Mom’s Corned Beef and Cabbage

In honor of St. Patty's Day, here is how to make some lucky Corned Beef and Cabbage!

3-4 lb Corned Beef
1 head of cabbage cut into wedges
½ cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic minced
2 bay leaves
1 tbs whole peppercorns
6 Med potatoes quartered
6 Med carrots

Meat topping
Prepared mustard- such as deli or spicy brown mustard
¼ cup brown sugar
½ tsp Ground cloves

For the meat:
In large pot place corned beef and barely cover with HOT water. Add chopped onion, garlic, bay leaves and peppercorns. Cover and simmer 4 hours.

After the 4 hours remove meat to a baking dish and add the potatoes and carrots to pot. Bring to a boil and cook 10 minutes. Add cabbage wedges and cook 20 minutes more.

Mix together ¼ brown sugar and ½ tsp of ground cloves. Spread the meat with the mustard and sprinkle the meat with the sugar/cloves mixture. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

Cut meat against the grain and arrange a dish with your potatoes, carrots and cabbage…

Don't forget the Irish Soda Bread!

Mama's Cheesy Mashed Potatoes- Italian Style

My husband always told our kids that he only married me for my meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Apparently before me, he thought potatoes came in a box. Here's a cheesy way to make mashed potatoes. Recipe borrowed from Donna Martinez.

Ingredients:
Potatoes – count on 1 potato per person and add 1 extra to the pot. Cut in quarters
Salt/pepper
Locatelli Romano or Parmesan grated cheese (NOTE: this does not mean Kraft parmesan! That's a sin!)
Mozzarella cheese shredded
1 stick margarine cut up (add more margarine if you use more than 5 large potatoes)
½ cup milk or more if needed

In a pot of water add cut potatoes and salt. Cook until fork tender.
Drain most of the water out of the pot until a small amount of water remains at the bottom
Return potatoes to pot and add margarine and salt and pepper
Add small amount of milk and using an electric hand blender mix well until lumps disappear. Add more milk as needed until potatoes are whipped and fluffy.

In a baking dish layer in half of the whipped potatoes and then sprinkle a layer of Locatelli or Parmesan Cheese and then a layer of shredded Mozzarella. Repeat with the remaining potatoes and layer cheeses again.
Bake at 350 until top begins to brown.

Chicken Cordon Bleu- great date dinner

This is the perfect meal to make for a date or just to impress someone. Chicken Cordon Bleu sounds fancy, but it's so easy. Just remember to warn them about the toothpicks!


Ingredients:
1 lb chicken cutlet-thin sliced
¼ lb deli ham
¼ lb swiss cheese
seasoned bread crumbs
margarine
eggs
chicken broth/ stock
flour
gravy master

If chicken pieces are not wide you can pound them out with some saran wrap and use meat mallet to make them wide.
Take a slice of ham and swiss to fit your chicken slice. Roll from small end to large end and secure with a tooth pick or two.
Roll in egg mixture and then bread crumbs. In a large frying pan, melt margarine and add rolled chicken pieces. Brown on all sides on medium heat. Don’t let the margarine get dark and add more margarine if needed. When all are browned you can put them in a 350 degree oven covered with foil and bake while you make the gravy. If you want to wait until gravy is made to bake that is fine too.
In the melted butter add some flour until liquid is absorbed and pasty. Slowly add chicken broth/stock a little at a time until you have the gravy consistency that you want. Add small amount of gravy master and, if needed, salt and pepper.
If you like mushrooms in this, you can brown them in the margarine before you add the flour.

When gravy is done you can check the chicken to make sure they are cooked and you can also add the gravy to the baking dish. and then bake a few minutes more.

Italian Hamburgers

I'm known for making a ton of food every night because there's always a chance that all these kids will show up.

2 lbs Chop Meat
4-5 cloves Garlic
1 small Onion
½ c Bread crumbs
½ c Grated cheese
Parsley
1 Egg
1 package Mushrooms
2-3 chopped scallions
Flour
Gravy Master
6 ounces or more to taste Red wine or Marsala
1 small can Beef broth
1 small Mozzarella cheese
Baking pan (deep)


Make 4 hamburgers out of first 7 ingredients. In a large fry pan heat small amount of olive oil to pan and place burgers in pan on med/high. Cover and turn when well browned. When burgers are cooked remove and add mushrooms and chopped scallions to the pan and sauté. After mushrooms are cooked add flour to make gravy. Add in the wine first then the beef broth slowly to get a nice consistency. Add small amount of gravy master. Make sure gravy is thin it will get thicker in the oven.
Pour mixture over burgers in a baking pan and cook covered with foil for 30 minutes.
Remove foil cover and add mozzarella cheese and return to oven until cheese is melted.

Swedish Meatballs

This recipe is dedicated to my wonderful nieces and nephews who when coming over our house always immediately ask, "Did you make Swedish meatballs!?!"

1 bag pre-made small size meatballs
1 32oz jar grape jelly - any brand
2 12oz jars chili sauce

In large pot add grape jelly over medium heat until all of the lumps are gone
add 2 jars of chili sauce
add meat balls

Cook until meat balls are hot. Serve or transfer to slow cooker to keep warm.


Second way to make them

1 bag pre-made small size meatballs
3 packages McCormicks Brown gravy packets

Cook brown gravy packets according to package directions. Once heated add meatballs until hot and serve or transfer to slow cooker to keep warm.

Lasagna

Lasagna……To make 1 lasagna

Sauce recipe - cooled
1 large package ground meat
1 package (6) sweet sausage
1 bunch of parsley
1 Large Ricotta
1 egg
1 Large Mozzarella grated (at least a pound) or chopped into small cubes
1 Package Lasagna Noodles
Foil pan. I get the next deeper pan than the lasagna pans they sell in the store are. It’s more like a roaster pan I think. Look at how deep it is from the lasagna pans.

Take the ground meat and the sausage meat and do exactly like my meatball recipe (previous post) except brown the mixture in some olive oil instead of making little meatballs. Break the ground meat into small pieces. The chop meat should be as small as you can get it. I put mine through the food processor on pulse to make it smaller. If you don't have one, break it up with the wooden spoon as it cooks. Let this cool by separating ½ of it into a wide bowl and take the pan from the heat and let the rest cool in the pan. Drain any oil away from the chop meat.

While your noodles are boiling mix the ricotta with the egg and a handful of chopped parsley set aside.

Once your noodles are done, make sure they are not mushy so take them out when they are still a little hard. Run them off in cold water to stop the cooking. Leave your pot in the sink with the noodles and just drain off enough water to reach the noodles. Start lifting noodles out of the pot and laying them over the edge of the pot to dry off.
If you go to start layering and they are too wet just blot with paper towel.
You will now layer following in this order

Sauce
Noodles
Ricotta – plop like 3 or 4 heaping tablespoons over the whole pan of noodles…
Put a tablespoon of sauce on each pile of ricotta and spread around the noodles in the pan to cover. Adjust the ricotta as needed to cover everything.
Sprinkle the ground meat over that layer of ricotta
Sprinkle the mozzarella over the meat and then drizzle sauce over that--Like one drizzle over a row of noodles.
Repeat until your almost to the top. The last layer of noodles just gets sauce spread evenly over the noodles and then a lot of mozzarella. Bake at 350 until bubbling. If it’s getting too brown you can tent it with foil and continue to bake. If you put it in the oven right after making it should take about ½ hr 45 min. If you are going warm it up after being cooked and in the fridge you should take it out of the fridge for at least 2 or 3 hours and then bake it with foil on the top for about ½ hour or more. Use the butter knife in the middle test to see if it’s hot.

If you are making 2 at the same time I would actually buy 2 large ricotta and 1 med size and 3 large mozzarella.

Any left over noodles you can make lasagna roll ups with it. In a flat plate take a lasagna noodle, spread a thin layer of sauce, then ricotta then chop meat then mozzarella. Roll up and place in a baking dish that has sauce on the bottom. Spread sauce on top and top with mozzarella. Bake at 350 for ½ hour or until hot.
Or you can boil some pasta like ziti or rigatoni until aldente drain and place in a baking pan, spread sauce and remaining ricotta and meat mix well and top with mozzarella and bake at 350 until bubbling .

Also, if you just have the meat left over you can put that in a zip lock bag and freeze it. The next time you make a quick sauce you can throw the meat in and make a meat sauce…..It’s quick that way.

The one you've been waiting for- Sauce and Meatballs

Sauce - 4 large cans of crushed tomatoes with basil (try to get Progresso),Only open 3 cans to start. I usually run each can through the blender one can at a time. I don’t like large chunks in the sauce.
1 can tomato paste (try to get Contadina),
Olive Oil (enough to coat the bottom of a large pot)
1 piece of pork (the meat dept usually has a small piece of pork in a package and it’s for sauce-or get a thick pork chop)
2 sausage links from meatball recipe package
1 medium size sweet onion (Vadilla or it will say sweet onion) sliced thin
1 large container of sweet basil or 2 small packages chopped

In a large pot cover bottom with a thin layer of olive oil. Over medium heat, sauté the onion with the piece of pork and the 2 sausage links just till lightly browned. Add 3 cans of tomatoes (rinse cans with a little water about ¼ of the can and add that water to your pot) and bring to a slow boil. Start to make meatballs (recipe below) and carefully drop meatballs into sauce. When all the meatballs are in stir slowly from the bottom of the pot and be careful not to break up the meatballs. You may have to raise the heat for awhile to get it to bubble. (If the pot looks like it needs more sauce add the 4th can in) Bring to a slow boil again and partly cover the pot. Watch the pot so it doesn’t boil too hard or you will burn the sauce on the bottom of the pot. Always stir from the bottom of the pot and bring that sauce to the top. Let simmer slowly for at least 2 hours. At this point you can add the basil. If sauce looks too watery you can add the can of tomato paste. Let simmer again with the lid off for awhile.
To make Bolognese sauce – instead of making meatballs use that same recipe and brown that mixture in a fry pan. Drain the fat off and make the same sauce without the meat. Add browned meat to your sauce and later before ready to serve add about ½ pint of half and half cream slowly until it turns a little pink. You can get cavetelli for this.



Meatballs – 1 large package ground beef (90%),
1 pkg of sweet sausage (usually a package of 8 links),
Fresh garlic,
Fresh onion, regular
Fresh parsley,
Bread crumbs,
Grated locatelli cheese
1 large egg.

In a large bowl take ground beef and 6 of the 8 sausage links and take the meat out of the casing. Add sausage meat to ground beef. Add crushed cloves of garlic (5-6 or more depending on the size), 1 small onion through the mini chop, fresh parsley chopped (enough that filled the mini chop with fresh leaves) 2 hands of breadcrumbs, 5 table spoons of grated cheese and 1 large egg.
Mix well together; it shouldn’t be too wet to the touch it should feel pastey. If it is, slowly add more bread crumbs and cheese a table spoon at a time. Put aside for now.

The meatball recipe is the same for the meat for Lasagna too.