Wednesday 12 August 2015

Question: My family are meat and potato people and i am sick of the same old same old


I need some ideas for dinners. Any new and intresting ideas out there?

New ways of old meat and potato dishes aren't hard to do.Here are some ideas:

You do spaghetti, do you do lasagna?  Ricotta cheese is not in spaghetti, plus the top layer  o'cheese is great all crisped up.  Hence  same yet different.

The cube steak makes Swiss steak as well as Chicken Fried.

Short ribs, beef sausage  and beans a sort of cowboy cassoulet  baked half the day with a familiar blend of spices.

You got a  Hobart meat slicer? Make  roast beef and have it on hand for cold cuts or italian beef or  peppersteak sandwiches.

Here are 2 recipes that you may find interesting:

Recipe 1: Sweet & Sour Meatballs



Ingredients


  •  1 1/2 lbs ground meat
  • 2 tsp salt, divided
  • 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 5 tbls flour
  • 1 cup oil for frying
  • 3 diced green peppers
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 1/4 cup beef broth
  • 1 1/2 cups pineapple chunks
  • 3 tbls cornstarch
  • 1 tbls soy sauce
  • 1/3 cup cider vinegar
  • 1/2 cup sugar


Direction:

Mix together the beef, 1 teaspoon salt, and pepper. Shape into 24 balls. Mix together the eggs, flour, and remaining salt. Dip meatballs in batter and brown in hoil. Remove balls and set aside.
 Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add the beef broth, pineapple and green pepper. Boil, covered, for ten minutes and return the meatballs to the pan to heat through.
Just before serving add the cornstarch, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar and cook until sauce thickens.
Serve this on rice, but it goes well with noodles as well.

Recipe 2: Cranberry Pot Roast



 Ingridients


  • 2-3 lb beef or venison roast
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 1 stalk celery, chopped
  • 1 1/2 cups cranberries
  • 1 tbls sweet herb mixture (basil, savory, parsley, etc.)
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tbls maple sugar
  • 2 cloves
  • 1 to 1 1/2 cups cider
  • Salt & pepper to taste
  • Flour
  • Oil


Direction

Sprinkle meat with salt & pepper. Dust with flour. In a Dutch oven, sear in a little hot oil on all sides. Set aside. Saute onions & celery until tender. Add balance of ingredients. Return meat to pot.

Simmer until meat is tender, about two hours.

Variations: 

Iinstead of cranberries use dried cherries.  Depending on the sweetness of the cherries you may not need to add anything like the maple sugar. Also you can  use beef broth instead of cider.  Dried peaches and apricots are also an interesting variation on your typical pot roast or beef stew