i made an amazing dinner last night. amazing. and i only took one photo, just now, of my leftovers. sorry.
so i made homemade meatballs first. easy. one pound of ground beef, half of a small onion (diced small), 1/2 cup bread crumbs, salt, pepper, one egg, 2T water. mix it all. form into balls and bake at 350 until done (20 minutes? 30 minutes?).
then i baked a spaghetti squash. there are so many ways to cook it if you look online-- but they all come to the same conclusion. cut it in half, put it face down, and bake or microwave. well, i found a better way to do it on the pioneer woman's blog. you just take the whole, intact squash, put it in the oven at 375 for an hour. that's it. then it's done, and it is so much easier to cut in half. scoop out the seeds, and use forks to shred. all the photos for that are on her website. sorry i didn't take any.
except for this amazing iphone photo of the leftovers.
i served the spaghetti squash (which, by the way, was still crunchy and amazing) with a few of the meatballs and some organic spaghetti sauce (thank to watching food, inc earlier in the day). also served with a side salad and red wine.
here's a great recipe where I attempted to be the daredevil half of this relationship for once:
This meal was so good, I'm not even going to talk about it. I'm just going to dive right into how delicious it was.
Ok, I lie a little. it was amazing. i cooked up the mushrooms the night before, to make for an easy prep today. they smelled so good, sauteing in the wine. mmmm. then today, i was concerned because it didn't smell quite as good. well, it smelled good, just not as strong. don't know why, it just didn't. maybe my sniffer was broken, because it sure tasted good.
wanna know the best part about this one?
i made it up.
this whole recipe came from inside my noggin.
stuffing:
large container of sliced fresh mushrooms
1/4 or 1/2 cup of red wine (i used cabernet sauvignon, my favorite)
italian seasoning
garlic salt
bread crumbs
cheese blend (i used a parmesan/asiago)
sautee the mushrooms over medium high in just a touch of olive oil. add some italian seasoning, a pinch of garlic salt, and the wine. simmer in the wine until it pretty much boils off, stirring occasionally. put in a bowl, adding about a cup of bread crumbs and a generous sprinkling of cheese, and stir.
pork loin:
how to prepare the pork loin:
this isn't how i did it, but i wish i'd done it by the "roll" method-- the second one she shows you. it'd be so much easier.
mine was more of a double-butterfly on opposite sides (can i patent that method??)-- slice it about 1/2" down the side, straight across until there's about 1/2" meat left to cut. flip it over and do the same thing on the opposite edge.
don't you love my depiction? slice along the red lines, all the way through the loin. and yes, that's a knife next to the pork loin. if you can't tell by my marvelous microsoft paint skills. yo.
you should now be able to unfold both of those sides and it's a larger rectangle, rather than a long tube.
fill with the stuffing, leaving about 1/2" allowance on the edges.
roll up as tightly as you can, then use kitchen string or twine to tie it up about every inch. at this point, i put mine in the fridge overnight, covered with saran wrap. you don't have to.
put in a 400 degree oven for about an hour.
carrots:
cut into bite-size pieces, like carrot sticks that have been cut in half. saute in very little olive oil with some kosher salt and italian seasoning. cook this way for a few minutes, then add two spoonfuls of white sugar and continue to cook on medium. cover to steam them, but continue stirring every minute or two. be careful not to burn the sugar. honey would be a good substitute for the sugar, if you want.
rice:
buy steam in bag brown rice. put it in the microwave for 4 minutes. serve.
i wouldn't normally relate my pot roast, or any meal for that matter to bob marley (or ub40. ...know where i am heading with this?) but after the ever so important better hurry up and taste this before someone else has to eat it taste test, i couldn't get the darn song out of my head.
red red wi-yi-yiiiiiiiiinne stay close to meee-he...
(insert island accent)
red red wine you give me whole heap of zing
whole heap of zing mek me do me own thing..
why? because this morning i added 1/2 c of what was left in a bottle of (menage a trois -try it, i PROMISE you'll love it. ten bucks.) red wine to my roast. THAT, my friends, turned out to be a great 6:00am decision. probably one of my finest to date. the roast took on such a full flavor; and just enough of a hint of the sweetness and roundness came through in the broth and vegetables. i also added a can of french onion soup. i will use this instead of lipton onion soup mix from now on as it isn't as weird and salty.
this was a great, easy and cheap recipe to slowly integrate crocky into the mix for fall and winter meals.
and i share:
2-4 lbs chuck roast (i chose closer to 4 and decided to pull an erin and freeze the leftovers) 10 potatoes (i like yukon golds for this- quartered) carrots, sliced. (or, cheat like me and buy sale baby carrots. score!) 4 ish stalks celery, sliced 1 or 2 medium onions sliced
chopped garlic worsh sauce beef broth (1 can or so) french onion soup (1 can) 1/2 c red wine
if you're like me, 6am doesn't come easy. so, i prepped my veggies last night.
this morning, while my tea kettle did it's thing, i seasoned the meat, tossed it in the crock pot. stuffed the veggies on, over and around the meat. i added the garlic and the liquids and sprinkled a bit more seasoning over the top. i set crocky to low for 10 hours and let her go.
thanks to last night's prep, it was all done before my water was boiled.
i have to say, i was delighted with how it turned out. had i felt more zealous, i would have made some gravy. or yorkshire pudding. but, i didn't. the kardashians putting neuticles in their dog was WAY more interesting.
