Meatballs FTW!

One night after a run, Jonno and I got home absolutely starving and with a whole lotta nothing in the kitchen, except for some beef mince and the occasional about-to-go-off onion.  I was groaning to myself, moaning, "what the hell do you make with mince other than meatloaf and burritos that is also quick and filling and doesn't take too many other ingredients?!"

Please excuse the neon nature of these photos, they may have been slighly retouched.

Well, what we made didn't turn out to be too quick, but hot damn it was der-ish-us!!  (Say it out loud if you're confused as to my new word.  Patented by C.Hoey 2011)

I have never in my life made meatballs, and usually don't eat them if they're on a stick (and therefore lukewarm!) or a platter as someone's dish at a potluck.  Don't know why, maybe I had a cold-meatball-related trauma as a kid.  Maybe one rolled off a table and bowled me over, thus causing me untold embarrassment and shame.  

Well, I'm over that trauma now, because these meatballs undid me that night.  Jonno made some mashed potaters to go with them, and I went back for seconds, even when I felt my running shorts getting a wee bit tight.  No amount of spandex-induced pain was going to stop me - off came the pants!!  Any peeping neighbours certainly would have gotten a strange show indeed.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm off to run a bagillion more times around the penninsula to work off these babies.

Comfort Meatballs

adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

The meatballs

• 500-700 grams of minced beef
• 3/4 cup bread crumbs (PW calls for quick oats, but we didn't have any)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp finely diced onion
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• ground black pepper

The sauce

• 1 cup tomato puree
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 3 tbsp distilled white vinegar
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 4-6 tbsp finely diced onion
• 1 tsp smoked paprika (my addition)

1. In a large bowl combine the mince and bread crumbs (or oats).  Add in diced onion and salt.
2. Add the egg and use the back of a large spoon to mash all the ingredients together, adding the milk in spurts to keep the mixture at a paste-like consistency.  It doesn't sound fabulous, but it's worth it!
3. Roll into balls of 4-5 cm in size.  If the mixture is too warm and the balls don't hold together well, stick them in the fridge for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 180 C.
5. Pour some flour onto a plate and heat up a decently-sized skillet or frying pan with some oil.
6. Dredge each meatball in the flour to coat, then gently lay them in the oil.  Turn to brown all over, continuing in batches, and once completely brown place them into a rectangular baking dish.
7. Mix together the sauce ingredients and pour over the meatballs.
8. Bake for about 45 minutes or until sufficiently bubbly and gorgeous.
9. Serve with some kind of potato side dish or bread so you can mop up the extra sauce.  You won't want to waste any of it!

Sesame Beef and Noodle Salad

Noodles!! Noodles are fun, aren't they?  Even the word is fun.  Noodlenoodlenoddle.  Use your noodle! 

And other such silly things.

Now for the serious.  This noodle-y salad thing is seriously good.  So good that Jonno went back for seconds, even through it had some kick to it.  Jonno does not like much kick.  If you could measure the heat in something in terms of a soccer/football goal kick, Jonno likes things at a gentle tap to the goalpost that the goalie doesn't seem to be leaning towards.  This dish seemed to have somewhere in the region of a decent sock right at the goalie's head kind of kick. 

Oh dear, I think I've really been affected by living with Jonno (he who watches only sports on television) when I start using sport analogies in my food posts.  *Headdesk*

ANYWAY.

I don't know if it was because I made this dish at 8:30 at night after we'd gone for our run and were starving like some lions in the middle of a gazelle shortage, or what, but hot damn it was tasty.  Perfect for the summer time, nice and quick and you can use any extra veggies you might have on the verge of 'science experiment' status lounging around in the fridge.

Sesame Beef and Noodle Salad
adapted from Taste Magazine

• 800(ish) grams thick lean steak, trimmed and sliced thinly
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds
• 2-4 cloves garlic, depending on how much garlic you like
• 1 tbsp sambal oelek (Indonesian chillli paste, found in Asian grocery stores)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 1/8 cup white vinegar
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 450g packet udon noodles
• 1/4 red cabbage, shredded
• 3 spring onions, finely sliced
• any other veggies you have on hand, I threw in some red capsicum

1. In a wok on medium heat, toast your sesame seeds until they begin to darken, about 7 minutes.
2. Dump the sesame seeds and garlic into a medium-sized bowl, and use the back side/bottom end/pestle to smush the garlic and sesame seeds together.  Add sambal oelek, soy sauce, caster sugar, white vinegar, and oil and mix together. 
3. Add the meat to the sauce mixture and then dump it into the hot wok.  Add the noodles to the wok and work them into the sauce to get them coated.
4. Cook steak for 1-2 minutes on a side while the noodles cook in the sauce at the same time. 
5. After a few minutes, add the veggies, stir through the mixture, then remove from heat.  Dinner is served!

On-the-fly Slow-Cooker Rump Steak

I did another Experiment, but this time out of necessity.  We had beef and no desire to traipse out to the store to buy ingredients for any of the beef recipes I have, so I bit the bullet and gave it the good old college try.

After all of my recent failures, I have had a food win!  I may have had to advise Jonno to have a backup in mind in case it wasn’t edible, but it was deelishus!!!  I also hedged my bets and made sides that I knew would be good just in case of Total Failure – baked kumara and peas. 

It ain't pretty, but oh man was it tasty.  Yum yum, fall apart beefy tasty.  Easy to make, chuck in the slow-cooker, leave it til it falls apart!

Next time I would serve this with mashed potatoes and probably chuck some carrots in the slow-cooker too.  And maybe onions.  Whatever I have around really, because that's how this meal came into being - I used anything I could find that I thought might work with beef.

On-the-fly Slow-Cooker Beef

Ingredients:

• a rump steak, whatever size you want
• 1 tin tomato puree
• 1 packet Maggi Sweet & Sour sauce mix
• 2 cups beef stock
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup golden syrup
• salt & pepper

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients up in a bowl.
2. Trim any excess fat off the rump steak and dredge in flour.
3. Beef and sauce into slow cooker on high for 4-5 hours, or slow for 8-10 should do it.