Let me tell you, I also learned a lot about beef while doing these recipes. We love beef in pretty much any form and fashion as long as it's still good to eat and not gone back, blegh! It's in a lot of our meals whether old recipes or new and I truly learned some new things. I knew beef had iron and protein in it. It's only healthy though if you cook it the right way. Frying with batter (life chicken fried steak) just adds fat back to it! lol. Maybe not fat so much, but cholesterol and such. Beef is also full of choline (nervous system development), selenium (protects cells from damage), vitamins B6 and B12 (help maintain brain function), zync (helps maintain a healthy immune system), phosphorus (helps builds bones and teeth), niacin (supports energy production and metabolism) and riboflavin (helps convert food into fuel).
Let me first say that I combined two of my recipes in one meal. My boyfriend wanted chili and I wanted meatball gyros. So since they were both relatively small, we had them in the same night. It was actually easier on me as well since both recipes required ground beef.
The first thing I actually made was not a requirement. I made Chef John's Tzatziki Sauce the night before because it's best served if it's chilled over night and I wanted it for my meatball gyros. Meatball recipe coming up! The first actual beef recipe I made was Beef Chili Five Ways. I actually had this cooking while I prepped everything else. This was the recipe that also included a product for Goya: BLACK BEANS! I don't care for beans but these weren't too bad. You couldn't really distinguish the beans in the dish. Along with the tomatoes, it all kind of melted together in your mouth. After it was done, I let it cool and then it hung out in the refrigerator until dinner time.
Then I got the mixer going for the pita bread dough. I used Chef John's Pita Bread recipe and if you have any doubts about it, there is a video as well that Chef John did so you can follow along. I love his videos! With all the mixing and rising, it takes about 2.5 hours before you can actually cook/bake/grill the bread. While this stuff was rising, I mixed up the ingredients for the meatballs. I used this recipe: Mediterranean Beef Meatball Kabob. These were full of flavor. I did add in some onion however, because we like onion with our ground beef. I don't really think it added much flavor though. They were yummy anyway. Other than that, I did cook them as instructed and then took them off the kabobs and put them in the pita bread for gyros. Ours were a little plain as far as gyros go but that's because I was the only one who really wanted a gyro.... The others just went along with it!!!I may try to tackle some of the Goya recipes just because I'd like to but if I don't get around to it, I guess it's a good thing it wasn't a requirement. I'm looking forward to next month since I was one of the one's selected to make a Bison dish. The only thing Bison I've ever had was burgers from a restaurant and the meat was really dry so I'm hoping that it was just the chef's mistake. We'll see next month!!!
Until then......
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