More recipes -- beef stew and baked pasta

I've been cooking up a storm lately, mostly because I don't want to spend a lot of money on food. I'm also in full hearty winter meal mode, which means lots of stick to your ribs kinds of stuff. The stew recipe is distilled from the stew my former mother-in-law used to make, a Gaston stew where I misinterpreted the pepper corns for juniper berries, with really great results.

The pasta recipe is just something I threw together. It just so happened that we had book club the night I made the pasta and the hostess was serving lasagna she had bought from the store, so I asked if she minded if I brought leftover pasta. She didn't. Everyone seemed to like it. I used Dreamfields noodles, which I use now because of the fewer effective carbs.

Juniper beef stew

3 pounds chuck cut into 3/4 inch squares
flour to dredge
white pepper
sea salt to taste
1/2 cup olive oil
6 stalks celery, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 cups small carrots
2 onions cut into half inch pieces
3 cloves garlic minced
15 baby red potatoes
8 juniper berries crushed
3 bay leaves
1 tablespoon thyme
1/2 cup red wine
About 1 quart beef broth, or enough to come to the top of the stew

Dredge beef in flour, salt and pepper. Heat a few tablespoons olive oil in a large Dutch oven. Add beef in and brown in batches. Add more oil as needed. When all the beef is browned add onions and celery to olive oil, add more if needed and cook until starting to sweat, add garlic and cook until it becomes fragrant, being careful not to scorch it. Add beef and the rest of the ingredients and simmer. You can cook this for a couple of hours in a 300 degree oven, but you still need to cook it on the stove top to thicken the juices. Be very careful not to burn the bottom by stirring constantly.

Italian sausage pasta bake

1 box Dreamfields penne pasta cooked al dente according to package directions
1 pound sweet Italian sausage
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 large bell pepper, seeded and chopped
3 minced garlic cloves
2 large cans Progresso crushed tomatoes with added puree
3 bay leaves
1 tablespoon oregano
1/2 cup red wine
1 pound shredded mozzarella
1 container fresh mozzarella
Parmesan cheese
8 ounces provolone

Remove casings from sausage and brown, breaking up into small pieces. Add onion and pepper and cook until onion starts to become translucent. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Do not brown or it will be bitter. Add tomatoes, bay leaves oregano and red wine and simmer. Grease a 11X13 inch glass baking dish. Add sauce to bottom of dish and spread out. add half of the noodles. Add more sauce. Top with half of the cheese. Add noodles, sauce and the last of the cheese. Sprinkle with Parmesan last. Cook in 35o degree oven for 30 minutes.

Biscuits and gravy and other gross stuff

 

 

My husband has serious food issues. Rob pretty much doesn't like food. He likes candy, some meat, potatoes, barbecued beans and canned peas and corn and that's about it. I'm seriously not exaggerating -- the guy is developmentally disabled when it comes to food in that he hasn't developed his palate since he was 10 and lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

One of the few things he DOES like are (is?) biscuits and gravy. Not the biscuits and sausage gravy served at most breakfast places, no, his majesty likes bacon gravy and biscuits.

When I first was introduced to biscuits and gravy as an adult living in Colorado, I was repulsed. It sounded disgusting to me -- heavy gravy over thick heavy biscuits. The food is beige, so it would look ugly. There just didn't seem to be anything appealing about the idea to me. I actually worked up the courage to try the dish and my opinion hasn't improved with time.

But Mr. Food-issues loves the stuff, so I learned to make it. I make it on the rare occasions that Rob begs and whines so much that I actually will go to the trouble of messing up the kitchen -- and this is a messy dish -- to serve something I won't eat. I taste it to make sure I have the seasonings right, but that's about it.

Here's the recipe. Enjoy it, because I don't.

Bacon biscuits and gravy

1 pound thick bacon fried and drained
flour
about 1 or 2 cups of milk
pepper
salt

Drain all but about 1/2 cup of the bacon grease. Add flour and whisk, forming a roux. Add milk slowly, whisking. Add until you have a nice, thick gravy. Add pepper and salt to taste. Make sure to make the gravy pepper-y enough.
Make a batch of rolled Bisquik biscuits, according to package directions. Serve the biscuits with gravy ladled on top with crumbled bacon on top of the whole mess.