My beef recipes




Stuffed Spaghetti Squash

November 26th, 2011 in Beef, Main Dish Recipes by Julia Volhina

My mom usually cooked big zucchini like this: stiffing it with ground beef and rice mince.

However I wasn’t able to find an “adult” zucchini in any shop here in US to cook it. It seems that they don’t survive long enough to grow big here (maybe green piece should look into that, I don’t know).

Anyway, I believe spaghetti squash is a good substitute for this recipe: it serves the purpose by being squash and providing a cavity to cook stuffing, and it also brings nice unique texture to the dish with its “spaghettiness”.

The taste here is similar to cabbage rolls (as if they were made of squash :) ), however the amount of work you need to put into this one is considerably smaller.

Clear Beef Broth with Vegetables

October 8th, 2011 in Hot Soups, Soup Recipes by Julia Volhina

Beef broth with vegetables is easiest liquid food to make, easiest to consume, good for your digestive system. Why not to cook it yourself instead of pouring it out from a can or a box?

All you need is beef with bones (I find shank cut very suitable for soups and broths), roots (carrots, parsley, celery), onion, fresh greens and this recipe.

Clear beef broth is nice to accompany any food prepared from that boiled meat cooked in the broth (since you don’t need it after broth is cooked), such as crepes with boiled meat stuffing, savory pies or fried dumplings.

Beef Stroganoff with Mushrooms and Cream

September 17th, 2011 in Beef, Main Dish Recipes by Julia Volhina

This recipe features a small modification to the beef stroganoff recipe I posted earlier, but a good one: a cup of cream and cremini mushrooms give this dish a very rich taste.

Field mushrooms will also work good in this recipe, but cremini are the best.

As usual, I suggest serving beef stroganoff with a side of boiled buckwheat, it tastes great with mushrooms and cream and, of course, beef.

Minced Cutlets Stuffed with Mushrooms

August 6th, 2011 in Beef, Main Dish Recipes by Julia Volhina

This is a tasty tweak to original minced beef cutlets recipe. The mince is prepared exactly the same way and mushrooms and onions stuffing gives ground meat juiciness and extraordinary taste.

A bit of agility is required to put stuffing inside of minced meat cutlets, but once you get it – it seems easy: meat is sticky, so if you get some holes, they can be easily patched by adding a layer of mince on top of the hole.

To prevent meat from sticking to hands – rinse hands with cold water from time to time while assembling minced cutlets.

Lazy Cabbage Rolls

March 19th, 2011 in Beef, Main Dish Recipes by Julia Volhina

Lazy cabbage rolls, or “lenyvi golubtsi” how this dish is called in ukrainian, is an easier version of ukrainian cabbage rolls.

Since it doesn’t require assembling of rolls it is much easier to prepare, and taste is very similar to cabbage rolls.

Lazy cabbage rolls taste great when seasoned with a bit of chopped garlic and a bit of mayo.

Buckwheat Soup

October 30th, 2010 in Hot Soups, Soup Recipes by Julia Volhina

This is good soup to cook at winter: time when fresh herbs are not full of flavor and most of vegetables are not as full of nutrients as fresh ones.

Root vegetables used in this recipe (potatoes, carrots, parsley and celery roots) are good on keeping their nutrient through whole winter and buckwheat grains add even more.

As for most of meat broth based soups, you can save some time cooking it by preparing meat broth in advance: night before or so, and then reheat before cooking buckwheat soup itself.

I really encourage you to cook beef broth yourself, whatever they say in those advertisements, but broth from can can’t be the same good as broth prepared by yourself from ingredients you choose, it is not that hard after all.

Beef Roast with Cheese and Onion

May 1st, 2010 in Beef, Main Dish Recipes by Julia Volhina

That is probably one of my favorite dinner recipes: slices of beef roast under mayonnaise, shredded mozzarella and onions, and it is very easy to cook.

You can make steps 1-7 some time in advance, then put meat into the fridge and continue later; just get meat to the preheated oven about 1 hour before you are going to serve it. That comes extremely handy when you need to get a lot of other things taken care of right before the dinner.

Some dry red wine is a nice addition to this dish, especially if the dinner is going to get romantic.