dinner Archives - Page 3 of 4

Easy Green Bean Holiday Dish

It’s Christmas Eve! It’s the first night of Hanukkah! Still need a quick and easy side dish? Look no further than these roasted green beans!

Green Beans

Ingredients

1/2 pound green beans cleaned
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 Tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Clean green beans by rinsing and snapping of ends. Toss green beans with oil and spices and spread evenly on a baking sheet.
Roast for 8 to 10 minutes. Serve.

Green beans go nicely with pasta, roasts, turkey, ham, whatever you are serving!

Best wishes your cooking goes well over the next few days! Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect 🙂

Happy Holidays!

Other side dish ideas if you need:

Quinoa Risotto

Easy Thanksgiving Side Dish: My favorite! Acorn Squash

I guess Thanksgiving is coming soon?!

Anytime of year is good for meatballs, but especially around this festive time of year they are a great choice for your entertaining needs. Want to add a little different flavor for your holiday appetizer? Try Greek meatballs. Serve with a yogurt sauce, like this one from AllRecipes.com. It would a bright start or accompaniment to the main meal for your guests.

Greek Meatballs for a Crowd (makes 55-60 meatballs)

Ingredients

About 5 pounds of ground beef and pork (I usually do about 2/3 beef and 1/3 pork)

1 pound of bacon, minced in the food processor

1/2 of a large sweet onion, grated

1 egg, beaten

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1 Tablespoon of oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried mint

10 ounces of frozen spinach, thawed and drained

8 ounces of feta, crumbled

Directions

Place ground meat and bacon into a large bowl. In a small bowl mix onion, egg, garlic and spices. Pour mixture into the meat. Add the spinach and feta. Dig in and mix it all together. Make a small pattie and cook it through. Taste for seasoning then adjust and repeat if needed.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll meatballs and brown them in a heavy bottomed pan with olive oil. Transfer to cooling rack on top of baking sheet. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve warm.

I know it seems like a lot of meat, but meatballs freeze really well and take some work. If I’m going to do that hard work, might as well make double so you get a couple of meals or appetizers out of it 🙂 If you try to halve the recipe, let me know how it comes out.

Last couple of days before the holidays hit us. Email me or comment with any questions!

Spoon Roast

I cannot say enough good things about a spoon roast. It makes your house smell amazing and it is seriously easy to cook.

Spoon Roast

Ingredients

2 1/2 to 3 pound spoon roast

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. For rare cook at 500 degrees for 5 minutes per pound (medium rare 6-7 minutes per pound, medium 8-9 minutes per pound, medium well 10-11 minutes per pound). Then turn the oven off. Do not open the oven. Set timer for 2 hours. Take out and slice to order!

I don’t make a gravy for this because it’s more work and I’d like to enjoy the meal with my family 🙂 I think a pesto or horseradish cream sauce would be great with it. You can make either sauce the day before.

Horseradish cream sauce

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons of sour cream

1 Tablespoon mascarpone

3 – 4 teaspoons of horseradish

1/2 teaspoon of onion powder

pinch of salt and pepper

Directions

Mix in a small bowl. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

I am serving this on Christmas day with twice baked potatoes, a cauliflower casserole and peas and make your own ice cream sundae’s for dessert! Keeping it simple. I can make the potatoes and casserole the day before and just heat it up after the the roast comes out and saute the peas quickly with some butter, salt, pepper and fresh thyme.

What are your favorite holiday meals? If you are making turkey, below find the link to brining your turkey. It is so good!

Cooking your Thanksgiving Turkey

Polenta, an easy holiday side dish

Instead of serving mashed potatoes at your holiday meal, why not try polenta? They are a creamy and delicious accompaniment to ham, turkey, roast beef or roast vegetables. The two different ways I make it, are much easier and less hands on than mashed potatoes. I make them in the slow cooker, using this recipe from About.com and it comes out perfect, every single time. It takes about 2-3 hours in the slow cooker, but is basically completely hands off.

Most often I make polenta by taking a huge shortcut, buying the already made tubes at Trader Joe’s. Here is my recipe to transform those tubes into an amazingly smooth and cheesy polenta.

Quick Polenta

Ingredients

2-18 ounce tubes of Trader Joe’s Polenta

3 Tablespoons of butter

1 cup of milk (I use either 2% or whole)

1/4 cup of mascarpone or cream cheese

3 sprigs of fresh thyme, chopped – optional

Directions

Take the polenta out of the tube and dice. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add butter and the diced polenta. Cover for about 2 minutes, then stir. Cook covered for another 3-6 minutes until the polenta is soft. Use a potato masher and mash the polenta. Add milk, mascarpone and herbs if using them. Mash everything together and stir until smooth. You can then keep it warm in your crock pot or if you have a warming burner, you can put it there covered and serve within an hour or so.

You can use this polenta as part of an easy meal this week. I like to serve it with sausage and peppers.

Keep your menu simple and hopefully you will have a less stressful holiday!

Here are some other holiday side dish ideas:

Twice Baked Potatoes, a perfect holiday side dish

Easy Thanksgiving Side Dish: My favorite! Acorn Squash

Quinoa Risotto

I guess Thanksgiving is coming soon?!

Taco Meatballs

Another Thursday in December means another meatball recipe for you to use as an appetizer on game day or part of a holiday buffet or to bring to a potluck! Meatballs are very popular and everyone has their favorite recipe. Here is a little twist that pairs Tex Mex flavors with meatballs.

Taco Meatballs

Ingredients

About 3 lbs ground chicken and pork (I use 2/3 pork and 1/3 chicken, you can use either all pork or all chicken or even turkey)

3 pieces of bacon, chopped finely or pureed in food processor

1 garlic clove, minced

½ Tablespoon minced jalapeño (or more if you want them to be spicy)

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 Tablespoon chili powder

½ teaspoon cumin

1 egg

1/4 cup of bread crumbs (use gluten-free breadcrumbs if making this gluten free)

6 to 8 oz of cheddar cheese, cut into ½ inch cubes

2-3 Tablespoons of vegetable oil

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl mix garlic, jalapeño, salt, pepper, onion powder, chili powder, cumin, egg and bread crumbs. Place meat and bacon (or oil) in a large bowl and add the egg mixture. Get your hands dirty and mix it all together. Cook a small patty of the meat mixture to taste and adjust seasonings if you need before stuffing and cooking the whole batch. Roll meatballs. Take a cube of cheddar and stuff it into the center of the meatball, making sure it is completely encapsulated by the meat mixture. Heat a large not stick-pan to medium-high, add olive oil. Brown meatballs and transfer to a baking rack that sits on top of a cookie sheet. Roast for 20 minutes. Serve or freeze.

Serve with taco shells, salsa and avocado or make a wrap with tortillas or serve as an appetizer dipped into guacamole or salsa. These go very well with my Tomatillo Salsa or Red Salsa.

A couple of new meatball recipes coming up. Only 2 more Thursdays left in 2016! Here are some meatball recipes from the past:

Sweet and Sour Meatball Recipe

Bahn Mi Meatball Recipe

Italian Stuffed Meatball Recipe

Meatballs, Plain and Simple

Apple and Onion Pot Roast

Today I am sharing one of my favorite slow cooker recipes. I have been making this for over 10 years!

I have made it with both beef and pork roasts. Both great! It is based on a recipe from Fix-It and Forget it, Recipes for Entertaining by Phyllis Pellman Good and Dawn J. Ranck. Not much to change when making it gluten free other than just ensuring the soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and spices are safe.

Apple and Onion Pot Roast

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons of olive oil

3 pound beef or pork roast

1 cup of beef or chicken broth

2 Tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

1 Tablespoon of brown sugar

1 Tablespoon soy sauce

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 large apple, peeled and sliced

1 large onion, sliced

3 sprigs of fresh thyme (optional)

2 Tablespoons of cornstarch

2 Tablespoons of water

1 Tablespoon of butter

Directions

In a measuring cup mix together broth, vinegar, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and garlic. Heat olive oil in a large skillet and brown roast on each side. Put roast into slow cooker. Pour broth mixture into the pan and scrape all the brown bits off the bottom. Add apple and onion to pan and stir for a couple of minutes then pour over the roast in the slow cooker. Add thyme sprigs, if using, and cook on low for 5-7 hours. Remove the roast and onions. Let sit for about 15 minutes. Strain the cooking liquid into a pan. Mix the water and cornstarch and then pour into the cooking liquid. Heat and whisk the gravy until thickened. Take off the heat and whisk in butter. Serve with mashed potatoes or polenta and a side of green beans or salad.

This is comfort food at its best!

There are so many great Fix-It and Forget-It cookbooks to help you expand your slow cooker repertoire. I also love Stephanie O’Dea’s cookbooks and food blog, http://www.ayearofslowcooking.com/. Every recipe I have made from her site has been delicious and they are gluten free!

Here are some of my past slow cooker recipes:

BBQ pulled pork in the slow cooker

Crowd Pleasing Chili

Potato Waffles

My kids have been asking me for latkes for the last couple weeks, so I decided to make my version last night, potato waffles. They went very nicely with our leftover slow cooked pork with gravy and acorn squash. Waffles seemed easier so that I wouldn’t have to stand over a pan and could just put the potato mixture in the waffle maker and go about with the other 5 things I was trying to do at the same time.

Potato Waffles

Ingredients

6 to 8 small potatoes (I used a mixture of white and yukon gold potatoes)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

2 Tablespoons of shredded parmesan

1 Tablespoon GF flour

Directions

Plug in waffle maker and allow it to heat up. Heat oven to 200 degrees. After you shred potatoes spread them out on towels to dry and wring out all the liquid you can. In a large bowl mix the potatoes with the remaining ingredients. Scoop about 1/3 of a cup of the mixture for each waffle. Makes about 8 waffles. When the waffle is cooked, place on a baking rack over a sheet pan and place in the 200 degree oven until you are ready to serve. I served it with sour cream and apple sauce.

I had 2 waffle makers going last night. One, my regular 4 square waffle maker and two, the Frozen waffle maker my daughter got for her birthday. So some of our waffles looked like snowflakes 🙂 This is a fun breakfast idea or good way to use up potatoes if you buy too many over the holidays.

Raspberry Lemon and Thyme Tiramisu recipe coming soon…Amazing and simple. Stay tuned!

Quinoa Risotto

Risotto is a decadent, delicious and extremely versatile side or main dish. You can make a quick version in your rice cooker or put the kids in front of a movie and make this slow version. The slow version is much, much better. Forty minutes of cooking in peace is also much better 🙂 You can choose to make it vegetarian, vegan or full of meat. It is naturally gluten free. Here is my basic recipe:

Quinoa Risotto

Ingredients

32 ounces of chicken or vegetable stock

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary

1 teaspoon of chopped fresh sage

½ cup of sweet onion, diced finely

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 cup quinoa

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

In a large measuring cup, like this Pyrex one, mix stock, garlic, rosemary and sage. In a medium soup pot brown the onions in olive oil. Add the quinoa and stir for a couple of minutes. Add about 1 cup of the flavored stock and stir until it soaks in. Then repeat, until the quinoa is cooked and creamy. Taste and add more salt or pepper if needed. Then you can either serve as is or add in some cooked chicken and acorn squash or just the squash or roasted mushrooms, cooked peas, whatever you like.

You can make it more decadent by adding 1/2 cup of your favorite cheese. For example, cheddar and some broccoli or mozzarella and tomatoes, or just Parmesan.

To make risotto in your rice cooker, start the same way, heat the oil and onions in the rice cooker, then add the risotto. Add as much of the seasoned stock as your rice cooker will allow. Stir, cover and let cook. Then about 15 minutes later open the lid and stir again, adding more of the stock. Repeat until the risotto is the consistency you like and then add the meat, vegetables or cheese.

This could be a great side dish or main meal for a romantic dinner or for an elegant holiday meal. You can even wow your co-workers with this and bring it to a potluck. Keep it warm in a rice cooker or crock pot. I made it with cheddar and broccoli the other night and served it along side one of my cooking bucket list items: poached salmon. It was delicious! You’ll have to wait for that recipe 🙂

Meatballs, Plain and Simple

These meatballs are a blank canvas. Flavorful on their own but can easily be served with marinara or to make swedish meatballs or even the popular bbq sauce and grape jelly meatball appetizer. They are perfect to bring to a potluck, to bring to family or friends as an act of kindness or just to enjoy at home.

Meatballs (bulk recipe – you can 1/2 this recipe)

Ingredients

about 3 pounds of pork (boneless sirloin) (or 3 lbs of ground pork)

about 3 pounds of beef (bottom round) (or 3 pounds of ground beef)

8 slices of bacon

2 eggs

1/4 cup gluten-free bread crumbs

1/2 cup of milk

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon oregano

1 Tablespoon shredded Parmesan

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix all the ingredients together. Grind the meat and bacon together if you are not using store bought ground meat. If you are using store bought ground meat, finely chop the bacon or put it in your food processor. Form each meatball and place onto cooling rack placed over baking sheet. Bake for about 25 minutes. Serve with your favorite sauce or freeze in batches to use another time.

You can brown these first for a deeper flavor, but they are just as delicious just baking them. Keep them warm in your crockpot with your favorite marinara. This works well for entertaining. You can cook some gluten-free pasta and toast up some gluten-free garlic bread or make zoodles (zucchini noodles) for a pretty (and healthy!) red and green Christmas themed spaghetti and meatballs.

My kids love to take the leftover meatballs for lunch! Add some yogurt and carrots with hummus and we have a school lunch or a meal my child with celiac disease can bring with him if we are visiting family or friends.

You will find a great new meatball recipe here every Thursday for the next month! Check out these past blogs too for ideas on what to bring to your next potluck or what to serve at your next holiday gathering.

Italian Stuffed Meatballs

Good Food that happens to be Gluten Free

BBQ pulled pork in the slow cooker

Using the slow cooker to make your dinner is one way to help lessen your stress during this hectic holiday season. As part of my month of posting, I will provide you with an easy slow cooker meal each Wednesday. Bonus, it will be gluten free and no one will ever know 🙂

Slow cookers can not only cook dinner for your family while you are out and about all day, but can cook dinner for a crowd (and keep it warm!) if you are entertaining family or friends. BBQ pulled pork is definitely a popular choice.

BBQ Pulled Pork in the Slow Cooker

pulled-pork

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Pork tenderloin roast, about 2 pounds

1 large onion, sliced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

1 Tablespoon molasses

1 teaspoon chili powder

½ teaspoon cumin

1 Tablespoon ketchup

¼ cup water

Directions

Sear the pork in a hot pan in olive oil on all sides. Take out and put aside. Add onion and garlic to pan and sauté for a couple of minutes. Mix the cider vinegar, molasses, chili powder, cumin, ketchup and water. Add the vinegar mixture to the onions and take up all the brown bits on the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Put ½ of the onion in the bottom of the crock pot (heated to high). Place the pork on top and then pour the rest of the onions and vinegar mixture on top of the pork. Cook on high for 3 to 4 hours or on low for 6 to 8 hours. Shred with a fork and mix some of the sauce in with it and add your favorite bbq sauce and serve as you like. You can serve with gluten free cornbread, baked potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes (Wegman’s sells and already mashed sweet potatoes that are amazing!) or on these pretzel rolls from Gluten Free on a Shoestring.

pretzel-roll-sandwiches

Do not be afraid of your slow cooker. It can help you. Even if you put it on at night and cook dinner overnight, put it in the fridge and reheat at dinner time. Cook it all over the weekend and reheat it. Do what you need and what works for you! More easy meals and holiday treats to come…stay tuned!