Slow Cooked Burgundy Beef Meatballs

Several years ago I discovered Rachel Ray.  Not literally, as in, I'm who found her and made her famous.  I mean, I found her show, "30 Minute Meals", on the Food Network.  I learned how to cook from her, mostly.  I did learn some things from my Mom and  Sister, but at a young age I was not interested in cooking, so foolishly, I didn't seek to learn from them.  Now, I want to  learn from them, from Rachel Ray and from anyone who is willing to give me recipes along with some instructions as needed.  One of my favorite, "30 Minute Meal" recipes is the Beef Burgundy, or Beef Bourguignonne, as is the official title.
Recently I was looking through a cook book and found a lovely slow cooker recipe for Meatballs in red wine.  That started the wheels turning, and I have combined the two recipes to come up with Burgundy Beef Meatballs.  My son liked the egg noodles, but not the meatballs.  He likes the regular meatballs with spaghetti sauce, but not so much the burgundy meatballs.  He is, after all, just 4 so I wasn't too surprised the flavor's didn't appeal to him.  My husband and I, however, devoured them, last night as well as tonight.  They taste even better when allowed to sit over night.  The meatball recipe I will give makes a lot of meatballs, so I used some for the spaghetti dinner one night then froze the remainder of them.
For the slow cooker, or crock pot, recipe you'll have to plan on eating this the next day.  The reason being, the meatballs need to be frozen in order to be able to cook them all day without turning them into golf balls.  It's worth it, trust me, I'm the queen of not wanting to take more than a few minutes or an hour to cook, much less one whole day, but you'll be glad you did!  Apparently, I'm also the queen of run-on sentences.

I'll give an alternative at the bottom though, if you don't want to wait.

Meatballs:

2 lbs. ground beef
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups regular bread crumbs
11/2  teaspoon cilantro leaves
1 large shallot finely diced
1/4 teaspoon pepper

4 strips thick cut bacon
2 tablespoons flour
Beef stock

Mix the all the ingredients together (except bacon, flour and stock)
Line a baking dish with foil
Shape into 'golf ball' sized balls, you'll want about 30 meatballs for the slow cooker
Place in prepared pan (no need to grease or use oil)
Bake in a 350 oven for 30 minutes or until the meatballs are no longer pink in the middle

While the meatballs are baking:

Fry the bacon in a skillet until crispy
Remove and place on paper towel lined plate
Remove all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease
Keep heat on medium, add the flour and stir until combined and a lovely shade of light brown being careful not to burn
Add the beef stock 1/2 a cup at a time and stir with whisk until there are no lumps and the gravy starts to thin a bit
You don't want a very thick gravy
Crumble the bacon into the gravy
After the meatballs are cooked through, add them to the gravy and let them cool
Once cool, place the meatballs AND gravy in a zip lock baggie, or freezer safe container and place in the freezer overnight


The next day, or whenever you are ready to make the Burgundy Beef Meatballs, place the frozen meatballs with the gravy in your slow cooker and add the following:

1 bag Pearl Onions
4 sprigs of Thyme or 1 1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 Bay leaves
2 1/2 cups red wine
1 1/2  tsp dried Oregano
1 cup Sliced mushrooms (preferably not from a can)
2 cups of beef stock
1 cup water

Cook on high for 4 -5 hours or on low for 8 hours
Serve with egg noodles

If you don't want to wait overnight then simply add the above ingredients into the skillet with, a very thin, gravy. Add the meatballs, allow to simmer together for about 30 minutes, watching carefully that the gravy doesn't burn, or thicken too much.  Serve over egg noodles.

Store left overs together with the egg noodles, overnight in the fridge, you will love the way the flavors melt into each other.  Divine!

Slow cooked Boneless Chicken thighs with Saffron rice and Glazed dill Carrots

Let me just start by saying, I love my crock pot. It's a fantastic way to cook a meal that makes your family think you slaved away in the kitchen all day. The first time I ever cooked raw chicken in it, I just knew we would all have salmonella. Thankfully, that didn't happen. What did happen? We had BBQ chicken drumsticks with the meat falling off the bone. It was so delicious. I've been experimenting with different ways to cook the chicken, flavors, seasoning, and things like that. Sometimes it's a hit, sometimes it's a big ole miss, but at least it's a try.


I don't understand how people are willing to sit on the side lines and watch, instead of try, because they are afraid of failure. That, to me, is the ultimate failure, not even trying. I love to ski. I use to work at a ski resort as a ski instructor. Sometimes, when I didn’t have a class to teach, I’d go on a “clinic” with a more advanced skier, to better my skiing ability. Before we started went down the run, we were discussing the last big fall we had. I proudly said I hadn’t fallen all season. To which the Clinic leader promptly answered, “Then you haven’t been trying hard enough.” I was shocked, I thought the idea was not to fall. He went on to say that the only way to improve is to give it 100%. No one learns on the first try, but you can’t get better if you don’t push past your fears and limits. That means don’t be afraid to fall, it’s not a badge of shame,  it’s merely gravity reminding us what happens to objects that go up. Speaking of objects that go up, another good piece of advice I learned: Be careful who you step on going up the ladder of success, you might just have to pass them again on your way back down. So I learned it's ok to fall, it's just not ok to stay down.

My husband and I love to eat at a little place in Falls Church, VA. Panjshir, they serve authentic Afghan food, which is delicious. Great atmosphere, wonderful service and the food is always wonderful. We always get Sambosay Goshti, which is a deep fried pastry filled with ground beef, chickpeas and parsley for an appetizer. For my main course I get the Kebab-E-Murgh, which is chicken kebab served on a bed of saffron rice. The food leaves me full, not stuffed, with warmth all over from the wonderful mix of flavors.

For some reason, cooking with saffron has always been very intimidating to me. It’s very expensive, so I don’t want to experiment with it, not knowing how it will turn out. So it sits in the cabinet where it will end up being thrown out when I clean my spice racks out. That makes no sense, instead of trying (for fear of wasting it), I let it sit in the cabinet where it, gets wasted. Time to get up and try. I got on www.FoodNetwork.com and typed in Saffron Rice, one of the first recipes that came up was from Paula Deen. I didn’t need to look any further. Recipe from Paula Deen, *win*. Saffron Rice with a few ingredients, *win*. Level listed as easy, *win win*.



Saffron Rice
By Paula Deen, 2007
http://www.foodnetwork.com/search/delegate.do?fnSearchString=saffron+rice&fnSearchType=site




 
Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter

¾ cup diced onion

1 cup long-grain, white rice

3 cups Chicken stock

Pinch Saffron threads

Salt and freshly ground black pepper



Directions:

In a large saucepan or pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions while stirring in the rice to coat with the butter. Pour in the chicken stock, saffron, salt and pepper. Raise the heat to high and bring to a boil. Cover, turn the heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes. Remove the lid and fluff with a fork before serving.








Slow cooked Boneless Chicken Thighs:



Large package of boneless, chicken thighs

1 package onion soup mix

1 carton organic chicken stock mix

1 low sodium chicken bouillon cube

1 cup water

2 cloves garlic minced

2 Stalks celery, rough chopped

1 tbsp sage

1 tbsp thyme



-Best to start this in the morning, so it will be ready for dinner and the house will smell delicious-



Pour chicken broth and water in slow cooker

Add the bouillon cube, onion soup mix, garlic, celery, sage and thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

Put the lid on and turn to low leave it alone until it’s almost time to eat



Carrots:



2 cups chopped carrots

1 tbsp dill

2 tbsp brown sugar

3 tbsp butter

Salt to taste



Gently boil the carrots until they are soft, drain water

Melt butter in sauce pan coating the carrots; add the brown sugar and dill

Cover to keep warm and set aside.


Dinner was superb, if I say so myself.  The Carrots are my Moms recipe.  They are so delicious!!
Have a super dinner!!!