Posted on 09/17/2011 7:19:06 AM PDT by libertarian27
Welcome to the 41st installment of the FR Weekly Cooking (Recipes) Thread.
Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or three- or all of them:)! for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites!
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Having these tomorrow to thank my husband for painting the pantry and hanging a new light fixture in there.
Pioneer Woman’s Man Pleaser sandwich.
Ingredients
4 Tablespoons Butter
2 pounds Cube Steak (round Steak That’s Been Extra Tenderized)
Kosher Salt
Freshly Ground Pepper
1 whole Large Yellow Onion, Halved And Sliced Thick
2 whole Green Bell Peppers, Sliced Into Rings
2 whole Red Bell Peppers, Sliced Into Rings
3 cloves Garlic, Minced
16 ounces, weight White Mushrooms, Sliced
2 Tablespoons (additional) Butter
1-½ cup Sherry (regular Or Cooking Sherry Is Fine)
4 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
4 dashes Tabasco (more To Taste)
8 whole Deli Rolls (the Crustier The Better)
2 Tablespoons (additional) Butter
8 slices Cheese (Provolone, Swiss, Pepper Jack)
Preparation Instructions
Cut cube steak into strips against the grain. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
Heat 4 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over high heat. As soon as it’s melted (but before it burns) brown strips of cube steak in two or three batches, about 1 1/2 minutes per side. Remove meat to a clean plate when brown. Set aside.
Reduce heat to medium-high. Add onions, garlic, green peppers, and red peppers and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, or until relatively soft (but not flimsy.) Remove to a clean plate. Set aside.
Melt 2 add’l tablespoons butter to the skillet. Add sliced mushrooms and stir. Pour in sherry, then add Worcestershire and Tabasco. Cook over medium-high heat for five minutes, or until liquid has reduced by about a third.
Add in meat and vegetables, stirring to combine. Cook for just a few minutes to heat everything up, adding more sherry and Worcestershire (and Tabasco) as needed. Stir in 2 tablespoons butter at the end. Keep hot.
Toast halved deli rolls in plenty of butter until golden brown and crisp. Spoon meat/veggie mixture on the lower half of the bun, then spoon one or two tablespoons of pan sauce over the meat (it will soak into the bun.) Drizzle a little sauce on the underside of the top bun, too, for extra flavor and moisture. Top with cheese and broil for a minute or two, until the cheese is melted.
Serve immediately.
More like a crepe than a traditional fluffy American pancake.
My mother gave me a heart shaped waffle iron years ago. I was from Germany or Switzerland.
Amazon sells electric ones. Our isn’t electric.
Sorry, I guess I confused you in my post about mushy pasta. It is only when I cheat and use pasta roni dinners on a night I don’t have the energy to cook dinner from scratch that I have to under cook the pasta or it turns to mush. I don’t have that problem with any other pasta I cook, just the pasta roni dinners, and only because they have done something different to the mix or their cooking instructions. I didn’t ever have that problem until more recently with the pasta roni.
I buy just about any brand of pasta I can find really cheap these days, since I am trying to cook dinners for 5 people on a very tight budget. We are trying to keep the average cost of dinners for the entire family at $5.00 or less, which in this economy is not an easy thing to do, but it can be done by watching for sales, using a little less meat, and more mushrooms and veggies in our meals. We are eating lots of rice and pasta dishes, breakfast for dinner nights, and sandwich or soup nights to help keep our food costs down.
I have a heart shaped waffle maker that I got a few years ago. It is made by Cuisinart and we found it at J.C. Penney. They also had the same one at several more expensive Kitchen stores, but it was almost half the price at J.C. Penney.
Good for you ~ you must be doing an amazing job to keep your food costs that low! Sorry you’re struggling like that and I hope something changes to improve things soon.
Your family is lucky to have someone like you that can stretch a dollar that far! Good luck - I’m sure there are some positive changes in your future :-)
Cut up, but since it cooked so long it basically fell apart anyway. Turned out really good!
We've had several makes...at work and I can't recall the make of our main one now but it works great too. The only thing is you have to (usually) use dehydrated milk. Not a biggie but the MC works much better without the milk although it only does 1 1/2lb's.
Have you seen this site?
http://www.5dollardinners.com/
Honestly my Magic Chef was better! The Zo doesn’t brown the top enough and it is BIG so takes up lots of counter top space.
I am a real bargain hunter and getting very good at using coupons for our grocery shopping. Also doing a lot of grocery shopping for meat at a restaurant supply store near where we live. I bought 20 lb. package of pork shoulder the other day for $1.49 per pound. Brought it home and broke it down into four packages and put three in the freezer. Hubby is cooking the first piece today low and slow on the BBQ and tonight we are having pulled pork burritos because I found flour tortillas on sale for .50 per package of 6 tortillas by doubling some coupons I got the tortillas free. I have home made pinto beans and Spanish rice to go with it and all the fixins for the burritos such as shredded cheddar cheese, chopped tomatoes, black olives, green onions, sour cream, salsa, shredded lettuce, etc.
Tomorrow night we will have pulled pork sandwiches, and there should still be plenty of leftovers to have pork enchiladas the next night for dinner. All three meals will average out to less than $5.00 each. I am sure there will still be leftover meat even after that, so I will be coming up with more dishes to use the rest of the leftover meat after that. Perhaps tamale pie, empanadas, or even BBQ pork stuffed hum bao.
With a little creativity, we are still eating very well, on a very low budget.
| So-Tender Swiss Steak |
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| 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 2 pounds round steak, cut into serving-size pieces 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 medium onion, thinly sliced 2 cups water 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce |
GRAVY: 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1-1/4 cups beef broth or water Hot cooked noodles or mashed potatoes, optional |
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In a shallow bowl, combine flour, salt and pepper. Dredge steak, a few pieces at a time. Pound with a mallet to tenderize. In a Dutch oven, brown steak in oil on both sides. Arrange onion slices between layers of meat. Add water and Worcestershire sauce. Cover and bake at 325° for 2 to 2-1/2 hours or until meat in very tender. Remove to a serving platter and keep warm. In a small bowl, combine flour, salt, pepper and broth until smooth; stir into pan juices. Bring to a boil over medium heat; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Serve steak and gravy over noodles or mashed potatoes if desired. Yield: 8 servings. Per serving: Calories: 213, Fat: 7g, Saturated Fat: 2g, Cholesterol: 64mg, Sodium: 424mg, Carbohydrates: 9g, Dietary Fiber: 1g, Protein: 27g |
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The only changes I make are, I just put the flour and seasonings in a large zip lock (a couple of pieces at a time) and shake then proceed. I often will double the flour/seasonings as I just add the leftovers to the pit before placing in the oven. I don't do the gravy separate either, I just add those ingredients to the pot, it makes its own gravy. I sometimes tripe those.
I have used various cuts of meat, chopped steak, round steak, cutlets and some thin cut of meat from the meat dept, can't recall what the cut is, its works fine. I think the round steak winds up being tougher. Chopped or cutlets don't really need tenderizing.
I change the recipe to suit my mood that day. Sometimes I add rotel, or other diced/stewed tomatoes and other times I add mushrooms instead.
When I got my breadmaker I read a lot of reviews for a lot of machines and frankly there were too many bad reviews on the Zo for me to justify that price tag. A lot had ‘problems’ if one sort or another. Some have the two paddles but they had lots of bad reviews so I avoided them. I wanted a more loaf looking bread. Still got it with the cheap machine I went with and I really like it. Sometimes, less IS more. :)
Actually, most of the bread I bake is from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. I saw it in a Mother Earth News magazine at the library, came home, binged it and tried the recipes. I bought the book!
They have a pizza book coming out next onth, I have already pre-ordered it.
No I hadn’t see the website. Thank you for posting it. I will spend some time checking out their recipes and perhaps I will find some new ones to add to my family’s favorites.
I have been keeping the average cost of our dinners at $5.00 or less now since the beginning of the year and it really hasn’tbeen as hard as I thought it would be. We have good dinners every night and even have been able to splurge about once a month on some kind of take out like french bread subs from Safeway, Papa Murphy’s pizza night, or Panda express, and still keep the average cost for our dinners under $5.00 for each month. Take out night gives me one night a month off from cooking dinner even though the cost of the dinner for the entire family on that night is between $16 -$25. That means that some of our dinners cost almost nothing because of free stuff I have found using coupons, or utilizing leftovers from one meal to make something else another night for our dinners.
This month we are going to be way under budget because a friend sent over lots of fresh vegetables from their garden since they had a very abundant crop this year and couldn’t come close to eating it all or finding room in their freezer for it all. They sent over four huge zucchini, three large yellow squash, a huge bunch of green onions that were the biggest green onions I have ever seen, and lots of tomatoes. We have been using it all up in stir fry’s, pasta dishes, casseroles, salads and even baked goods! YUM!
No I hadn’t see the website. Thank you for posting it. I will spend some time checking out their recipes and perhaps I will find some new ones to add to my family’s favorites.
I have been keeping the average cost of our dinners at $5.00 or less now since the beginning of the year and it really hasn’tbeen as hard as I thought it would be. We have good dinners every night and even have been able to splurge about once a month on some kind of take out like french bread subs from Safeway, Papa Murphy’s pizza night, or Panda express, and still keep the average cost for our dinners under $5.00 for each month. Take out night gives me one night a month off from cooking dinner even though the cost of the dinner for the entire family on that night is between $16 -$25. That means that some of our dinners cost almost nothing because of free stuff I have found using coupons, or utilizing leftovers from one meal to make something else another night for our dinners.
This month we are going to be way under budget because a friend sent over lots of fresh vegetables from their garden since they had a very abundant crop this year and couldn’t come close to eating it all or finding room in their freezer for it all. They sent over four huge zucchini, three large yellow squash, a huge bunch of green onions that were the biggest green onions I have ever seen, and lots of tomatoes. We have been using it all up in stir fry’s, pasta dishes, casseroles, salads and even baked goods! YUM!
Sorry for the double post! My computer started acting up!
In fact I still want to write a Dollar Store Cookbook! There is lots of stuff there that is GREAT! Our local stores have RoTel products as well as okra and other stuff not usually found around here.
Even those little canned hams for a couple of bucks or less can make some really good things like jambalaya, omelets and simlar.
There's also a Save-A-Lot near us with lower priced goods. If you are there on the right days at the right times they have REALLY good meats and produce!
Back story is a friend of mine, now deceased, was very grateful for things we had done for her. Even though she was on assistance she wanted to do things for us and insisted that when I took her to S-A-L she buy us stuff.
We were AMAZED at how good the fresh food was and they had the old pot pies, a fav with Mrs p6 and me for lunches, for less than a buck each!
You have to be careful but there are good things there!
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