Our Month of Beef :-)

We've all heard the popular tagline, "Beef, it's what's for dinner," right?  Well, it really has been the month of beef in our household, and it was for dinner MANY nights.  This month the Allrecipes Allstars program partnered with the Cattlemen's Beef Board and National Cattlemen's Beef Association.  We were asked to prepare recipes from the Allrecipes recipe collection sponsored by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.  I made a couple from their collection, but I also made a few other beef recipes from the site.

As always, just click on the picture to get to the recipes!

Anyway, I'll be honest- the sponsored recipes weren't favorites in our house (though they were with other Allstars that tried them, so to each his own, I suppose).  I made Beef and Blue Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms first.  The blue cheese was pretty overwhelming.  They were ok, but really nothing special.  In their defense, my husband chopped up the leftovers and put them in an absolutely wonderful omelette the next day :-)

Next up was Spicy Thai Beef- neither one of us enjoyed this recipe as written.  I doctored it up a bit and ended up enjoying the final product, but my husband absolutely hated it.  Not a winner.

After those two duds (definitely not the beef's fault lol), I decided to move on to other beef recipes from the site.  I made tri trip next, of course :-)

I haven't talked about it much (at all, maybe?) on the blog, but I'm a tri-tip freak.  I grew up eating Santa Maria style BBQ all the time (it's a bit of a religion back home…) and missed it sooooo much when I moved away.  In fact, most of you probably haven't even heard of tri-tip!  The horror!  I will teach you the ways of amazing SMS BBQ in another post :-)  Anyway, I recently found a supplier of tri-tip locally at Earthfare (my favorite grocery store) and had to make sure I cooked some this month.
This is the recipe I use for my tri-tip rub- though I do halve the salt and add a little bit of parsley and brown sugar to the mix.  Yum!  I highly recommend it.

I made these spicy beef fajitas using this fajita seasoning recipe from Allrecipes- HUGE winner.  Absolutely delicious and will definitely be making them again!

Next up was Spicy Mexican Beef- also a yummy one.  This recipe was nice for a busy day because I was able to just throw everything in the crockpot earlier in the day.

I rounded out the Month of Beef with Beef Stir-Fry with Peanut Sauce.  YUM!  I love recipes that are easily adaptable to go with what you have in the fridge, and this one is it.  Went over well with the family and was easy to make.  

I'll be honest- meat is often an afterthought for me.  I was a vegetarian for years and when I go grocery shopping the meat department is generally the last place I stop.  After my cart is full of produce, grains, dairy, etc I find myself going, "Oh yeah!  I bet my husband would like some protein in his diet too!"  One of the great things about the recipes we tried this month was that I wasn't asked to just throw a big hunk of meat on our plates, which is a huge turn-off to me (with the rather large exception of tri-tip!).  Cooking with beef and working it into these recipes was a  great way to satisfy my carnivorous husband and daughter while still satisfying my own culinary preferences.  Beef is loaded with protein and other nutrients also. Overall it was definitely a winning month in our home!

 Disclaimer

I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com.

Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews on Sunny Days With My Loves. The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of Nora.