Hoo–Ahh. The weather has cooled, which means it’s time for beef.

You’re not making that connection? That’s all right. I’ll be happy to make it for you. I love beef but seldom think of cooking it when the weather is blistering. Not even grilling steak appeals to me, that is, not until now.

This recipe appeared in the weekly hand-out at Weight Watchers meetings last week. Here’s the photo from the handout:

Gee, it looks suspiciously familiar, doesn’t it? OK, so I shamelessly copied their setup. However, I took mine outside  to get the last rays of evening sun. That is why my shot looks less professional, but also less like it’s sitting in a food stylist’s light box.

Here’s the thing about flank steak: while it’s very lean, it can be tough if you overcook it. Be careful to grill it about 5 minutes per side, remove it immediately from the grill and allow it to rest a few minutes. If you want it to be tender, serve it rare and thinly sliced.

One more note: servings are for Weight Watcher portions. If you’ve got a heftier appetite, this will serve two generously. Also, the original recipe calls for 1/2 avocado, 1/2 cup corn and no olive oil on the salad. I used a whole avocado and more corn, and I added extra lime juice and a small glug of olive oil to the salad.

1 lb. flank steak
1 garlic clove, minced
1 T. fresh lime juice
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper

Salad:

1 T. minced jalapeno pepper
1/2 to 1 cup frozen corn, thawed (or one ear of cooked corn)
1 avocado, diced
1 1/2 T. lime juice
1 T. extra virgin olive oil
2 T. minced cilantro
salt and pepper to taste

Heat grill. Score steak on one side by making shallow criss cross slashes with a sharp knife. Rub garlic over surface of steak and sprinkle it with lime juice, salt and pepper. Allow to set aside for 10 minutes.

Combine salad ingredients and stir gently. Set aside.

Grill steak on one side until well-browned, about 5 minutes Turn over and grill another 5 to 6 minutes, until rare inside. Remove from grill and allow to sit for meat to absorb its juices. Thinly slice steak across the grain and serve with salad.

Serves 4
Each serving: 3 oz. of steak and 1/2 cup of salad, or 7 WW Points Plus (if you prepared this using no olive oil and only 1/2 avocado and 1/2 cup corn)

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You've got your protein, your veggies and your fruit! With wine, it's a meal!

At our house beef tenderloin is a major indulgence for two good reasons: at about $18.99 a pound its cost is prohibitive, plus the health police tell us we’re not supposed to eat red meat all that often.

Holidays are a suitable exception. On Father’s Day, I went to the butcher in the early morning and told him I was having three elderly relatives, all in their 90′s, for lunch, and I was making beef kebabs. Due to their limited chewing abilities, I said I’d need a tender cut.

“Enough said,” he cheerfully replied, and disappeared into the back meat room. He returned with a two-pound package of cut-up beef all ready to go. The label read “beef tri-tip”, which I’d never had, but I was relieved to see that the total cost for the two pounds was $18.79. I asked if tri-tip was going to be tender enough for them.

He leaned over the counter and whispered, “It’s really beef tenderloin. I just charged you for tri-tip.”

Stunned, I thanked him profusely, to which he replied, “We’ve got to take care of our older folks.”

What a nice man, I thought.  After all, he didn’t know me from Adam, yet he was concerned enough about my “older folks” to purposefully upgrade my order. His kind gesture exemplified the quiet, unheralded philosophy of paying it forward, and when I do I’ll think of him.

Do you have to use beef tenderloin for this recipe, which I adapted from Cooks Illustrated? No, in fact they recommend using top blade steak or top sirloin, cut 1 1/4″ thick. But if you adore beef tenderloin as I do, making kebabs with it is more cost effective than serving whole steaks to everyone. Just a thought.

Marinade:

1/4 cup olive oil
3 medium garlic cloves, minced
3/4 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
2 pounds top blade or top sirloin beef, trimmed of fat and cut into 2″ chunks

Fruit and Vegetables

1 pineapple, peeled, cored, halved lengthwise, and each piece cut into six chunks
1 medium red bell pepper, halved, cored and each half cut into 9 chunks
1 medium yellow bell pepper, halved, cored and each half cut into 9 chunks
1 red onion, peeled, halved lengthwise, core discarded, each half cut into four pieces, and each piece cut into thirds
2 T. olive oil
Lemon or lime wedges for serving (optional)

Kebabs awaiting a hot grill!

For the marinade, combine the olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Add the steak and toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour or up to 24 hours.

Toss the fruit and bell peppers with 1 1/2 T. of the olive oil in a medium bowl and season with salt and pepper. (Yes, the pineapple too.) Brush onions with the remaining oil and season with salt and pepper.

Using eight 12″ metal skewers, thread each skewer with a pineapple piece, a stack of onion, a cube of meat and one piece of each kind of pepper, and then repeat this sequence two more times. Brush any remaining oil from the bowl onto the skewers.

Since I am not a skewer pro, I had extra pieces of everything, so I soaked bamboo skewers in water and made extra kebabs.

Grill kebabs on a hot grill, covered, until meat is well browned and grill-marked, about 8 to 9 minutes for medium-rare, turning each kebab every two minutes to brown all sides.

Transfer kebabs to a serving platter, squeeze with lemon or lime juice (optional but really brightens the flavors) and enjoy!

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I’ve said this before but it can’t be stated too many times: there is no magic pill for weight loss. There is no program, whether it offers pre-made meals or arm bands that register how many calories you’ve burned, that can do the hard work for you. Furthermore, very few diet plans provide the skills that lead to sustained weight loss (maintenance) over the long haul (a lifetime).

So, what’s an overweight person to do? It’s not glamorous: you’ve got to change the way you eat, not for the time it takes to lose the weight but for the rest of your life. Ouch. That hurt, didn’t it?

This beef stew bucks tradition by featuring zucchini instead of potatoes.

Along with all the ads for weight loss programs, there’s also been a lot of press regarding the virtues of eating more fruits and vegetables. And it’s no surprise that these are the very foods that aid in weight loss and maintenance. Because of their abundance of fiber and water, they fill you up, and they’re healthy to  boot.

One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2011 has been to climb aboard the fruit and vegetable bandwagon, and to that end I’ve decided to highlight more fruity, vegetably recipes on Hungry Poodle. Don’t worry, I won’t go crazy in this endeavor. Following is an example of the type of recipe I will focus on. It’s a Provencal beef stew adapted from Cooking Light, and it’s loaded with onions, carrots and zucchini rather than heavier, starchier vegetables. Think of if as a kinder, gentler beef stew, if you will.

Yes, it’s yet another slow cooker concoction. I’m still in the throes of my new slow cooker. The original recipe called for adding the zucchini at the beginning, but I chose to add it halfway through to keep the zucchini from disintegrating during the long cooking process.

Because it has no potatoes, this is a lighter version of stew that goes down easily. I actually preferred it because I was able to enjoy a crusty roll with my portion and not feel like I’d overindulged in carbs.

2 t. olive oil
1 1/2 lbs. boneless chuck roast, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 1/2 t. kosher salt
1/2 t. pepper
2 T. all-purpose flour
2 medium onions, each cut into 8 wedges
6 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup dry red wine
1 cup reduced-sodium beef broth
2 T. tomato paste (I buy mine in a tube and keep it in the fridge)
3 bay leaves
3 fresh thyme sprigs
1 (14-1/2 oz.) can diced tomatoes, drained
3 cups sliced zucchini (I sliced mine fairly thick)
2 cups sliced carrots

Heat oil in a large, nonstick skillet. Sprinkle beef with 1/2 t. salt and pepper and coat with flour. Brown beef in skillet on all sides. Place beef into slow cooker. Add onions and garlic to skillet and saute 5 minutes. Add wine to pan and scrape to loosen browned bits. Place onion mixture in slow cooker. Add broth, tomato paste, bay leaves, thyme and tomatoes to slow cooker; top with carrots. Cover and cook on LOW for 4 hours. Uncover and add zucchini and cook until beef is tender, another 2 to 4 hours. Stir in remaining salt (or to taste) and pepper. Discard bay leaves and thyme sprigs.

Serves: 6 (each serving is 1 1/3 cups)

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A recent hit was the beef lasagna from Weight Watchers’ new PointsPlus Getting Started booklet. It was surprisingly good; after setting up for a few minutes it sliced into single servings without oozing all over the bottom of the slow cooker.

So, what about slow cooker meatloaf? I’ll admit that I was skeptical. I half-expected it to yield spongy slices that barely held together. Again, a pleasant surprise. Because the slow cooker allows for almost no evaporation, the meatloaf was very moist but not watery, and it sliced easily into firm slices.

Now listen up: this recipe isn’t going to win you any culinary awards. But, and this is a big but (no pun intended), even the most erudite cook (that’s fancy talk for food snob) craves good-tasting, hearty fare every now and then. BTW, this is probably the best that you can expect from your slow cooker.

A helpful note to readers: I hate the word tasty. I scan a lot of recipe reviews, and whenever I read one that says that a dish was “really tasty,” I immediately click away. To me, tasty means palatable but just barely.  So, you will never see a “tasty” recipe on hungry poodle.

Call me a curmudgeon cook. No, just call me a curmudgeon. I not only deserve that title, I own up to it.

Here, adapted from Cooking Light, is consummate comfort food, served up with a clear conscience. (That means it’s healthy!)

2 slices whole wheat bread
3/4 pound ground beef round
3/4 pound ground turkey (I used 90% lean, which is less expensive than turkey breast)
1 1/2 cups chopped shiitake mushrooms
1/2 cup grated onion
1 t. dried Italian seasoning
1 t. salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 garlic clove, minced

2 T. ketchup
1 1/2 t. Dijon mustard
1/8 t. ground red pepper

Process bread into crumbs in a food processor or blender and place in a large bowl. Combine with the next 8 ingredients (beef through garlic) and shape into a 9 X 6-inch loaf. Place into a slow cooker.

Combine the ketchup, Dijon mustard and red pepper and spread evenly over the loaf. Cover and cook on LOW for 4 to 5 hours.

Note: Why no photo? It’s winter here in the Midwest, which means that it gets dark before 5 PM. I don’t take photographs of food under incandescent light. It makes the food look surreal. So, imagine if you will, a slice of meatloaf.

Yield: 6 servings

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Why had I neglected this recipe for so long? My guess is that my mother made stuffed peppers so often, and so badly, when I was young that I became “peppered out”. Along with tuna noodle casserole, they signified another of those 1950′s concoctions that housewives discovered in the red-and-white checkered “Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook” and then made with infuriating frequency.

My mom used green peppers exclusively, stuffed them raw with a ground beef/tomato/rice mixture and cooked them until they were soggy-soft. We loved them, but then what did we know? We also loved frozen tuna pot pies and Swanson Fried Chicken TV dinners. We had no appreciable taste.

One whole pepper is a pretty hefty serving!

This recipe is adapted from America’s Test Kitchen’s “Healthy Family Cookbook”.  The original recipe is more complicated, as is their usual method, and serves four.

Here’s what I did: rather than cook brown rice from scratch, I used the Whole Grain Brown version of Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice, which cooks in the microwave in 90 seconds. I also halved the recipe to serve just two. Leftovers would have been ice, but memories of Mom’s soggy peppers caused me to reconsider.

2 red bell peppers (with flat bottoms so they can stand up)
1/2 cup cooked brown rice
1 t. olive oil
1 carrot, peeled and chopped fine
1/2 onion, chopped fine
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 t. tomato paste
1 t. chili powder
4 oz. lean ground beef (you can use ground turkey)
1 tomato, cored, seeded and choped
2 T. chicken broth
1/2 cup reduced-fat shredded cheddar cheese (or Mexican blend)
1 T. parsley, minced
1 T. lemon juice

Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot. Trim 1/2 inch off the top of the bell peppers and remove the veins and seeds. Add 1 T. of salt to the water and add the peppers. Cook until they just begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Drain and place cut-side down on a paper towel.

Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet. Add the carrots and onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, tomato paste, chili powder and salt to taste and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Stir in the beef and cook, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon, until no longer pink. Stir in the tomato and chicken broth and cook until the tomatoes begin to break down, about 2 minutes.

Stir the rice into the beef mixture and add all but 2 T. of the shredded cheese, the parsley and the lemon juice. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Divide the mixture between the two peppers and place them into an 8-inch square baking dish. Top with the remaining 2 T. cheese and bake until the cheese is browned and the filling is heated, about 30 minutes.

Serves: 2

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That was one of his tamer antics on this, the most Irish of American holidays. (The same neighbor said that he learned to stay inside late on the night of March 17, because my dad would go out into our front yard, shoot his shotgun into the air and yell, “Erin Go Bragh!” (Gaelic for “Ireland Forever”, or “duck and cover” in our neighborhood!)

The best part about St. Patrick’s Day, at least from my perspective, is corned beef and cabbage, a dish not usually on the list of healthy foods. Here is a lightened up recipe that I’ve adapted from Cooking Light. Corned beef is usually high in fat, so I cook a small one and surround it with lots of vegetables. This year, I got my corned beef at Costco ; it was only about 2 3/4 lbs. and was very lean.

Serve this with lots of vegetables and whole wheat Irish soda bread. Strong mustard and horseradish sauce are essential. All that's missing is the Guinness!

1 (2 1/2 to 4-lb.) corned beef brisket
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped
3 garlic cloves
1 medium-sized head green cabbage, cored and cut into 1″ strips
2 lb. baby Yukon Gold potatoes
brussels sprouts (optional but so good)
baby carrots (also optional but colorful)
Chopped fresh parsley
2 t. butter
2 t. grated lemon rind
2 t. fresh lemon juice
pepper to taste
1/2 cup dry breadcrumbs
1 (5-oz.) jar prepared horseradish, drained and squeezed dry
3 T. Dijon mustard

Put brisket in a large Dutch oven; Cover with water and add onion, celery, carrots and garlic. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 3 hours. Remove brisket to a cooling rack that’s been placed on a baking sheet and sprayed with nonstick spray.

Strain the cooking liquid through a strainer and return to the pot. Discard the solids. Add cabbage, bring to a boil and simmer about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring another pot of water to a boil and add potatoes; simmer for about 20 minutes. Add optional brussels sprouts and baby carrots during the last 7 to 10 minutes. Drain and add the parsley, butter, lemon rind, lemon juice and pepper.

Preheat broiler.

Combine breadcrumbs and horseradish. Spread mustard over one side of the brisket. Press the breadcrumb mixture onto the mustard. Broil brisket until lightly browned. Watch carefully–this will only take a couple of minutes.

Slice meat across the grain and serve with vegetables, Dijon mustard, horseradish sauce, whole wheat soda bread and Irish beer!

Serves: 8 (each serving: 3 oz. beef, about 1 cup potatoes and 1 1/2 cups of cabbage, carrots and brussels sprouts)

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Needless to say, the film featured some of the dishes Julia adapted for the American kitchen in her legendary two-volume tomes, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. The one dish that made movie-goers drool, several times, was Boeuf Bourguignon, or beef stew made with red wine. After seeing the film the first time, I wanted to head straight to a French restaurant and order a glass of red wine, some brie cheese with french bread (also featured prominently in the film, drool again) and this stew.

Boeuf Bourguignon with all the flavor and half the points of the original!

Instead, I headed home to replicate the original recipe. I’ve owned both volumes of her cookbooks for 25 years; most of that time they’ve remained on my cookbook shelf. Why? I made Julia’s “Lasagna a la Francaise” twenty years ago for Easter, and while it was the most delicious lasagna I’d ever eaten, it took four grueling hours of cooking and pot washing before I even got the casserole into the oven. Julia doesn’t take shortcuts.

At about that same time a re-run of “The French Chef” was airing with Julia making the lasagna. I tuned in to watch, thinking that they’d have to really abbreviate the recipe to get it to fit into a half-hour time slot. She entered her TV kitchen saying, “Zut Alors! (Oh No!) Friends have just telephoned saying they’re on their way over and you want to make them dinner but you have so little time. What are you to do? Lasagna a la Francaise to the rescue!”

What, I thought, is this the same recipe? If friends came to MY house and I made this dish, we’d be eating at midnight. Alas, it was the same recipe, but Julia pulled all of the already-cooked ingredients out of her refrigerator, saying, “Good thing you had some leftover sauteed spinach from last night’s dinner. And those leftover mushrooms will come in handy too. Oh, and we can use that leftover tomato sauce.”

How times have changed.

But I digress. No surprise, Julia’s boeuf bourguignon takes the better part of a day to prepare. Among other labor-intensive tasks, you have to individually saute the pearl onions and the mushrooms in separate pans. With a good deal of butter.  And the beef has to cook slowly in a 325 degree oven for 2 1/2 to 3 hours before you put it all together. The result? Nothing short of fabulous, but like the lasagna,  it’s a commitment, of time, effort and calories.

So when my January/February, 2010, issue of Weight Watchers Magazine came in the mail and I saw an article about the film with a less fussy–much less fussy- makeover of this stew, I went for it.

Some observations: in her cookbook Julia writes that “the better the meat, the better the stew”. Her recommendations are as follows:  first choice is rump pot roast, followed by chuck pot roast, sirloin tip, top round and bottom round.

The Weight Watcher recipe calls for bottom round roast. When I asked the butcher at my local supermarket for this cut, he said, “That’s rump roast”, and that’s what he sold me. (21st century aside: butchers aren’t what they used to be. They don’t actually cut meat anymore, they just trim and re-package it, so many of them aren’t familiar with meat nomenclature.)

I served this with boiled baby Yukon Gold potatoes (I had two) and steamed (microwaved) baby peas to increase the veggies and decrease the need for more beef. Delightful.

2 lbs. bottom round roast, trimmed and cut into 3/4″ cubes
1/4 c. flour
1 T. olive oil
1 (14 1/2 oz.) can low-sodium beef broth
1 c. red wine
1 (16 oz.) package frozen pearl onions (I couldn’t find these so I used fresh)
1 (10 oz.) package cremini mushrooms (I used baby portabellas)
2 T. tomato paste
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 T. chopped fresh thyme (I just toss in fresh thyme sprigs; the tiny leaves fall off during cooking and I remove the stems later)
1 bay leaf
1 t. salt
1/2 t. black pepper
1 lb. carrots, thickly sliced
2 T. chopped fresh parsley

Toss beef with flour, heat oil in a large Dutch oven and cook beef in batches until browned. Don’t crowd pan or the beef will stew rather than brown. Transfer to a bowl with a slotted spoon.

Add broth, wine, onions, mushrooms, tomato paste, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, salt and pepper to pot. Bring to a boil, stir in the beef and reduce heat. Cover and cook on low heat for at least one hour. Stir in carrots and continue to simmer another 30 minutes, or until beef and carrots are tender. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Julia calls for straining all the ingredients into a big bowl and then boiling down the sauce until it’s thick. I simply ladled out some of the sauce into a separate small pan, added 1 T. cornstarch mixed with 1 T. water and boiled it for a few minutes, then added it back to the Dutch oven.

Serves: 6

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