Last Thursday night I discovered my upright freezer had somehow managed to lose its seal just enough to start thawing out a good portion of it! I was desperate to not waste anything, and was blessed to be able to pass some food on to people who needed it... the rest has been in the process of being canned or made into meals for myself for the next few weeks.
So far I've canned 12 pints of Beef Vegetable Soup, 11 pints of Sausage'n'Beans, 12 pints of Italian Sausage Pasta sauce, and 7 quarts of chunky Chicken Vegetable soup (so chunky I could easily thin it down with more broth and serve twice as much, or simply thicken it for a chicken n dumpling meal). I have about 8 lbs of burger that I will make into mini meatloafs, and more thawed frozen vegetables that I'm considering drying for future use. I can't believe that I've run out of pint jars, or I would be making more canned goods.
For anyone who wants some great ideas on what sort of things that can be canned, and proper methods of canning, I highly recommend joining the YahooGroup "FoodPreservationDryingCanningAndMore" It is an email group, and fairly active, but you can always set your email preferences to reading from the web. Subscribe by sending an email here. I think you might have to also create a profile with yahoogroups before you can join as well. I will say that I have learned so much from this group that it is well worth it!
Hopefully things will be back to normal at my house next week. I'm not going to start filling my clean and defrosted freezer until the end of September (the reason why is another blog post coming up soon!)!!!
Showing posts with label pressure cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pressure cooking. Show all posts
Sunday, 18 August 2013
Monday, 3 October 2011
Spicy Rouladen
I was in a hurry to have a dinner prepared the other day… so I decided to make some rouladen, mashed potatoes and sliced carrots for dinner with my pressure cookers. I’ve found with a pressure cooker, you can make a nice home cooked meal from the beginning to end, in under one hour! If you have two pressure cookers, you can have a meal for a large family done in just a few minutes longer (more food, more prep time).
My post is really about the main focus of this meal, rouladen. When I worked as a grocery store cashier, I was dismayed to find out that most people bought this cut of meat for stir-fry's. What a waste of a nice cut of meat!
There are traditional fillings to make “beef rolls”, depending upon which region of Europe you come from. Everyone has their favorite… sometimes it can be as simple as slivered carrots and a piece of pickle, with salt and pepper. I’ve prepared them in a fry pan, a crockpot, and now because time was tight, a pressure cooker! I never use a recipe for my filling, as for me, it is a way I can be creative with what is in my larder.
First, I prepared some of the filling items.
I fried the following together:
Next, I spread out the meat strips and coated them with the smallest amount of candied jalapeno syrup, sprinkling with garlic powder, and pickled peppers. The pepper syrup just gave a hint of heat, but loads of flavor to the meat! I finished the filling for the rolls by covering them with most of the onion/mushroom/bacon bit mix.
I rolled each piece of meat as tightly as I could in jelly roll fashion. I used a toothpick for each roll, to keep it together.
I put the rolls in a covered pan that fits inside my pressure cooker, and put a cup of gravy in the pot with them, and sprinkled the remaining onion/mushroom/bacon mix on top.
I then used a long strip of foil to form a handle for the pot, to put it in or out of the pressure cooker. I put the pot on a rack inside my pressure cooker with approximately 2 cups water, and then started it cooking! I brought the pressure cooker up to pressure and allowed it to cook for 20 minutes. I could have added another 5 minutes with no problem, as the cooker I used, is a lower pressure one – it cooks at approximately 11 lbs. pressure, vs. the 15 lbs. pressure that my old pressure cooker cooked at.
When the meat was about 1/2 cooked (the 10 minute mark), I started the other pressure cooker up that had cubed potatoes and thickly sliced carrots in it. (I kept the vegetables separate by using a steam insert between them). They only needed 5 minutes to cook, and I had the potatoes mashed by the time the rouladen was cooked!
Below is my dinner plate, showing the meal I made, and the beef roll sliced. It is definitely one thing I will cook again! Yummy!
So, next time you see some rouladen in the meat counter shelves, think of what you can stuff them with!
If you think far enough ahead of time, you can do the above preparation, and put them in your crockpot, to cook to perfection on low, while you are at work! An easy dinner, that is so tasty!
Enjoy!
My post is really about the main focus of this meal, rouladen. When I worked as a grocery store cashier, I was dismayed to find out that most people bought this cut of meat for stir-fry's. What a waste of a nice cut of meat!
There are traditional fillings to make “beef rolls”, depending upon which region of Europe you come from. Everyone has their favorite… sometimes it can be as simple as slivered carrots and a piece of pickle, with salt and pepper. I’ve prepared them in a fry pan, a crockpot, and now because time was tight, a pressure cooker! I never use a recipe for my filling, as for me, it is a way I can be creative with what is in my larder.
First, I prepared some of the filling items.
I fried the following together:
- 1 small onion, finely diced.
- 7 mushrooms, thinly sliced.
- Approx. 7 slices bacon, chopped up fine.
Next, I spread out the meat strips and coated them with the smallest amount of candied jalapeno syrup, sprinkling with garlic powder, and pickled peppers. The pepper syrup just gave a hint of heat, but loads of flavor to the meat! I finished the filling for the rolls by covering them with most of the onion/mushroom/bacon bit mix.
I rolled each piece of meat as tightly as I could in jelly roll fashion. I used a toothpick for each roll, to keep it together.
I put the rolls in a covered pan that fits inside my pressure cooker, and put a cup of gravy in the pot with them, and sprinkled the remaining onion/mushroom/bacon mix on top.
I then used a long strip of foil to form a handle for the pot, to put it in or out of the pressure cooker. I put the pot on a rack inside my pressure cooker with approximately 2 cups water, and then started it cooking! I brought the pressure cooker up to pressure and allowed it to cook for 20 minutes. I could have added another 5 minutes with no problem, as the cooker I used, is a lower pressure one – it cooks at approximately 11 lbs. pressure, vs. the 15 lbs. pressure that my old pressure cooker cooked at.
When the meat was about 1/2 cooked (the 10 minute mark), I started the other pressure cooker up that had cubed potatoes and thickly sliced carrots in it. (I kept the vegetables separate by using a steam insert between them). They only needed 5 minutes to cook, and I had the potatoes mashed by the time the rouladen was cooked!
Below is my dinner plate, showing the meal I made, and the beef roll sliced. It is definitely one thing I will cook again! Yummy!
So, next time you see some rouladen in the meat counter shelves, think of what you can stuff them with!
If you think far enough ahead of time, you can do the above preparation, and put them in your crockpot, to cook to perfection on low, while you are at work! An easy dinner, that is so tasty!
Enjoy!
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