Last year for St. Patrick's Day, I tried to make you guys a great Irish pot pie. Irish in that it had Guinness in it. It was so good except for one thing. It was crazy bitter. Like barely choke it down bitter. I took some great pictures (or what I thought were great at the time since I was just starting this take pictures of your food thing), and I was all set to post it. But then I thought and I thought, and I tried it again, and I couldn't. It was too bitter, and I didn't really understand how it came to be so dang bitter.

The week after St. Paddy's day last year, I was watching an episode of Chopped on the Food Network, and one of the basket ingredients was a porter beer, like Guinness. I believe it was Alex Guarnaschelli who said that you couldn't cook that beer for too long or it would turn out really bitter. I was so happy to hear that, and I tucked away that nugget of information for almost a year and finally made this stew.

The beauty of this stew is its simplicity. The only seasoning other than salt and pepper? Bay leaves. I found that the veggies, beef, and Guinness gave it plenty of flavor. I cooked this stew for about five hours and added the beer after three hours. I think you could trim that down to about three hours total and add the beer for just the last hour. You really only need to cook the stew long enough for the veggies to soften and the meat to tenderize. And the valuable lesson is that you definitely don't want to cook that beer for too long. Trust me on that one!

Irish Beef Stew Recipe
Serves 4-6
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2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 pound stew meat
1/2 cup all purpose flour
Salt and pepper
1 small yellow onion, diced
2 small carrots, diced
8-10 baby yellow potatoes, cut into small chunks
4 ounces mushrooms, quartered
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
3 cups beef broth
3 bay leaves
1 can Guinness draught

Combine the flour, salt, and pepper in a large zipped bag. Add in the stew meat and shake until the flour is coating the meat. Set aside. In a large saucepan, heat one tablespoon of olive oil over medium high heat until hot. Add in the onion, carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms and cook until slightly softened, about 10 minutes. Add in the garlic and cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant. Remove the vegetables to a bowl or plate.

Add the other tablespoon of olive oil and heat until shimmering. Add half of the floured stew meat to the pan and let cook for 2 minutes without moving so it can brown. Then stir it around and let it brown on all sides. Repeat with the remaining meat, adding more oil if needed before browning. Pour about 1/2 cup of the broth into the pan and scrape up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Add in the rest of the broth, the can of tomatoes, cooked veggies, beef, and the bay leaves. Let simmer for 2-3 hours or until the veggies are soft and the meat is tender.

One hour before you are ready to eat, add in the can of Guinness draught and let simmer on low heat. Serve hot.

A She Makes and Bakes recipe

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We got a new computer this week, and it's great except for one thing. It has Windows 8 on it, and it is the most confusing operating system ever. Ever. I had to google how to restart it because I could not find it anywhere. How ridiculous is that?? That handy start button that's been on every Windows computer since the beginning of time (not really) is missing. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually, but I've spent the past three days feeling like a complete idiot.

Here's where I could say that when I feel like an idiot I like to make stew. Well, that's not really true. When I feel like an idiot, I like to curl up in bed and watch tv. Which doesn't equal stew being made because my dogs can't cook and my husband works during the day. Sigh.

However, I've been eating this stew since I was little, and it's one of my favorites. Perhaps it's because you serve it over rigatoni and that's one of my favorite pastas. Or maybe it's because it's a simple stew with carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms, beef, and Italian seasonings that has amazing flavor and depth. It's pretty easy to make, and you could do the prep the night before and put it in the Crock Pot to cook while you're at work. It's also a great weekend meal...I've even made it on a night when I didn't have a lot of extra time but it sounded really good. I just put in extra liquid and boiled it on medium high heat with the lid off until everything was tender. So it can be made in a rush if you're desperate. Or if you feel like an idiot and want to redeem yourself.

Italian Stew Recipe
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Notes: I prefer tenderized stew meat because it speeds up the cooking process quite a bit. If you can't find tenderized meat, ask the butcher/meat counter to tenderize it for you. Or you can beat it with the pointy edge of a mallet (but this doesn't work as well). If you don't have or don't like red wine, just use more beef broth.

1 tablespoon butter
1 small yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound tenderized stew meat, cut into smaller bite-size pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup flour
salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
2 1/2 cups beef broth
1/4 cup red wine
8 ounces mushrooms, stems removed and quartered
1 1/4 cups carrots, cut into bite-size chunks
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried basil
salt and pepper to taste

1 pound rigatoni cooked al dente
Parmesan cheese

In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Remove to a bowl.

Combine the flour, salt, pepper, and paprika in a zip-top bag. Add in the chunks of stew meat and shake until the flour mixture is covering the meat.

Over medium high heat in the same pot, add the one tablespoon of olive oil. When the oil is almost smoking, dump in the bag of meat and flour. Let brown on all sides. When the meat is browned, pour in the red wine and scrape up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan. (At this point, you could move this to a Crock Pot and add everything else in the Crock Pot and cook on low for 6-8 hours.) Add the beef broth into the pot and reduce the heat to medium. Stir in the mushrooms, carrots, tomatoes, bay leaves, parsley, and basil. Bring to a simmer and reduce the heat to medium-low. Place the lid on, but leave it open a crack, and let it simmer for about 2 hours, stirring every so often. The stew is done when the carrots and beef are tender. Discard the bay leaves, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve over rigatoni. Garnish with Parmesan cheese.

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And we're back! Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great holiday season. My in-laws were visiting us for the past week, and we had a lot of fun. It was nice to be away from the computer for a bit. I love you all, but it's nice to be around "real" people, too. Is anyone else completely confused about what day it is? All day Tuesday I was thinking it was Sunday. My internal calendar is pretty messed up right now. 

This meal was planned for Christmas Eve, but I had to change plans for the weather. My husband plows snow, and we had a white Christmas. I didn't want him to miss this meal, so I made it last Saturday instead. This is the second time I've made this (the last time was Christmas Eve 2011), and it's pretty awesome. There's Italian sausage, meatballs, and ribs that are cooked in a hearty sauce. The sauce itself is pretty simple with only a few ingredients but has amazing flavor after you cook all the meat in it.

This is one of those recipes where you brown the meat, add the sauce ingredients, and then finish cooking it in the oven for a few hours until the ribs are tender. In 2011 when I made this, I didn't have a pan that I could put in the oven so I did the whole thing on the stove. Low and slow with pretty frequent stirring. It worked really well. This year I did it as the recipe is written in the oven. I've never tried it, but I think you could do this in a Crock Pot, too. You'd have to brown the meat on the stove and make the sauce on the stove, too. Then you could transfer the meat to the Crock Pot and pour the sauce on top. If you wanted this when you got home from work, I think you could do all the prep work the night before and cook it on low during the day while you're at work. 

Even though I've talked about making this on Christmas Eve twice, it's a great meal for any time of the year. Even on a random weekday when you just want a comforting and hearty meal.

Italian Gravy Recipe
Serves 8-10
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For the sauce:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 rack baby back ribs cut into 2-rib sections
Salt and pepper
1 pound Italian sausage links
2 onions, diced (about 2 cups)
1 1/4 teaspoons dried oregano
3 tablespoons tomato paste
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 (28 ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
2/3 cup beef broth
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves

For the meatballs:
1/3 cup Italian bread crumbs
1 tablespoon dried parsley
Pinch red pepper flakes
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 egg
2 tablespoons ketchup
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
1 pound ground beef

1 1/2 pounds linguine or spaghetti

Adjust your oven rack to the lower third of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees.

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Pat the ribs dry with a paper towel, season with salt and pepper, and place in the pan (do this in two batches). Brown all sides of the ribs, about 5-7 minutes total. Remove to a plate and repeat with the remaining ribs. Brown the sausages on all sides and remove to the plate with the ribs.

Reduce the heat to medium, add the onions and oregano and cook until the onions are starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook while stirring until it's very dark, about 3 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add in the cans of tomatoes and the beef broth and scrape up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Place the ribs and sausage in the sauce and bring to a simmer. Cover and place the pan in the oven for about 2.5 hours or until the ribs are tender.

To make the meatballs, get a large bowl. Mix together the bread crumbs, parsley, red pepper flakes, garlic, onion powder, egg, ketchup, Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Once incorporated, mix in the ground beef. Form the mixture into 10 balls and place on a small parchment- or foil-lined baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.

About 30 minutes before the sauce is done, place the meatballs in the oven next to the sauce (not in the sauce) and bake for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, transfer them into the sauce and let them finish cooking for about 15 more minutes until cooked through.

Meanwhile, boil your pasta until al dente. When everything is finished cooking, mix one cup of the sauce with the drained pasta. Place the pasta on a platter with the meat and serve the extra sauce in a bowl. Garnish with Parmesan cheese.

Adapted from Cook's Illustrated

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Sigh. It's over. I imagine that living in a swing state meant that I saw and heard more political ads and got more junk mail and phone calls than other states. I hope it's true so that people in "normal" states didn't get harassed as much, but I'm thinking that's the way it was everywhere. So it's over and whether your preferred candidate won or not, at least the campaign is over. Sigh.

So, this pasta. Awhile ago, I checked out Emeril's Sizzling Skillets and Other One-Pot Wonders cookbook from the library. It had several recipes in it that I wanted to try, including this one. It was a great meal, but boy was it a lot of food. It certainly didn't help that my husband didn't eat any of it. Since he hates pasta, I gave him have a ribeye steak with a baked potato instead of having the steak mixed in this pasta. Turns out, we were both pretty happy with that decision. I got to try something new, and he wasn't "forced" to eat pasta. I halved the recipe, but I think I could have quartered it to make it a more manageable dinner plus lunch leftovers for the week. As it was, I ended up throwing some of it away because I couldn't eat all of it in time. The combination of mushrooms, gorgonzola, steak, and pasta was pretty comforting. I ended up adding a few dashes of Worcestershire to it to add a little more savory-ness and offset the gorgonzola. I'll be making this again, but I think I'll wait until we have company to help me eat it! 

Mushroom Gorgonzola Steak Pasta Recipe
Serves 6-8
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3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/2 lb ribeye or sirloin steak, cut about 1 1/4 inch thick
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1 pound mushrooms, sliced
1/3 cup minced shallot
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh thyme
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
5 ounces crumbled gorgonzola or blue cheese
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon Worcestershire
1 pound rigatoni, cooked al dente and drained
Fresh parsley for garnish

Season the steak with the salt and 1/4 teaspoon of the pepper on both sides. In a large skillet, combine the butter and 1 tablespoon of the veg oil over medium high heat until melted and hot. Add the steak and sear on one side without moving it until brown, about 4 minutes. Flip the steak and cook for another 4 minutes or until it's your desired temperature. If your steak is thinner, you won't have to cook it as long on each side. Remove the steak to a plate and tent it with foil.

Add the remaining oil, mushrooms, and pepper to the skillet and cook until the mushrooms have softened and their liquid has evaporated. Add the shallot, garlic, rosemary, and thyme and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring frequently. Once the shallot has softened, sprinkle with the flour and stir to combine. Add in the beef broth and cook while stirring, especially scraping the bottom to release any brown bits. Let cook until the liquid has reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Mix in the cheese and cream and cook about 2-3 minutes until the cheese has melted.
 
Mix the rigatoni into the skillet. If the sauce is too thick, add in more beef broth. Thinly slice the beef, stir into the pasta and serve, topping with the parsley.

Source: Emeril's Sizzling Skillets and Other One-Pot Wonders 

There's a Mexican restaurant in Colorado called Hacienda, and they make some pretty awesome food in my opinion. The thing that I always want to order (but don't do as often as I'd like) is a quesochanga. It's a chimichanga that has married some queso. There's queso on the inside and the outside, and for a queso-loving girl like myself, it's essentially perfection. I always thought it was really hard to make a chimichanga because there was hot oil involved. As it turns out, you don't have to deep fry these bad boys. You can shallow fry them in a pan, and it takes less than a minute. Easy peasy, and it's not scary. I promise. You just have to be careful.

We're using the shredded beef that I told you about months ago. I love this stuff. I make a huge batch, and then I freeze what we don't eat into individual portions. That way, I can make these or quesadillas or shredded beef tacos. One easy crock pot day and I have a lot of dinner variations! To make this recipe, all you need is that beef, queso, tortillas, and oil. Seriously, it's one of the easiest meals to make, and it's incredibly delicious!

Shredded Beef Quesochangas Recipe
Makes two
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Note: You want the meat and the queso to be hot because it's not in the oil long enough to heat it up. Unless you like eating cold food, I highly recommend it's hot when you place it in the tortilla. The tortilla will be easier to roll if it's warm, too. 
 
2 tortillas
1/2 cup Mexican shredded beef
1/4 cup queso
Vegetable oil

Pour enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of a large skillet about 1/8-1/4 of an inch. Heat it on medium until it starts smoking.
 
While the oil is heating, divide the meat between the two tortillas. Pour half of the queso on top of the meat in each tortilla. Tuck the sides of the tortilla in, and then roll the tortilla up. It should look like a burrito, and there should be no gaps where the filling could ooze out of it. When the oil is smoking, carefully place the quesochanga into the oil using tongs, seam side down. Let it sit for about one minute or less until golden brown, and use the tongs to carefully flip it. After another minute or less when it's golden brown, remove from the oil and place on a paper towel to drain. Repeat with the remaining quesochanga (or you could do both at the same time if you're up for it).  Serve with additional queso on top and/or on the side.

Source: She Makes and Bakes

I love, love, love this shredded beef. I've been making this for about a year now, and it's very versatile. Generally, we make queso chimichangas with this meat, but I also use it for tacos, quesadillas, and empenadas. Since there's only two of us, and this makes a lot of meat, I freeze the rest of it in freezer bags, portioned out for each meal. It makes for some very easy lunches and dinners.

This takes a little bit of prep time but then you can throw it in your crock pot and cook it all day. Your house will smell amazing with all those strong Mexican scents. Eventually I'll put up the recipe for the queso chimichangas because they are really easy to make and quite delicious!

Mexican Shredded Beef Recipe
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4-6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 pounds boneless chuck roast
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 cup beef broth
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2-3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, minced
1/2 large sweet onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced

Combine all the spices in a bowl and rub all over the meat.

Heat a large skillet over high heat with 1-2 tablespoons of the olive oil until shimmering. Using tongs, sear the meat on each side (about 1 minute on each side). Place the seared meat on the bottom of a crock pot. Keep the skillet over high heat and deglaze the pan with the beef broth. Scrape up any brown bits, and stir in the tomato paste and chipotle peppers. Once the sauce boils, reduce to a simmer and cook for a few minutes until thickened. 

Add the onions and garlic on top of the meat in the crock pot, and pour the sauce on top. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Once the meat is tender, remove and shred with two forks. Pour some of the sauce, including the onions, on top of the shredded meat. 

To make the quesadillas:   
Heat a large skillet over medium heat and place one tortilla flat on the skillet. Spread about 1/4 cup of cheddar cheese on top of the tortilla, about 1/2 cup of meat on top of that, and another 1/4 cup of cheese on top of the meat. Place another tortilla on top of the cheese. After a few minutes, once the cheese has started to melt, flip the quesadilla over. Cook until the tortilla is lightly browned and all the cheese has melted. Continue for as many quesadillas as you'd like. Usually one full one serves one adult. Cut into wedges for serving, and serve with sour cream, lettuce, pico de gallo, and guacamole.

Source: Pennies on a Platter

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