Johnny Marzetti

I find non-descriptive recipe titles to be unhelpful at best. Take this recipe, for example. It is called "Johnny Marzetti" and when I told MM that is what we are having for dinner, he stared at me with a blank expression. So I said we are having a cheesy beef and noodle casserole, and he said, that sounds great! Now, I am sure if either of us were from Ohio or Columbus, specifically, we would have known immediately what this dish was. Apparently there was an old (now closed) restaurant in Columbus, Ohio called Marzetti's and Johnny was the owner's brother and this dish was named after him. I happened to find the recipe in the December 2011 issue of Saveur.

Furthermore, while doing some internet research on this dish, I found that people in New England refer to this dish as chop suey and thinking back to the chop suey my mom used to make, this is similar.

Overall, this dish was delicious and reheats beautifully. I followed the recipe as written, but you certainly don't need as much olive oil as the recipe suggests, especially if you are using a non-stick pan. I used cremini mushrooms instead of white button mushrooms, because something about white button mushrooms really eeks me out. I also put the pan under the broiler for the last couple minutes so the top would brown. Lastly, this recipe serves way more than 6 people - at least 8.

Guinness Braised Beef with Roasted Broccoli and Potatoes

We had a brief window of winter weather in DC this past weekend - it was cold, windy, dry and generally inhospitable. I decided a hearty beef stew (of sorts) was in order.

I found this recipe for Guinness Braised Beef on Chow. You could certainly treat this like a stew, but as you can see, I made a massive amount of roasted broccoli and potatoes to go with it, so I wanted to put it all on the same plate. I followed the recipe as written and we generally liked the result. I couldn't taste the bacon at all and feel like it could easily be omitted. This does taste even better the next day and would recommend having some crusty bread on hand to sop up the yummy broth.

Beef and Butternut Squash Stew

Let's get this out of the way in the beginning: the end result of this dish is not what I would typically consider a stew. It is much too brothy to be a stew. I would call it a soup. Semantics aside, this was very tasty, hearty and warming on a cool October night.

I had my friends (and neighbors), Nicole and Joe, over for dinner this past weekend and I was craving pot roast. When I was flipping through Giada's Kitchen, I saw this recipe for Beef and Butternut Squash Stew and thought, well, that would be a good way to use the butternut squash from this week's CSA. (A note about the squash: I usually dread cutting butternut squash because they are large and tough, but these babies were a manageable size, easy to peel and easy to cut into.)

While the stew turned out well, it could have used more vegetables. I actually found myself searching for carrots that I knew were not in the bowl. And when I had it leftover at work the next day, I couldn't help but think that barley, or some other grain, would enhance the dish and soak up the remaining broth.

In case anyone is wondering what we had along side the stew, I pan-fried a can of chickpeas and threw them on top of the CSA salad mix and made Ina Garten's Vinaigrette for Green Salad (I halved it and omitted the garlic). Giada recommends serving this stew with crusty bread, and I thought, well, we can't have bread without roasted garlic butter! I first wrote about roasted garlic butter in June, but this time I roasted 6 heads of CSA garlic for 8 tablespoons of butter. (The CSA garlic only has between 4-5 cloves in each head.)  All in all, it was a great dinner!

Cottage Pie

Looks a little soupy...

So apparently I have a problem reducing sauces properly (see this disaster) as my cottage pie was definitely not the proper cottage pie/shepherd's pie consistency.

This recipe is from the November 2010 issue of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food (which Marshal Mike calls a comic book because of its tiny size). And here's a fun fact that Martha taught me - did you know that a traditional shepherd's pie is made with lamb and a cottage pie is made with ground beef? I certainly didn't. But because Martha Stewart said it, it must be the truth.

So honestly the best thing about this dish is I got to break out my mandoline (thanks, UNF!) to slice the potato. So fun!

I will include the recipe below because I can't find it online and you will see that it has you add a cup of water near the end. When I make this again, I think I will try only adding 1/2 cup or so, because not only was the resulting dish soupy, I felt like the flavor was diluted, too. Although MM and his cousin, Tom, had no problems going back for seconds. The crispy potatoes, while not helpful at all at mopping up juices, were delicious!

Cottage Pie
From Everyday Food
I just noticed that the recipe says it serves 6 - that is totally not true. Maybe 6 dieting girls, but definitely not 6 normal people. There were 3 of us and we had one leftover portion.
Active time: 30 minutes
Total time: 1 1/4 hours

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 large yellow onion, diced medium
2 large carrots, cut into 3/4 inch pieces
coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons tomato paste (I would be tempted to up this amount)
1 pound ground beef or lamb
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
1 cup dark (porter) beer (I had a hard time finding a porter beer and ended up with Kona Pipeline Porter and it really surprised me! It was delicious!)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 cup frozen peas
1 large russet potato (3/4 pound), very thinly sliced

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon butter over medium-high heat. Add onion and carrots and cook, stirring often, until onion is soft, 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and stir in tomato paste. Add meat and cook, breaking up with a wooden spoon, until almost cooked through, 3 minutes. Add thyme and beer and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring frequently, until slightly reduced, 2 minutes. Sprinkle flour over mixture and stir to combine. Add 1 cup water and cook until mixture thickens, about 2 minutes. Stir in peas and season with salt and pepper.

3. Transfer mixture to a 2-quart baking dish. Top with potatoes, overlapping slices. Season potatoes with salt and pepper and drizzle with 2 tablespoons butter. Bake until potatoes are browned around the edges and tender when pierced with a knife, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes before serving. (To store, let cool completely, cover with foil, and refrigerate, up to 3 days. Reheat, covered, in a 350 degree oven until warmed through.)

Steak with Sun-Dried Tomato Butter

Delicious! Absolutely delicious!

This started as a Relish recipe, but they suggested making roasted asparagus with the steak and I am obsessed with fennel at the moment (my grandma would be so proud), so I decided that we would have roasted fennel and carrots (the poor carrots have been living in the crisper drawer for weeks!!). Seriously, the fennel turns into candy. Make this tonight - it is so freaking good. If you didn't like fennel before today, try it roasted and you will LOVE it. I wish I had bought multiple bulbs!

Sirloin filet with sun-dried tomato butter

Adapted from Relish

Serves 2

2 tablespoons butter, room temperature

2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes, minced (blot oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes)

1 tablespoon basil, chopped

1 teaspoon garlic, minced

2 sirloin filets

1. To make the compound butter, mash together the butter, sun-dried tomatoes and garlic in a small bowl. Gently mix in the basil. Cover with plastic wrap and chill until firm.

2. Preheat grill pan or sauté pan over medium high heat. Rub olive oil on both sides of the steaks. Season both sides with coarse salt and freshly ground pepper. Cook each side of the steak for a couple minutes (until nicely browned), then reduce heat and cook until desired doneness.

3. Transfer to a plate to rest and top with sun-dried tomato butter.

Roasted Fennel and Carrots

Serves 2

1 large fennel bulb, tops and bruised/tough outer layer removed (reserve a few fronds for garnish)

Extra virgin olive oil

coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

5 small-ish carrots, peeled and cut into 1- 1 1/2 inch pieces

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Cut fennel into 1/4-1/2 inch slices and transfer to foil-lined baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Toss to coat all pieces. Roast for 30 minutes.

3. Combine carrots, olive oil, salt and pepper in a bowl. Add to baking sheet at 30 minute mark. Roast with fennel for additional 20 minutes.

4. Garnish with reserved fronds. Devour!

Stir-Fried Beef, Broccoli and Yams

After doggie's first visit to the vet last night, I made Bon Appetit's Stir-Fried Beef, Broccoli and Yams. It was delicious! The recipe called for flank steak, but I couldn't find any, so I used London broil. And I am pretty sure I bought a sweet potato, not a yam, and it was just fine. Marshal Mike commented that the broccoli tastes just like Chinese food broccoli - I am assuming this is a good thing because he ate it all. I loved the addition of the sweet potato; it brought a different dimension to an other wise pretty classic Chinese dish.