Welcome to my favorite family recipes, and some of my own discoveries. All of the recipes published here will be “tried and true”. I grew up with many of these recipes. My mom is a very good cook. We were a working class family, but we always had good food. Nothing fancy, but everything was good. I will also be sharing Mom’s best cake recipes.
Here is another one of my Turkish-inspired dinner favorites,
Yumurtali Ispanak.It has chopped
spinach, ground beef, seasoned salt, and cheese.The Turks make it with ground lamb, and crack
eggs over the top, but I usually skip the eggs.(I don’t like the texture of egg whites.)This entrée is super easy and quick to
make.It’s one of my favorite ways to
eat cooked spinach, and the one I make most often.(I also like Indian Saag Paneer.)
Ingredients
1 lb lean ground beef or ground lamb
2 bags frozen chopped spinach, about 1 lb each
Lawry’s seasoned salt
5-6 eggs (optional)
Shredded cheddar cheese
Nutmeg (optional)
Directions
1.Place ground meat
in a large skillet, or Dutch oven pot.Sprinkle
with about ½ tsp of Lawry’s seasoned salt, and brown meat.
2.Add frozen spinach.Sprinkle with about ½ tsp of seasoned salt,
and cover.Cook on medium for 15-20
minutes, stirring occasionally.Color of
the spinach will change from bright green to a darker color.
3.Stir to ensure
spinach and meat are evenly mixed, and evenly distributed in the pan.Crack eggs into top of spinach mixture,
spacing evenly.
4.Sprinkle eggs
lightly with nutmeg.Cook until eggs are
firm, about 10 minutes.
I was stationed in Turkey for 3 ½ years in the early
90s.I loved being there.I enjoyed the travel, the people and the
food.I won’t say that I’m proficient at
Turkish cooking, but I have my adaptations of some of my favorite Turkish
dishes.Turks use a lot of tomatoes,
onions, peppers and garlic.Meat is
usually lamb or ground lamb.This is my
version of Turkish Green Beans, or Zeytinyağli Taze Fasulye.It is a tava- or stew-like dish.Turks would use ground lamb.I substitute ground beef.It is typically served over rice pilaf, truly
one of my favorite treats from my time in Turkey.This can be a delicious, healthy, low-fat
meal.
Ingredients
for Turkish Green Beans (Zeytinyağli Taze Fasulye)
1 large can of tomato juice, about 46 oz
1 can diced tomatoes, about 15 oz
2 large cans green beans, about 46 oz each, or 1 large bag
frozen green beans
3-4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces, about 1”
2 lbs ground beef
1 egg
1 large onion, chopped
8-12 garlic cloves
Lawry’s seasoned salt
Lawry’s garlic powder with parsley
Chili powder
1- Pour tomato juice and tomatoes into a 6 qt Dutch oven pot.
2- Add green beans and seasonings.
3- Add onions.
4- Leave garlic cloves whole, or cut into thin horizontal
slices.Add to pot.
5- Bring to low boil, covered.
6- Once green beans are in the pot, start preparing meat
mixture.
7- In a large bowl, mix eggs, seasoned salt and garlic
powder with hamburger.
8- Form “footballs” with meat mixture by cupping fingers
against the palm of your hand.
9- Drop meat footballs one at a time into simmering
pot.Cook 30 minutes.
10- Add cubed potatoes.Continue simmering on low for 20-30 minutes, until meatball texture
softens and potatoes are fork-tender.
11- Remove garlic cloves if desired (if you only want the
flavor.)
Serve Green Beans over Rice Pilaf and enjoy!Break off a piece of crusty French bread,
which will be close enough to Turkish ekmek.
Use extra lean ground beef, and serve over regular rice
(boiled in water and drained) for a low fat meal.
This
meal deserves a much better name, but I haven’t come up with one.Back in the mid-90s I made a vegetable dish
with zucchini, tomatoes, red peppers, and onions, topped with Parmesan
cheese.I think this entrée evolved from
that dish.Prior to this, I lived in
Turkey, which influenced the dish as well.When I first started making zucchini and beef, I carefully measured my
meat and rice, to track what I ate according to Weight Watchers
(pre-points).This is the kind of dish
that you want to make a big batch, to ensure you have leftovers.
Zucchini and Beef
Ingredients
3-4
medium zucchini, sliced very thin
2
lbs ground beef
1
large can of crushed tomatoes
1
can diced tomatoes
1
medium onion, chopped
2-4
cloves garlic, thinly sliced (or minced)
Lawry’s
seasoned salt
Directions
1.Place ground beef in a large skillet.Break meat apart.Sprinkle with about 1 tsp Lawry’s seasoned
salt.
2.Add chopped onions to meat.Brown ground beef in skillet.When meat is cooked, drain if desired.I usually use good quality, relatively low fat
hamburger, and don’t drain the meat because the fat imparts a lot of
flavor.
3.Transfer meat and onions to a large pot, like
a Dutch oven.Add tomatoes, garlic, and
about 2 tsp Lawry’s seasoned salt.You
could use a variety of tomato products.Sometimes I use a can of diced tomatoes and a can of spaghetti
sauce.
4.Cover and simmer on medium heat for about 45
minutes, until meat texture is tender.
5.While hamburger-tomato mixture is cooking,
wash zucchini, then slice very thinly.I
use the long slot on my grater.You
could use a mandoline.
6.After meat and tomatoes have simmered, add
zucchini.Stir zucchini into mixture to
coat.Cover and return to simmer.Cook until zucchini is tender, about 20
minutes.
If
a lot of fat cooks off the hamburger, tip the pan so the oil drains away from
where you’re serving from.If you have
leftovers, you can easily scoop the hardened fat off and discard.
I
lived in Turkey for 3 ½ years, and definitely enjoyed the food.One of the basic Turkish staples is rice
pilaf, which reminds me a lot of rice-a-roni in the way it is prepared.I cook pilaf fairly often, because it goes
well with lots of dishes.I like it with
Turkish dishes like Shepherd Salad, Green Beans, and Tavas (stews).I also like it with a zucchini and beef dish
that I make, and in La Madeline’s Tomato Basil Soup.
Ingredients for Rice
Pilaf
1
cup Uncle Ben’s converted rice, long grain
1
cup medium grain rice, such as Hindoe
5
cups water
1/3
cup small pasta
¼
cup olive oil
2
tablespoons butter
Chicken
bouillon powder or paste
Directions
1.Pour olive oil in large pot, like a Dutch
oven.Heat over medium high until
hot.
2.Add pasta, like Mexican fideo, ½” pieces of
spaghetti, tiny stars, orzo, or other small pasta.
3.Stir frequently to prevent burning.When pasta starts to brown, add butter.Don’t add butter too soon, as it burns
easily.The pilaf would be fantastic
with the pasta cooked exclusively in butter, but that would be tricky to
accomplish.Cook pasta until
browned.
4.Measure and rinse rice.I do not use a strainer, so some water
remains.I like the texture of the
medium grain rice, but the pilaf tends to get gummy if using only medium
grain.The long grain Uncle Ben’s rice
helps prevent the pilaf from getting gummy.
5.Add rice, water, and chicken bouillon to
pasta.
6.Cover and cook on medium for 25 minutes or
until water is absorbed.Best not to
peek, which I would not do until at least 20 minutes.If rice is still “wet”, cover and continue to
cook over slightly lowered heat.When
cook time is complete, stir to fluff.
My
Mom is a terrific cook, but I was never crazy about her meatloaf.Too much sage.As an adult, I discovered the Lipton Soup
meatloaf recipe.I’ve been using it for
years now.My only complaint about the
recipe is that it is too salty for my taste, so I use 2 ½ pounds of hamburger
instead of the recommended 2 pounds.I
make a shallow, thin meatloaf, more like a sheet cake instead of a traditional
loaf, and I make a tomato sauce topping.
2.Place ground
beef in bowl.Add onion soup mix.Other varieties of Lipton Soup work also,
such as Beefy Onion, or Onion Mushroom.
3.Add ¾ cups dry
bread crumbs.I use Progresso plain or
Italian.I have also used quick
oats.Alternatively you can use 1 ½ cups
fresh bread crumbs, or 5 slices of bread, cubed.
4.Add eggs,
water, and ketchup.Combine all
ingredients.I start out with a large
spoon, but ultimately do the final mix with my hands.
5.You can shape
into a traditional loaf, on a 9- X 13-inch baking pan, but I press meat mixture
flat, utilizing the entire baking dish.Then I poke a few holes in the center, so that the meatloaf will cook
evenly.
6.Combine tomato
paste, ketchup, and molasses (or brown sugar).Spread over meat mixture.
Tetrazzini was not
something I had growing up. In hindsight,
it seems I was a dormant pasta-holic, and no one else in the family was.In my first years out of my parents’ house, I
learned to prepare several pasta dishes, one of which was tetrazzini.I would spend hours slaving over the stove,
tending my spaghetti sauce, but tetrazzini is a relatively quick and easy dish
to prepare.Tetrazzini is traditionally
made with turkey, but chicken works just as well.
Turkey Tetrazzini
2 cans of cream soup
2 soup cans milk
1 med/large sweet onion,
chopped
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
Organic olive or coconut
oil
2-3 cups chopped turkey or
chicken
1 lb of linguini, cooked
and drained
Grated Parmesan cheese
1.Sauté chopped onions in hot oil in large
skillet.Remove from pan and set aside.
2.Sweat mushrooms in oil, with the skillet very
hot.Remove from pan and set aside.
3.Empty soup, such as cream of chicken, cream
of mushroom, or one of each into skillet, and blend in milk.
4.Add onions, mushrooms, and turkey (or
chicken) and stir to combine.Heat over
medium heat to a low simmer.Stir as
needed to keep from sticking or scorching.
We love Shepherd’s Pie at our house.It was never something my mom cooked, but I
remember my Aunt Totsie made it.It was
much later that I first made a Shepherd’s pie.I usually start by making a 2 ½ lb meatloaf with Lipton Onion Soup Mix
according to the package directions.Then
I layer up corn, peas, and freshly made mashed potatoes.
Recently I made a quick, smaller version.I had some ground beef that I urgently needed
to use.I also happened to have some
leftover mashed potatoes in the frig.So
I decided to do a fast and easy version of Shepherd’s Pie.It only took about 10 minutes to prep and get
it into the oven.My brother and I
agreed this was just as good and satisfying as the more time consuming larger
version.
Easy
Shepherd’s Pie
1 lb extra lean ground beef
1/3 to 1/2 package onion soup mix
1-2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/3 cup Progresso Italian bread crumbs
1 egg
1 ½ cup frozen corn
1 can Llessur English peas
3 cups leftover mashed potatoes
1/3 grated Parmesan cheese
1. Pre-heat oven to
350°.
2.I mixed my
hamburger right in the casserole dish.I
used an old 8” X 8” 2 ½ quart corning dish.Place hamburger in the baking dish.Add onion soup mix, egg, bread crumbs, and Worcestershire sauce.Mix well to combine ingredients.Pat down evenly in the casserole dish.
3.Add corn,
distributing evenly over the top.Ordinarily I would add a layer of frozen peas, or a can of Llessur’s
over the top.Quite frankly, this time I
just forgot.
4.Next comes the
layer of potatoes.I don’t use instant
mashed potatoes very often, but I had made some a few days ago.It’s usually pretty difficult to spread the
potatoes without making a mess with the corn and peas.Because these potatoes were refrigerated,
they were fairly stiff.The stiffness of
the potatoes actually seemed to help, along with using a fairly small but deep
casserole dish (less surface area to cover).I mixed the Parmesan in, breaking the potatoes into a crumbly
mixture.I spooned it over the top of
the corn, and pressed into place, spreading out the potatoes slightly.
5.Bake at 350° for
60 minutes.
6.Serve hot with a
couple spoons of English peas over the top.
If you’re intrigued with Shepherd’s Pie, and feeling a bit
adventurous, you might want to try a full-on, authentic version.The pre-cursor was Cottage Pie, a nod to
working class people living in modest cottages.Cottage Pie dates back to the late 1700s, and was made with leftover
minced meat of any kind, and in a bed of potatoes, and topped with
potatoes.Shepherd’s Pie emerged in the
late 1800s, and strictly speaking is made with minced lamb (shepherds do not
raise cattle).
