Beef bones soup - amazing

Making soup with bones is an easy way to get rich, amazing flavor in even a simple soup. 

For this one, I used beef short ribs. It was so good that two teenagers fought over the right to be my taste tester. 

It takes about 20 minutes to put together but about 2 hours of boiling. Perfect for a Saturday at home. 

Brown the ribs on all sides. 

Add diced onion. 

Add mushrooms, diced. 

Add tomato paste. 

Add carrots. 

Add tomatoes. I used grape and cherry tomatoes. 

Add salt and pepper. 

Add a can of white beans. Look how much liquid has already come out of the veggies. 

I hardly had to add any beef broth to cover the meat. 

A little green onion. 

Cover and bring to a boil. 

Reduce to low. 

Boil for an hour. 

Watch Some Like It Hot. 

Check the meat. I wanted to shred it at this point but he meat was still too tough. 

Recover and boil for 45 more minutes. Go back to your movie. 

Shred the meat and remove the bones. Put shredded meat back into the soup. Beef bones are safe to give to your dogs. They will love you forever. 

The soup is rich and flavorful and disappears quickly! 

Enjoy! 

Apple Pie Gelato

Once upon a time, I studied abroad in Spain, where I ate the most amazing food. One of my favorite desserts was Italian gelato from a shop in the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca. They had an apple tart gelato that I still dream of. I've done my best to recreate the favors I remember, with a few twists to make it my own. You won't believe how simple this is. The hardest part is waiting 2 hours for it to freeze without digging in. 

I am adapting a recepie I found for simple gelato that has a base of just two ingredients - condensed milk and whipping cream. The basic idea is to make a thickened whipped cream and add flavors to it. 

For my Apple Pie Gelato, you'll also need a jar of apple butter, Nilla wafers, a sweet apple, a Granny Smith apple, cinnamon and nutmeg (not seen here). 

First, put the bowl of your electric mixer in the freezer. It makes the cream easier to whip if the cream, bowl and utensils are cold. 

Next, scoop about 6 oz of Apple butter into a separate bowl. 

Add as much cinnamon as you'd like. 

Then grate fresh nutmeg, or add in ground nutmeg. As much as you like. 

Stir to combine these. 

Once the apple spice mixture is combined, add the condensed milk and stir. 

Chop the apples into teeny tiny bits. Break up the Nilla wafers into chunks. 

Set up your electric mixer with the ice cold bowl and add the apple spice/condensed milk mixture. Then add your chilled whipping cream. 

Set the mixer on fairly high and let it go. (Instert Frozen soundtrack here). You are making soft peeked whipped cream, so it will take a while. It took my machine about 2.5 minutes on high to get there. When it's ready, the cream should stand up a bit when you pick the whisk up. 

Using a spatula, fold in the apples and Nilla wafers. 

Set the mixture into a container or two and pop it in the freezer. It will take at least 2 hours before it's really frozen. More if you keep opening the container to sneak a taste during the commercials of a Modern Family episode. 

I clearly didn't wait for it to finish freezing. It was too amazing. 

The gelato itself is like a bite of the melting vanilla icrecream that you lick off the plate of apple pie - sweet spiced goodness. Then you get a little crunch of sweet and tart applie bits. The Nilla wafers are just like bits of crust. Amazing. 

The final product is creamy and light and pretty darn close to what I had in Salamanca. Enjoy! Buen provecho!

Meatloaf with Roasted Squash and Sweet Potatoes

5 squash (zucchini and/or summer squash)

olive oil 

salt and pepper

1 lb ground turkey

1/2 onion

1/2 red bell pepper

1 cup breadcrumbs

garlic powder

4 sweet potatoes

butter or margarine 

Catsup

Preheat the oven to 350. 

This is a dairy-free meal that could easily be made gluten free if the breadcrumbs were substituted with something else. It is also a diabetic friendly meal, especially if you switch out the catsup with tomato salsa. 

I made this meal in large quantities to have left overs later in the week. I ended up having last minute guests, and this fed 6 portions with some left over. 

Of course, you can make meatloaf with ground beef. But I find that the turkey tastes just as delicious and it better for you.

Slice the squash. 

Cover a pan with foil. 

Lay out squash in a single layer. Pour olive oil over the squash and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss it all together and then make sure that the squash is laid out in a single layer again. 

Bake for 20 minutes. 

Remove squash from the oven. Using tongs, turn the squash over. Put pan back into the oven. 

While the squash is cooking, start on the meat loaf. 

The first step is to chop the onion and pepper so that they will fit into a food processor. You could dice these by hand, but I think meatloaf tastes better when there aren't chunks of things - it's better if it's all one consistency. 

Finely chop the vegetables and then saute them in a little olive oil until they are just softened. 

Add salt, pepper and garlic powder. The seasonings will distribute better into the meatloaf if they are mixed with the veggies. You need to put enough seasonings to flavor the entire meatloaf, not just the veggies. 

Cover the counter with parchment paper. Add breadcrumbs to the paper. 

Add veggies on top of the breadcrumbs. 

Add the ground meat onto the pile. 

Take off your rings (if you are wearing any) and mix the meat, veggies and breadcrumbs until all of the mixture is combined. You don't want any parts that have too much meat and no veggies or breadcrumbs. 

Form the meat into a shape. The thicker the shape, the longer you will need to cook the meatloaf. 

I was in a hurry, so I formed a thin heart which I cooked for 45 minutes. 

Pour catsup onto the meatloaf. 

Bake for 45 minutes. 

"Bake" sweet potatoes in the microwave. For more info on how to do this, see here. 

Mash the sweet potatoes and add butter or margarine, salt and pepper. 

Take the meatloaf out of the oven. 

Take the squash out of the oven. If you like your squash to be less crispy, take them out sooner. 

Serve it all up on a plate. Not super fancy, but really really tasty!