry always leaves me with plenty of leftovers, but it is still great the next day. I serve this over basmati rice (it is my favorite rice and gets used for everything) that is cooked in chicken broth. This way there is flavor in the rice as well as the stir fry. However, you can really put this over just about any grain. There isn't tons of sauce in this stir fry, so it you're looking for something that has lots of extra juices to pour over your rice, you can double the marinade.

Pin It Now!

Israeli Kabobs

When I was a kid, these kabobs were a typical dinner on a hot summer night. They're made very quickly and have enough flavor to please adults, but aren't too strong to put off the kids. My mom got this recipe years ago from a family friend when she was first learning all about Israeli and Middle Eastern food. The only change that has occurred over time is adding more spice to it. And don't worry, if spicy is not your things, just remove the jalapeno and cut back the red pepper flakes.

Decades later, this recipe is still loved and one of my go to "what should I do with this ground beef?" recipes. Sometimes I buy ground meat and have no clue what I want to make with it. The days when my brain doesn't feel like working, I make these. You can use different types of ground meats with this kabob recipe if your don't have ground beef. I've tried it with ground turkey and chicken and both have been a success. If you don't have a food processor, just finely chop all the herbs, onion, garlic, etc... These can be changed to your flavor preferences very easily, so don't hesitate to skip or add ingredients (just make sure you add the egg and breadcrumbs, or they tend to fall apart). These are great on their own, but can sometimes dry out a bit if you have them as leftovers more than once. When that happens, I love dipping the kabobs in ketchup since they are sort of like an oddly shaped, well seasoned hamburger.

Pin It Now!

Hoisin Glazed Kebabs

Hoisin sauce is one of my favorite Asian sauces. I like it so much that I may or may not have consumed every last drop of this sauce, even after my kebab was gone (gross, I know). This is an easy recipe to throw together and can be changed to your liking. Add whatever vegetables you want to the skewers, or even fruit. I kind of wished I had some pineapple chunks on my skewer as I was eating it. You can increase the spiciness, add ginger, or even add some orange juice and zest. If you like the flavor of hoisin sauce, you can't go wrong with these kebabs.

Never heard of hoisin? Trust me on this, it's delicious, and available in the Asian section of most grocery stores. If you've ever had mu shu chicken/pork at a Chinese restaurant, hoisin is the main flavor in that dish. It's a little bit sweet, and has a consistency similar of oyster sauce. Enjoy this quick, Asian-inspired meal and serve kebabs over rice, or just the way they are. These are more filling that I realized and one kebab was plenty for me. If you don't feel like making kebabs, this marinade would be great on a regular steak as well.
Pin It Now!

Mom's Lasagna

Lasagna is one of those comfort foods that always seems to do the trick. Layers of cheese, pasta and bolognese are hard to resist, especially on a cold evening or after a long hike. Sometimes, though, you don't need a reason at all and it tastes just as good. Earlier this week my mom made her lasagna, the same recipe she's used since I was a kid, and I finally decided to help out and take some notes.

You can tweak a lasagna in so many ways and it is still delicious. This is just one of the many, many options out there, but it's straightforward and it's one that I love. As much as I love vegetables, I have always preferred meat lasagna over a vegetarian one. Maybe it's because I've never had a really good vegetarian variation before, but I haven't actually attempted to make one from scratch. For now, I will stick with this meat version.

The sauce can be made using a combination of two parts beef to one part turkey, or all beef. You can use lean meat if you want to keep part of it healthy, but with all the cheese you'll be adding, I wouldn't consider this a healthy meal. I used the no boiling required lasagna sheets, but if you use the traditional pasta, make sure to cook it beforehand or while making the sauce. Hopefully you can enjoy this with a glass of wine in front of a fire. But like most of us, it will probably be gobbled down in 5 minutes.
Pin It Now!

Asian Beef and Noodle Salad

Do you ever get sick and tired of pasta salad smother in mayo or bottled Italian dressing? I know that is one of my least favorite summer dishes. The weather is getting warmer in parts of the country and that means it will be picnic season really soon. I absolutely love picnics. Something about sitting on a blanket and (usually) being out in nature makes for the ideal eating experience. So here's a delicious Asian noodle salad that will add some flavor to your summer menu.

It's made with beef, but I would make it vegetarian for a picnic dish (something about cold beef has never gone over well with me). If you're making this at home for dinner, throw in the meat and you have all of the food groups in one dish. It holds up pretty well on day 2, but if you want to make it ahead of time, just keep the dressing separate until you're going to serve it. There's a lot of dressing on this, but it's pretty healthy and has a really good flavor.
Pin It Now!

Broccoli Beef

I absolutely love broccoli beef. It's one of the few Chinese take away dishes I actually enjoy (minus occasionally feeling horrible after eating Asian fast food). I decided I wanted to find a recipe that tasted restaurant made, but wasn't loaded with flavor enhancers or other mysterious ingredients. This one is really easy and turns out great every time I make it. I made this for dinner tonight and even got the approval of a 3 year old! It's hard to skip seconds and every time I "make extras for lunch" they magically vanish before the night is over. If you're looking for a quick, delicious stir-fry recipe, give this one a try.

The original recipe calls for garlic powder and ground ginger. I always replace these with fresh ingredients, but will list both options in the recipe. Keep in mind I have not taste tested both versions, but I have high hopes it would be delicious either way. The beef that you use can be whichever cut of meat you prefer. And if you actually have any leftovers, this dish reheats well.
Pin It Now!