Slow Sour Creamed Beef

This was the easiest and tastiest beef I've made in a long time and all because I needed to use up some freezer food, as we're moving soon! Anybody can make this, whether you're confident in the kitchen or not. The sour cream doesn't really taste like sour cream anymore and my husband who HATES sour cream absolutely loved this dish. So don't let that ingredient stop you from making it! The sauce is super yummy over perogies, rice, or pasta. The beef is so tender that it melts in your mouth! (and this is poor quality stewing beef that I used!). But you need to plan ahead as it takes four hours to cook slowly in your oven. This could easily be turned into a slow cooker recipe. Okay on to the recipe...

Shawna's Slow Sour Creamed Beef

2 lbs stewing beef

2 cups water

2 tbsp beef oxo

salt & pepper

garlic powder or the real deal

1 cup sour cream

Combine everything except for the sour cream and put in large roaster. Cook at 250 degrees F for four hours. Remove beef with slotted spoon after cooking, and place in frying pan with sour cream. Sour cream will melt and coat, about 5 min. Transfer into casserole dish, add a couple tbsp of the beef juice from the roaster to the beef mixture for taste and to thin it a bit. Pop the casserole dish back into the still warm (but now shut off oven) until the rest of your supper is ready!

Lasagna

You always need a good lasagna recipe and this one is easy and delicious. By using the oven ready noodles, it takes out a lot of the prep time! I throw spinach into my lasagna to add more veggies where you can't taste them! (I'm always trying to fool myself into eating more veggies than I think I am - I have to force myself to eat them!)

Lasagna

1/2 chopped onion

1-2 lbs ground beef

1/2-1 jar tomato pasta sauce

1/2 cup water

oregano, garlic, s&p, parsley

9-12 oven ready lasagna noodles

a bunch of chopped spinach, stems removed

500ml cottage cheese

grated mozzarella, divided

Brown ground beef and onion, stir in tomato sauce and water to make it really watery. Add spices. In a separate bowl, mix together cottage cheese, spinach, and half of the mozza cheese.

In a 9x13 pan, layers as follows:

1/3 of beef mixture

3-4 lasagna noodles

1/2 of cottage cheese/spinach mix

1/3 of beef mixture

3-4 lasagna noodles

rest of the cottage cheese/spinach mix

3-4 lasagna noodles

Rest of the beef mix

Top with remaining mozza cheese

Cover and bake at 350 for 45-50 min, removing the cover in the last 10 min of baking.

Let stand 10 min before serving and cutting

*Sauce is watery so that the noodles will soften and soak up the extra moisture.

Black Bean Chicken Quesadilla

I used to have an old quesadilla recipe that called for antipasto. Well, that's expensive and I use it so seldom that I would usually end up throwing out most of a jar. Tonight, I came up with a bit different recipe. We had some left over chicken breasts in the fridge, so I thought this was a perfect way to use them up! Also, I've never actually cooked with black beans before so it was a good excuse to try them (and get that can out of my cupboard!) I used some flavor inspirations from an earlier post of chile lime chicken, of which I got the recipe from Amanda Pokentickle. Mike absolutely loved these! And it was soft and easy to chew as he had his wisdom teeth out a few days ago!

Black Bean Chicken Quesadilla

two cooked chicken breasts, cut up into bite site pieces

1/2 can black beans, strained and rinsed

1/2 can corn

1 large tomato, seeds removed

1/2 tsp chipotle chile seasoning (VE seasoning)

1 TBSP chile powder (I use lots since my stock is old)

a few squirts of lime juice

1 cup shredded cheddar or Monterey jack

four large whole wheat tortilla's

Mix all ingredients together, except for the cheese and shells. Microwave for 2 minutes. On a large greased baking dish, place tortilla down, spread a bit of cheese on 1/2, then add filling, and top with more grated cheese, folding the other half over to cover. Repeat with remaining tortilla's. Bake in 400 degree oven for 5-10 min. Turn the broiler on for a couple minutes to brown the top.

** I added about 1/2 tsp lime juice, next time I'd add double this as you couldn't really taste it at all.

*** You can mix up a double recipe, omitting the tomato, and freeze the other half so you have another meal ready to go!