Spinach and Feta Cheese Steak Rollups

Spinach and Feta Steak Rollups

How on earth does my mind come up with something like this? Just out of the blue! I guess I’m just getting used to “making do” with what I have in the house as I loathe shopping of any kind. Just ask my family. I really do hate shopping.

But what I do really like is coming up with some crazy idea for dinner and think yeah, the family will like this. But then when the family not only likes it, they LOVE it, I’m pretty darned happy. Even before this was finished cooking, my hubby said, “You know we can always order pizza if it isn’t good.” See, he DID have his doubts!

But doubt no more.

Oh shoot, a back story to the salted steak first. (Many of  my long-term readers know hubby is on a low-salt diet.) And a video, but you don’t have to watch it.

So somehow I came across a poor man’s video guide on the interwebz to make any tough meat tender. So, here is the video (sorry if you have to watch an ad first):

Watch here —> Poor Man’s Filet Mignon

And I also happened to watch it with hubby a few days before I made this. THEN (even with a little less now than a quarter cow in the freezer) I picked up some thin-sliced eye of round from the 50% off bin. I am a sucker for meat deals. Of course I froze it immediately. When I told hubby I brought home some store-bought beef and that it was a very tough cut, he actually got excited instead of rolling his eyes. He wanted us to test out this meat tenderizing trick.

Now, let me present to you my riff on a beef rollup stuffed with all kinds of yum. I would have liked to grill this, but it was freezing outside. Make note to cook this again on the grill when the weather is better. And yes, it came out very tender, more so than I expected! (And p.s. the family loved these!)

Spinach and Feta Steak Rollups

For the steak glaze:

Splash of olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons red wine
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 sprig fresh rosemary, or 1 teaspoon dried leaves
1/2 cup beef broth, preferably homemade

For the steak rollups

3/4 pound thin-sliced eye of round or any other thin-sliced steak (8 to 10 slices)
Coarse sea salt
8 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
3 ounces crumble Feta cheese
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed lemon juice
Ground black pepper, to taste
2 teaspoons grapeseed oil or other high-heat tolerant neutral oil

Salting the Beef

If you have a tough cut of beef, follow the method in the video. But if you don’t want to watch it, basically add some course sea salt to the top of the steak and let it sit on the counter for 1 hour for every inch. This steak was so thin we did less than 10 minutes. But even in that short time I could see the steak sweating out and breaking up the fibers! Then you rinse the steak thoroughly of the salt. Pat dry and set aside ready for the stuffing.

But meanwhile you can make the steak glaze.

Making the Steak Glaze

Add a splash of oil to a saucepan or skillet over medium heat and cook garlic until fragrant, just a minute or so. Add the rest of the glaze ingredients and cook and stir until reduced by about half. Remove rosemary sprig if not using dried. Take off heat and set aside.

Spinach and Feta Cheese Stuffing

Next, take your thawed and squeezed-dry spinach (you did that already, right?) and add to a bowl along with the Feta cheese, red pepper flakes, and lemon juice and mix until thoroughly combined.

Glazed Steaks

Brush the steak slices with the glaze with a pastry brush, (if you used dried rosemary, don’t worry as it just gets stuck in the brush anyways).

Adding the Spinach Stuffing

Grind a bunch of black pepper over the steaks. Top the steak slices evenly with the spinach mixture. Roll up and secure with twine or toothpicks. I found twine to be convenient since I wasn’t grilling.

Brush any remaining steak glaze you have over the rollups. Grind more black pepper over them again, to taste. I am kind of a ground black pepper freak.

Rolled and Stuffed Steaks

Heat a large cast iron or heavy bottom skillet over very high heat with two teaspoons of neutral high-heat oil. With tongs, add the rollups (in batches if needed) to the skillet and cook on all sides until browned. Just a minute or two on each side, rolling often. Remove to a plate and serve with a side vegetable of choice. I chose steamed asparagus. I suppose some kind of bread could be in order but I’m trying to lose weight. 🙂 Happy dining!

Spinach and Feta Steak Rollups

 

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Italian Pasta Shells Stuffed with Spinach and Cheese

Italian Pasta Shells Stuffed with Spinach and Cheese

If you have some yummy spaghetti sauce on hand and want to make something different than plain ol’ spaghetti, this is a winning recipe! It’s not overly difficult to make (aside from stuffing those pesky shells) and makes a really nice meal that has all your veggies in it!

I pretty much used my recipe for my Spinach Lasagna Roll-Ups, but just changed some of the cheese amounts. I feel pretty proud of this recipe, as all the online versions I found for it made anywhere from 24 to 30 shells — way more than I wanted! I went with my gut feeling, and figured 16 shells would do the trick with the amount of stuffing I use for my roll-ups. I was SPOT ON! Woo hoo! I served this with green salad and baked garlic bread. We ate half one night, then finished the other half the next, but you can freeze the leftovers if you want.

Italian Pasta Shells Stuffed with Spinach and Cheese

16 uncooked Jumbo shell pasta
3 cups Paul’s Spicy Spaghetti Sauce, or other prepared sauce
1 15-ounce container Ricotta cheese
3/4 cup shredded Mozzarella (I used a block of low-fat and shredded it with a grater)
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan
2 teaspoons minced garlic
10-ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 large egg, beaten
Ground black pepper, to taste
Salt or Mrs. Dash, to taste
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Additional shredded Mozzarella, for topping

Preheat oven to 400°F. Cook the noodles to al dente according to package directions. While the noodles are cooking, combine the Ricotta, Mozzarella, Parmesan, garlic, spinach, egg, pepper, salt or Mrs. Dash, and a pinch of nutmeg in a medium bowl.

Stuffed Pasta Ingredients Ready to Mix

When the noodles are done, drain the noodles, let cool a bit, then lay them on parchment or wax paper in a single layer.

Cooked Pasta Shells

Spread 1 cup of spaghetti sauce on the bottom of a 2-quart casserole dish. Stuff 1/4 cup or so of the cheese and spinach mixture into each pasta shell and place into the dish.

Stuffed Shells Wanting Sauce and Cheese

Pour 2 cups of spaghetti sauce over the stuffed shells. Grate additional mozzarella cheese over the top of the shells, then cover the pan with aluminum foil. Bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and turn on the broiler. Broil for about 5 to 10 minutes until cheese is bubbly.

Stuffed Shells Ready to Cook

Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before serving. Serve with a green side salad and garlic bread. You can freeze the remaining shells in Ziploc bags for a quick and easy future meal. My family loved this so much we ate the rest of it up the next day!

p.s. (Please let me indulge you with photos of my daughter’s rose she got at her dance team’s end-of-year potluck celebration! That was a long journey to get through dance season with the football and basketball schedules!)

Italian Pasta Shells Stuffed with Spinach and Cheese

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Inside-Out Stuffed Cabbage Roll Soup

Fall is in the air and it’s probably time to repost one of my blogs for my readers while we wait on closing on a house. Up this week is a nice fall soup recipe that can take advantage of those fall/winter greens. Enjoy!

anotherfoodieblogger

Inside-Out Stuffed Cabbage Roll Soup

I have a confession to make. I have never made stuffed cabbage rolls in my life. For years and years I have drooled over pictures of them, but the long process to stuff the cabbage leaves and braise for several hours always intimidated me. So I did the next best thing. I turned them inside out and made soup instead! While researching what ingredients go into a stuffed cabbage roll dish, I discovered that every Eastern European country has their own version of this dish. Ukranians typically make theirs with pork, sauerkraut and onions, while the Romanians add a generous amount of fresh dill to their sauce. Polish cuisine mixes ground beef or pork with rice, which is the common Americanized version. Hungarians add paprika to theirs, which I did too. Most of the sauces are tomato-based, except for in Sweden where they typically serve…

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Spinach-Stuffed Chicken Mozzarella Rollups

Spinach-Stuffed Chicken and Mozzarella Rollups

My daughter and I were browsing through Pinterest recipes last week looking for dinner ideas. This one immediately caught her eyes and she said “Make THAT ONE for dinner sometime!” So, I did! This came out so purdy and tasted so good — it is even dinner guest-worthy. But what’s even better is it is not that overly difficult to make and can be prepared in just under an hour. You just have to be set to get bread crumbs all over the place if you’re as sloppy a cook as I am!

When I went shopping for the cheese I accidentally bought shredded Parmesan instead of grated.

Shredded Cheese and Bread Crumbs

I really didn’t want to use the fake-shake cheese in a green can that is used in emergencies, so I did the next best thing. I simply put some of the shredded cheese into my Ninja food processor and BAM! Instant grated cheese. I just love that little appliance!

Now on to the recipe:

Spinach-Stuffed Chicken Mozzarella Rollups
Adapted from Pinch of Yum Baked Mozzarella Chicken Rolls

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts (2 large breasts)
Ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup Italian style bread crumbs
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese, divided
3 ounces fresh baby spinach (about 4 cups, chopped)
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
Drizzle of olive oil
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons part-skim ricotta cheese
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water
4 slices fresh mozzarella cheese
Spray oil
Marinara sauce, for topping
Fresh basil, ribboned, for topping

Slice the chicken in half lengthwise into 4 pieces. Cover with plastic wrap and pound the pieces with a meat mallet until they are about 1/4 inch thin. (I used a smallish cutting board so had to keep moving them over as I pounded each one.) Season both sides with ground black pepper, to taste.

Chicken Pounded Thin and Seasoned

Add the breadcrumbs to a shallow bowl and mix in half the grated Parmesan cheese. (I used the glass lid off one of my Pyrex dishes.) Set all aside.

GRATED Cheese and Bread Crumbs ~ Note the Grated Part

Drizzle some olive oil into a skillet over medium heat. Add in the spinach and garlic and saute it for just a few minutes until the spinach is wilted. Remove from heat and add the spinach to a bowl.

Spinach and Garlic

Add the ricotta, the rest of the Parmesan, and 1 tablespoon of the beaten egg into the bowl with spinach and combine well. Place the rest of the egg in another shallow bowl (or in my case, another glass lid). Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Spread 1/4 of the spinach-cheese mixture over each of the chicken pieces.

Filling Spread Over Chicken

Roll one of them up starting with the narrowest end. Gently dip the entire chicken roll in the egg, then gently roll it in the bread crumbs, patting the crumbs into the chicken. Place in a 2-quart baking dish sprayed with oil, seam side down. Repeat process with the other three pieces.

Chicken Rollups Ready to Bake

Spray the top of the chicken lightly with oil and place in preheated oven. Bake for 25 minutes.

While that is all cooking, slice your fresh mozzarella and chop up any salad fixin’s you want on your green salad, if you are serving the dish with that.

Mozzarella and Salad Fixin’s (and the forgotten breadsticks)

Remove from oven, then spoon desired amount of marinara sauce over the chicken. Top each piece with a slice of fresh Mozzarella. Place back in oven and bake for another 3 to 5 minutes until cheese is melted. Remove from oven and sprinkle with fresh ribboned basil.

Spinach-Stuffed Chicken and Mozzarella Rollups

Serve with a light green salad and Italian breadsticks or garlic bread. (In our case, we ate the breadsticks AFTER dinner because I forgot to serve them — DOH!) I’ll be making this dish often in our household, as it was fairly easy to make and the flavors are outstanding! And my daughter, who picked out this recipe, really loved it.

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

 

Spinach and Artichoke Stuffed Tomatoes

Spinach and Artichoke Stuffed Tomatoes

The first of our cherry tomatoes have ripened on one of our plants! I do believe this is a record for us, to have some ripe tomatoes in early July. So I was flying solo last night (hubby is out of town overnight and the daughter left for a four day camping trip too) so I decided to whip up something “just for me” using three of our ripe wee tomatoes, plus one organic tomato hanging out on the counter.

Ripe Cherry Tomatoes

I scrummaged through the fridge and pantry to see what I could concoct out of these beauties. I found a lonely Laughing Cow Garlic and Herb Cheese wedge, a bag of spinach I brought on our camping trip last week and in dire need of using up, a half lemon, and a can of quartered artichoke hearts. OK. So it’s only me. I can do this. I will use part of the spinach and open a can for one artichoke heart quarter, but I promised myself I’ll make something out of the rest when the fam gets home.

Tomatoes, Spinach, and Artichokes, et. al.

I seriously just made this up on the fly. I’d briefly googled some recipes with a few of the ingredients, but nothing really popped out at me so decided just to throw some stuff together and see what happened. I ended up using twice the amount of spinach in my photo, as I still haven’t mastered the art of how much fresh spinach reduces but I have the correct amount below for one serving.  Since this is only a recipe for one, feel free to double, triple, or quadruple the amount! Oh, and yes, this was divine. Very decadent, just the right amount of spice, herbs and all over yumminess. I so enjoyed popping those stuffed cherry tomatoes just out of the oven into my mouth with the creamy spinach filling. I can’t wait until we have more tomatoes for more great recipes!

Spinach and Artichoke Stuffed Tomatoes

1 small tomato plus three cherry tomatoes
Spray or splash of olive oil
2 large handfuls of fresh spinach, chopped
1/4 artichoke heart, chopped small
1 wedge Laughing Cow Garlic and Herb cheese (you can sub with some cream cheese with fresh herbs mixed in)
1 lemon wedge, squeezed
1 tablespoon sour cream
1 wee pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
Shredded Parmesan or Mozzarella cheese for topping
Bed of fresh spinach

Cut off a small slice off the top of the tomatoes, then core them. So what did I do with the centers and seeds? I ATE them! I simply could not throw out the centers of my first cherry tomatoes and a lovely organic one. Yumm. Nothing wrong with eating the centers of tomatoes, I can tell you that.

In a skillet over medium heat, spray some olive oil and add the spinach, artichoke hearts, cream cheese, lemon juice, sour cream, and crushed red pepper flakes. Stir around and smoosh around until spinach is wilted and cheeses have melted. The sour cream was a last minute addition as the one small wedge of cream cheese just didn’t cut it. Remove from heat, then stuff the cored tomatoes. Eat any amount that doesn’t fit in the centers, OK? Now top the tomatoes with shredded Parmesan or Mozzarella cheese. I was out of Parmesan and would have preferred that but the Mozzarella was a good sub.

Place the tomatoes in a foil lined pan under the broiler for about  five minutes until the cheese starts to melt and brown. Remove from pan with tongs and serve over a bed of fresh spinach. Chow time!

Cored Tomato and Juices ~ Eat all the centers of them!