So, yeah, I haven't cooked in awhile. I've been down with a broken leg. For a year. *looks shifty*

Anyway, now that I'm done living off the chip aisle and the frozen-food aisle, here's some actual food that is currently cooking in my oven and smelling up the house all yummy.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be to find the pastry cutter we used last year on the fruit cobbler, because you're going to want it. You will also need a basting brush, a whisk, a mixing bowl, a cookie sheet, a large skillet and a saucepan.

Beef and Mushroom Roll

MEAT MIX INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb ground meat (beef or turkey)
  
• 1 small onion, chopped
  
• 1 4-oz can of mushroom stems and pieces, drained
• 1/4 cup dill pickle relish
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. ground mustard
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup water

PASTRY INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning
• 1/4 cup shortening or butter
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 Tbsp. milk (separate from above)

GRAVY INGREDIENTS:

• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 2 cups milk

Okay! Are you intimidated yet? Don't be! This was actually very easy to make, despite the fact that we literally screwed it up THREE DIFFERENT WAYS, and it was still delicious.

To begin, preheat your oven to 425. Now put your meat and your chopped onion into the skillet and cook them on medium heat until the meat is no longer pink. Add the mushrooms, relish, salt, mustard and pepper.

Combine the flour and water until smooth - I used a shaker thingummy with a lid for this - and then stir it into the beef mixture. Turn up the heat just a smidge and keep stirring for a couple of minutes; when it starts to get kind of thick, take it off the fire and set it aside.

Now for the pastry! Put the 2 cups of flour, the baking powder, the salt and the poultry seasoning into the mixing bowl and give it a stir. Using your pastry cutter (or a couple of knives if you haven't got one), cut the shortening into the pastry until it's kinda coarse and crumbly in texture. Stir in the 3/4 cup of milk, and stir good, to make the dough.

Now, you want to mind when you're doing this; you might even want to get in there and mix it good with your hands, because this makes a very dry dough and if you aren't careful, you'll have bits of crumb all over the counter... because that's where this is going.

Flour your counter a bit so the dough won't stick to it, and then dump the dough onto the counter. Make sure it's good and squished together, and then start flattening it out. The original recipe I used calls for you to make a 12" by 9" rectangle with the dough. Me, I don't keep a ruler in my kitchen (heck, I barely keep food there). Just check out the picture below, you want to make a big oblong, and you want the dough itself to be not-too-thick-but-not-too-thin. Maybe 1/4" or so, if you are the type with a ruler in your kitchen.

Anyway. Meat mix goes on dough now. You want to keep back about 1/4 cup or so of the mix, but spread the rest of it all across the dough, leaving yourself about an inch clear at all the edges, because the next thing is to roll it up and pinch the edges together.

Cover your cookie sheet with aluminum foil or spray it with cooking spray, and then put the roll on the sheet seam-side-down. Take that extra 2 tablespoons of milk and brush it all over the roll with the basting brush. Pop that sucker in the oven and set your timer for about 10 minutes.

Go have a cigarette and check your Twitter stream.

When the timer goes off, it's time to make the gravy. Melt your butter in the saucepan over mediumish heat. Be careful not to scorch it. Take it off the heat and whisk in the flour, salt and pepper (it'll lump up quick), and then slowly mix in the milk. Whisk this until it's smooth, then put it back on the heat and turn it up a smidge.

This part is pretty crucial. You have to keep stirring pretty fast the whole time the gravy is cooking or it will burn to the bottom of the pan quick-like. You want to get that gravy up to a boil and let it get to a good, thick gravy-like (heh, see what I did there?) consistency, and then you take it off the heat and stir in the last of the meat mix that you set aside earlier. Warm that for a second.

By now, your roll should be done. Check and make sure the crust is nicely browned, and when it is, pull it out. Slice it and stick it on a plate and put some gravy on it. Seriously, this is good stuff.

Ingredients (in HUGE PICTURES NOW because I'm using Photobucket):

Meat mix:



Pastry:



Gravy:



Meat mix after adding flour-and-water:


(the meat is white because it's turkey)

Spread-out dough with meat mix in:



Giant slug:



Mmm, gravy:



Deliciousness on a chicken plate:

So I got this recipe out of the Taste of Home cookbook, and tweaked it a little to my personal preferences. These are really good, and fairly easy to make, too. (Especially compared to the empanadas, LOL.) Also, on the plus side, there's no oven required for this recipe.

Skillet Enchiladas

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb. ground meat (beef or turkey)
• 1 medium onion (finely chopped)
• 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1 can enchilada sauce
• 1/3 cup milk
• Canola oil
• 8 corn tortillas
• 2 1/2 cups shredded cheddar or mexican-style cheese

OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup chopped olives
• 1 to 2 tbsp. finely chopped green chili peppers
• jalapenos (if you like it spicy)

PREPARATION:

You're going to need two skillets for this, a large one and a small one. Start with the large one; cook the meat and onion together over medium heat until the meat is nicely browned. Drain off the grease. Stir in the soup, enchilada sauce, milk, and the peppers if you want peppers. Cover and simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes, occasionally stirring to make sure it doesn't cook to the bottom of the pan.

At about the ten-minute mark, put just enough canola oil in the little skillet to cover a tortilla shell, and get it good and hot. Cook each tortilla one at a time for about three seconds, or just until it goes limp. BE CAREFUL because if you cook it too long, it'll go tough. Also be careful taking them out of the oil; use a spatula or something flat like that, because tongs will just tear up a soft tortilla and you need them whole. As you take them out of the oil, set them out flat on a paper towel to drain.

When the meat mix is finished cooking, scoop out a little less than half of it into a bowl. Then put about a quarter cup of cheese (or so) on each tortilla, along with olives if you want them or peppers or whatever. Then roll them up like burritos and lay them in the skillet on top of the meat mix. Once they're all in there, pour the rest of the meat mix back in on top of them, cover, and cook for just a few minutes. Now take the rest of your cheese and sprinkle all over the top of everything, cover again and cook for a couple more minutes just to get the cheese melted. Yummy!

Ingredients


Mixing the soup, sauce and milk into the browned meat/onions.


Laying the cheese-filled tortillas into the meat mix


Sprinkling the cheese over the cooked tortillas-and-meat


The finished product! It looks a little messy, but it's really good.

How we cook steak at our house

Everybody has their own way of cooking steak, and this one is ours. You may not like it; my brother did this for some friends and they complained that the seasoning "masked the flavor of the meat". Well, whatever, this makes good steaks.

Ordinarily we cook nicely-marbled ribeyes. They're a bit more expensive, but it's worth it to have a quality piece of meat. However when I was digging through the freezer I ran across a package of these bacon-wrapped filet things (you know the ones) and I figured I might as well get them out of the freezer.

This is one of the few times I will actually recommend name-brand products.

You will need:

• Garlic salt
• meat tenderizer
• Lawry's Seasoned Salt
• A-1
• Heinz 57

Start out by thawing your steaks. Do not thaw them in the microwave; they'll get tough. Stick them in a bowl in the fridge and leave them overnight or so.

In the morning, take the steaks out and put them on a cookie sheet or other similar platter (in the pictures I've used a pizza pan). Apply the garlic salt, meat tenderizer and Seasoned Salt. Not too heavy, or the steaks will get salty. Next, pour on some Heinz 57 and then some A-1. Smear these all over the meat with a spoon.

Now flip them over and do the same thing to the other side. Now cover them with aluminum foil and leave them til the early evening. This gives the sauces and such time to kind of soak into the meat.

Fire up your grill and get it nice and hot, then reduce it to about a medium heat. Toss the steaks on and let them cook with the grill shut. For a good, thick ribeye (usually 3/4 to 1 inch thick) you want to give them eight minutes or so on a side, but not all at once. Go about three and a half to four minutes, then flip them, then another 3-4 minutes, then flip, and so forth. If you like your meat rarer, obviously take them off the grill sooner. If you go about eight minutes on medium flame, you should get a nice medium-well slightly-pink business going.

Now, obviously on cooking times your mileage may wildly vary depending on your grill, your flame, etc. etc. So you want to keep a knife and grilling fork on hand. When you think they might be ready, cut them open and look. If they're still too pink for you, let them cook longer. If you're worried about overcooking the outside, turn the flame down. Grilling itself is something of a trial-and-error procedure, but the sauce will never steer you wrong.

Just the steak. Didn't think about taking photos until after I'd done one side, hence the sauce all in the pan.


Here with the garlic salt/tenderizer/seasoned salt on.



Here with the A-1 and Heinz 57.


On the grill! Don't those look good?


And on the plate. Despite the flash, you can see that we had ours this evening with a baked potato and some Really Thin Garlic Toast (recipe previously posted).

This one's another favorite at our house, 1) because it tastes really good and 2) because it works really well for leftovers. Mom serves this over rice, but I'm not a huge fan of rice so often I just eat the meatballs by themselves or with whatever side dish.

Mom's closing tonight (she works in a big home improvement box store) so I wasn't planning on cooking anything, but I got bored so I dug out this recipe because it's easy and (on the plus) doesn't require an oven. However, because I hadn't planned on cooking, the ground beef was frozen solid when I got started. Most new microwaves have a defrost setting for meat; if yours doesn't, try this tutorial at wiseGEEK to thaw the meat in the microwave. This should be a last resort; I always suggest that you plan ahead and thaw your meat overnight in the fridge... but if you're like me (lazy!) then the microwave can work well.

Mom's Island Meat Balls

NOTE: This recipe is just about enough for one person. We usually at least double it.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup chopped onion
  
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 cup plain water
• 8 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp vinegar (I really recommend regular vinegar for this, not the apple-cider variety, but whatever pops your crank)
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Combine all the above ingredients in a bowl and set them aside.

• 1 lb. ground meat (beef or turkey)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 1/2 cup saltine cracker crumbs
• 1/2 tsp pepper (plain table pepper, not that white pepper)
• 1/4 cup milk

PREPARATION:

Combine the second set of ingredients in a large bowl. Mash them up really good with your hands. Form into small balls (about the size of one of those high-bounce balls we used to get out of the quarter machines when we were kids) and brown in canola or vegetable oil. (You can use olive oil, but it's more expensive and Mom doesn't like it; she says it makes the meat taste funny. I can't tell the difference, personally. Also, don't use a lot of oil; you're browning, not deep-frying.)

Once the meatballs are browned, drain off all the oil, then add the sauce and cook over low heat for about 45 minutes or until the sauce gets nice and thick. They taste very sweet, almost like pineapple or something. It's yummy.

Making the sauce


Meatballs cooking in the oil


Cooking in the sauce
A little bit of the finished product! My sauce didn't thicken up quite right, not sure why... Moooooooooooom!!!!!!!


Edit: Mom says the reason my sauce didn't thicken is because I cooked it with a lid on. *facepalm*

My mom makes this all the time. It's a little more complicated than what I like to do, but on a Saturday when you haven't really got much else to do, it's not bad to spend a little time doing it. Also, it's pretty yummy, and it makes a lot, so there's leftovers for Monday's lunch. For more than one person.

Spanish Rice

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 pound ground meat (beef or turkey)
  
• 2 cans of whole peeled tomatoes
  
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• coarsely chopped garlic cloves (amount depends on how much you like garlic)
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups rice
• water
• salt
  
• a frying pan with a lid
  

PREPARATION:

If your ground meat is frozen, it needs to be thawed mostly all the way before you get started. If you know you're going to make this, take your meat out of the freezer the night before and just stick it in the fridge (in a bowl so it doesn't melt all over).

Brown your ground meat in a big frying pan on medium heat (5-6 for electric stoves, medium flame for gas). While you are doing that, chop up your onion (use a chopper if you have one) pretty fine - you don't want big chunks. Also chop up your garlic cloves (make sure you peel them first!) fairly coarsely; you can have little chunks of that, because they'll cook up soft and you won't notice them much.

Once the ground meat is browned, put a strainer or collander in the sink and dump the meat into it to drain off all the grease. Then put the meat back into the skillet and put it back on the stove. Add your garlic and onion, and add your rice. Then open up your cans of tomatoes - this is where things get sticky.

Pour the tomato juice into the mess in the skillet, but catch the tomatoes and squish them up really hard in your hands. (Tip: Poke a hole in each one with your finger before squishing; it helps reduce the incidence of having juice squirt all over the stove/counter/you.) Then dump the squished remains of tomato into the skillet also. When you've done this for all the tomatoes, you want to fill each can with water (plain old tap water) and pour the water into the skillet as well. Sprinkle some salt in (to taste) and mix it up well.

Cover the skillet and cook it. You want to check it about every 20 minutes or so to make sure it hasn't run out of water (you need the water to cook the rice). You know it's done when your water is mostly gone out of it but the rice is cooked nice and tender. It's something you kind of have to eyeball.

Serves 8 easily.

My dad used to love to eat this stuffed inside a Bell pepper. Just core the pepper and boil it for about 3 minutes. Then fill it with this rice mix, and bake it in the oven on a cookie sheet at 350 for about half an hour or so, until the pepper is tender. Mom and I don't like peppers, though, so we just eat the junk plain out of a bowl.

You can serve a green salad with this, and some hot bread. In fact, I have a really scrumptious recipe for garlic toast that I think I may have to share tomorrow. Today, though, we're having it with buttered saltine crackers. Yum!

Getting set up (we keep our rice in the Karmelcorn bucket because it's airtight and fits well in the freezer)
Everything in but the tomatoes
Cooking!

What it looks like when it's finished

I made this tuna tonight, and it's good. I found the base recipe on about.com and modified it because it was ridiculous. There was twice as much sauce as food and almost three times as much pan.

This does involve making a sauce, and I'll go ahead and tell you that before today, I never made a sauce or a gravy before in my life. Never. So I had no idea how it would turn out. Well, it was really easy to do and as long as you remember to keep it on a low heat (Lo-2 for electric stoves, low flame for gas) you'll do fine. Also, make sure you stir constantly. Now, this doesn't mean you have to stand there stirring until your arm falls off; you can walk away and wash a dish or muzzle the kids and come back to it. But don't leave it very long or it'll cook to the bottom of the pan.

Scalloped Tuna

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
  
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
  
• A bag of Ruffles (or similar) potato chips, crushed coarsely. (You won't need the whole bag, but most of it.)
  
• 2 six-oz cans tuna, flaked and drained (maybe 3, depending how much you like tuna)
• 1 small can mushroom stems & pieces, drained and chopped coarsely
• OPTIONAL some grated Cheddar cheese to go over the top. (not a lot.)
  

PREPARATION:

Melt butter in saucepan over low heat; blend in the flour, salt and pepper. Gradually stir in milk. Continue cooking, stirring constantly, until smooth and thickened. Add onion and parsley. Arrange 1 cup of the chips in the bottom of a greased 8-inch square baking dish. Cover with layers of the tuna, mushrooms, white sauce, and another 1 cup potato chips. Repeat, ending with the last cup of potato chips, and the cheese if you want it. Bake at 350° for 30 to 35 minutes.

Serves 6-8. (6 at most if you're only eating casserole; up to 8 if you're serving a vegetable with it.)

We ate this with a side of canned English peas and a boxed Scallop potatoes mix. It was a little too much Scallop all together, I think... next time I'd probably use the cheesy au gratin potato mix. Mom pronounced it a success, and raved over how good it was. This may, in retrospect, have simply been out of surprise that I actually cooked. We'll see how much she likes whatever I try tomorrow.

Getting set up

The white sauce
The finished product, ready to go into the oven