GCC: Steak Pizzaiola

April 14, 2013 by Monica in Beef, Cookbooks, Cooking Club, Dinner, Gutsy Cooks Club, Main Courses, Meat, Pasta

This weeks Gutsy Cook choice used chuck steak as the star of this dish, and then braise it under this rich spicy tomato sauce. The results were simply magical in our house. At the end of a 2-hour oven stay, the meat was pull apart tender, infused with this rich taste of tomatoes with a kick of spice. What could be better than that for a lazy weekend meal? Nothing, it hit the right spot with our taste buds.

We love the idea of making a big bowl of rigatoni to go along with this; instead we opted to make some mashed potatoes to soak up that sauce after we found out our pantry was low on pasta and no rigatoni option to be found.

FFwD: Hachis Parmentier

October 22, 2010 by Monica in Beef, Cookbooks, Cooking Club, Dinner, FFwD, Main Courses, Meat, Savory

Ok guys, we are entering the forth week of cooking from the new book by Dorie Greenspan - “Around my French Table”. This is my third contribution, since I skipped last weeks choice, the Vietnamese Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup.

But, this week I could not resist, because mashed potatoes and meat, in this case chopped meat - are like a great marriage.

In France this is the equivalent of the English Shepard pie. “Hachis”, which means a dish in which the ingredients are chopped or minced, come from the same root as the English word “hatchet”. I did not use a hatchet of course, but I like the mental picture of it. The rest of the dish is named after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French pharmacist, nutritionist, and inventor who, in the late 18th century, was instrumental in the promotion of the potato as an edible crop.

Let’s all stand up right now and thank THAT MAN!

Luscious Oven-Braised Short Ribs

April 27, 2010 by Monica in Beef, Dinner, Main Courses, Meat

If you visit this site enough time, you probably wondering is I ever even cook savory stuff.

Let me put that to rest.

I do cook savory stuff, actually LOTS of savory dishes. Except that most is done at night, during the weekdays and after a long day at work. I tend to get home, drop everything in the dining room table and get to work on creating a fast dinner. And of course, every single time I forget to take pictures of what I’m doing.

It’s more about feeding our empty bellies than documenting the process. We are hungry people!

I know. And I hear you loud and clear. I have to get better with it and get in the grove of things and think like a good blogger and snap away during the meal preparation. I'm working on it.

But this I have to share.