Beef and Bean Enchiladas Verde

There was a sale, so I canned up chuck roast and pork butt.  Same process as the ugly chicken.  It fell the same week that I was planning to make enchiladas.  I knew I could make them with a jar that failed to seal.  It's just pressure cooked meat.  The canning part is to make them shelf-stable, but you can use them as shredded whatever the minute they come out.  The kitchen started smelling like meat as soon as the canner started boiling, so I was pretty sure I'd be able to use something.  And as long as the canner was out and I was out of canned pintos and black beans, they happened the next day.

This was a really long way to go to use up the last jar of tomatillo salsa.  I'm not planning to make any more just yet, since it took a whole year to finish the last batch.  I don't make Mexican as often anymore, now that I've added more international cuisines to my repetoire.

If you're opening cans and jars of ingredients, enchiladas aren't as hard as they seem.  It's setting up the assembly line that takes a few minutes.  And then you have a do-ahead that can be frozen for later or put in the fridge before work and baked when you come home.

*2 C salsa verde or tomatillo salsa
8 6" corn tortillas
*2 C shredded cooked beef
1 15 oz can pintos, drained
1-1/2 C mozzarella cheese
1 2.25 oz can sliced black olives

1.  Preheat oven to 375º while you put the enchiladas together.

2.  Pour 1 C of the salsa in the bottom of a 9"x13" casserole.  Warm the tortillas in the microwave for 20 seconds to soften them.

3.  To assemble, place a tortilla or two on the salsa.  Place 2 Tb each of beef and beans down the middle, then carefully roll up the enchilada and place, seam side down, in the dish.  Repeat with the remaining tortillas.

4.  I always sprinkle any remaining filling on top and around the enchiladas.  Then, pour remaining salsa on top.  Scatter cheese on the tortillas, then drained olives.  Cover casserole with foil.  Up to this point, you can refrigerate or freeze as a do-ahead.

5.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Remove foil and bake another 5 minutes or so to toast the cheese.  Allow to rest 10 minutes before serving.

Difficulty rating  π

Tuna Chef's Salad

Ok, this isn't a chef's salad in the traditional sense, but I couldn't figure out what to call it.  It isn't Niçoise, though that was an inspiration.  This Mediterranean-ish main dish salad came together with pantry items and a quick vinaigrette.  Plus two sad little cherry tomatoes from the garden.  Eventually, my tomatoes will ripen.  Someday.

I pulled out one of the kale.  It was damaged a couple of months ago and was sprouting leaves in all kinds of crazy directions.  It was also smaller than the other two and not likely to recover from whatever raccoon trauma was inflicted.  And I seriously don't need any more kale.  I've stopped freezing it.  Any extras are going to be given to my boss for her smoothies.  I used whatever was left on the stalk and the ends of the cabbage from the steaks as my greens.

This was the first time I opened a pressure-canned jar.  This kind of dish is why I made the asparagus.  The terror that I might be poisoning myself was real, but everything went fine.  It tasted the same as the jar I had that failed to seal, exactly like commercially bought canned asparagus.

I've never bought canned lima beans before.  They live in the canned vegetable section, not with the canned beans, so I don't think about them.  We would have them from frozen when I was growing up, but I don't remember the last time I had those.  I definitely like them and will start stocking a can or two.  If you really hate them, sub in green beans.

*4 C salad greens of choice
*2 cans tuna, drained
*1 can asparagus, drained
*16-ish pitted kalamata olives
*1 can sliced beets, drained
1 can lima beans, drained
1 dry pint cherry tomatoes
*1/2 C crumbled feta cheese
1/4 C olive oil
*2 Tb white wine vinegar
*1/2 tsp dried tarragon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper

1.  Whisk together oil, vinegar, tarragon, salt, and pepper.  Set dressing aside while you assemble the salad.

2.  Arrange greens in serving bowl or on individual plates.

3.  In little sections, arrange tuna, asparagus, olives, beets, tomatoes, and lima beans.  Try to mix up the colors to make it more eye-catching.

4.  Drizzle dressing on the salad, then top with feta.

Difficulty rating  π

The Pantry is Ready for the Season

I've quietly been preparing for the end-of-year holidays for months.  I can't remember when I bought the ingredients for the green bean casserole, but it was probably in April.  Brisket was $5 a pound one day, so that went in the freezer for Chrismukkah.  Nearly every grocery day, I spent about $10 on items I knew I would use by the end of the year.  By spreading out the purchases, I won't have any big hits to the grocery budget.

In some climates, people stock up for winter every year as a routine.  Those are the people who get snowed in, or maybe certain items are delayed by storms.  Winter colds of every origin are more prevalent, and so are power and water outages.

I don't have those problems where I live.  Sometimes a storm will cut out internet or electricity for a few hours, but that's about it.  This makes my "winter" preparation mainly about snagging items I know I will use at a good price and checking the expiration dates first.

There's also the home canning.  When the Presto arrived, I no longer hoarded the canned sweet potatoes I picked up on clearance last year.  I'll need to can some, which is about 6-8 pounds for a load.  It's going to cost half the price of a can in the store if I time it right.  I'm not canning as though I won't be able to get to the store, but just to take advantage of sales to make items I would be buying anyway.

I did make the mistake of not buying half priced mincemeat in January, but I'm leaning toward making a Torta Caprese for Chrismukkah dessert.  Maybe I'll get lucky and some store will actually sell the pastries so I can have one or two for the season.

I do roll my eyes at myself when I glance at the corner of the pantry where the holiday-themed groceries have accumulated.  But then I remember how much cheaper they were six months ago than they are today, so it was probably a good choice.  It has been very hard not to break into the fried onions.  I should have bought two.  If I find more at a good price, I'm getting them and munching.  I also want to make pumpkin baked goods.  It's finally that time of year when no one questions it.

One thing I can break into is the cranberry sauce.  I still have a lot from last year.  I'll take a jar to Thanksgiving and make cranberry brisket for Chanukah.  I still can't believe it's so late that the first night is also Christmas.  At least that means I have the day off.

Is this too much food to have on hand for one person?  Probably.  Almost definitely.  It's still nowhere near the mess I started with in my mom's pantry because nothing is sitting until it spoils.  I have been very careful about dates, rotating, and putting already-purchased on the meal plan.  But if all I have to buy between now and January is fresh produce and dairy, I'm good with that.  Means more paycheck left over for gifts and parties.

Roasted Vegetable and Goat Cheese Pasta

There's a viral TikTok dish of roasting tomatoes with a tub of Boursin cheese and using the resulting goo as pasta sauce.  Then I looked up how much Boursin is running these days, and I don't spend that much on cheese.  The flavor of a 4 oz log of goat cheese goes at least as far.  It just meant I had to alter my preparation.

I'm losing weight again, so I'm slowly sneaking more carbs into my diet to see what I can handle.  Straight up sugar is a bit much, but pasta carbs seem ok.  I forgot to put farfalle (bowtie) on my shopping list, so shells it is.  It was that or macaroni, and I didn't think that would look right.

1 dry pint cherry or grape tomatoes
*1/2 red onion, French sliced
*1/2 lb green beans
*4 oz frozen artichokes, thawed and quartered
*2 cloves garlic, sliced
*1 tsp dried basil
1 Tb olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
*4-6 oz dried pasta of choice (I used one cup of mini shells and forgot to weigh them)
1 4 oz log herbed goat cheese
Parmesan and fresh basil for garnish, optional

1.  Preheat oven to 375º.  In an 8x8 or 9x13 dish, toss together vegetables, oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and basil.  Arrange in an even layer and roast until softened about 30-40 minutes.

2.  Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook pasta according to package directions.  Drain without rinsing, and reserve about 3/4 C of the pasta water.  Quickly return pasta to the pot.

3.  Stir cheese directly into hot pasta and break up.  Kind of like making cream cheese sauce in pasta, if you've ever done that.  Add hot vegetables to the pasta and continue to mix in and melt the cheese.  If too thick, add in some of the pasta water until desired consistency is achieved.  Serve hot, with parmesan and basil on top if desired.

Difficulty rating  π

Apple Honey Cake

I've been wanting to make a honey cake for Rosh Hashanah for several years and never got around to it.  I don't know that I've ever had one.  If I had resorted to the kosher market for a pomegranate, I would have bought one to find out what they're supposed to taste like.  Avoided that madhouse and started looking for a recipe.

As expected, none of them were exactly what I wanted.  I had no idea there was coffee in a honey cake.  Then I looked for honey cake with apples, and that opened up a lot more options.  The upside-down ones looked intriguing, and closer to what I had in mind.  In the end, I settled on Tori Avey's Bundt recipe, scaled it down to a 6" round pan, and added an almond crumb topping instead of icing.

Tori's recipe calls for a Granny Smith apple.  I have Galas at home.  When I cut the recipe, I rounded down all the sugars to account for the natural sweetness of the Gala.  Just make sure you're using a cooking-type apple and not a Red Delicious.  They aren't dense enough.  Gala and Fuji are kind of pushing it.

I don't think I've ever used the grating plate in the blender's food processor, but one apple isn't worth getting out the big guy, and I wasn't in the mood to do it by hand.  There's only one plate for slicing and grating.  You flip it over to switch between them.  That's different.  I didn't peel the apple, because me.  Have a blast.

Crumb

2 Tb flour
*2 Tb almond flour
1 Tb light brown sugar
*2 Tb sliced or slivered almonds
*1 Tb shortening

Cake

1 C flour
1/3 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
dash allspice
dash cloves
1 egg, room temperature
6 tb vegetable oil
1/4 C honey
3 Tb sugar
1 Tb light brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 apple, cored, peeled, and shredded
powdered sugar for topping, optional

1.  To make the crumb, combine flour, almond flour, brown sugar, and slivered almonds in a small bowl.  Cut in shortening to make coarse crumbs.  Set aside.

2.  Grease a deep 6" or regular 8" round cake pan.  The cake would have overflowed a standard 6", so I'm thinking this is really an 8" recipe.  I also lined the bottom with parchment because I don't trust myself.  Preheat oven to 325º.

3.  In a small bowl or pie pan, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.

4.  In another bowl, beat egg until frothy.  Add oil, honey, both sugars, and vanilla and beat until smooth and thick.  If you use the 1/4 C measure for the first 4 Tb of oil, the honey will come out easier.

5.  Stir shredded apple into the wet ingredients.  Gently stir in flour for several strokes, let it rest a minute, and stir again until mostly wet.  Do not over mix.

6.  Pour batter into prepared cake pan.  Sprinkle crumb on top.  If using, add wet cake baking strip to the pan.

7.  Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until center passes the toothpick test.  This one takes a while because it's baked at a lower temperature.  Plus, it's really more of an apple quick bread than a cake.  Let sit in pan 10 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely.  I did that by inverting it onto a plate, removing the parchment, then re-inverting onto the rack.  If desired, dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Makes one cake, 6-8 servings

Difficulty rating  :)

Cabbage Steaks with Black Bean Hummus

Well, if cauliflower steaks are a thing, why not cabbage?  I was looking for something to use a can of black beans that didn't involve potatoes or tortillas.  I've been eating a lot of both lately.

I've decided that I really like roasted cabbage.  Wasn't expecting that.  Cut in a slab like that, it has the emotional impact of a thick slice of bread, but obviously tastes like cooked cabbage.  I made brown rice for the side more to have the calories than as a starch.  A salad seemed redundant.

I've also never made hummus from black beans.  Any bean works as hummus.  It brings its own flavor profile along, but is basically the same recipe.  I would definitely do it again if I was out of canned chickpeas.

1 medium green cabbage, about 1.5 pounds
salt, pepper, and paprika for sprinkling
*1 15 oz can black beans
*3 cloves garlic, peeled
*1 Tb lemon juice
1/2 tsp kosher salt, or to taste
1/2 tsp cumin
*2 Tb unsalted tahini paste
Olive oil for texture, about 1/4 C, plus 1 Tb for the cabbage

1.  Preheat oven to 375º.  Line a baking sheet with parchment for easy cleanup.

2.  Slice the cabbage into 1" thick steaks crosswise, through the equator as it were.  Trim off the heel and top.  Place on the baking sheet.

3.  Lightly brush the cabbage with oil, flip, and brush the other side.  Some of the outer leaves may come off.  I saved them and the other trimmings for salad later in the week.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and paprika.

4.  Roast steaks 15 minutes.  Flip and roast another 15.  They should be tender, especially the slice with the core.  It's ok if the outer leaves get a little charred.

5.  While they're roasting, make the hummus.  Drain the beans and add to the food processor with garlic, lemon juice, salt, cumin, and tahini.  Process into a paste.  Add oil to thin.  If still thicker than you would like it, add a couple tablespoons of water.

6.  Serve cabbage warm with a generous amount of hummus.  I garnished mine with feta, but without it you get a complete vegan meal.

Difficulty rating  :)

Kale and Pomegranate Salad

This recipe is adapted from Mediterranean Living with very few substitutions.  Mainly, I had just had goat cheese earlier in the week and used feta instead.

I won't say I was panicked about finding a pomegranate, but I almost had to resort to frozen.  Finally, I went shopping in a more Jewish neighborhood.  They had it, being around the High Holy Days, and pomegranate is part of the simanim.  So are dates.  This salad knocked out two for my Rosh Hashanah dinner, three if you pretend the kale is a type of cabbage.  I don't really follow it, but if there's a choice of a recipe that uses some of the traditional foods, I'll go for it.  Not doing the fish head.

I made half as much dressing as the recipe I was following, and it was still more than enough.  It's a lovely honey-Dijon vinaigrette that I'll probably make again, but close to a cup of it is way too much.  When I tossed the salad for serving, there was already a pool of it on the bottom.

*1 bunch kale
*6-8 dates
1/2 C pomegranate arils
*1/2 C crumbled feta
1/4 C chopped walnuts or other nuts, optional
1/4 C olive oil
1 Tb honey
*1 Tb Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt
*1 Tb red wine vinegar
*2 tsp lemon juice
*1 tsp chia seeds

1.  Remove tough stems from kale and tear into bite-sized pieces.  Place in serving bowl.  Pit dates if necessary and chop into bite-sized pieces.  Sprinkle on kale, followed by the pomegranate arils.  If using, add chopped nuts.

2.  In a small bowl, whisk together oil, honey, mustard, pepper, salt, vinegar, lemon juice, and chia.  Pour over salad, then top with feta.  Allow to rest 10 minutes for the flavors to mingle, or can be refrigerated until chilled.

3.  Toss salad an serve, with more nuts and feta for garnish as desired.

Difficulty rating  :)

Beef Bone Broth with Leeks and Mushrooms

I finally found some more beef bones at a halfway decent price and decided to can up the rest of my winter broth.  This recipe takes at least two days so the broth can chill to skim the fat.

The chicken broth was almost free, but this one ended up costing something like $2 per pint.  I don't buy much beef on the bone, so it was all new purchases.  I did end up with half a pound of shredded beef for the freezer, so we can discount that $3.  If I had realized there would be two cups of meat, I would have used it for the quesadillas instead of the canned.  Name-brand bone broth can be $6 a pint or more, so while mine cost more than generic store brands, it wasn't too outrageous.  And I got to flavor it how I wanted.

The leek and mushroom part is to use scraps in the freezer.  It wasn't my intent when I put them in there, but while I was poking through the bones every week for a good deal, it started to sound very good.  I'm not keeping the solids, just the essence in the broth.  For how rarely I use beef broth, this flavor profile sounded like a great idea to make a quick soup by adding some cooked barley and maybe some carrots.  Actually, I fished out and saved the turnip and carrots from the veggie stock I made the same day, so maybe they could go in it.

Unlike with the chicken broth, I decided to add salt to this batch.  Not a lot, since I'll salt it in the final use, but more than zero.  Maybe it's because of the fat content, but I find beef broth needs the help.  I added 1/4 tsp to each pint, half of the recommended amount.

You do not have to pressure can this recipe to preserve it.  You can freeze it.  Or, just make one quarter of what I did and make just enough for a single batch of soup.  I was making this to get things out of the freezer.

I bought a jiggler, which is a weighted pressure regulator so you don't have to calibrate the gauge.  I'm pretty good at using the right amount of heat to maintain a steady pressure, but the jiggler lets me do it by listening to the rocking motion.  If it jiggles too fast, you turn down the heat; too slow, turn it up.  It will always prevent over-pressurization.  This was my first canning session with it, and it does help.  It also proved that my gauge is off by almost two pounds and I've been canning at a higher pressure than necessary.  I hope this will improve my seal rate.

As usual, I'm using the NCHFP website's current guidelines for canning the beef broth, except I'm roasting the bones first for a deeper flavor, which does not affect processing time.  I also canned some vegetable broth at the same time, which isn't listed on their site.  In the older Ball book, the time for veggie broth is 30 minutes for pints, so that's what everything ran for.  You always go for the longest time of any ingredient, recipe, or size jar.  Processing for a longer time never affects safety, and with broth it doesn't affect quality.

4 lbs raw beef marrow bones, meat on ok
1 gal water
2 Tb apple cider vinegar
*green tops from one bunch of leeks
*stems and pieces from 1 lb of mushroom caps
1 tsp peppercorns
salt to taste

1.  Preheat oven to 400º.  Arrange bones on a rimmed baking sheet.  Roast 20 minutes, turn, and roast another 10.

2.  Add bones with meat, and any juices on the baking sheet, to a large stock pot.  Pour cold water over them.  Add vinegar, which dissolves the marrow and other goodies in the bones.  Bring pot to a low boil, then lower heat to a simmer.  Cover and cook 3-4 hours, until meat is falling off the bones and any marrow has dissolved.  If any scummy stuff rises to the surface, skim it off.

3.  Remove bones and pick off any meat and gristle.  Save the meat for another use, if desired.  Return bones to the pot with leeks and mushrooms.  Make sure the vegetables have been very well cleaned.  Both tend to harbor dirt in hidden pockets.  Simmer another 1-2 hours.  Strain out solids and refrigerate stock overnight.

4.  Once cooled, remove hardened fat from the top of the broth.  If not canning, broth is now ready for use.  For canning, prepare pressure canner and jars for a 6-8 pint yield (or 4 quarts) as hot pack.

5.  Strain broth back into the stock pot, trying to get out any last solids that have gelled overnight.  Bring broth back up to a boil.  Fill hot jars with hot broth, adding 1/2 tsp of salt to each pint, if desired.  Wipe rims clean with vinegar.  Center lids and screw on rings finger-tight.  Process according to the linked chart for altitude and size of jar.  Cool, check seals, wash jars, and store.  Any failed seals can be reprocessed with new lids, refrigerated for immediate use, or frozen for later.

Makes about one gallon

Difficulty rating  :)

Roast Beef Quesadillas

Before attempting to can beef, I decided to buy a can to find out if it's something I even want.  Finding a recipe for it turned out to be the hard part.  I could have done a French dip sandwich, but most of the other recipes I found were either stews or Mexican.  Canned chicken, I can come up with plenty of ideas.  Most of my pork butt recipes are crockpot, so they would also work with canned.  Beef seems to be much harder to use, mainly because there are no cold recipes for it.  I'm glad I did this before canning a roast.  I'm going to have to think that one over.

I didn't realize Taco Bell discontinued the MexiMelt until I wanted one.  Ok, fine, I'll make it myself.  This came out slightly better than their ground beef version.  I always thought there was too much spice and not enough substance in the MexiMelt, but they were cheap and filling.

I don't buy Taco Seasoning because I don't make Mexican very often.  Maybe once a month.  There are just so many cuisines to try, and with four servings of a recipe, I'm only cooking about eight times a month.  I've considered smaller recipes and cooking more often, but ingredients tend to be sold in packages between 3 and 5 servings.  That's the whole reason I started cooking this way in the first place.  It's much easier than ending up with a ton of half-filled bottles and jars in the fridge.  So, I'm just going to call this "taco seasoning" in the recipe and you should know that I used paprika, garlic powder, and all those kinds of spices that go into the commercial blend.

I debated a long time about what cheese to use.  Jarred nacho dip, Velveeta, and Campbell's cheese soup are the most logical options.  American cheese slices are close behind.  I never buy any of those, and simply couldn't justify picking up an ingredient I don't use and would need to find recipes for until it was gone.  I ended up using the shredded cheddar/jack I keep for omelets.

8 fajita-size tortillas
1 *12 oz can roast beef, drained (or leftover roast beef or 80/20 ground beef, cooked)
1 Tb taco seasoning
*1 Roma tomato, diced
*2 Tb diced red or green onion
1 C processed cheese, melted, or shredded "Mexican" cheese

1.  In a skillet, heat meat with taco seasoning and break apart into small pieces.  I have to say, I was severely disappointed that so little meat was left once I drained away the broth.  That's supposed to be at least three servings?  I'm pretty sure there would be a lot more in a pint jar if I did can my own, so if I ever decide to continue using canned beef, I'm doing it myself.

Seriously?

2.  Combine diced onion and tomato into a quickie pico.  You can also add cilantro to it if desired, but I skipped that part.

3.  Lay out the tortillas on a work surface.  Sprinkle each with 2 Tb cheese, whether shreds or spooning on melted.  Distribute the meat among the tortillas.  It doesn't look like a lot, but you do taste it.  Divide the salsa on all 8.

4.  Preheat a griddle over medium.  Fold the tortillas in half and heat until the tortilla is lightly browned and crispy and the cheese and meat have melted together, about 5 minutes per side.  Serve hot.

Difficulty rating  π

Kale and Tomato Quiche

No, seriously, this kale is never going to die.  I thought a week of 90º was going to take care of it.  I have four gallon bags of it in the freezer.  I did find a recipe for canning greens, but the point of freezing is that it takes the place of kneading the tough kale to break down the fibers for raw eating.  There is one salad recipe I want to try which will use at least half a bag.

If kale isn't your thing, this works with fresh spinach or other greens.  It will taste different, but the general idea and quantities are the same.  You could also defrost leaf spinach if you squeeze it dry.

I had really hoped I would be using my own tomatoes for this.  How did 90º not ripen them faster?  Well, I have more recipes coming up that incorporate them.  I did get some gorgeous Campari salad tomatoes that I hated cooking down for this, but they were yummy.

1 Tb olive oil
*3 C chopped kale
1/2 lb tomatoes, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp celery salt
*1 tsp dried herbs of choice (I used thyme and savory, but I get that it's hard to find savory)
1/4 tsp white pepper
*1 unbaked 9" pie crust
3 eggs
*1 C milk
*3/4 C shredded Swiss or havarti cheese

1.  If you bought a frozen pie crust, start defrosting it in the fridge.  If you made your own or use refrigerated, put it back in the fridge to keep firm.

2.  Heat oil in a medium skillet.  Add kale and cook over medium heat until it starts to wilt.  Add diced tomatoes, garlic, celery salt, white pepper, and herbs and cook until all the veggies have given up their water, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching.  Set aside to cool.

3.  Preheat oven to 375º.  In a bowl, whisk together eggs and milk.  Place pie pan on a lined baking sheet in case of overflow.

4.  To assemble the quiche, spread cooled vegetable mixture on bottom of pie pan.  Top with cheese (yes, I used sliced instead of shredded, because that's what I had).  Pour egg custard into pie shell and allow it to settle a moment.

5.  Bake 40-45 minutes, until custard is set and crust is a medium brown.  Set on a rack to cool at least 15 minutes to serve warm, or an hour to serve at room temperature.  Quiches can also be served cold.

Serves 6-8, depending on sides and whether this is for a smaller meal like brunch or tea

Difficulty rating  :)