Beef

Spiced Beef Fajita Tacos with Avocado Cream and Restaurant Style Salsa

May 3, 2017 by The Partial Ingredients

For Cinco de Mayo I wanted to showcase one of my favorite “food truck” style taco recipes. As you can probably tell by my post history I am a big fan of tacos. I wanted to incorporate my favorite part about fajitas–the seasoned peppers and onions–into a taco recipe. The beef is seasoned with a medley of spices that complements the bell peppers and caramelized onions. The salsa is a simple “restaurant style” recipe made with oven roasted tomatoes and blended with chilies, garlic and jalapenos. It also happens to be excellent with chips so have some of those handy for an appetizer! One of my latest favorite taco toppings has been avocado cream which sounds fancier than it is. While avocados are always perfect on their own, I sometimes like to mix them up a bit. All you need is a ripe, well mashed avocado, sour cream and lime juice. Mix together and there you have it–super easy! Top this one with plenty of the salsa and lime juice. I used a finely shredded sharp cheddar to garnish but a crumbly queso fresco or white cheddar would be excellent as well.

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Slow Cooker Beef & Winter Vegetable Soup

December 14, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

Slow Cooker Beef & Winter Vegetable Soup

I love root vegetables and squash this time of year. What could be better then throwing a bunch of different winter veggies into a pot to simmer for hours? This recipe is simple and doesn’t have a ton of moving parts–except for your knife. It will be doing a lot of moving and chopping. I recommend a good sharp knife for the vegetables, especially when it comes to butternut squash. Squash is a notorious one for cuts especially if you’re using a dull knife. I like the simplicity of the flavors in this one–just a few herbs, garlic and Worcestershire to season the broth. The medley of vegetables all go so well together. I added a little flour to thicken up the broth but you can adjust that amount to your liking. I garnished each bowl with some fresh parsley and aged white cheddar. Some crusty french bread would be perfect for soaking up the broth too!

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Slow Cooker Beef & Bacon Stew with Sourdough Croutons

October 16, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

It’s already mid-October and the first rains of the wet season in California have started. The weather just makes me wants to snuggle up with a comforting bowl of something out of the slow cooker. This recipe hits the spot for all of the above! Flavored with savory herbs like fennel and thyme, this stew is packed with flavor. I especially like the bite of acid that comes from the Worcestershire and red vine vinegar. While this is optional, I like serving this stew with toasted sourdough croutons. The croutons soak up the flavorful broth and are just really delicious. If you’d rather go lower carb however, you can skip the croutons. You can also turn this recipe into more of a soup by adding a few more cups of stock to get a thinner consistency. The fact that this is a slow cooker recipe makes this stew simple and easy to throw together on week nights. I like to garnish each bowl with Parmesan, Romano or an aged white cheddar.
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French Dip Beef Soup

June 11, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

French Dip Beef Soup French dip sandwiches are simply delicious. I wanted to recreate that deliciousness in soup form by “deconstructing” the traditional recipe. I think it worked out rather well! It’s a little bit French Onion soup and a little bit french dip. If you think about it the sandwich actually lends itself well as a soup because the “au jus” is pretty much a broth. All the ingredients were there to be reformed! I chose ground beef as a substitute for the sliced beef but if you’d like to use top round or rump roast (same as the sandwich) I’m sure that would be delish as well. I figured the ground beef would lend itself better in soup form but your mileage may vary. The key to this soup is actually the sourdough croutons. You gotta have those to complete the french dip experience! A good white cheese is also imperative, either shredded provolone or an aged white cheddar are both great options.
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Slow Cooker Beef Fajita Soup with Roasted Peppers

April 14, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

Slow Cooker Beef Fajita Soup with Roasted Peppers

Spring has been lovely this year with the recent rains and the wildflower blooms. The last few days it’s been particularly windy so I got in the mood to fire up the slow cooker for some soup. This one takes all the great elements of beef fajitas and combines them into a soup. You really can’t go wrong with that! Smoky Adobo chiles combine with roasted peppers and chili spices alongside a medley of beef, rice and beans. To prevent the rice from soaking up all of the stock I just prepare the rice separately for each bowl and mix it into the soup at the end. I love roasted peppers and I thought they brought the perfect fajita flavor to the soup. After cooking for 8+ hours, all the ingredients became fall apart tender and delicious! You can garnish this soup with nearly anything that works on fajitas–chopped green onion, cheese, sour cream, sliced avocado, jalapeno slices, cilantro…you name it!
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Slow Cooker Beef & Bacon Chili

September 7, 2015 by The Partial Ingredients

Fact: chilis and slow cookers are a match made in heaven. Chili cooked on the stove is great but the slow cooker really does bring it to new heights. On the stove, I’ve found that it’s a lot easier to burn and due to the thickness it’s hard to get it heated evenly without stirring fairly often. That’s where the slow cooker comes in. You get a nice even cook with no burning on the bottom, plus you get a much more tender meat that falls apart easily and the beans are always fully cooked. This chili has a lot of great stuff going for it, even before you begin the process of slow cooking. Ground beef meets crumbled bacon meets smoky chipotle spices. The secret ingredient in this one is apple cider vinegar, which adds just a hint of tanginess. This is THE “Game Day” chili, folks. Serve it with rice or Corn Muffins on the side or have it as is. Garnish with whatever fixin’s you like: grated cheddar, avocado slices, chopped green onion, sour cream and sliced nacho style jalapenos are all great choices.
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Slow Cooker Cabbage Roll Soup

August 31, 2015 by The Partial Ingredients

September is almost upon us and the shortening of the Summer’s daylight hours is just starting to get more noticeable. So in honor of the impending Fall weather I thought I would make a hearty slow cooker soup to celebrate. This soup’s humble ingredients go perfectly together and create a delicious and satisfying dish. This soup is pretty much a deconstructed cabbage roll recipe and the broth is flavored with herbs, Worcestershire and paprika. The cabbage and beef becomes fall apart tender after slow cooking it for hours. Garnish with grated cheese and parsley.
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Beef & Guinness Hand Pies

August 10, 2015 by The Partial Ingredients

I never knew how diverse hand pies could be until I started looking around for them. Turns out hand pies can be made savory or sweet, depending on what you fancy. In theory, you could have hand pies for dinner AND dessert if you so desired. You can definitely get creative with these recipes, but hopefully not as creative as Sweeney Todd (sorry). These are actually a lot of fun to make though they are a bit labor intensive. Probably best for a weekend project since it will take you a couple hours assembling the dough and pies together. The process of making the filling made the kitchen smell amazing and after this I resolved to start cooking with Guinness more often! The alcohol burns off and what you’re left with is a wonderful flavor from the Guinness. The filling is also flavored with Worcestershire, thyme and aged white cheddar. The outside of the crust is made with pastry dough which gets nice and flaky after baking.
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Slow Cooker Beef & Vegetable Soup

June 13, 2015 by The Partial Ingredients

I used to eat alphabet soup with beef and veggies all the time as a kid. This recipe brings me back to those days. Even though this soup knocks anything canned out of the park, the flavors remind me just a bit of the soup I used to have back in the day. This recipe is easy to throw together, and then the slow cooker does the rest of the work for you. Something about the slow cooker really brings together the flavors of the beef, the vegetables and the herbs. I used high quality ground beef for the meat and fresh oregano and thyme for seasoning. While this soup is great for winter time, it also works perfectly year round as an easy weeknight meal.
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Beef and Tomato Macaroni Soup

March 22, 2015 by The Partial Ingredients

For week night meals, I like to make a big pot of something tasty on Sunday to last me several days into the week. This is a great recipe for week night meals. It’s easy to throw together and the leftovers are just as good as the first day. The soup comes fully loaded with ground beef, elbow macaroni and the flavors of veggies, tomatoes and fresh herbs. This recipe calls for fresh thyme and marjoram, and I would recommend picking up some of the fresh stuff instead of the dried. It does impart way more flavor than dried herbs can. The combination of the fresh herbs with Worcestershire, tomatoes and ground beef were delicious. Garnish with a little grated parmesan and thyme springs and serve with some crusty french bread. As always with soups that have pasta, the noodles tend to soak up all the tasty broth if you add them in all at once. Make small batches and add a serving of noodles to each bowl so that none of the broth gets wasted.
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