What's For Dinner #126 - the Hearts, Flowers, Candy, But It's Cold and Snowy! Edition - February 2026

That looks really good!

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A couple of weeks ago I bought a piece of beef on sale that was labeled as “shoulder for London broil”. I prepped it according to this recipe from “Small Town Woman” and it was fantastic, everyone loved it, and I was sad I’d only gotten one smallish piece.

So the same cut was on sale again last week and I grabbed 2 larger ones, totaling a bit over 3 pounds. (I had to halve them because the linked recipe is a pan-fry, and they were too long for that).

As you can see in the pics, this stuff is pretty highly striated but I went ahead and scored them, cross-grain, because sometimes the grain can be less evident after you cook (this was after the marinating step, if you’re wondering why they are so brown).


After cooking, they tasted great again, but were tough as all hell. I had sliced one piece entirely (parallel to my scoring) to start dinner, and I wondered if I’d accidentally scored that one with the grain, so I cut some both ways from another piece, and nope, going across my scoring was even tougher. The 4 of us managed to to get through about 12-15 ounces of it; otherwise leaning heavily on the steamed green beans and mashed potatoes. The latter of which we finished despite my having made what was supposed to be a 2x batch for leftovers.


So now I’m trying to figure out what to do with the other 2-ish pounds of tough as hell meat.

Anyone ever grind meat that’s already been cooked to medium rare?

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I had some cooked Pork Tenderloin meat that nobody liked. I cubed it, threw it in the food processor, pulsed it just a couple of times, then added to a soup. It wasn’t processed to mush, but it was small enough to hide in the soup.

Is it too tough to shred and make burritos or flautas??

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I adapted a new-to-me recipe for Chickpeas al Limone With Burrata (gift link) from The New York Times. A keeper!

To make use of ingredients I had on hand, I used a large can of reduced sodium chickpeas and about half a bag of frozen spinach. (The recipe as written does not use spinach.) I also added Urfa chile flakes to amp up the flavor. As a bonus, preparing this as a one-pot meal in my Dutch oven streamlined things for easy cleanup. My husband made us bruschetta with a sourdough mini-loaf to go on the side.

Hearty and quick for a cold winter night.

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Grind or chop it up and use in cottage pie.

Braised it to shredding for ropa vieja.

Slice super thinly and stir fry with broccoli and oyster sauce.

Rinse it off and feed to your puppies. :woman_shrugging:t2:

My husband doesn’t call me “the lunch lady” for nothing.

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Thanks! It was tasty, and with the soup from frozen, didn’t take long.

Sounds like an excellent jaw workout, tho :wink:

Was the flavor at least satisfactory, if not the texture?

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I’ll get it fixed, thx.

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Too tough for beef stew and its other variations?

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Some sort of squiggly wide pasta (forgot the name) with homemade red sauce and grated hard goats cheese. All the forks are in the dishwasher in the staff break room, so having to eat this with a tablespoon.

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I might try the FP to get a suitable mince out of it. Definitely way too tough as knife-cut shreds.

After I posted, I did think about braising it for about any kind of dish, and ropa vieja is one of my favorites. Even at sub-mm slice thicknesses, it’s still tough. Too much sodium to be safe for canines, although I could spread it out over 10 days or so and it’d be okay.

Oh yeah, taste was still great. I do recommend the recipe… just not the meat. Still surprised at how different the pieces were, despite looking exactly the same and being labeled the same.

Thanks all for the recos!

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I love Enchiladas Suizas.

Which reminds me, I wanted to try this casserole.

hat tip Office Day Dinners - #15 by truman

Also:

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Tonight I took a leftover quinoa, bean, and corn casserole from the freezer (along with a single chicken chile sausage) and stuffed peppers and zucchini. Drizzled with Las Palmas enchilada sauce and topped with queso quesadilla, baked til bubbly. With leftover veg.

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Crispy wings and potato wedges, a big ol blob of catsup for dippin.

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Tonight’s dinner was fried cabbage and noodles.

The sun was still out when I left the office this afternoon so I got to watch it set on the way home :woman_cartwheeling::sun_with_face::beach_with_umbrella:

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Once again only left the house briefly to pick up fixins for tonight’s dinner. Bumped into a fellow musician’s spouse who is a very talented chef. He saw my sling and inquired what was up. He’d just come from the doctor’s office & told me he needed the same surgery — ‘cept he can’t afford to be laid up for almost 2 months, so he won’t do it. How shitty having to choose between your long-term health and your immediate survival. No words…. well, none fit for print here, at least :face_with_symbols_on_mouth:

As for WFD — something I rarely make for us unless someone in the household is sick: chicken noodle soup. The stock I made yesterday was so rich, flavorful & much more gelatinous than the last couple of batches I wanted to let it shine. I also saved the little layer of shmaltz I skimmed off the top for future use :face_savoring_food:

Added TPSTO carrots (2lbs), 6 leeks, and a few chonks of celeriac for flavoring that I removed* before serving, plus chopped parsley at the end.

Served over extra wide egg noodz with a bunch of the roti chicken. Very comforting & delicious :blush:

This is one of very few meals where I go full OCD, in that each spoonful has to have a piece of carrot, chicken, noodle and broth. The combo of salty broth, tender noodles, sweet carrot and savory chicken is simply perfect. The only other meal I can think of where I do the same is the traditional German way to serve white asparagus, i.e. with smoked ham, potatoes, and parsley butter. What can I say — Ima weirdo :zany_face:

*I don’t care for the mushy texture. I do have about ¾ of that ugly-ass raw celery head left, so if y’all got ideas beyond Waldorf I’d be happy to hear them :smiley:

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Salad. VC kale, SIBWO green cabbage, LF cottage cheese, other veg, and BF mayo.

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High-low dinner tonight. Roasted kiolbassa beef sausages (ala Costco) with fancy fondant spuds. Salad greens from a box with homemade vinaigrette.

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This Celeriac Frittata is nice

https://www.essen-und-trinken.de/knollensellerie/73510-cstr-die-besten-rezepte-mit-knollensellerie#item-12093604

or as part of pasta sauce

and we also like to roast it in the oven

Sausage-Bean Stew/Soup/Chili - simple mix of hot dogs, red kidney and navy beans, onions, leeks, pancetta, passata, tomato paste, beef broth, cayenne pepper and tabasco

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