Category: Meals for Beginners

Step by Step Directions and amounts included

Four Big Ol’ Meatballs

meatballINGREDIENTS

  • 1/2 LB ground pork or Italian sausage
  • 3/4 LB 80/20 chuck hamburger
  • 1/4 LB ground lamb
  • 2 TBL chopped parsley
  • 1/4 C buttermilk
  • 1/2 C Parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 C bread crumbs
  • 2 tsp grated onion
  • 2 tsp granulated garlic (not garlic powder)
  • 1 tsp dried basil
  • 1 tsp crushed chili flakes or Grandpa's Thunder Powder or Arghhh Powder
  • 1 tsp sage
  • 1 tsp each salt and pepper
  • 1 jumbo ( or 2 medium) egg
  • 2 mozzarella cheese sticks

STEP BY STEP

  1. Combine everything except egg and meats
  2. Mix ground meats and eggs only to combine – do not overmix or they get tough
  3. Fold in all other ingredients
  4. Cut in half, then in half again making four big ol’ meatballs
    Double ingredients if you want eight meatballs, or cut in half again for eight regular meatballs
  5. Flatten the patties with your hands, and then cut the cheese sticks into eight pieces.  Put two inside four patties, or one inside eight patties – then roll them up into a ball.
  6. Bring a skillet up to screaming hot and sear your meatballs on all sides – not black, just browned
  7. Bake in the oven at 400 for 15-20 minutes
    Internal temperature should be about 165º
  8. Put them on top of your cooked spaghetti, top with sauce and sprinkle with cheese

SPECIAL STEPS

  1. Cook your spaghetti for about 10 minutes in boiling water.
  2. Heat your marinara sauce to about 185º

 
Sixteen Li’l ole Meatballs

Prepare Steps 1-3 above, except at Step 4, divide in half, four times making a total of 16 meatballs.  Then…

  1. Roll into balls, and space out onto a tray into the refrigerator for 30 minutes
  2. Meanwhile, combine 1 C panko bread crumbs with red pepper flakes, dried parsley, garlic powder, and Parmesan cheese.  Mix well.
  3. Beat one egg and 1 TBL of water
  4. Take each ball and dip it in the egg mixture and then roll in the bread crumbs, and return to the tray
  5. Put the meatballs into a 400º oven for 20 minutes
  6. Serve on top of pasta topped with maranara.

 

Sloppy Tony

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 LB hamburger
  • 1 LB ground sausage
  • 3 C marinara sauce
  • 1/2 C chicken broth

STEP BY STEP

  1. Brown meat and break it up
  2. Add about 3  C of sauce stir until all sauce is absorbed
  3. Add your chicken broth
  4. Cover and simmer 30 minutes
  5. Cut slices of Italian bread
  6. (optional) Butter your bread pieces and grill them for a few minutes
  7. Spoon your meat sauce
  8. Top with a thin slice of mozzarella or pepper Jack cheese
  9. Broil until cheese starts to brown
  10. Serve open-faced or as a sandich

 

 

Hawaiian Roll Sliders

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 PKG King’s Hawaiian Rolls
  • 1 LB thinly shredded roast beef or corned beef
  • Sliced Provolone cheese
  • Sweet onion – thinly sliced
  • Pickles – thinly sliced
  • Tomatoes – thinly sliced

STEP BY STEP

  1. Saute onion slices and set aside
  2. Slice pickles very thinly and set aside
  3. DO NOT SEPARATE Hawaiian Rolls
  4. Cut down the middle creating twelve tops and twelve bottoms – all still connected
  5. Put bottom sheet in a baking dish
  6. Top with lightly chopped meat
  7. Top with sauteed onion
  8. Top with cheese slices
  9. Top with sliced pickles and tomato
  10. Put the top layer of buns onto the sandwiches
  11. Bake at 350º for about 10 minutes
  12. Slice apart and let people take their own

Scratch Gravy

Use homemade stock as your base.

  • Starches:  Cornstarch and AP flour (low protein is better – like cake flour)
  • Root Starches:  Clear – not good for gravy:  Potato, arrowroot, tapioca

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 TBL Butter or fat droppings
  • 2 TBL Flour
  • 1 C  Homemade or Canned Stock
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Once this has cooked, you will need
  • 1 TBL Corn Starch
  • 2 TBL WATER
  • 1/2 C Homemade or Canned Stock

METHOD ONE:  STEP BY STEP

  1. Take 2 TBL butter
  2. Mix and cook on medium heat until it starts to brown.
  3. Add 2 TBL AP flour and whisk continually until smooth, and it starts to brown
  4. Whisk  in 1/4 C room temperature stock and whisk until smooth
    Use a whisk with many tines for better mixing
  5. Stir until starts to “kind of” brown
  6. Add another 1/2 C stock and 1/2 C water
  7. Return to a near boil
  8. Mix 1 TBL corn starch with 1/4 C cold stock
  9. Drizzle in while whisking continually
  10. Continue to stir with whisk until thickened.
  11. Reduce heat to low and whisk occasionally for about 20 minutes
  12. If you have lumps, run it through a sieve.

METHOD TWO:  milk gravy aka sawmill gravy

  1. For 2 C Sawmill Gravy
  2. Fry up bacon, chicken fried steak or sausage in a cast iron skillet
  3. Dump all except 2 TBL fat into the pan, keeping all the bits
  4. Add 4 TBL AP flour
  5.  Whisk for 2-3 minutes
  6. Take off the heat and slowly add 2 C milk while whisking continually
  7. Put back over high heat and bring up to a simmer
  8. Switch to a wooden spoon to finish up
  9. As soon as it starts to simmer, it is done.  It will not thicken any more over the heat.  It will thicken as it cools
  10. Serve over top of biscuits topped with sausage

 

Tex Mex Cheese Enchiladas

INGREDIENTS

  • Tex Mex Chili Sauce (see recipe below)
  • 1/4 C Shredded cheddar Cheese
  • 1/4 C Monterrey Jack cheese
  • Corn tortillas
  • 1/2 Vadalia or other sweet onion

Text Mex Chili Sauce

  • 2 TBL AP flour
  • 2 TBL butter
  • 1 TBL ground cumin
  • 1 TBL ground Ancho chili
  • Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste (just a tiny bit)
  • 2 C chicken stock
  1. Heat flour and butter together until it starts to brown
  2. Add cumin, chili, salt, pepper and garlic
  3. Stir for two minutes
  4. Whisk in 2 C chicken stock a little bit at a time
  5. Stir until smooth, then add more stock – REPEAT
  6. Cook until thickened

STEP BY STEP for Cheese Enchiladas

  1. Mix together your cheeses
  2. Put chili sauce on the bottom of a glass baking dish
  3. Heat your corn tortilla 10 seconds in the microwave
  4. Wrap 2 TBL cheese and 1 TBL chopped sweet onions in a corn tortilla
  5. Place it seam side down
  6. Repeat Steps 3-5 until your pan is full
  7. Put more sauce on top
  8. Top with cheese
  9. Bake for about 14 minutes at 350º
  10. Top with more chopped onion
  11. Bake for another 5 minutes
  12. Serve bubbling and hot

 

Simple Baked Potato

INGREDIENTS

  • Idaho Russet Potato
  • Butter or EVOO
  • Salt

STEP BY STEP

  1. Rinse your potato well and then dry it
  2. Poke a lot of holes in it using a fork or a corn cob holder – See notes below.
  3. To crisp up the skin, brush it with butter or EVOO, and then sprinkle with salt
  4. Bake at 400º for 50-60 minutes.  Really large baked potatoes should go about 70 minutes.
  5. Your choices for toppings include serving with butter, sour cream, chives, steamed broccoli, and bacon.  Use your imagination.

NOTES

  • If you don’t poke holes in your potato, the steam cannot escape and 215º is the hottest that your potato will get inside.  With holes poked, the inside of the potato will get closer to 300º and caramelization of the sugars can occur, so it will taste better and be fluffier.

Ribs: Pork Ribs

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 racks baby back ribs

    DRY RUB
  • 1/2 C brown sugar
  • 2 TBL Grandpa's Thunder Powder or Arghhh Powder
  • 2 TBL salt
    – Mix together and set asideBRAISING LIQUID
    – Always contains an acid, salt and sugar
  • 1/4 CU white wine
  • 1 TBL white wine vinegar
  • 1 TBL Worcestershire Sauce
  • 1 TBL honey
  • 3 cloves garlic (smashed)
    – Mix together and then microwave 1 minute – Stir and set aside

STEP BY STEP

  1. Pat ribs until they are very dry
  2. Lay ribs on foil with the fat meaty side on top
  3. Wipe lightly with EVOO
  4. Coat liberally with Dry Rub
    – Wash your hands after this step
  5. Make a “boat” with the foil, then add braising liquid
  6. Close foil and cook at 200 degrees for 6 hours
  7. Increase heat to 350º and cook for 40 minutes
  8. After cooking, lay ribs on a pan
  9. Snip a hole in the foil to let liquid escape
  10. Collect liquid in sauce pan and heat slowly to thicken.
    reducing will make your glazing sauce (10-15 minutes)
  11. Open ribs and brush with glazing sauce
  12. Broil (uncovered) until it starts to caramelize – THIS WILL NOT TAKE LONG
  13. Cut into two-rib sections and toss in the left-over sauce

Personal Spinach Souffle

Souffle
This souffle is almost like eating a spinach cloud!

INGREDIENTS
Double for two people

  • 1/2 C * steamed and chopped spinach (squeezed)
  • 1 eggs ** (separate whites from yolks… the yellows)
  • 1/4 CU cottage cheese
  • 1/4 CU shredded Cheddar or Parmesan Cheese
  • 1 TBL flour
  • 1/4 stick butter or 2 OZ low-fat sour cream
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
  • dash or two of Grandpa's Thunder Powder or Arghhh Powder
  • dash of nutmeg

STEP BY STEP

  1. Separate egg whites from yolks * See Grandpa’s Tip below
  2. Whisk whites on medium high until it starts to thicken, then add salt and Cream of Tartar
  3. Continue to beat. It will become shiny.  AS SOON as it starts to loose its luster, your whites are ready.
  4. It’s better to under-beat the eggs rather than over-beat them.  If you over-beat them, your souffle will taste grainy.
  5. Mix yolks with spinach, cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, flour, butter and spices
  6. When the whites are ready, GENTLY fold in your yolk mixture.
  7. OPTIONAL:  Mix in 1-2 pieces of crisp cooked bacon – Add garlic powder and onion powder – Add caramelized onion and/or mushrooms
  8. Pour into a greased glass baking dish and bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

If you are lucky, your souffle will have puffed up about an inch or so.  If you are like most of us normal human beings, your souffle may have fallen or collapsed in the middle.  That’s OK.  It will still taste marvelous.

* When separating an egg, bring it up to ROOM TEMPERATURE.  Then crack the egg on a FLAT surface and it will break cleanly.  Over a small bowl, pour the yolk from one shell into the other allowing the white to ooze into the bowl.  Dump the yolk into a SECOND bowl, and then dump the white into a THIRD bowl… a clean glass mixing bowl.  Why?  Because if you make one little mistake and a speck of yolk falls into your whites, you might was well save it for scrambled eggs.  Repeat the process with the second egg.

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