The Secret Recipes and Ingredients To Making A Perfect Dinner For Your Family: Braciole and Asparagus

This is a special dinner I make for my family all the time and they LOVE it! It consists of beef braciole, asparagus, and bread if you desire. There are a couple of secrets I use to spice up these ingredients, especially in the asparagus. If you're not sure what braciole is, it's a flat cut of meat that's rolled up to contain a filling of breads, cheeses, or greens. Then the meat roll is soaked in sauce to keep it tender. It's a great new way to make beef! What's awesome about this particular dinner is that the cooking time is the same for all ingredients. So you can pop it in the oven and use that hour doing something else!

Preparation: About 45 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

For the braciole:

2 pounds of carne asada meat or any thinly sliced beef of your choice

1 cup of shredded parmesan cheese

1 cup of bread crumbs

1 egg

1/2 cup of finely chopped spinach

4 cloves of minced garlic

Oregano, Basil, Salt and Pepper to taste

1 can of tomato sauce

For the asparagus:

1 bunch of asparagus

Any leftover filling ingredients from the braciole or new bread crumbs and parmesan

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1. Mix your parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, egg, spinach, garlic and spices together in a medium-sized bowl. Set aside.

2. Take the slices of meat and tenderize them, either with your fists or, even better, a meat hammer. You can use them in their package sizes or cut them into about 3 inch by 3 inch squares.

3. Trim the fat off the meat. It will be kept tender by the sauce and the fat is too hard to chew through on this particular dish.

4. Put some of the filling from the bowl into the middle of a piece of meat. Roll the meat into a nice tube shape and fasten with twine or use toothpicks on both ends to pinch the end flap closed.

5. Repeat until you have run out of meat. If you have filling left over, that's great! We will be using it later.

6. Lay the meat rolls in a baking dish. They can lay snugly together but don't stack them.

7. Poor the tomato sauce all over the meat.

8. Bake uncovered for 1 hour.

This is what the meat looks like right out of the package. You can keep it this size or trim it in half to make more bracioles.

I know they look kind of lumpy and weird but they are extremely delish! Cut them open and see what I mean! But let them cool down a bit because they will be magma hot.

When you cut open your braciole, it will look something like this. The bread, cheese and meat mixture is so tender and juicy. You are going to want to make this dish again and again!!

The asparagus part is actually really easy. Wash your asparagus and trim off the tough ends. Lay them out in a lightly oiled baking dish. Use the leftover filling from your braciole to sprinkle over the top of the asparagus. If you don't have braciole filling left over, just make a simple bread crumb and cheese mixture with a bit of salt. Now this is the secret part. Sprinkle cinnamon over the asparagus as well. You might think I'm crazy but it actually creates a really interesting and tasty flavor profile. Try it out! Bake uncovered for about an hour.

If you want another side to go with your asparagus, one of my favorite things is to cut slices of French bread and dip them in olive oil and vinegar. Either that or butter them up. It really pulls the whole dish together. I hope you enjoyed this recipe! Thanks for reading!