Beets are a great vegetable. They are full of vitamins and are very healthy. they also have a very unique flavor. I usually roast beets in the oven coated in honey, but I wanted to make a quick meal when I decided to boil them. Boiling these beets enhanced the pickled flavor and gave them a different flavor from baking. Baking beets will mellow the flavor, but these beets were very full of flavor. I decided to strain them and place them on our plated before adding honey. We added about 2 tsp to 1 Tbsp of honey for our 3-4 beets, and coated them before eating.
Open a jar of pickled beets and add to a small saucepan. Place over medium low heat, and boil for 5-10 minutes until hot.
Strain using a slotted spoon and place on plate before topping with 2 tsp of honey, or place in a bowl and add 3-5 Tbsp honey toss and serve.
This tilapia recipe creates beautifully fried tilapia. The process is the same as my fried pork chops, but the results are very different. I reused my oil from when I made donuts, french fries, and chicken nuggets. You could smell the chicken nugget seasoning in the oil, but there was no additional flavor to the fish because of it. Tilapia is also a light fish, but I found that serving it this way makes it a bit fishier than baking or cooking in a pan. I also found, though the paprika gives it a beautiful appearance, I personally did not like the overwhelmingly earthy flavor. My husband loved this meal though, so try it before you decide, but I just was not a big fan of the earthy flavor, and/or I should not have served it with beets, since that just emphasized the earthy flavor of the tilapia. I also served this meal with classic flavored Suddenly Salad. It is one of my favorite pastas, and it did compliment the meal by adding extra flavors. I also made my own tartar sauce by placing 3 Tbsp sweet pickles and 1/2 cup of mayo in a food processor. (I do not actually use mayo for any of my dishes, I always use “salad dressing”, the store brand Miracle Whip, because it has even less of a fatty flavor than Miracle Whip.)
Thaw 2 fillets of tilapia. Place on a plate and sprinkle paprika on both sides of the fillets.
In a deep, open mouthed dish, add 1/2 cup of flour. Coat both sides of each fillet until all fish is covered.
In a large dutch oven, add 2 cups of oil, and heat over medium high heat. Once the oil is hot (about 200 F), gently add each fillet and cook on each side for 2 minutes before removing.
Remove and place on paper towel lined plate, or dab with a paper towel on your serving plate. Serve with tartar sauce, and let rest 5 minutes before eating.
I did a lot of research before starting this recipe. I was interested in how people usually make roux based soups at home. I use mushroom soup in my Tuna Noodle recipe and since everyone says it was easy, I thought I could make other classic bases for recipes, such as cream of chicken or cream of celery. I was looking through my freezer for what meat I could put in this casserole, and by far, I had many packets of Venison Minute steaks. This was steaks that were sliced on a meat slicer. You could easily use cubed up meat instead or even ground burger, but I liked the idea of a steak casserole. I was thinking of making a gravy base sauce, but I didn’t know what that would do to the potatoes, and dark stained potatoes didn’t seem very appealing to me. Thinking of soups, I thought of onions. Steak and onions go well together. So the roux base is done like any other cream soup. Instead of adding minced onion, I could have added sliced onions and onion powder, and 2 cups of milk to get a condensed onion soup (which is similar to cream of celery, chicken, and mushroom made at home). I wanted to reheat the meat a bit before baking, so I did that while the soup was getting up to temperature. I really enjoyed this dish. I served it without waiting and it wasn’t as good as it was a few minutes later, so let it rest a bit. The meat became super tender and just fell apart as you ate it, and the potatoes were done for me by the 50 minute mark.
Wash 6 medium potatoes (4 cups), dice and place in a 9×13 pan. Peel an onion, half and slice into ringlets. Separate and add to potatoes. Mix and set aside.
In a large skillet, begin heating it over medium high heat. If you have minute steaks, you have nothing to do. If you have a whole piece of meat, slice into thin slices only 1/4 inch thick or make 1/2 inch cubes. Add 2 Tbsp of oil to pan. Add meat to pan and cook each side for only 1-2 minutes, until browned. Once cooked, add to side plate for the time being.
Heat oven to 350F. Turn down heat to medium low. Melt 2 Tbsp of butter into the pan, but do not brown butter. Once just melted, add 3 Tbsp flour. Whisk flour into butter, and cook until butter and flour is bubbly. Add 2 Tbsp dried minced onion, and 1 packet of Onion soup mix. Add 4 cups of milk and stir.
Add meat back to skillet and coat. Mix in 2 tsp of garlic powder and 1 Tbsp Onion powder. Heat to a simmer and cook for another 2-3 minutes, then pour over potatoes and onion, even out meat distribution, and add to oven for 50 minutes.
After time, stab a potato with a fork to assure they are done. Let it rest for 5 minutes before serving.
I’ve made a post once about stromboli, but last night we tried one with salami and a few other tweaks to the recipe. I didn’t grease the pan this time, and that made no difference. I rolled out the dough on the thinner side, and as long as it’s not too thin, it turns our just as well, if not better. I added more banana pepper juice to the stromboli, and that was a very good choice. It gives the stromboli extra moisture for when it’s cooking. I closed the edges by folding the bottom dough up over the top layer of dough, and that sealed very well. These are also 1/2 sheet pans, just for reference.
Into a bowl, bloom 3 1/2 tsp of yeast (1 1/2 packets) with 1/2 cup of warm water.
Add 3 Tbsp oil, 6 cups of flour, and 1 1/2 cups of water. Mix into a dough, then let rest covered until doubled in size.
Punch down dough, remove from bowl, and split in half.
Preheat oven to 400 F
Roll out dough into rounds about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. They should have a diameter of over 12 inches.
Place half of your dough on the sheet with half hanging off. On the half that is on the sheet, place 8 oz of salami, 8 oz of shredded mozzarella cheese, and 6 oz of Mild banana pepper rings with some of it’s juice (2-3 Tbsp) sprinkled over top. Fold dough in half and pinch the edges shut. Add vent holes on the top with a knife or a fork.
Bake for 20 minutes. The top should have a nice crisp sound when tapped.
Repeat step 6 and 7 for second round.
Brush each stromboli with melted butter (or rub hot stromboli with a stick of butter till coated) and sprinkle with parmasean, and oregano.
Wait 5 minutes before cutting into strips and serving.
Grilling is a science that I have very little experience with. Grilling has always been one of those things that work good in concept, but bad in execution, at least for me. I used to grill with the top open and without a working thermometer, and since learning the way a grill works, it has been remarkably easier to grill. Temperatures are just as important as they are for ovens. They tell you if you are hot enough to cook your food. The lid also helps maintain the oven aspect of the grill, maintaining a temperature for reliable cooking time. The lid is also a quick and easy way to drop the temperature if it’s getting too hot. If you want to smoke on your grill, which I will be doing this summer, you’ll want the temperature to be low, the low 200 F range. One way to keep it that low is to prop the door open slightly. I wasn’t able to get my grill as hot as I wanted because of wind and outdoor temperature, so I had to cook them a bit longer. I also had to rotate them when I flipped them on the grill, since the back of my grill was hotter than the front. If you aren’t sure about if it is done, use a thermometer and take into account the temperature will continue to climb another 5-10 degrees after you remove it from the flame.
Heat your grill and get it to stay around 430 – 450 F. Prepare your steaks, thaw, and place each on it’s own piece of foil.
Once the grill is heated, place the steaks and foil onto the hottest part of the grill. Cook the steaks with the lid closed. Once it gets back up to temperature, cook for 6 minutes.
Flip your steaks. Add 1/2 Tbsp of butter to each. Close the lid, let it get back up to temperature, cook for an additional 6 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.
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