Spaghetti alla Neville

First of all, let me apologize for the long delay between posts. Starting my new job has been exhausting! I don't know what I'd do if Andrew didn't take some of his afternoons to clean the house, get groceries and do laundry. So I've been learning how to cook dinners that require minimal effort by the time I get home--often by working on tomorrow's meal after dinner. I am actually one of the few kids in my generation who didn't grow up with a Crockpot, but I am learning to love mine. I get everything ready in the morning or even the night before, and come home to a delicious-smelling dinner. It's delicious, it's good for me, and it's a perfect way to end my day.

Today's Crockpot recipe comes from our good friend Neville Fogarty, who's been featured on this blog before for writing crosswords and loving meatloaf. Now my general opinion on food is, "Why buy it if you can make it yourself for better?" But... this means that sometimes it is better to buy it. If something is too much trouble or you can't find a good recipe, just buy it. I used to believe that spaghetti sauce fit in this category. Sure, I could make my own if I wanted to, but it comes in a jar just as well. Since trying this recipe, I have found that, for the minimal amount of effort it takes, it is far better to make your own sauce. That being said, I think--again, for the effort and payoff--that sticking with canned tomatoes is just fine. Yes, fresh tomatoes are great, but I don't think it makes enough of a difference here.

This sauce is delicious; it's classic comfort food. It's so easy, I put it together before work when I was half-asleep. And it makes a lot; you could halve it, but I just froze most of the extra for later. I did adapt Neville's seasonings a bit--chopping my own garlic instead of using garlic salt to taste, throwing in basil leaves and some oregano, and leaving out the mushrooms. Sorry, Neville!

Spaghetti alla Neville
Brown 1-2 pounds ground round beef (or sirloin or turkey). Meanwhile, mix together 28 oz canned tomato sauce, 28 oz diced tomatoes, 1 small can sliced mushrooms and 1 small can tomato paste ("literally the small one at the grocery"). Chop 3 celery ribs--not to be confused with the much larger celery stalks--3 garlic cloves and 1 large white onion.

Drain the beef and mix everything together. Toss in several whole basil leaves (I just chop off a lot of my plant) and season with a little salt* and pepper and a few shakes of oregano. Keep tasting it to adjust the seasonings. Cook in your Crockpot on LOW for 8 hours. If you don't have a Crockpot, let it simmer on your stove for several hours.

* Check that your diced tomatoes don't have salt... if they do, don't add more!

"'Everybody is going to get to know each other in the pot. I'm serious about this stuff.'
- Kevin Malone"

- Neville Fogarty

Beef empanadas

What a busy week coming off of a busy weekend! I have Pi Phi stuff tonight, Thursday and Friday--mostly helping FL Beta with recruitment, which should be wonderful--and Saturday is a biology department party. I predict that a lot of this week's dinners will be leftovers, so when I woke up craving empanadas yesterday I went ahead and made them. I served them with fried plantains and a mango salsa. How tropical!

I had never made empanadas before--Andrew claims he had never even tried them--but they were yummy! Full disclosure: the dough recipe I found online wasn't so great. You can try it here, but I don't feel comfortable endorsing it since it was a little dry. It also didn't make enough for the massive amount of filling I ended up with. Next time, I'm going to try them with just storebought pie dough, like another website recommended. But the filling was delicious. I adapted this recipe. It made a ton--I made six and a half empanadas, which was the amount of dough I had, and almost half the filling was still left over. I would halve it next time, since the two of us can only eat so much.

 
Beef empanadas
Chop two small potatoes into small pieces and boil until soft. Hard-boil two eggs and coarsely chop them when cool.

Chop one small onion and mince 5 cloves of garlic. Sauté the onion in a little vegetable oil, then add the garlic. Add 1.5 pounds ground beef. When the beef is browned and mixed in with the onions and garlic, pour in 1 cup beef broth. Let it simmer until the liquid is gone. Fold in the potatoes and eggs, and let the stuff cool.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut your dough into circles and spoon the filling into the center of each circle. Fold them in half and crimp the edges. Arrange the empanadas on a greased baking sheet and brush them with a little beaten egg. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Fried plantains
Peel two or three ripe plantains and cut into good-sized pieces. Fry them in butter and a little sugar. Drain on paper towels before serving.

Mango salsa
Chop 2 mangos, 1 cucumber and some green onion. Mix together with some lime juice.

The "I would do anything for..." meatloaf

We are up to our ears in leftovers at the moment, so I've been exercising all my self-restraint to not cook recently. So today I will rely on an oldie but a goodie, which I recently passed on to my friend Neville. Neville went to W&L with Andrew and me, and was the 'Quasimodo' in our wedding: he rang the bell during the recessional, which was just lovely. He just started his own blog, which features a crossword every Friday. Make sure you check it out--it goes live tomorrow!

Meatloaf is not the most glamorous meal, I know. I think of it as a relic of the 1950's, the era of canned pineapple in Jell-O and frozen TV dinners and Julia Child hasn't yet re-taught Americans how to cook. As a French major, I can be a little snobby about food sometimes. But there's some charm in meatloaf's simplicity and modesty. Ground beef is about the cheapest meat you can find, and the recipe is super-simple to prepare; I think it might take you five minutes from start to oven.

This is the meatloaf recipe I grew up with--the recipe that compelled even my daddy, who obstinately declares that he hates meatloaf, to come back for thirds every time. Andrew requested it during our first week in our little house, so Mommy emailed me her tried-and-true recipe. I chatted on Skype with Neville while I was cooking, and he confessed that he was not much of a meatloaf eater--so I sent the recipe off to him and he has now made it several times. Neville is the one who started referring to this as "Katherine's 'I would do anything for...' meatloaf" because, well, you know.

The natural companion for meatloaf is potatoes--I mashed them, but I also love roasting them in a little butter--and whatever fresh veggies you have on hand. I love my meatloaf pan, which has a removable insert so all the fat drains out, but any loaf pan will work.

My magical meatloaf pan

Meatloaf from my mother, Sallie Roberts

Mix together in a mixing bowl:

1 egg
1/2-1 green pepper, chopped into small pieces
1/2 cup oatmeal
2/3 cup tomato juice (she notes: you can buy small cans)
1 tsp pepper (I would use less)
1 tsp salt

Add 1 lb uncooked lean ground beef or mix of ground beef, pork and veal
Bake 45 min at 350 degrees.

How easy is that? Andrew is not a green pepper person, so I substituted half an onion to keep the same consistency. He found that to be a little oniony, although I wonder what would happen if I sauteed it first. But Andrew still went back for fourths...