Category: beef dishes

Belated St Patrick’s Day Feast

How’s everyone doing in quarantine?? Hope you are all well and staying safe. In this house I’ve been cooking a lot more than usual, especially because I’m home from work. And, before the shutdown started, I had already planned on attempting a big project: homemade corned beef for St Patrick’s Day. I got it into the brine a few days late anyway, so it was a perfect way to spend the past Saturday. And I do mean the whole day; after picking up some fresh groceries in the morning, I spent most of my waking hours in the kitchen! But I did not mind.

Unfortunately, I do not feel comfortable sharing the actual recipes I used for this feast, as they all came from the NYT Cooking site, which is behind a paywall. I would guess everything can be found elsewhere, though. Pinterest is always a good place to start.

So, this is just a post to share with you my crazy effort and how proud I am of everything turning out. And my hope is that it inspires you, both for future holidays and perhaps while you’re sheltering in place during this pandemic.

St Patrick’s Day Feast Menu

  • Home-brined corned beef brisket
  • Red potatoes with cabbage and scallions
  • Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake

The brisket had to go in the brine 5-7 days before cooking, and I had one heck of a time finding the pink curing salt, hence why our feast was belated. But it worked out okay because my sister was here to share it with us, as well!

Photo story of my day; hover mouse over each pic for caption. 🙂

First step: the cake.
Regular Guinness was out, so we tried this one; it was delicious.
Beautiful chocolate batter
Time to boil the brisket!
It smelled so good.
Potatoes next up.
Cooking and wine
Scallions in butter mmm.
Taters and cabbage
Look at that beautiful hunk of meat
Perfectly pink!! SO PROUD
It was a perfect meal.
Time to frost the cake!
YUM
And the end. It was perfection.

 

I greatly enjoyed this labor of love, and I’m glad my little quarantine family did too. We will always remember this time, and I’m thankful for good food, good wine, and good company.

As always, Happy Cooking!

Taco Stuffed Peppers

Who loves tacos? Who loves stuffed peppers? Did you ever think to combine the two into a super easy and delicious meal? Somehow, this did not occur to me until recently. But I finally did it, because the green peppers and the aloha peppers at Meijer were just too perfect to chop up.

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Ingredients:

  • 4-6 green peppers or other variety
  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • 1-2 jalapenos, chopped
  • 2-3 tablespoons taco seasoning
  • Splash of water (or heavy cream, see note in recipe)
  • 1 cup cheddar, shredded
  • slices of pepperjack for topping

Brown the ground beef in a large saucepan, adding onions and jalapenos when almost cooked through. While meat is cooking, slice open the peppers, deseed if necessary, and get them into an oven safe pan. Once meat is cooked through, drain any excess fat. Stir in taco seasoning, adjusting for your taste. Add a splash of water and mix well, bringing to a simmer. (Also, for those doing keto and needing a bit more for your fat macros, I did not use water, I stirred in a splash of heavy cream instead.)

One the meat mixture is mixed well, add about half the shredded cheddar and let melt. This might get a little sticky but it’s key!! The cheese is always important!! After the cheddar is incorporated, spoon the mixture into the peppers. Top with the rest of the cheddar and a slice each of pepperjack.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, then broil for 2 minutes to get a good crust on that cheese.

One more note: I used 6 peppers and probably only needed 4, hence the number in the ingredients list. The peppers didn’t end up being fully stuffed, but there was still enough in each! If you do want 6 peppers fully stuffed, I would do another 1/2 pound of ground beef.

 

 

These peppers made me SO happy. We often go out for “Taco Tuesday” but because of the whole keto thing, I figured it was best to shake it up and stay in. Plus I had FILLED the fridge with good foods over the weekend, and these peppers were just too perfect. I served them with a cucumber and watermelon salad that was tossed with ground chipotle and pink salt. Also I had sauteed some mushrooms but ate them all before the peppers were done baking because I was too hungry!

The craziest thing is that I didn’t even miss the taco shells. The peppers retained a good crunch!

Happy cooking!