30 Minute Meals Again...

Hello from Melanie...

From Rachael Ray's 30 Min Meals 2 and as seen on the food network website.   Cut and pasted for convenience below:


Baby Spinach Salad with Thyme and Dijon Vinaigrette with Crisp Swiss Cheese Crisps

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese
1 sack, 12 ounces, baby spinach or 3/4 pound from bulk bins
1 small red apple, cored and thinly sliced
1 wedge lemon
3 or 4 sprigs fresh thyme, stripped from stems and chopped
1 rounded teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, eyeball it
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, eyeball the amount

Directions
Heat a nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add shredded Swiss in small, 2-inch piles to the hot skillet. When the cheese fries to a light golden color at the edges, about 1 minute, and can be moved with a thin spatula, turn the cheese rounds, cook another 15 seconds, then remove rounds from the skillet and transfer rounds to a work surface to cool. The cheese crisps will cool within a minute or so. Repeat to form 12 to 16 crisps, 3 or 4 per salad. Crisps may also be flavored with cracked black pepper and chopped thyme or other herbs.

Place spinach in a bowl. After slicing your apple, squeeze a wedge of lemon over the slices to keep them from browning. Toss apples with spinach. For dressing, combine thyme, Dijon mustard and vinegar with a whisk. Stream in olive oil while continuing to whisk dressing. Pour dressing over the salad and toss to coat greens and apple evenly. Pile salad onto cheese roundss and serve.



Sirloin Beef Burgundy: Boeuf Bourguignon

Ingredients

3 slices bacon, chopped
3 tablespoons butter, divided
16 white mushrooms, medium in size, wiped with damp cloth to clean, thinly sliced
1 cup frozen pearl onions, defrosted and drained
Salt and pepper
2 pounds lean sirloin, 1-inch thick, trimmed and cubed into 1 inch pieces
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup burgundy wine
1 1/2 cups store bought beef stock
Bouquet of 3 or 4 sprigs each sage and fresh thyme, tied with kitchen string

Herb Egg Noodles:
12 ounces wide egg noodles, cooked to package directions
2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves, 2 handfuls
12 blades fresh chives, snipped or finely chopped

Directions
Heat a large deep skillet with a heavy bottom and a lid over medium high heat. Add bacon to the pan and brown. Remove crisp bacon bits with slotted spoon. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons butter to the pan and melt into bacon drippings. Add mushrooms to the pan and turn to coat evenly with butter and bacon drippings. Season the mushroom slices with salt and pepper. Saute mushrooms 2 to 3 minutes and add onions to the pan. Continue cooking onions and mushrooms 2 to 3 minutes longer, then transfer to a plate and return pan to the heat. Add remaining butter to the pan and melt it, then add meat to very hot pan and brown evenly on all sides, keeping the meat moving. Add flour to browned meat in the pan and cook the flour 2 minutes. Add wine to the pan slowly while stirring. When the wine comes up to a bubble and you have scraped up the pan drippings, add the stock and bouquet of fresh sage and thyme sprigs to the pot. Cover the pan. When the liquid boils, reduce heat to medium. Cook covered 5 minutes, remove lid and add mushrooms, onions and bacon back to the pot. Simmer with the cover off until sauce thickens a bit. Adjust seasoning and remove herb bouquet.

Toss hot egg noodles with butter and herbs. Place a bed of noodles in a shallow bowl and pour beef burgundy over the noodles and serve.




Before cooking this - have one of these....

It does help with the cooking process....and helps pass the time while you watch the swiss cheese mounds brown.

 

While everything is simmering at the end, be sure to take a sniff.  Yum.

It`s funny how much tastier parsley can make noodles look!
 

When it`s all said and done, here is what they look like:

Note that this recipe makes a TON of food.  I made this while Mr Picky and Miss Almost Vegetarian were away at their Grandma`s house.  We had leftovers for a few days with this amount.  Both DH and I were a little startled by the taste of the salad dressing.  We were both thinking that the dressing should be fruity tasting.  However by the end of the salad - we had gotten used to it and really liked it.  I loved the addition of apples and the swiss cheese crisps to the salad.   DH gave 2 thumbs up to the beef dish.  I thought it was good but picked out all the mushrooms.  I am after all, Mr Picky`s Mom.  :)  We will make this again.