Megan’s Enviable Enchiladas…

My cowboy loves grass finished bison meat.  He shared some with us this weekend and my favorite 11 year old cowgirl chef used it to make enchiladas.  The following recipe is also really good with grain or grass finished beef hamburger.  It’s your choice!

Enchilada needs: 2# ground meat, 8-10 soft whole wheat taco shells, package of Provolone cheese, 1/2 package of Mozarella cheese, package of McCormick Enchilada sauce mix, 8 ounce can of tomato sauce, Parmesan crusted “shake and bake” seasoning, water.

• In a frying pan, cook meat until done. Put in a healthy shake of Parmesan crusted ”shake and bake” seasoning while browning the meat.
• In a sauce pan: combine tomato sauce, water and enchilada mix (Megan only used half a package of the sauce mix because she do not like spicy food).  Bring the sauce to a boil and then simmer for 5 minutes to thicken the sauce.
• Combine the sauce with the cooked meat and stir.
• Grate provolone cheese onto the whole wheat soft taco shells.
• Add meat and sauce to each taco shell.  Roll it, and place it seam down in a lasagna pan.
• Pour extra meat sauce onto the top of the rolled tacos.
• Grate mozzarella cheese over the top of the tacos.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes in a 325 degree oven (until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbling).

Serve alongside your favorite vegetable and enjoy!

Megan’s Easter Hamballs…

We were blessed to have family visit us for Easter weekend.  Not only did we celebrate the Easter holiday with good times, but my favorite 10 year old cowgirl/chef celebrated her 11th birthday.

She started the big day early helping me to exercise calves at the feed yard—followed by practicing her dance moves on top of the hay bale pile…

One of Megan’s favorite meals is hamballs.  The meat dish is actually a Cozad tradition and is made from ground ham.  My husband is a master at preparing them, and he and Megan always have fun when they create their masterful hamballs together.

They taste awesome–even if they aren’t made from beef…

Hamball needs:  Two pounds of ground ham loaf, one egg, two pieces of shredded whole wheat bread, one handful of oatmeal, twelve shakes of pepper, eight shakes of minced onion, six shakes of tarragon, four shakes of garlic powder, a generous helping of parmesan cheese.

Use a large bowl to combine the above  ingredients…

Blend the ingredients by hand…

Form the mixture into balls and place in a pyrex dish…

Sauce needs:  Cup of water, 2 and 1/2 cups of apple cider vinegar, and 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar.  Mix the liquid ingredients together and pour over the hamballs.  Cook an hour in a 400 degree oven.

Enjoy!  After all, they have the birthday girl’s seal of approval

Megan’s Masterful Beef Soft Tacos…

Protein Packs a Powerful Punch!

A special thanks to my cousin Mary Laura for sending this awesome kitchen sign all the way from the East Coast to my favorite volleyball playing–cowgirl–chef!

• Season the burger and brown it in a skillet. 
• Add one can of drained black beans, 6 ounces of cream cheese, and 6 ounces of corn. 
• Mix together under medium heat until the cream cheese is melted and the corn is tender. 
• Grate the Monterey jack cheese onto the soft taco shells and warm  them in the oven at 250 degrees. 
• When the meat mixture is hot and the cheese on the taco shells is melted, distribute the meat mixture onto the tacos. 
• Roll, eat and enjoy!
  

  Zinc, Iron and Protein–all in one powerful punch!

  

  Don’t forget to drain the beans!

  

  Make sure that you stir frequently while melting the cheese and combining the ingredients!

  

  Grate the cheese and not your knuckles!

  

  Remember that Daddy’s taco should be bigger than little sister’s…Otherwise you will spend 2 hours at the table waiting for her to finish!

   

• 

  Have a napkin ready…It might get a bit messy!

  We served ours with a fresh tossed salad

Megan’s Valentine BBQ Beef!

This BBQ Beef is so AWESOME  that you will not believe how easy it is to prepare!

Don’t just take her word for it–try it yourself!

BBQ Beef Needs:

A 2-3 pound roast (I usually use a round roast).

Jar of BBQ sauce (I love KC Masterpiece Original recipe).

1 and 1/2 cups of water.

Minced Onion

Pepper

Crock Pot

BBQ Beef Directions:

Place roast in the crock pot with the water.

Shake on the minced onion and pepper.

Cover the crock pot and cook on low all day.

About 1/2 hour prior to serving, remove excess water and break apart the beef.

Mix BBQ sauce throughout the beef and allow to heat thoroughly.

I use at least a whole container of the BBQ sauce–sometimes more depending on the size of the roast…

The BBQ beef can be served as a sandwich or as a main dish with twice baked potatoes and your favorite vegetable!

It is so tasty that she can’t seem to help herself from sneaking bites as she serves the family!

Happy Valentine’s Day from your favorite CowGirl Chef!

Megan’s Champion Chili!

My favorite cowgirl/chef is also a volleyball champion!

Her team won 7 of 8 games to win the tournament! Her awesome serve earned 17 points in a row during one of the games

Champion Chili needs:

1 and 1/2 pounds of ground beef, 40 shakes of minced onion (or one chopped medium onion), 64 ounces of tomato juice, 15 ounces of chili beans (canned), 15 ounces of black beans (drain the juice out of the can before adding), 1 can of whole tomatoes (or fresh tomatoes if you have them), 1/2 tablespoon of chili powder, 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, dutch oven pot to cook it in, marbled cheese, crackers

Champion Chili directions:

Brown hamburger on the stove top.

Shake in the minced onion (or add the minced fresh onion) while cooking the beef.

Add the two cans of beans (remove liquid from the black beans before adding).

Add the garlic and the chili powder.

Add the whole tomatoes (28 ounce can or you can slice fresh ones if you have them).

Add the tomato juice.

Cook on medium low for 2-3 hours before serving stirring occasionally.

Serve with cubes of marbled cheese and your choice of crackers!

The Champions!

Megan’s Fantastic Flat Irons!

The Flat Iron steak is a portion of the chuck roast (shoulder roast).  Dr. Chris Calkins at the University of Nebraska discovered the “Flat Iron” doing tenderness tests on cuts of beef.  It is one of the most tender cuts of beef and is one of Megan’s favorite steaks!

It’s one of her favorite meals…

During the summer months, we cook our Flat Iron steaks on an outside grill.  When the temperatures are holding in the single digits during January, we cook our Flat Iron steaks on Matt’s grandmother’s Farberware inside grill.  They take longer to cook on the Farberware grill than our charcoal grill, but you stay much warmer cooking them inside!

The type of grill will determine the cooking time. Flat Irons are meant to be served medium rare to medium in doneness.

Needs: Flat Iron Steaks, Balsamic Vinaigrette salad dressing, a container or plastic bag to marinate the meat, a grill.

Marinate the meat with the salad dressing and let it sit covered in the refrigerator for several hours.

Cook on the grill. It takes 10-12 minutes on our inside grill, but only about 7 on an outside charcoal grill. You will need to experiment with the cooking time depending on your choice of grill, the thickness of the meat and how hot the grill is.

Feel free to use a knife to determine whether or not the steak is finished to your taste.

Megan also make Chocolate Crinkle cookies to serve for dessert.  They were almost as good as the Flat Irons!

The cookies turned out to be “super sized”—I am still trying to get her to super size her vegetables just like her cookies!

Megan’s Magnificent Homemade Pizza…

When Matt and I lived in New Hampshire, there was a little pizza parlor about a mile away from the Dartmouth College campus where we could go to get “take and bake” pizza.  What I loved most about the take and bake was the option of getting a whole wheat crust.

Ah, those where the days before wrinkles and gray hair!

When we moved to Nebraska, my mom bought us a bread maker and we started making our own home made pizza with whole wheat crust.  I love it best with cheese, hamburger, and broccoli.  Megan only agrees to put broccoli on it if I give her a direct order (she would tell you that direct orders are common place in our house)…You can be creative with the toppings or you can be boring like me and always have it the same

Tasty, Tasty!

Needs:  Whole Wheat Crust = 1 and 1/8th cup of warm water, 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of bread flour, 1/3 of a cup of rye flour, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of sugar, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of dry yeast, and 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt (optional–we do not put salt in ours).

Add all ingredients into the bread maker in the order given above (if you include salt–put it in after the sugar).  Set the bread machine on the “dough” cycle.  It takes about an hour for our machine to blend it into dough.

Needs: Pizza = 1 and 1/2 pounds of hamburger (browned and cooked thoroughly), 1 can of pizza sauce, grated 1lb of mozzarella, grated 1/2lb of marbled chedder/jack cheese, and chopped fresh broccoli (not quite an entire head).  Matt and Megan sometimes gang up on me and sneak in some pepperoni!

She tosses it with such exuberance that the pictures come out blurry…

When the dough is finished in the bread maker, toss and stretch it before placing it on a pizza stone (this is Megan’s favorite part–watching her learn to toss the dough is hilarious).  Add pizza sauce, then burger (meat), then broccoli (vegetables), then the cheese is last.

It takes a little bit of encouragement on my part to get Megan to put on enough broccoli!

Cook in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.  Let stand for a few minutes (5-10) before slicing and serving.  This recipe makes a thick crust pizza.  You can add more toppings if you would like!

Megan’s Meatful Mondays: Marvelous Meatballs…

A special thanks to Katie Arndt for this wonderful picture of my cowgirl/chef…

From the pasture to the kitchen, Megan’s your go-to girl!

Needs: 1 and 1/2 pounds of hamburger, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup of Shake N Bake Parmesan Crusted Seasoning, 1 cup of Oatmeal, diced onion, 1 ten and 1/2 ounce can of Beef Consomme’ Soup, and fresh Parmesan Cheese.

In a large bowl, combine hamburger, eggs, Parmesan Seasoning, Oatmeal, and diced onion by hand making sure to blend all of the ingredients well.

• Shape mixture into balls and place them in a pyrex dish. 
• Pour soup over the meatballs. 
• Grate fresh Parmesan Cheese over the top.
• Cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour at 350 degrees in the oven (depending on the size of your meatballs).
• Serve with your favorite steamed vegetable (Megan chose steamed Broccoli).
  

  Don’t forget to have fun!