I’ve been dragging this week, and I am craving comfort food without a lot of work. I’d planned on roasting butternut squash and tossing it with goat cheese and farro for dinner Thursday night, but as I was making lunch that day I decided to throw something homey into the Crock-Pot instead. These were all ingredients I had on hand (I used flanken straight from the freezer), and by the time dinner came around I was thrilled and thankful to have this haimish dish ready to go.

The boys wouldn’t touch it, and J. finished a small bowl. When I asked him what he thought about it, I got no response. I know I’m not doing much to convince you to make it, but I really enjoyed these flavors together and this stew is a good way to make a little meat go a long way. I froze the bulk of the leftovers and will serve it (and happily eat it) another day.

Slow Cooker Beef & Barley Stew

1 lb. flanken (a cut of beef short rib)
32 oz. vegetable stock
1 medium onion, diced
1 c. pearled barley, rinsed
10 oz. baby portobello mushrooms, cleaned + quartered
1 c. carrots, chopped (about a large handful of baby carrots, cut into coins)
1 bay leaf
black pepper + salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in your slow cooker, and cook on high for 4 hours. Take flanken out of the crock, discard the bones, and shred the meat making sure to trim off any visible fat. Set the meat aside. Remove and discard bay leaf and any remaining bones that are in the stew. Then add the shredded meat back into the crock, stir, and adjust seasoning with salt + pepper. Serve hot.

The Costco near my parent’s house has started carrying a wider range of fresh kosher meats (pre-packaged elsewhere), and my mom and dad were kind enough to pick me up a huge tray of chicken breasts plus a first-cut brisket the last time they went shopping. The brisket is packaged by Teva Meats, and the one I got was a very manageable size — just under 3 lbs. J. was impressed with how nicely it was trimmed; there was little for us to do to prep it for the Crock-Pot.

We made up this recipe as we went along: First we dumped lots of cut-up potatoes, carrots, and onions in the bottom of the crock, and placed the brisket, which had been rubbed with a packet of Lipton onion soup mix, on top. No liquid to start. The cover went on and we cooked it on high for an hour, then put it on low for about another 6 hours. Somewhere in there — maybe 2 hours before we took it out? — J. added a squeeze of tomato paste and a little red wine. When it was done, we removed the brisket to slice it, and then added it back into the crock to serve.

It was very good, and not too much like pot roast, which I feared it would be. In fact, because of the onion soup it was a lot saltier than foods I normally cook, and it actually reminded me a little of pastrami. It was very tender, and because it was a lean cut of meat there wasn’t a lot of grease left in the crock. Braised meats like this (and stews) are not my favorite, but I still found it tasty. J. and his parents really loved it. I can’t say that I’d make it again, but J. might!

I had one last green cabbage left from my farm share, and I used it in this Hungarian Beef and Cabbage Casserole I found on Cookthink. I often find nice recipes on this site, but I don’t see too many people mentioning it online — it’s funny how some recipe sites catch on and others don’t seem to.

Although the recipe calls for a savoy cabbage, I used a green cabbage instead. Savoy cabbage leaves are more loosely packed, and so I think that I wound up using at least half again more cabbage than the recipe calls for. I also used a full cup of vegetable broth, double what the recipe required. Otherwise, I followed it as written, both in ingredients and preparation. The casserole fills a 9 x 13 casserole dish all the way to the top.

All the grown-ups loved it! The cabbage from my CSA is consistently delicious and buttery, and it was so good in this dish. It reminded me a little of a cross between goulash and stuffed cabbage. A little extra chopped parsley sprinkled on top helps this otherwise very blah-looking meal pop.

This is not really a recipe, just a dump and set: Add about 1.5 lbs. of trimmed skirt steak to your slow cooker, cover with a bottle of barbecue sauce (I used an 18 oz. bottle of Open Pit Original Barbecue Sauce), and cook on low for 8 hours. Shred. Serve on a roll or over rice.

J. felt lukewarm about the results, which are as tender as can be but a little vinegary (the vinegar flavor from the barbecue sauce is definitely heightened as the steak cooks). I thought it was a nice change of pace from Ropa Vieja, which is usually how I prepare skirt steak in my Crock-Pot, and you can’t beat it for easiness. I want to try the “dump a jar of barbecue sauce” technique on some chicken breasts next.

I bookmarked this recipe for Beef & Cabbage Stir-Fry with Peanut Sauce months ago, and finally made it on Monday evening. Although I wasn’t planning on cooking this week, Monday was filled with too many “tastes” of frosting after making cupcakes for a birthday playdate, and all that sugar does not agree with me. I felt like I needed a proper dinner, not just G.’s leftover mac and cheese. I had almost everything in the house, and needed to use up my arrowhead cabbage anyway.

The major change I made to this recipe was using tahini (sesame paste) instead of the peanut butter, because I thought J. might eat with me and he doesn’t care for PB. I left out the optional peanuts for garnish and the sugar, too. I like sesame sauces, and the slightly heavy flavor of the beef pairs really well with the light cabbage. It was a little less flavorful than I would have liked, though, and I would remedy that next time by including green onions in with the cabbage mixture, and subbing a teaspoon or so of the canola with sesame oil.

I didn’t bother with noodles — the shredded cabbage feels like pasta anyway, and I didn’t miss them at all. I would definitely make this recipe again, with the adjustments I mentioned. Leftovers tasted terrific, too.

A couple of weeks ago, J. tried smoking a brisket on our gas grill for the first time. He’s always been good at grilling in general, but the smoking was a first-time experiment that turned out deliciously. And of course, our minds started turning over all the other wonderful foods we could hit with some smoke. I knew I wanted him to try beef ribs right away. He usually makes them, par-boiled and then grilled, once a summer and they’re delicious. I knew they’d be even better smoked.

For us, the first step in trying out a new meat recipe is usually a convoluted conversation with our kosher butcher, where I ask for something J. read about in totally non-kosher terms, and the butcher tries to figure out which kosher cut of the animal I’m blathering on about. For instance, I asked for a slab of long beef ribs. I preemptively said “long” because I have had extensive conversations with him about long ribs, short ribs, and flanken. Now that I know what terms he wants to hear from me, I can order short ribs without a problem! But the full slab request, well, that threw a wrench into the process. Ultimately, it seems what I wanted was a full square of uncut flanken, and I did indeed get what we needed — a slab of beef ribs. It was about 6.5 lbs. before J. started trimming it (he had to remove the membrane along the back of the ribs himself).

On Friday night, J. rinsed and trimmed the meat, and then coated it with Cow Lick steak rub from Dizzy Pig BBQ. (I’ve got a whole post on these rubs coming… another time.) The ribs were wrapped and put in the fridge overnight. You can soak your hickory chips in water overnight, too, if you’d like.

You want indirect heat when you’re smoking, so on a gas grill the food should go on one side (which you don’t turn on) and the wood chips go on the other side where there is direct heat. Here’s a broad overview of the smoking technique (and remember we’re still learning ourselves): Turn one side of the grill on high, and put the wet chips in a heat-proof dish on that side. Close the grill and keep it going on high until the chips start smoking. Then turn the heat down until you get to about 225° F — that’s your optimal smoking temperature. Once you’ve hit 225, you can put the meat on grill. Remember, it goes on the side where your chips aren’t. You want to keep an eye on both the smoke and heat throughout the day, keeping the heat as constant as possible and replacing the chips as needed when the smoke gets low. J. estimates he checked the temp and added hickory chips almost every half hour.

These ribs smoked for 9 hours. Really. They probably didn’t need quite that long, but they had that beautiful, dusky pink hue of smoked beef, and a fantastic, spicy crust. Overall they were really succulent and filling. The tip of the ribs (the thinnest part) was a bit dried out, so J. said he’d wrap it in foil earlier in the cooking process to protect it next time.

We served the ribs with Broccoli Rabe & Potato Salad and Sesame Radish Salad. And now my rib craving is satisfied until next summer.

I had these meatballs (lean beef, an egg, some breadcrumbs, Mrs. Dash salt-free seasoning) simmering in some fire-roasted crushed tomatoes all afternoon — they smelled delicious. The boys haven’t eaten them in the past (they eat some chicken, but not beef). Still, I had some chopped meat to use up and I like to serve meatballs along with pasta every now and then just to keep exposing them to different foods. I tried tempting them with a cool meatball “submarine” using leftover rolls but they didn’t go for it. The meatballs were (politely, I must add) declined by both kids. That’s OK, sometimes it’s all about just offering the option. They were happy with the pasta.

J. surprised us by getting home early, and since he doesn’t eat meatballs either I packed them away for another time. We ordered sushi instead.

Ropa Vieja from the freezer, simmered until piping hot and served over Spanish rice. Tasted even better as leftovers.

I decided to bake the meatballs last night rather than simmer them in sauce on the stove or in the crock pot. I don’t really like cooking beef meatballs in sauce, because there’s nowhere for the grease to go. When they’re baked in the oven, some of the fat renders out and stays on the pan — you can then serve sauce on the side. Plus, I thought I might be able to convince G. to try a plain meatball.

I combined about 2.5 lbs. of lean ground beef with 2 eggs, about a third of a cup of wheat germ, some Spike salt-free seasoning, and garlic powder. The meatballs baked for 20 minutes at 400° F.

They were really delicious! G. didn’t try one but my little niece did and she enjoyed them. She also loved the steamed green beans served on the side, and actually threw a little tantrum when Lauren took one away so she didn’t put too much in her mouth at one time. Very cute. I will gladly cook for her any day!

I followed the recipe for Steak Chili from allrecipes.com, and I think it’s a good starting point. I reduced the amount of chili powder, but otherwise stayed true to the ingredient list.

My kosher butcher labels the beef I used as “Delmonico strip steak.” I can’t find an official definition of this cut anywhere, but it is awesome on the grill and looks like a regular, nicely-marbled strip steak. I thought it worked perfectly in the chili, cut into large chunks.

Unfortunately, J. didn’t care for this dish at all. He felt the meat was tough, and that it would have worked better if it had been slow-cooked in the crock pot. (I did not agree.) Since he is not a huge fan of kidney beans anyway, I won’t bother to tweak the recipe. But I do have lots of yummy leftovers in my freezer that I will share with my parents another night.