Impressive, Easy Stuffed Vegetables

 One of the best and easiest dishes to prepare, if you want something "impressive," healthy and even limited in serving size is Stuffed Vegetables.

There was some chopped meat (about half a kilo, or over a pound) in the freezer I wanted to use, and I saw that some of the peppers in the fridge were getting soft, so I made a "shidduch."

I mixed the thawed meat with chopped onion, an egg, the "inside" of a couple of round squashes, about a half a cup of canned diced tomatoes and some garlic.

Then I filled/stuffed the waiting vegetables. I dabbed more diced tomatoes on top, added a bit of water and oil, covered it with foil and baked it in a hot oven. I considered it "ready" when the top looked cooked and there was liquid boiling on the bottom.

It was a great success and popular with everyone at the table.

Has Anyone Used One of These?

It's a meat/fish grinder. It was probably given to me by my mother or mother-in-law as part of my basic Passover or regular cooking equipment when I got married close to half a century ago. They had heard that things were pretty primitive here in Israel. They no doubt also heard stories from  people who fled Israel in the 1950s, traumatised by the need to store fish in the bathtub. I was also prepared to kasher the meat, since I, too, had heard stories...

In 1970, it was no problem to buy your meat and poultry already kashered. And if you went to the fish store early enough before Shabbat or the Jewish Holidays, your fish could be ground. I just make gefilte fish a couple of times a year at most, and recently I've been buying jars of it. Only once did I use that fish grinder for Passover, when we were late at the store. And nowadays you can buy it ground. Also I'm pretty sure that nowadays the fish stores won't send you away with whole fish, even close to the holidays.

When I was clearing out the kitchen closets to prepare for my new kitchen I found the ginder. Since I saw rust, I decided to dump it. Why not? I used it only once in forty-eight 48 years.

Have you ever used one? Do you still use it?

Turkey "Meatballs" in Homemade Tomato "Sauce"

I've been getting more and more turned off by the commercial tomato pastes and sauces, since they're all produced with various chemicals, additives, sugars etc. Here in Israel you can get nice juicy red tomatoes for under $1 per pound, even in our small local supermarket. So I buy a bag, cut them up and cook with garlic, onion (whatever herbs and spices you want) and vegetable oil in a covered pan. That's my "sauce."

I added a bit of boiling water. If I had a "stick blender," I'd probably liquify it. When it got nice and mushy, I mixed the ground turkey with raw egg a diced onion, parsley and garlic, of course. You can add whatever herbs and spices you like. I used to add matzah meal but don't any more. The meatballs still stick together and have less starch, plus no gluten this way.

Next I double-spoon it into the boiling sauce and cook until it changes color.

Now, it's all ready to be reheated when needed.

I haven't yet decided whether to serve with a pasta or rice. And of course there will be additional vegetables and a salad on the table.

Absolutely Delicious: Meatloaf Plus!

For Shabbat lunch I made something that's more meatloaf than moussaka. It's so easy to make and great heated on the electric hotplate. And you can make it for any occasion, and of course you don't have to be Jewish...

Very simple:

• Layer the bottom of the baking dish (diameter of mine is about 26cm = 10inches*) with slices of eggplant.
• Mix 2 lbs or just under a kilo of chopped/ground beef/chicken/turkey or a combination with a diced onion, tomato paste/concentrate, a couple of eggs and garlic.
• Spread the meat mixture on the eggplant, and then decorate with more eggplant slices and some sliced tomato.
• Bake in hot oven loosely covered with foil until you can see that the meat has moved from the edge of the pan, and liquid is visible, like a moat. 

It also freezes well and has no carbohydrates at all.

*Adjust quantity to the size of your baking dish.

No Carb Lasagna

OK, I admit that it sounds a bit like an oxymoron, since we all know that lasagna is basically a pasta dish in which you layer the large pasta pieces with anything from vegetables to meat. But the main course I made for tomorrow's lunch, aka Shabbat morning, sticks to the layering, but instead of pasta, I used vegetables. You can also consider this a version of moussaka.

So, for the simple instructions, I simply layered the bottom of the baking pan with eggplant. Then I added the chopped meat mixed with tomato paste, chopped onion, garlic and an egg (for easier mixing.) Then I topped it off with squash.

Yes, it's that simple. I baked it until you can see the meat leaving the sides of the pan and smelling great. This heats very easily and can also be frozen.

This is really easy to make, and as you see, with a bake and serve pan, I'm saving on dishwashing, muss and fuss.

This can be called a fancy meatloaf, too. It's all in the labeling...

Meat for Meatloaf, Moussaka, Lasagna etc:
Can be doubled, tripled, halved etc, of course.

• about a pound and a third- I used 600 gram- chopped meat
• 1 medium onion, cut into small pieces
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup tomato concentrate  (of course you can use fresh, but I was in a rush)
• generous sprinkling of  granulated garlic (of course you can use fresh, but I was in a rush)

Yes, it's that simple, very healthy and always delicious. Beef is tastier than ground chicken IMHO, but some people prefer chicken. If you can get ground turkey, that's good too. 

I don't buy packaged ground meat, of any type. I watch the guy grinding it in the machine, since the packaged usually has additives and junk.

More than "Just a Meatloaf"

This is the meatloaf I served to guests Shabbat lunch.

It was very easy to make and meatier than musaka. The layer of squash and pepper on top make it fancier and more impressive. There's also a layer of squash underneath.

Here's what's in the meatloaf:

• 800 grams (2 pounds) of chopped meat
• diced onion
• diced garlic, a few pieces, but you can use whatever dried garlic you want if you don't have any fresh
• small container/half cup tomato concentrate, the 28% paste
• 2 eggs

Mix it all up, and put in your baking pan. I had a layer of cut squash underneath, but that's optional. Eggplant makes a good base, too. If you want to serve on a different dish, not the baking pan, then I recommend lining your pan with baking paper for easy removal and cleaning. Sliced tomatoes or onions also look nice on top. The important thing is color contrast, so it doesn't blend into the brown of the meat.

Bake in a hot oven until the meatloaf moves from the side of the pan. Then lower the heat a bit and keep baking. Make sure that the middle is cooked before removing it from the oven. You can cover with foil if the top is ready before the middle.

 

Of course, for me, the best thing about it is that it's a "bake and serve" dish, which I always love to make.

And if you try the recipe, please let me know how it came out and how you varied it. Thanks

Unbelievably Easy Stuffed Vegetables

I'm going to let you in on a secret. I didn't bother making "holes," "nests" for the chopped meat in the squash. I just placed some chopped meat on the squash, and it cooked just fine in the oven. The mini-pumpkins here have a little indented spot, like a nest, which I filled with chopped meat.

Yes, it was that simple. And all I mixed with the chopped meat were:

• 1 lb. chopped meat
• 2 eggs
• 1 diced medium or small onion
• 1 medium tomato
• a generous sprinkling of garlic

Just mix it up and use to stuff vegetables, or make a meatloaf or moussaka. 

Enjoy!

Simply Delicious

A few weeks ago I bought a "mini-pumpkin," or dalorit as it's called in Hebrew.  I kept visioning  myself stuffing it with chopped meat.  For some strange reason, I was craving a meal based on this idea.

I figured that it's a bit risky to serve something like that to most guests, because it's pretty much an entire meal, and another problem was that we only had one, which would make just two servings.  Finally on Thursday I bought some ground chicken and didn't have guests lined up for Friday night.  In a sense you can say that eating half a mini-pumpkin was the closest we had to a Thanksgiving meal.

I cut the dalorit in half, as you can see here, cleaned out the seeds and put it in a pretty baking pan.
Then I mixed the ground poultry (you can use chicken, turkey, beef or any combination) with tomato past, onion, an egg and spices.
I had about 2/3 a kilo, just under 3 lbs of ground chicken.  It was about double the amount I needed for the two servings.

Then I stuffed the two halves with the chopped meat.
I used the leftover meat mixture to make a meatloaf, which conveniently fit in my oven to bake at the same time.

I baked them until they seemed ready. Every oven is different, so I can't tell you what temperature and for how long.  Sorry

The stuffed mini-pumpkin looked pretty good when it came out of the oven.

And then we had to wait until Friday night to eat it.  I was pretty nervous, because I usually serve a pretty standard meal, animal protein, a starch for my husband, salad and at least two vegetables.  That's a standard meal.  On Friday nights, my husband has soup and sometimes some corn on the cob, too.

You can't get a full idea of the size from the picture, but they were each a meal.  I had also baked two tiny sweet potatoes.  All I ate was my salad, the sweet potato, which I really didn't need and my serving of stuffed mini-pumpkin.  My husband had the same, plus rice, soup and corn.  I felt stuffed!  And I'm a big eater.

You can do the same with any similar type of vegetable.  The advantage of this size is that there really isn't any need to serve anything else besides the salad.

I could have flavored the chopped meat differently and probably will next time.

If you give this a try, please let me know how it comes out and other suggestions, thanks.