It Was All About the Beef!

I am happy to say that I have used up a good part of the sirloin tip roast I made over the weekend.  We had it Sunday night, Thursday night I made myself a beef, red pepper and spinach quesadilla, and I decided Thursday night to use beef in all three of my meals yesterday!

First up?  Roast beef hash.  I’ve talked about canned diced potatoes before – my Big Lots sells them for .50 cents a can (the rest of their canned veggies are that cheap too!).  So yesterday while I was blogging, I put a pan on the stove, heated a 1/2 teaspoon of peanut oil in it, drained a can of diced potatoes, measured out one cup and pan fried it for about 7-8 minutes.  I didn’t toss in the chopped beef yet, just put that in my container to take to work.  I knew I was going to be heating it up at work, and so when the potatoes were done, I just added them to the diced beef, put a lid on it, and put it in my lunch bag.

On the side I had 1/2 an apple and a Chobani.  This breakfast has a whopping 35 grams of protein!

I would have skipped the yogurt if I had any eggs left, but we were out, so the yogurt was the added protein.  This took me quite a while to eat and I didn’t end up eating lunch until nearly 2!

So yesterday was Day 5 of testing out my knee just by walking on the treadmill, and I am happy to say I think it’s nearly 100% better.  Next week I am bringing back strength training, and if I have any squats in my workouts, I am going to be very slow and deliberate – not sure if the squat challenge I tried to do over a month ago aggravated my knee or not, but better safe than sorry.  This weekend I also plan to do my Classical Stretch – I know I don’t stretch nearly as much as I should.

I ended up watching the tail end of The Chew, and they changed the format, so now Rachael Ray’s show comes on at 1:00.  They had some bloggers on who have a blog called Thug Kitchen.  Where the hell have I been?  Under a rock?   It was their national t.v. debut, and they just came out with their first cook book.  I think these people swear more than me!   While on the show they did this cauliflower puree with pasta that looked amazing.  I of course would add a touch of Parmesan cheese, because I am not a vegan.  One recipe they have on their blog that grabbed me right away though was their buffalo falafel.  Check it out here!

So my second beef meal of the day?  Beef and broccoli stir fry.  Again, I only cooked the broccoli and red pepper and rice at home, and didn’t heat up the beef until I put it all together at work.  Last weekend when I made the pork potstickers,  I made a dipping sauce and I had a lot leftover.  I mixed 1/4 cup chicken broth, with 1 tablespoon of the dipping sauce and stirred in 1 teaspoon of corn starch.  After the broccoli steamed in my skillet for a couple minutes, I tossed in the red pepper and then added the sauce, put a lid on it and cooked it for 1 minute.  I sliced my beef, put that in another container and poured the cooked broccoli mixture over the top.  I did end up overcooking the broccoli just a bit – so I lost a bit of the vibrant color, but this was delicious.  Of course I added a tad of sriracha too.

I know I’ve talked about it before, but we have an electric stove, which makes it nearly impossible to make rice correctly.  Unlike gas, you can’t just turn it on, turn it off, or go from high heat to low heat.  I tried having a burner on the side at low heat so that once the rice came to a boil I could move it to the low heat burner, but the results were mixed at best.  Go to Walgreen’s, spend $14 and buy a rice maker.  It works for any kind of grain – I’ve made white rice, brown rice, quinoa, harvest blends (T.J.s) – just as long as you have the correct grain/water ratio, it works out perfect every time.

So I put my hash breakfast on Instagram (um, are you following me there?!  mybizzykitchen!)  I asked for suggestions on how to use up the rest of this beef roast.  Karli mentioned a stew and mixing it in with scrambled eggs – yum, that might be on my breakfast menu this morning Karli since I picked up eggs on my way home!   But Jacky had the best idea yet.  She knows how much I love my Party Pizza Friday.  Like, a lot!  When Tony told me that he didn’t have much of an appetite last night, I immediately went with Jacky’s suggestion – beef and giardiniera pizza!!

Since I didn’t eat lunch until really late, I decided to try a different pizza dough.   I love the Chicago Style deep dish pizza dough, so I made a variation of that, just left out the butter that’s rolled into the dough!

One Hour Pizza Dough (enough dough for two, 12-14 inch pizzas)

• 1 package of yeast
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2.25 cups flour
• 1/4 cups corn meal
• 1 teaspoon salt

In a bowl, mix the yeast, water and honey together.  Let it sit for 10 minutes until nice and foamy.  Mix in the flour, corn meal and salt.  I usually use my hands and just mix it up until the flour is all incorporated.  Top with a piece of plastic wrap, but in your oven with the oven light on for 50 minutes.  Alternatively, you could make the dough the night before, and let it rise slowly in your refrigerator.  Just set the dough out for 30 minutes to come to room temperature so it’s easy to roll out.

My toppings:  3 ounces of chopped cooked beef roast, 3 tablespoons chopped giardiniera, 2 ounces of shredded mozzarella and 2 ounces of chopped fresh mozzarella, topped with 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning.  I bake my pizza on the lower 1/3 of the oven on a pizza pan for 10 minutes.   Then I shake it off the pan right on the oven rack, and cook for 5-7 minutes more – I love a crispy crust!

OMG.  I loved this crust!  It was light, crispy, yet chewy at the same time too.  The beef pieces were still tender and of course the punch of heat from the giardiniera was amazeballs.  I ate three pieces!  Thanks for the idea Jacky!  I may have to submit this one to the pizza recipe contest!  Although for mass purposes, I may recreate this one using sliced roast beef from the deli.  Yum!!

Happy to say I got all my steps in – I need to reinstall the FitBit app on my phone, because after I synced up it said I took 8 steps yesterday. WTF?!  I did over 10,000, thank you very much!

You know I am a football widow on Sunday’s – I am hoping to hook up with Hannah and her friend Mel and her son Carver – he’s turning three and they are going to build a bear and then having lunch at Rainforest Café – I haven’t been to Rainforest Café since Hannah was little!  This picture hangs in our bedroom – this is Hannah at age three.  I remember her telling me that she was going to cross her legs like a lady for her picture.  This was just at Sears, and the woman wanted to put her on this carpeted cube, and Hannah saw that wicker chair and insisted she sit on that so she could sit like a lady.  Love it!  It’s hard to believe that Hannah’s next birthday, 23, is the same age I was when I had her.  It went by so fast.

It’s a brisk 48 degrees, but I am getting my walking shoes on and getting a good walk in to start off the day.  My reward when I get back is a nice cup of coffee and I think I am going to make some whole wheat blueberry pancakes.  That way I’ll have a bunch made for breakfasts next week.

Have a great weekend!  Hugs!