Bavarian Beef Dinner

Today was one of those Sundays where all my pent-up energy and plans for cooking were finally realized! It's been a very busy last few weeks with the semester really starting to race to the finish, but today I got back to my traditional weekend batch of muffins which make a nice breakfast during the week - apple streusel muffins, wherein I actually successful made streusel for once! I usually overwork it and end up with cinnamon sugar butter...

Also got a little improvising going with chocolate chocolate-chip cookies! I took the standard Hershey's chocolate chip cookie recipe from the package of semisweet chips (which incidentally, is the only chocolate chip cookie recipe that I've found that makes chewy cookies!), and I subbed out 1/4 c of flour for cocoa, and put in 1/2 white chocolate chips and 1/2 semisweet. They're really good!

And then, since this is my week to cook, I had the Bavarian Beef Dinner marked for my next food share. Do you ever get the urge to sit down and read through some of your cook books? It doesn't strike me very often, but a couple of weeks ago I read through several cook books and marked recipes that sounded good (another interesting find: Mexican-style Chicken Kiev).

Bavarian Beef Dinner (Best of Country Cooking 1999):

2 lb boneless chuck roast, cubed (I bought extra lean stew beef = $10.75)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1-1/2 c beef broth ($0.15)
2 med onions, sliced ($1.59)
1 garlic clove, minced ($0.05)
1 tsp each dill seed, caraway seed, paprika, salt
1/2 tsp pepper
(added mushrooms = $0.59)
1/4 c cold water
3 tbsp flour
1 c sour cream ($0.80)
egg noodles ($1.50)

Brown beef in oil. Add broth, onions, garlic, and seasonings. Cover and simmer for 2.5 hours, until beef is tender. Reduce heat. Combine water and flour until smooth; gradually stir into beef mixture. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Add sour cream and heat through (do not boil). Serve over rice (or subbed egg noodles) with sauerkraut on the side.

I didn't include the sauerkraut in the tupperwares, although I do enjoy sauerkraut. The total for this meal was $15.63, coming in at $1.95 per serving!

A dinner party!

Last Monday Julie and Colby and Randi came over for dinner. Usually if I cook it's just for me, which means less incentive to make stuff that actually looks pretty and tastes good. But this time I got out a recipe and multiple pots and pans and made a meal for people, while still doing something fairly nice and simple: baked ziti!

It was an easy recipe - mostly pasta and cheese and tomato-y stuff. Mix it together, cover it with more cheese, and bake! The hardest part was chopping up the garlic. Anybody else find that difficult?

Straight out of the oven I think it tasted okay, but for some reason it was not as good after reheating. Maybe tomato sauce would have tasted better than the can of whole tomatoes. Or perhaps I could have crushed the tomatoes more so it would have mixed better with the cheese.

Also on the menu was stuff I didn't make so much as buy: mixed green salad, garlic bread (which I would like to try making myself sometime), and ice cream.

So, baking pasta and casserole-type stuff is fun. The dishes always comes out looking so hearty. I'll be attempting more similar things in the future!

Austin Bakes for Japan

Randi and I will be at the East Austin location with cranberry orange muffins and homemade kolaches!