Looking for something to work into your diet? Here’s a steak recipe idea packed with protein from our British friend Kerry over at GroupRecipes.com.

Take note that the measurements are geared toward her homeland (and some of her spelling, too —  i.e. “flavour”).

Enjoy, love!

Healthy Steak and Kidney Pie Recipe

452 calories per serving. This recipe is light, aromatic and utterly wonderful. I promise that it won’t clobber you over the head with the flavour of the kidneys, so you will want to eat it all year round. This is what you might call a ‘blonde’ take on a masculine old classic. …

Ingredients

90g ready-rolled puff pastry (preferably a brand made with butter)

A little milk, to brush over the pastry

4 free-range lamb’s kidneys, trimmed by the butcher

1 tablespoon buckwheat flour (you could use plain)

1kg good-quality lean free-range braising steak, cut into chunks

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

800g shallots, peeled and quartered

1 star anise

1 stick of cinnamon

1 bay leaf

150ml vermouth

700ml good-quality beef stock

Directions

Preheat a conventional oven to 200ºC or a fan-assisted one to 180ºC.

Roll out the sheet of puff pastry and divide into six triangles of roughly the same size (or cut out fun shapes of whatever you fancy – for the show, we used a cow-shaped pastry cutter and some stars!).

Brush the tops with a little milk and set onto a baking tray. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until puffed up and golden. Set aside for later.

If you haven’t already got the butcher to do this for you, slice the kidneys widthways with a sharp knife.

With the help of a small pair of scissors, carefully snip around the lighter centre core and discard. Then chop the livers into cubes.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the buckwheat flour, the steak, the kidneys and white pepper until evenly coated.

In a really large saucepan, fry half the meat in half the olive oil until it is well-browned, then set aside. Repeat the process for the other half until all the meat is well-coloured.

Replace the meat into the pan, along with the shallots, star anise, cinnamon, the vermouth and stock.

Bring to the boil, then turn the heat right down and place a lid over the top. Simmer super-duper gently for two hours before removing the lid and tasting.

The meat may not need the last half an hour or it may want slightly more (it all depends on the steak that you are using, the size of the chunks and the pan). What you are looking for is meat that has surrendered most of its tension without shredding into a mess.

Season well and top with a crisp of golden puff pastry on the top of each serving.

Photo and excerpt courtesy of GroupRecipes.com.

Super Chef Sandy is back today with a truly timely recipe chock-full of money- and time-saving tips.

It involves beef. Need I say more?

Does she rock or what?

Check it out . . .

Seems everywhere you go, from every corner of the Internet, newspaper and even at the local coffee shop people are talking about cutting back.  It’s enough to make you crazy, even if the downturn hasn’t hit you personally.  I was reading some magazines at the dentist’s office today and even some of the movie stars interviewed said they are cooking at home more and eating out less. 

What are you doing to reduce your food budget?  Seems many more people are cooking at home, and one of the questions I often get asked is how people can make their budget stretch farther and reduce the time and effort to cook meals.  And have some variety. 

4 days ago we had pot roast for dinner.  It was fabulous.  Two nights ago we had strip steaks, and they were delicious too.  We do enjoy our beef, but we had leftovers of both, not enough for a meal composed of either.  Rather than have an arm wrestling match over who gets what, or going out for takeout, here’s what I did:

Enchilada Steak Pie

About 1 pound of beef, cooked and chopped

1 cup enchilada sauce (your favorite jarred enchilada sauce)

1 cup leftover gravy (or just use more enchilada sauce)

1 cup frozen corn

1 fresh tomato, chopped

1 cup shredded Mexican cheese, mixed (I used 2% milk Kraft cheese), divided

1 package cornbread mix

1 egg (separate white from yolk)

1 egg white

½ cup milk

1 cup tortilla chips, crushed

Preheat oven to 400. Spray non-stick cooking spray onto sides of deep casserole dish or glass baking dish, then add beef, gravy (if desired), sauce and vegetables as desired.  Stir and top beef mixture with cheese.  Place meat mixture in oven while you prepare the cornbread (below) to get the meat and the dish hot. 

In a separate bowl, beat 2 egg whites until stiff peaks form.  In a small bowl, mix dry cornbread mix, egg yolk, milk and ½ cup cheese until combined.  You may add an additional 1 cup of vegetable to the cornbread mix, such as diced zucchini, more frozen corn, diced tomatoes or peppers for color.  Stir in ½ of beaten egg whites to lighten the mixture, and then gently fold in the remaining egg whites.  Gently spread this cornbread mixture over the meat mixture.

Bake for 15 minutes until cornbread is solid on top and beginning to brown.  Remove from oven and sprinkle with crushed chips and additional cheese.  Return to oven and bake until cornbread is cooked through, about an additional 10 minutes.

Serve with a green salad, maybe with some chopped avocado and tomato and a simple vinaigrette, some chips and hot sauce and voila — dinner (again!)

To make this meal even faster to put together, assemble all of the base ingredients the night before (as you clean up,) and just prepare the cornbread right before serving.  Prepare your salad while the casserole cooks and you will still have time to enjoy a cerveza or margarita while your family’s dinner cooks itself in the oven.  Don’t you just love casseroles?

So go ahead and enjoy cooking your favorite meals, especially when you can be creative and repurpose your protein.  Even those of you who claim not to like leftovers will be hard pressed to recognize them when they are so well disguised!  Who can argue with saving money and time in this day and age?

Our Valentine’s dinner started off with roses being delivered. Nice.

We placed the salmon in the oven for baking. It was already seasoned and marinated. Nice.

Then our neighbor called to rib us about something — and he ended up coming over to eat our steak and salmon.

Not nice.

So it wasn’t exactly the romantic spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp I had hoped it would be. But, really, with the kids in the other room watching Space Buddies on DVD, was it ever going on the list of most romantic dinners of all-time?

No. 

And after 11 years of marriage, we’ve come to expect the unexpected. I truly can’t remember the last meal we’ve had in our house where we weren’t interrupted.

It’s just usually done by someone under the age of 10.

All kidding aside, our neighbor brought laughter and frivolity to our dinner, along with his 6-year-old daughter who promptly went to watch the DVD in the other room. And we couldn’t have been more pleased to have them.

Here’s what we enjoyed . . .

A little garlic rice pilaf amazingly complemented this juicy Top Sirloin. 

And those salmon filets?

They were moist and tender — and very flavorful. What a treat to have surf AND turf!

We topped off our meal with a wonderful Lemon Charlotte Royale cake that had raspberry swirls in it. It was just right for Valentine’s Day. Who could ask for anything more?

And although it may seem like we had a very mature-sounding Valentine’s Day, don’t let us fool you. Our biggest topic of conversation was whether to Tivo “Bromance” on the living room TV or the bedroom TV.

Decisions, decisions.