Recipe 24: Steak Sandwich

I am always looking for inspiration for what to cook next and often they come from rather interesting sources.  Sometime while I was in Texas I went to a restaurant called Texadelphia, which was supposedly a cross between Philly Cheese Steaks and BBQ food.  I thought that it was pretty decent and so I decided to try making something like a Philly cheese steak sandwich.

I decided to start easy, and so I went with the Easy Steak Sandwich recipe.  Here is the final result:

And here is the recipe that I used: (link)

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 medium onion, sliced
• 4 large fresh mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 green bell pepper, sliced into long strips
• 1 (1/2 pound) well-marbled beef steak of any type, sliced as thinly as possible
• 3 tablespoons chopped pickled hot peppers
• 1 teaspoon Hot pepper sauce
• 2 slices sharp Cheddar cheese
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/3 French baguette, cut in half lengthwise

Directions

1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion; cook and stir until tender. Push onion to the side of the pan, and add the mushrooms. Cook and stir until softened, then add the bell pepper and cook just until tender, about 3 minutes. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon, and set aside.
2. Add the remaining butter to the skillet. No need to clean the pan, just let it heat up a little bit. Place the steak in the skillet along with the pickled peppers. Season with salt and pepper. The steak cooks really fast, just a couple of minutes. Once the steak is mostly browned, return the onion and pepper to the pan. Cook until heated through.
3. Turn off the heat, and place the slices of cheese over the top of the pile so they can melt. Scoop the whole pile into the awaiting bread, making sure to pour some of the juices onto that wonderful sandwich.

Changes

I didn't change a whole lot here, but I did scale this up.  It seemed like the recipe was mostly for one sandwich, so I added more bell pepper and onion.  I think I sliced up 1 green and 1 red bell pepper and a whole onion.

I also couldn't really find a french baguette that I wanted, so I went with smaller french rolls.

The Process

This recipe lived up to its name as being easy to make.  The first step was to cut up the steak into strips.  The recipe didn't really talk about how to select the correct meat, but a lot of the comments talked about making sure you get really thin cuts and you also want to make sure that there is some fat in it, because that makes for a better sandwich.  Here is the size of the steak that I picked out.  I am not sure if it was the perfect type for this sandwich, but it seemed to work well enough.

 After slicing up the steak I started cooking.  I added the onions to the pan and let them cook for a little bit.

Then I pushed them to the side and cooked up the mushrooms.

 Finally I added the bell peppers and cooked those up.  When they were done, I removed all of the veggies from the pan.

I then added the steak and the picked hot peppers and cooked them up.  Since the steak was thin it cooked fairly quickly. 

I then added the veggies pack in and cooked them for a little bit to heat everything up and mix it together.

Then I made the sandwiches, by first layering the cheese.

 And then adding the steak and veggie mixture.

I added some hot sauce as well to add a bit of kick.  In general I really liked these, I did think that the bread was a little dry and could have been better, but I liked the steak and veggie mixture and I actually thought that the hot sauce added a lot to the sandwich overall.

Since I was in Texas when I made this Sprinkles didn't get a chance to appear in pictures and I know that she is really the only reason people read this.  So here is a picture of very young sprinkles in a sink!

Recipe 23: Fish Tacos with Mango-Pineapple Slaw

 Sometime over the summer I was buying some meat from the meat section of the grocery store and looking at the fish.  I have never really been that impressed by the fish selection, probably because I am used to having a really good selection of fish in Oregon.  As the meat guy was wrapping up my purchase he started talking about how he loved making fish tacos with the cod there.

So I went back and looked up some recipes.  There are a ton of fish taco recipes out there, but I decided to choose one that looked really simple, but also seemed like it would be tasty.

 Here is a picture of the final result:

And here is the recipe that I ended up using: (link)

Ingredients

• 1 pound cod fillets
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 3 cups shredded cabbage
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh mango
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh pineapple
• 1/2 cup chopped red onion
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 fresh jalapeno pepper, chopped
• 8 (8 inch) flour tortillas

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. Place cod fillets on a large sheet of aluminum foil; pour lemon juice over fish and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Fold the foil around the fish and seal to create a pouch; place pouch in a baking dish.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until the fish flakes easily with a fork, about 20 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, whisk vinegar, mayonnaise, sugar, 1 tablespoon salt, 1 tablespoon black pepper, and garlic powder in a bowl until smooth. Combine cabbage, mango, pineapple, red onion, cilantro, and jalapeno in large bowl. Pour dressing over vegetables and fruit; toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate slaw until ready to serve.
5. Divide fish evenly among flour tortillas. Spoon slaw over fish to serve. 

The Process

The first step was to cook the fish.  I seasoned it a bit with salt and pepper and lemon juice.  However, I definitely think that I didn't season it enough.  I think that the fish ended up fine, but it was a little bland.  There might be other things that would be good to season it with, but I don't have that expertise.

 While the fish was cooking I chopped up the mangoes, which was something that I had never done before.  The middle of the mango is this huge put that takes up nearly half of the fruit, so it was interesting working around that. 

Here is the base of the coleslaw, the cabbage with some cilantro and the jalapeno.

 Soon the fish was done.  I have to say that pictures of cooked cod don't look much different than pictures of uncooked cod.  I also cooked this for a little longer.  It wasn't quite flaky enough after 20 minutes.

 I was in Texas while I made this recipe, but somehow Sprinkles managed to get tangled up in my laundry!

After the slaw was done I constructed the tacos.  Here is the tortilla with the fish.

And here is the final result again, now with the slaw added.

I thought that the slaw of this recipe was really good.  The fish was pretty simple and a little bland, but the slaw carried the tacos and made them good.  I think a little more seasoning of the fish would certainly help, but overall this was a simple recipe that was very easy to make and tasted good.

Recipe 22: Zucchini Herb Casserole

I don't make many vegetarian dishes, but at some point during the summer I found a couple of zucchini recipes that sounded really good to me.  This particular one was a casserole that included a bunch of veggies and rice and then the whole thing is covered in cheese.

Here is a picture of the final result.

 Here is the recipe that I used(Link):

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup uncooked long grain white rice
• 2/3 cup water
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 pounds zucchini, cubed
• 1 cup sliced green onions
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 1/4 teaspoons garlic salt
• 1/2 teaspoon basil
• 1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 1/2 cups seeded, chopped tomatoes
• 2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese, divided

Directions

1. Combine the rice and water in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes, until rice is tender.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a shallow 1 1/2 quart casserole dish.
3. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat, and cook the zucchini, green onions, and garlic 5 minutes, or until tender. Season with garlic salt, basil, paprika, and oregano. Mix in the cooked rice, tomatoes, and 1 cup cheese. Continue to cook and stir until heated through. Transfer to the prepared casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.
4. Bake uncovered 20 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

The Process

This was actually a really simple recipe to make, I started the rice and then  mixed all of the zucchini together with the green onions and garlic.

Then I put it in the only skillet that I had over the summer, it was slightly small, but still worked pretty well.

Since the rice wasn't ready yet I decided just to mix everything together and cook it a little until the rice was done.

So I added the remaining veggies, spices and cheese and then heated it for a little bit.

Since I didn't think the rice would fit in the skillet I decided to mix everything together in the pan.

I then added the cheese and put it in the oven.  All in all a very simple dish to make.

I was surprised, but I really liked this.  I think that the herbs made this very flavorful and kind of salty, which usually makes everything a little better.

I do think that this might be best as a side dish or not a stand alone main dish anyway.  I had a salad with it, but it definitely seemed more like a side to me.  However, it was very good.

Recipe 21: Meat Pie

 One of my most succesful recipes was the Chicken Pot Pie, or at least I like to think that it was successful since it managed to make one of my friends actually like Pot Pie, for the first time ever.

So I decided to experiment I had already made the crab pot pie earlier in the summer, so I decided to try a ground beef version, which is shown below:

And here is the recipe that I used (link):

Ingrediants

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed vegetable beef soup, undiluted
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 4 carrots, sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C.)
2. In a large skillet, cook the ground beef and chopped onion until meat is no longer pink. Remove from heat and drain off excess fat. Stir in the vegetable beef and cream of mushroom soups, the potatoes and carrots. Season with salt and pepper. Divide filling between 2 - 9 inch pie plates.
3. Roll pastry to fit the top of each pie. Cover each pie and cut slits in top to allow steam to escape.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until golden brown. Let stand on a wire rack for 15 minutes before serving.

Changes

 I made this a while ago, but I don't actually remember any changes that I made.  I do think that it is important to point out that this makes 2 pies.  Which is a lot of food.  It made me for over a week.... and by the end I was... kind of tired of meat pie.  So just be fore warned, either cut this recipe in half or expect to be eating a lot of meat pie!

 

The Process

The process of making this was actually really simple.  I just mixed everything together in a huge pot.  First I put in the meat and onions:

 My roommate was also cooking at the time.  He was making frozen hamburger patios.  I can't say that I was particularly jealous.

After the hamburger was browned I added the soups, carrots and potatoes. 

Then I mixed everything together really well to finish the filling.

I just premade pie crusts.  Normally I would use the kind that you roll out into the pie plate, but since I had no pie plate I didn't really have a choice.  I took one crust and put it on top the pie crust with the filling.  The picture below shows one completed and another without the top.  I then cut slits and baked them.

 

And here is the end result.  The only thing that I would change is to cook it for a little longer.  I was playing volleyball and so when the timer went off I just ran in and took them out of the oven then went back and played again.  Had I looked closer I think it could have used a few more minutes.  But I still really enjoyed it.  I don't think it was as good as the chicken pot pie, but still really good.