Tacos de Lengua

Last week was a little rough. I was really tired all week. I even took naps a few days. It just seemed like no matter what I did, I couldn't get enough sleep. Then Thursday hit and I got the most intense craving for beef tongue. Yeah, I know. Very random thing to crave! But to be fair, my first experience with beef tongue came from Joseph Decuis and it was Wagyu beef. It was amazing. Before I lose you completely, here's the final product-it looks a little more appetizing than the raw meat  :)

Between the exhaustion and the craving for offal, I figured I had to be a little anemic. So I started my search for beef tongue. It turned out to be a lot harder to find than I thought. I called several butchers, but no one had it. My favorite place to buy meat from wouldn't have it until this week, but I couldn't wait that long. I finally found a German butcher that had it! At that point, I didn't care they wanted $12/lb. So Saturday afternoon, I put the tongue in a brine and prepared it for Sunday.

After rinsing the brine, here's what I had:

Cooking the tongue is really easy. It only needs onions, beef stock and a crock pot. Start by laying sliced onions in the bottom.

Then the tongue and beef stock. The liquid should cover the tongue, so add a little water if you're short. Then cook on low for 8 hours.

Eight hours later, remove the tongue and let it rest. When it's just cool enough to handle, remove the skin. No one wants to eat that part and that would be a textural nightmare for me!!

Then use 2 forks to shred the meat

Now you have a big bowl of shredded beef tongue.

You can eat it just like this and it's quite tasty. It kind of has the flavor of a prime steak cut, with the texture of shredded pork. We wanted tacos, so I sauteed some red onions and garlic then added some of the shredded meat, along with my seasonings. I used oregano, chili powder, salt, paprika and cumin. Then all that's left is to top with fresh cilantro and enjoy!

I will admit, my husband had absolutely no interest in the tongue when he saw it raw. He really couldn't even look at it. I practically had to force him to try the taco. But when he did, he loved it! In fact, he took leftovers for lunch today-and this is the guy that snubs all leftovers!

Beef and Barley Soup

We're heading into Week 2 of October Unprocessed and things are going well. As part of this challenge, we decided to try some new foods, specifically grains. The first new food we tried was barley. I looked for a few recipes online and got an idea of how I wanted to cook it. Beef and Barley Soup seemed like the easiest route and I could use up some stuff from the freezer!

1 1/2 lb chuck steak (fat trimmed and cut into small pieces)
3 c beef stock
2 c sliced carrots
2 stalks celery, sliced
1/2 c peas
1/2 a medium onion, diced
1 c quick barley
Rosemary
Thyme
Salt
Pepper

I sauteed some of the trimmed fat from the steak in my big pot to get the flavors started, then removed the fat and browned the steak pieces and onion. Next, I added the stock.

( I had grabbed a container of what I thought was beef stock from the freezer, but when I went to open it, I noticed it said turkey stock. At that point it was too late, so I went with it! It still turned out great.)

When the stock started to boil, I added in all the veggies and seasonings.

The peas and carrots were semi frozen, so I let it simmer for a bit-maybe 20 minutes-then brought it back up to a full boil and added the barley. 

Finally, put the lid on and let it boil on low heat until the barley is tender.

The barley absorbed most of the liquid, so at this point, it wasn't really a soup anymore. Either way, we all loved it! Barley will be making its way onto our menu again. 

I was able to use carrots from the garden that I had frozen, turkey stock from our turkeys we raised, rosemary and thyme from our garden that I had dried, and peas from Husk-a local company that processes Indiana grown veggies. If you're in Indiana, I highly recommend checking out some Husk products!

Philly Cheese Steaks

Peppers and onions are definitely a weakness of mine. I can eat them by the plateful. Unfortunately, the husband requires a little more at meal time. So when I'm craving peppers and onions, we have Philly Cheese Steaks. They're super easy to make and OMG....delicious!

In large pan, saute 1 Tablespoon (more or less) minced garlic, one bell pepper (sliced into strips) and one large onion (also sliced) in about 1 tablespoon olive oil.

Saute until onions are softened, but not mushy-usually takes only a couple of minutes.

 Add in thin strips of steak. I usually buy the thinnest cut of whatever steak is on sale. Salt. Then salt again.

Cook until meat is to your preference. Again, just a few minutes with these thin strips. Pile onto a toasted bun and add some provolone cheese.

I top mine with a few extra peppers :)

Made From Scratch Tuesday 4/24

The other day, I had a serious craving for some fajitas. There's just something about the spicy strips of steak and the crunchy peppers that really gets my mouth watering! And I'll admit that even though I have a spice rack that would make about any home cook jealous, I always buy fajita seasoning. Why? I have no idea. I have everything I need right in the kitchen. So I figured it was about time I made my own! After looking around on the interwebs for a bit, I realized all the recipes I found were about the same. So I used this one I found on food.com.

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon crushed chicken bouillon cube

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon cumin

Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl. I cut a flank steak into strips and tossed with about 3/4 of the seasoning mixture. I cooked them on my electric grill to medium. At the same time, I sauteed 2 large peppers cut into strips, 3 cloves of garlic (chopped) and an onion cut into small wedges in a little bit of oil and the rest of the seasoning mixture. 

As I was enjoying dinner, I suddenly realize how crazy I've been for buying seasoning packs all this time! I'm definitely going to keep using this recipe! 




Now it's time to link up all of your creations!
Here are the rules:
1. You can link up as many posts as you'd like.
2. The post has to be made from scratch.
3. The post you link up MUST CONTAIN A RECIPE! 
4. If you want to put my button somewhere, that'd be cool. You can grab the code for the Made From Scratch Tuesday button on the top right of my sidebar.    

Made From Scratch Tuesday 1/17

Tonight, we had artichoke burgers. The husband was giving me funny looks while I was making them, but they turned out soooo tasty! One of these days, he'll learn to quit doubting me!

What you'll need:
1 lb ground beef
4 artichoke hearts, chopped into large pieces (I used canned)
2 T creamy Italian dressing
Salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients in a bowl

 Shape into patties and cook to desired doneness

We topped these burgers with crumbled Feta cheese

Now it's time to link up all of your creations!
Here are the rules:
1. You can link up as many posts as you'd like.
2. The post has to be made from scratch.
3. The post you link up MUST CONTAIN A RECIPE! 
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Made From Scratch Tuesday 1/3

 Made From Scratch Tuesday is back from the holiday break! I hope everyone had a happy holiday season and is ready for 2012!

One of the things we did over the holidays was pick up our beef. We bought a side of beef from a local producer back in November. After a few weeks hanging time and processing, it was ready for us to pick up last week. We've only bought quarters in the past, so the sheer amount of beef we picked up was almost overwhelming!

One of the other things I like about buying our beef this way, is we get to choose how it's cut and packaged.

More on that on a later post....

Another thing I love about buying our beef like this is all the bones! And bones mean stock! It seems like I never have enough stock in the freezer, so I make trips to the butcher throughout the year to pick up more. Although, they really hooked me up this time. I left with bags and bags of bones. Want to guess what I spent my Saturday doing? Making stock!

I started out with the bones and enough olive oil just to cover the bottom of my 22 qt pressure canner/cooker.

I slightly browned the bones then added 4 large carrots (broke in half), 4 ribs of celery (broke in half), 2 onions (quartered), salt, 1 T whole peppercorns, 4 bay leaves, 2 cloves of garlic, 5 fresh basil leaves, a sprig of rosemary, 1 t thyme, and 1 t savory. Then add enough water to fill the pressure cooker between 1/2 and 2/3 full.

Then, lock on the lid and turn the heat up. When I could hear the steam coming out, I turned the heat down to low and let it cook for 45 minutes. Then turn the heat off, but keep it on the burner and let it cool down. After the pot cooled enough to be able to touch it, I carefully took off the lid to check out my stock.

My stock had a great aroma and a beautiful color. Now the only problem was storing it. As you can see, our freezer had reached its limit. So, I condensed it down by transferring to smaller pots and simmering until most of the water evaporated. This also gave me a good chance to skim off some fat. When it was all said and done, two batches of stock in the pressure cooker was concentrated down to 10 of these little containers, which fit in my freezer perfectly!

Now it's time to link up all of your creations!
Here are the rules:
1. You can link up as many posts as you'd like.
2. The post has to be made from scratch.
3. The post you link up MUST CONTAIN A RECIPE!
4. If you want to put my button somewhere, that'd be cool. You can grab the code for the Made From Scratch Tuesday button on the top right of my sidebar.

Swiss Steak Supper

When the Real Farmwives started the Gooseberry Patch cookbook series, the first thing that popped into my head was sharing some of these recipes with my mom. Since she's the one who taught me how to cook, I knew she'd enjoy trying out new recipes too!

The first recipe she made was Swiss Steak Supper from What's for Dinner?

She started by layering her browned, boneless beef round steak, onions, green peppers and carrots in the crock pot.

  Next, mix together brown gravy and tomato juice. Pour over meat and veggies in crock pot.

This recipe takes 10-12 hours to cook, so she let it cook all day while she was at work. (Hey all you working moms....try getting everything ready the night before and refrigerate overnight. Before you leave for work, just turn the crock pot on and dinner will be ready when you get home!!)

 Want to win a copy of this cookbook for yourself? Stay tuned as we finish up our 10 recipes for a giveaway!


Make sure to visit the fantastic blog parties on my sidebar, and of course, link up all your made from scratch recipes on my Tuesday linky-Made From Scratch Tuesday!