Beef Italian Sausage Pasta

Fennel seeds, the not so secret ingredient to Italian sausage, make this lazy pasta sauce recipe taste like its made with prepared Italian sausage. Leftovers can make a great sausage and peppers sloppy Joe sandwich.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 tsp steak seasoning salt (I use The Keg brand stuff from Costco)
• 2 tsp fennel seeds
• 1/2 tsp crushed chiles
• 1 can tomato sauce (I use the 398 mL can from Costco)

How to:

1. Fry beef and onions in cast iron pan
2. When beef is browned, add spices to pan
3. Let spices toast for a minute, then add tomato sauce
4. Serve with pasta

Beef Meatballs

Meatballs are great with many types of meat (beef, pork and veal are our favourites).  This recipe just uses a standard 1 lb of beef.  It’s usually only difficult to time it with when we have parsley on hand.  The rest of the ingredients are commonly stocked up here from my Costco expeditions.  We had these meatballs with pasta for dinner, but I’m thinking that the leftovers are going to make great sandwiches tomorrow!

The recipe below is adapted from The Kitchn.  They have really good tips on how to perfect the art of the meatball.

 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (I used the cheap Kraft stuff, but it’s probably more yummy with the real stuff)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup parsley
• 1 small onion
• 2 tsp steak seasoning salt (I use The Keg stuff I got from Costco)
• 1 lb beef

How to:

1. Combine breadcrumbs, cheese, milk, egg, and steak seasoning in stand mixer (I had the paddle attachment on)
2. Chop parsley and onion in food processor, then add to breadcrumb mixture
3. Mix until well combined
4. Add in very cold meat
5. Mix until just combined (all the meatball instructions say to never over mix, or the meatballs can end up tough)
6. Shape meat mixture into 1/2″ to 1″ size balls; place shaped balls in pan of tomato sauce (I used one 398 mL can from Costco)
7. Cover and simmer meatballs on medium-low for 30 minutes (I put a baking sheet over my cast iron pan to cover them)
8. Flip meatballs (I just used a spoon)
9. Cook for another 15 minutes, or until they look yummy and done (I use this time to make some pasta)

Beef Pho Broth

Pho is one of our favourite restaurant foods. It’s fast, it’s delicious; it seems healthy; it can be ordered with fast, delicious, (less healthy) spring rolls. There’s often a bountiful number of Vietnamese restaurants in Vancouver, and most of them are great!

Since I’m still trying to eat our freezer, I attempted pho broth at home. One awesome thing about pho broth is you don’t need too many vegetables in the recipe (since we don’t have carrots right now, for example).

My understanding is that “pho” is pronounced like “fa”. I can’t help but say it how it phonetically looks in English “foe”. This probably bothers people the same way it bothers me when people pronounce the L’s in “quesadilla”… Either way, it is an excellent food to have on a cold day.  The below recipe is adapted from Steamy Kitchen.

Spice mix:

• 2-3 whole star anise
• 1 whole black cardamom pod
• 4 whole cloves
• 1 tsp Chinese 5-spice powder (add this to the broth after the spices are toasted)
• 1 tsp sea salt (add this to the broth after the spice are toasted)

Remaining pho broth ingredients:

• 1 large onion
• 1 3″ ginger piece
• 2-3 lbs beef bones
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 lime, juiced
• things you want to add to the broth (rice noodles, proteins, greens, condiments)

How to:

1. Broil and char the ginger and onion at the top rack of the oven. This took me about 15 minutes (5 minutes each side; flipped 3 times)
2. Toast the spices (except for the salt and 5-spice powder) in a small pan (just so you can smell them)
3. Boil the bones, starting with cold water, for 10 minutes (I always judge Thomas Keller for doing this in his veal stock recipe, but decided to give this a try…).
4. Skim the broth, remove and rinse the bones in cold water (I soaked them in cold water 5 times… it seemed like a waste of water, but the water was mucky each time), discard the rest of the boiled water, and clean the pot.
5. Add the 5-spice powder, salt, charred ginger and onion, and rinsed bones back to the clean pot.
6. Add 3 litres of water to the pot.
7. Bring pot to a boil for 10 minutes. Three simmer uncovered for 2 hours. Skim occasionally, starting after 30 minutes.
8. Add fish sauce and sugar.
9. Simmer for another hour, sampling broth and adjusting with fish sauce, sugar and lime, as needed.
10. When broth tastes excellent, serve with noodles (cook as the package says), cilantro, sriracha sauce, hoisin sauce, beef, chicken, pork, tofu, vegetables, or anything else that you love at your favourite pho place.  I added some pork meatballs that I also had in the freezer (yes! slowly getting some freezer space back!).