Thai Style Buffalo

I feel like I should post a warning when a new semester starts for me: WARNING! SCHOOL IN SESSION. I MIGHT FORGET I HAVE A BLOG.

It makes me sad too because I love making good food and posting about it. So here we go, back to the middle of last month when I was talking about that fun, three-course meal I made for Aaron. The entree course was Thai-style buffalo. I was going to make them into meatballs, but decided to go with it loose over rice. It as tangy and fun and I really liked it.

Thai Style Buffalo with Rice:

Serves 4

1/2 lb. ground buffalo
Zest and juice of one lime
1 Tb. garlic chili sauce
2 Tb. toasted sesame oil
1 tsp. oyster sauce
1/2 c. rice vinegar
1/2 c. island soyaki
1/2 c. olive oil
1 c. cilantro, chopped
3 cloves garlic, diced
Zest and juice of 1/2 orange
Olive oil
1 c. cooked rice

Mix buffalo with zest and juice of lime and next 8 ingredients in a large bowl. Place in fridge and marinate for about two hours, mixing every 30 minutes.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add buffalo and cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve over rice.

It’s tangy and a little spicy and, of course, garlicky, which made it all a very satisfying main course. I’m sure you could marinate it for less time for a quicker mid-week meal.

Meatloaf

Here is another Alton inspired, Aaron made recipe. He decided to give meatloaf a shot. I’m not usually a big fan, but it’s also been quite some time since I last ate it, so I figured why not. Aaron modified the original a bit and ours was about half as big. However, the basic technique is the same, so thanks again Alton!

Meatloaf modified from Good Eats:

Serves 6-8

3 oz. stale bread
¼ tsp. ground black pepper
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
½ tsp. chili powder
½ tsp. dried thyme
¼ onion, roughly chopped
½ carrot, peeled and broken
2 whole cloves garlic
7 oz. ground beef
4 oz. ground buffalo
7 oz. ground turkey
1½ tsp. kosher salt
1 egg
¼ c. ketchup
½ tsp. ground cumin
Dash Worcestershire sauce
Dash hot pepper sauce (he used Sriracha)
½ Tb. honey

Heat oven to 325 degrees F.

As a quick note, we didn’t have even amounts of the ground meats, but Aaron suggests keeping them even .

In a food processor bowl, combine bread, black pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, and thyme. Pulse until the mixture is of a fine texture. Place this mixture into a large bowl. Combine the onion, carrot, garlic, and red pepper in the food processor bowl. Pulse until the mixture is finely chopped, but not pureed. Combine the vegetable mixture, and ground meats with the bread crumb mixture. Season the meat mixture with the kosher salt. Add the egg and combine thoroughly, but avoid squeezing the meat.



Pack this mixture into a 10-inch loaf pan to mold the shape of the meatloaf. Onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet, turn the meatloaf out of the pan onto the center of the tray. Insert a temperature probe at a 45 degree angle into the top of the meatloaf. Avoid touching the bottom of the tray with the probe. Set the probe for 155 degrees. We don’t have a probe, so Aaron checked the temperature of the meat occasionally to make sure it was cooking properly and that it was at a safe temperature.

Combine the catsup, cumin, Worcestershire sauce, hot pepper sauce and honey. Brush the glaze onto the meatloaf after it has been cooking for about 10 minutes.



Meanwhile, I fried up some potatoes with olive oil, herbs, and parmesan cheese and the whole meal was served with green beans.

This was a delicious meatloaf and I was really surprised by how much I liked it, especially the glaze. I really thought it was neat that the loaf didn’t cook in an actual loaf pan. I’d love to try a turkey/buffalo version or an all turkey version.

Calzones and More Pizza

Pizza is a fantastic thing. I know I already posted this recipe back in October, but there’s been a revelation plus I did something different with it.

First, the revelation. I made the full recipe and instead of making four pizzas, I divided the dough into three. 1/3 of it remained in the fridge for a couple of days until part two. Anyway, the other 2/3 made two perfect sized pizzas that were phenomenally easy to shape and work with. These are my prettiest pizzas to date and I just wanted to show them with all of you.







We bought some nice salami and Aaron cooked up some ground beef with oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram, and rosemary. Along with a heaping of mozzarella, we also used Tillamook aged white cheddar, and parmesan. I also infused olive oil with garlic and we used that to brush on the crust. We added some oregano to the marinara and just look at those pizzas. Seriously, I am so proud.

Now, part two. After a great achievement in pizza, we decided to make calzones. That was a brilliant idea.

Calzones:

Serves two or four, depending on how hungry you are

1/3 pizza dough
Mini meatballs (basic recipe here)
1 c. mozzarella, grated
½ c. aged white cheddar, grated
¼ c. parmesan, grated
2 c. broccoli, chopped and steamed
4 cloves garlic, diced
Tomato sauce
Oregano
Garlic olive oil

Roll out remaining third of pizza dough to desired thickness, shape into a circle and cut in half. Heat oven to 450 degrees.





In the center of each, paint on tomato sauce, not making it too saucy (haha). Make sure you leave a border so you can fold over the dough when you’re done filling it. Sprinkle on oregano. Fill with mini meatballs, broccoli and cheese. Fold over top and pinch down the sides. Brush with garlic olive oil (or regular extra virgin olive oil if you don’t have infused oil) and cut three slits into the top.





Sprinkle corn meal on a baking sheet and place calzones on pan. Bake for about 20 minutes. Allow to cool for another 5 minutes and dig in. We had ours with the remaining tomato sauce warmed up for dunking. These were so good! They’re huge, so you could cut them in half to serve four. The options for filling them, like making pizza, are quite varied, so mess around with it and see what you get. I was really impressed and I am looking forward to doing this again.

Meatball Sub

Lately, Aaron has been doing the majority of the cooking around here. I love that we can both cook and I love the ideas he comes up with. A couple weeks ago or at least sometime between now and the August 19, the last time I posted (sad, I know), Aaron made meatball subs. No, Aaron made THE meatball sub. It was delicious and I barely had time to take a picture before I scarfed down the whole thing. If I had blogged about this sooner, like a normal person, the following recipe would be a bit more accurate. As it is though, Aaron tells me he can give a ballpark of what he did. So good luck and hopefully yours are as tasty as his!

Meatball Subs from Aaron’s mind:

Serves 2

½ loaf French bread
½ lb. ground turkey
1/3 lb. ground buffalo
2 tsp. oregano (maybe more)
1 egg
Salt and pepper to taste
Possibly other seasonings, to taste
Enough fresh mozzarella to cover the meatballs
Marinara sauce



Mix together turkey, buffalo, egg, salt and pepper, and oregano (plus possible other seasonings) in a bowl and form into balls. Fry meatballs in a medium size pan over medium high heat until cooked through. Cut ½ loaf into two pieces and split open, but not all the way through. Ladle sauce into bottom of bread. Place meatballs in and ladle more sauce on top of them. Cover with mozzarella and bake in 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until cheese is bubbly.

The combination of turkey and buffalo was fantastic. Both are leaner meats than beef and they play really well together. Aaron mixed them because traditional meatballs are a variety of meats and while I don’t eat most of those, this plays along those traditional lines. I’m also a huge oregano fan, and it works so well here. This is an easy meal and is perfect for midweek dinners. We had ours with mixed greens. I look forward to eating these again!

Oven Baked Fries and Stuffed Buffalo Burgers

This entire meal was my husband’s idea, which I loved. All I had to do was prep. Although I don’t eat much meat, I do really enjoy buffalo. My hubby makes a mean buffalo burger, which is a good alternative to beef and a nice change from turkey from time to time. This all came out very well and it’s nice to know how to do fries. Especially when I can just do prep and watch him make it! The original fries recipe can be found here.

Oven Baked Fries modified from recipezaar.com and Stuffed Buffalo Burgers:

Makes 2 large servings

About 2 small heads of garlic plus a few cloves, minced, for both the fries and burgers.

Fries-
2 large baking potatoes, cut into thin strips
1 Tb. olive oil
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. paprika
Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Burgers-
2/3 lb. ground buffalo
½ - 2/3 c. finely shredded cheddar cheese (or cheese of choice)
¼ of a medium yellow or white onion, chopped
1 Tb. steak and chop spice mix (Trader Joe’s makes an excellent one or your choice of spices)

Heat oven to 450 degrees.



Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Combine all dry ingredients with potatoes in a medium size bowl and toss to coat. Add olive oil and ½ of the minces garlic, tossing again to coat. Arrange potatoes in a single layer on baking sheet and for about 35 minutes or until golden brown.



For the burgers, mix the buffalo, the next three ingredients and the rest of the garlic together in a small bowl. Form into two patties. You can do this while the fries are baking. About 10 minutes before they are done, heat up olive oil in a medium saucepan. Place burgers in when the oil is hot. Cook for about 5 minutes per side, until browned and cooked through.



Garnish burgers and serve with fries. The fries taste awesome on their own, but do go well with ketchup and other traditional fry sauces.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Growing up, I had tremendous access to delicious food. One of my favorite things in the world was the spring rolls my neighbor made. Thin, crispy and so delicious – they were definitely not the burrito sized egg rolls from the supermarket. After those, my second favorite ones are from a little place in the “mall” back home. Every time I go home, I go there. The airport is right by there, so sometimes I’m eating there immediately after landing. So delicious!

Because I love those so much, I wanted to try to do it at home. I used to watch my neighbor make hers (and sometimes helped in picking the stems off peppers) and hoped that might help. It did… a little. These were very time consuming, but so delicious. I modified a recipe from epicurious.com in a number of ways. First of all, I didn’t need 50 spring rolls, so it’s half size. Also, my husband isn’t a fan of mushrooms, so those were out. Also, I don’t eat pork (outside of bacon) and didn’t have shrimp. I used buffalo meat for half and made the other half veggie. Finally, and most importantly, I used the regular wrappers you can get at most grocery stores these days or at Asian specialty markets. The note on the original recipe says that when the woman created it, these wrappers were not easily available. The original recipe is here.

Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls modified from original from Gourmet via epicurious.com:

Makes at least 15 rolls

4 oz. very thin bean thread noodles (in small skeins, also known as cellophane or mung bean noodles)
1 medium shallot
2 garlic cloves (I kept these two the same because I love shallots and garlic, of course)
1 c. grated carrot (about 3 carrots)
¼ lb. ground buffalo (or turkey or chicken or pork, if you like)
1/8 c. Asian fish sauce
1/8 c. plus ½ tsp. sugar
1 ¼ tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt
About 15-20 spring roll wrappers
About 3 c. oil



Put noodles in a large bowl and cover with hot water by several inches. Soak, pulling noodles apart and stirring occasionally, 10 minutes. Drain noodles and cut into 2- to 3-inch pieces, then transfer to another large bowl.

Pulse shallot and garlic in a food processor until finely chopped, then add to noodles along with carrots, fish sauce, sugar, pepper, and salt. I then separated this into two bowls and mixed in the buffalo into half. Mix with your hands until well combined. Chill filling, covered with plastic wrap, until cold.



Meanwhile, partially fill a large pan with water. Soak the wrappers in the pan, making sure each wrapper is covered before adding the next one. Cool water is fine for this. They should be pliable in about 2-3 minutes. Remove all of the wrappers onto a wet towel and cover with another cloth towel. I put mine on a plate as well, to make it easier to transport the lot of them to the table for assembly.





Line a tray with wax (or parchment) paper. This helps keep the tray clean. Peel one wrapper off the pile and place on the tray. Place a heaped tablespoon on the edge of the wrapper. Roll once, tightly, fold in the edges and roll completely. Repeat until done. Make sure you use only one wrapper at a time. They do tend to stick to each other, so be careful. If two are used, the outside will be crispy, but the inside a little gummy. Ick.

Heat oil in a large pot (I used my wok) over medium-high heat. Fry rolls in batches of 5 or 6 (I had room for 3), keeping rolls apart during first minute of frying to prevent sticking, until golden brown and cooked through, 4 to 5 minutes. Make sure oil get hot again before adding the next batch. Transfer to a plate with paper towels to drain.



These were very, very tasty. A few did end up being double wrapped and were gummy on the inside, but the filling was cooked, so I just scooped that out and ate it. Although time consuming, I will try this again.

Buffalo Enchiladas

I was a pseudo-vegetarian for 10 years and only started eating red meat again summer 2007. Bacon destroys vegetarians. Anyway, while I still don’t eat much meat (veggie habits die hard), I do enjoy eating it from time to time. It makes making dinner with my meat loving husband much easier. One thing I’ve discovered is that I love buffalo meat. More specifically, I love the buffalo meat from Fred Meyer’s. I’ve tried buffalo burgers and such elsewhere and don’t like it at all, but when Aaron makes it at home, I love them.

We had had burgers a few days before and still had ½ a pound of buffalo meat, so we decided to make enchiladas. It’s a super easy thing to throw together with random things in the house. If you’re organized, it doesn’t take much time at all.

My general knowledge of putting together enchiladas comes from 1,000 Mexican Recipes by Marge Poore. It’s my go-to Mexican cookbook. These enchiladas are based on things we know we like and don’t like. It’s not super exact. Just do everything to taste and it should be fine.

Buffalo Enchiladas following guidelines from 1,000 Mexican Recipes:

I made 6, but it could make more

1/2 lb of buffalo meat (this can be easily replaced with ground beef or turkey or mixed veggies like red, yellow and green peppers)
1/4 yellow onion plus ½ yellow onion, chopped
Varied spices (We used cumin, Cajun spice that we got from the Saturday market, and chili powder)
About 2-2.5 cups grated cheddar cheese (This is what we had in the house. Monterey Jack also works really well.)
Corn tortillas (I really like the handmade ones from Trader Joe’s)
Green onion for garnish
Ranchero sauce (I had some my mom made, but you can make your own or use the red sauce from the can)
Olive Oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.



Heat a large saucepan over medium-low heat, add the buffalo meat and add water. Buffalo is really low in fat and won’t cook the same as ground beef. Mix in spices and ¼ onion. We used probably ½ teaspoon of each spice, maybe a little more on the cumin. Again, do this to taste. Simmer meat until cooked, about 20 minutes.

Place a little olive oil in a small saucepan and warm over medium heat. Using tongs, add one corn tortilla at a time and heat on both sides for about 3 seconds until limp. Drain and place these aside.

In a large casserole, spread some of the ranchero sauce along the bottom until thinly covered. Fill a large plate with the sauce as well.

After the tortillas have cooled, place them one at a time on the plate and flip to cover them in sauce.





To assemble, place a meat, onion and cheese in desired proportions in center of tortilla, roll and place seam side down in the casserole. Make sure to reserve some of the cheese and onion. After they are all assembled, cover them with the remaining ranchero sauce and sprinkle with remaining cheese and onion.



Place in oven and cook until cheese is melted and gooey, about 15-20 minutes. Sprinkle with green onion and serve immediately. Depending on your ranchero sauce, salsa is a great topping. Guacamole and sour cream are as well. We had ours with tortillas chips (also from Trader Joe's).



These were very, very tasty. It could’ve definitely made more than 6 with all the meat we had, but the extra was good for nibbling on while waiting for dinner to be done. You can always save your cooked meat for another meal later. Especially with tortilla chips, this is a full meal.