Braciole

I have been wanting to make Braciole (pronounced bra'zhul) ever since I watched the Everybody Loves Raymond episode where Deborah makes it. Up until this particular episode, the only thing she cooks well is Lemon Chicken, coincidentally also on this week's menu plan. So when Deb makes a delicious Braciole, Ray and Frank can't get enough of it and Marie gets quite jealous. Hilarity (including Deb dumping tomato sauce all over Ray's pants, on purpose of course) ensues...

So back to Braciole. There are all kinds of fancy ways to prepare this dish including expensive cheeses, prosciutto, currants, etc but I decided to start with a very basic recipe. I already had all of these ingredients on hand, just had to pick up the meat. I thought the result was simple and delicious, although I had company over when I served it so I neglected to take pictures of the finished product.

The above picture as well as the recipe is courtesy of Momma Hen's Kitchen. The pictures of the cooking process are all me, for better or worse.

printable recipes

Braciole

serves 4

1 1/2 lb flank steak (also called round steak or London Broil), cut into 4 pieces

4 Tbsp minced fresh garlic

4 Tbsp freshly grated parmesan

4 Tbsp breadcrumbs (I used Italian seasoned, since that's what I had on hand)

salt and pepper to taste

3 Tbsp olive oil

32 oz spaghetti sauce

cooked spaghetti noodles (enough for 4 people, about 1/2 of a 16 oz box)

kitchen string

Pound out the steak until thin enough to roll (somewhere between 1/4" and 1/2" thick). Sprinkle each piece with 1 Tbsp each of garlic, parmesan, and breadcrumbs. Season with salt and pepper. 

Roll up each piece of steak and secure with kitchen string.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat and brown each roll of meat.

Once browned, place in saucepan with spaghetti sauce over medium heat. Heat until bubbling then turn down to low and simmer 2 hours, stirring occasionally. If the sauce starts to cook down too much, you can cover the pot with a lid.

Remove from pot, cut each roll into 4 slices and serve with sauce over spaghetti noodles.

 

Lemon Chicken

Can you believe I had never made Lemon Chicken before I tried this recipe recently? I think it's a pretty popular dish (with lots of different versions, I imagine) and now I see why.

We really enjoyed this recipe from my friend Nikki at The Saucy Spatula. It was flavorful enough for grown-ups without being too tart for the kids.

printable recipe

Lemon Chicken

serves 4

1 1/2 lb chicken breast, cut into chunks
1/4 cup flour
coarse salt
2 Tbsp canola oil, divided
1 Tbsp (a splash) white or rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup chicken broth or stock
10 oz prepared lemon curd (usually found in jam/jelly section of grocery store)
1/4 hot water
1 lemon, zested
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 celery stalk, thinly sliced
1 carrot, thinly sliced
1 onion, slivered

Heat 1/2 Tbsp of oil in a wok or skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pepper, celery stalk, carrot, and onion and cook until they just start to brown.

Set aside. What's that, you say? You don't see any onion in there? Hmmm, there's a teeny tiny possibility that I forgot it. Whoops.

Combine the flour and a little salt and coat the chicken in the mixture.

Heat up remaining oil in skillet and add chicken and leftover flour/salt mixture. Saute until golden. Remove chicken from pan and set aside. Leave any drippings, browned flour etc in pan and return to heat.



Reduce heat to medium and pour in a splash of the vinegar. Allow to evaporate. No picture of this because it's really hard to see what's going on when you take a picture of a black pan with a splash of vinegar evaporating in it.

Add stock or broth to the pan and scrape up the drippings with a whisk. Sorry about the terrible picture.

Thin curd by stirring in the 1/4 cup of hot water. Mine still had chunks of curd at this point, don't worry if yours does too. Just add the curd to the broth and whisk to combine. I turned the heat back up to medium-high to melt the curd.

 

When curd is completely dissolved, return chicken to pan and simmer for a couple of minutes to thicken sauce and ensure the chicken is cooked through.

Remove pan from heat, add the zest of the lemon and toss chicken pieces to combine zest. Add the veggies and stir to combine.

Serve over rice.

The recipe is featured in Menu Plan 8.

Pizza Bread

I used to love when my mom would make us pizza bread as a child so I was excited to find this recipe on Cooking During Stolen Moments. It turned out great! I served it with ranch and marinara sauce to dip it in and it was a very fun meal.

printable recipe

Pizza Bread

serves 6-8 (freeze a loaf or two for another day if you have a smaller family)

6-7 c. white flour
1 T. yeast
2 c. milk
1/2 c. water
1/4 c. butter or margarine
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
2 t. Italian seasoning
3/4 c. pizza sauce
20 -25 slices pepperoni
2 c. shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 200F then turn off to create a warm place for the dough to rise. In a large mixing bowl, combine 2 1/2 c. flour with 1 T. yeast and set aside.

Add milk, water, butter or margarine, sugar and salt to a small saucepan. Heat over medium heat until warm but not hot.

Pour into large bowl with the flour and yeast. Stir or beat until well combined. Slowly work in remaining flour and Italian seasoning. You can do this with a wooden spoon or the dough hook of your mixer. You will know you have enough flour when the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and sticks together.

Knead (by hand or with an electric mixer) until dough is smooth and elastic, about 8-10 minutes. Place in a large, lightly greased bowl, turn once to coat and cover with plastic wrap.

Let rise for 30-45 minutes in warmed oven, until dough is doubled in size.

Divide dough into 2 or 3 portions, depending on how big you want your loaves to be. I would recommend three loaves. I did only 2 and they were large enough that it was difficult to get bake them all the way through. Roll each ball of dough into a rectangle. Spread about 1/4 c. pizza sauce on each section of dough.

Sprinkle the pepperoni and cheeses on top of the pizza sauce.

Roll dough tightly, jelly-roll style, and pinch the seams shut.

Place, seam-side down, on lightly baked baking sheets.

Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes (longer if only 2 loaves) until browned on top and bottom.

Apple Cinnamon Bread

This bread is so delicious and packed full of apples. It smells so good while it is baking, your whole family will be hanging out in the kitchen waiting for it to come out of the oven!

I used Granny Smith, but you can use whatever you have on hand.

This recipe is adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod.

printable recipe

Apple Cinnamon Bread

1 1/2 cups flour (add an extra 1/4 cup if high altitude)

1 tsp baking soda (if high altitude, use scant teaspoon)

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

2 eggs

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 cup applesauce

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sugar

2 cups peeled and chopped apples (1 large apple or 2 small apples)

Topping:

2 Tbsp butter

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp flour

1 Tbsp oatmeal

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour an 8x4 inch loaf pan. Peel and chop the apples.

In a medium bowl, whisk the first six ingredients together. 

Beat the eggs on medium speed in a large bowl. Add the oil, applesauce and vanilla and blend until smooth. Add the sugar and mix until well-combined.

Add the flour and mix in on low speed until just mixed. Fold in the apples.

Pour the batter into the pan. The bread will rise while baking so don't fill the pan more than 2/3 full. Use any extra batter you might have to make a couple of muffins.

In a small bowl, cut the butter into the rest of the topping ingredients. Add more sugar, cinnamon or flour as needed.

Sprinkle over the batter in loaf pan.

Bake for 55-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool the bread in the pan for at least 10 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack. Try to cool completely before slicing. Obviously I didn't wait and my loaf crumbled a little but it was oh, so good.

 

 

Macaroni and Cheese

Home-made macaroni and cheese, does it get any better than this? This beats the stuff in the box hands down. I actually didn't feel guilty serving this to my kids because it was made completely from scratch. It's not low-fat of course, but it isn't full of processed ingredients I can't pronounce!

This is a Pioneer Woman recipe so you know it's gotta be delicious!

printable recipe

Macaroni and Cheese

serves 6

16 oz box dried macaroni

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup flour

1 egg

2 1/2 cups milk

1 tsp dried mustard

1/2 tsp each of salt, seasoned salt, and black pepper 

1 pound cheese, I used half monterey jack and half cheddar but you can use whatever sounds good to you!

Preheat oven to 350F. Boil macaroni until it is very al dente (still firm but chewable), about 6 minutes. In a separate saucepan, melt butter over medium low heat.

Add flour and whisk for 5 minutes, do not let burn!

Add milk and mustard and continue whisking for another 5 minutes, mixture will thicken to gravy consistency. I had to cook it a little longer and turn the heat up to medium to get this to happen, just depends on your stove.

Reduce heat to low. Whisk an egg in a separate bowl. Add 1/4 cup of milk mixture slowly to the egg, whisking continually. 




This is called tempering and will bring the temp of the egg up gradually so you don't have chunks of scrambled egg when you add it to your sauce. (This happened the one time I tried to make alfredo from scratch, disgusting).

Add egg to milk mixture, whisking constantly until well-blended. Stir in salt, seasoned salt, and pepper. Add more to taste, if desired.

Stir in all but about 1/2 cup of the cheese. I was in a hurry and accidentally dumped it all in, oops. Stir it all together until blended and cheese is melted.

Stir in the cooked macaroni. Pour into a buttered casserole dish, 2 quart or 9x13 and top with remaining cheese (assuming you aren't an airhead like me). Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

I don't have a picture of the finished product in the baking dish because Nathan high-jacked my camera. He took this picture.

And this one. My husband was trying to entertain Hannah, who was getting fussy and hungry.

And this one. I have no idea what I am doing here.

Eventually we dished up the food. It was delicious.

I just happened to have an avocado so I sliced it up. It was so good eaten with the macaroni and cheese. Who would have thought?

This recipe is featured in Menu Plan 8.