Flank Steak

There's not much to it really. When I buy the flank steak, I marinate in a freezer back with 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup soy sauce and 1 cup water. I usually double- bag it. Then, I freeze it and thaw when needed. Then it's grilled and there you have it:

It tastes good with anything, from rice and vegies, to mashed potatoes or just on a salad.

Chili Night

It's cold, it's College Football Saturday, which means it's time to have some chili! We use the "Texas Chain Gang Chili" recipe. I believe its' from this book, but since I found it online I'm not sure, so here are the ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil; 2 yellow onions; 8 cloves garlic; 4 jalapenos; 1.5 lbs ground beef; 1.5 lbs beef chuck, cubed; 2 tsp salt; 5 Tbsp chili powder (or fresh/dried ancho chili pods); 2 Tbsp cumin; 2 Tbsp oregano; 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes; 3 cups beef stock; 2 16oz cans dark red kidney beans.

Chop and sautee the onions and garlic first:

Meanwhile chop up the jalapenos. We remove the seeds. Oh and by "we" I mean my husband:)

Sautee it all some more and move it to the slow cooker:

In the same pot brown the meat:

And add the spices:

We decided to let it simmer for an additional 30 minutes because the chuck was kind of tough and this really helped.

Add the broth and tomatoes (not the beans):

Then we transferred it to the slow cooker:

About 5 minutes before we were ready to eat we added the kidney beans:

Serve it with some corn muffins:

And top it with some sour cream, cheese and spring onions:

Served over rice....Yum!

Easy Fish

I'm afraid to cook fish....real fish. So I usually go with the frozen variety. This is one of my easy, cheating kind of meals, so no real ingredients are needed.

I put some butter and lemon juice on top of the still frozen Talapia Roulades:

One of my favorite forzen vegies are the Organic Mixed Vegetables from Costco. They taste good and because it's from Costco I get a bigger bag that lasts longer.

And this is the finished product.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Rainy and cold days just call for soup and chicken noodle soup is just the best and easiet to do. Usually I have leftover chicken or even turkey (soon I will have tons of that). This time I didn't so I baked some chicken breasts real quick. I had four, spiced them up with some poultry seasining and baked them at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or so.

The rest of the ingredients are easy. Some olive oil, carrots, an onion and some celery for vegies. I forgot to add the peas I had in the freezer. Then we need some noodles. I had a leftover half a pack of egg noodles, so I used them. For the liquid I used both, chicken broth and vegetable broth because that's what the pantry had to offer:) I never measure the amount of vegies, but just cut it up until it seems enough. As for the broth I don't measure that either. This time I used about one and half can of chicken broth and one bigger container of vegetable broth.

There are the vegies:

I sauteed them first in olive oil until they're tender, but still crunchy if that makes sense.

Then I add the broth and the seasoning, about a Tbsp of oultry seasoning and I should've only used about a Tsp. of celery salt. It turned out too bitter.

I let that simmer for a while:

Then I added the chicken, cut up of course:

Meanwhile I made my new favorite easy Pillsbury French bread:

I let the whole thing simmer for almost three hours. About ten minutes out I added the noodles:

And this is what we all got to enjoy:

Bulletten, Spaetzle and Vegies

OK we start off with the ingredients for the Bulletten, which are ground meat patties, mostly a mix of beef and pork. I usually buy the two seperately, but I found a meat loaf mix, consisting of beef, pork and veal, so I tried it this time. Then I used two eggs, but normally I only use one but this was so much meat. I added a chopped large onion, about three cloes of garlic, about a Tbsp. of bread crumbs. salt, pepper, chilli powder and marjoram as well as some worchestire sauce.

I mix all the ingredients:



And form little patties, making sure they're all evenly sized:

Then I panfry them in some canola oil and butter:



Meanwhile I make the Spaetzle. Just mix 500g flour, 5 eggs, 220 ml warm water and one Tbs salt and let it stand for ten minutes. Then stir it again. The dough should not rip when being pulled up.

Boil salt water and then use a Spaetzle Maker (mine is a Tupperware one from Germany-Thanks Mom!). Just do one batch at a time and scoop up the Spaetzle as soon as they come up, which is pretty much right away.

After the Bulletten are done I make gravy. I just add about 2 cups of water and then some binder and spice it so it tastes good.

And then you get to enjoy it all after working so hard to make it:)

Tomato-Basil Soup

This one is really easy. We start with 3 14.5 oz. cans of diced tomatoes, 3 cups of chicken broth, 3 garlic cloves, 2 Tsp. olive oil, 3/4 Tsp. Salt and 2 cups of fresh basil, thinlys sliced (I didn't have fresh basil at first, so that's why I put the dried basil in the picture).

So, first I sauteed the garlic:

Then I added the broth, tomatoes and salt and brought it to a boil and the let it simmer for 20 minutes:

Meanwhile I baked some French bread (a la Pillsbury):

After the soup was done simmering, I added the basil:

Puree the soup:

And serve it:

Spaghetti and Shrimp

OK, here we go: I use frozen cooked, tail-on shrimp because it's easy. Then we need some lemon-pepper, the juice of one lemon and a few cloves of garlic, some olive oil and some basil (I usually prefer fresh basil, but was out).

I marinate the shrimp first in the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and spices:

Then I sautee the shrimp until they're done:
I add the spaghetti that were left over from my pasta dinner and that's it:

Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of ythe plate...I was hungry.

Pizza Night

I updated the Pizza Night post here.

Pasta with Homemade Pasta Sauce

This is a combination of several tomato sauce recipes and it varies each time, especially the amount of spices I use.
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 16 oz. can tomato paste
1 cup water
1-1 1/2 cup chopped onions
1-1 1/2 cup chopped carrots
4 garlic cloves
2 Tsp sugar
2 Tsp dried Oregano
1/2 Tsp Salt

Sautee the onions, garlic and carrots in some olive oil...

...until they're nice and tender:

Add the rest of the ingredients except the ground beef:

Meanwhile brown the ground beef:

And then you add the meat to the sauce:

And there you have it! I cook it any time between 30 minutes to several hours, depending on how early I get started.

Serve it over spaghetti:

And with some Parmesan: