Mushroom and Cheesesteak Sandwiches
I may have changed my mind more times today about dinner than I have in a really long time. Or, I had so many ideas going I couldn't decide on one. I dunno. All I know is dinner pretty much came to be as I was getting off work.
The weather played a major role today. It's rather ridiculously hot outside. I decided early on that grilling was out. I'm just not interested in being outside right now.
Ravioli were looking good - as was a San Francisco favorite, Joe's Special. I almost did salads. But in the end, it was baby bella mushrooms, shaved beef, and colby jack cheese. And french fries.
Ooey-gooey-cheesy-goodness on a roll. How could it be wrong?
And we have not one, not two, but three different varieties of ice cream for dessert. I even toyed with the idea of making an ice cream cake for dessert but decided cooking french fries for 15 minutes was enough oven time for the day.
Did I mention it's been a bit hot outside?
The next couple of days are going to be even hotter. Oh joy.
Maybe we'll just have ice cream for dinner tomorrow. And fruit-pops for dessert.
Steaks
I love any number of spices, rubs, sauces, grilled onions, mushrooms, crumbled blue cheese - just about anything on a steak.
But sometimes ya just want a steak. An unadorned, on-the-grill, basic steak. And that's what we had, tonight.
We had a couple of nice strip steaks in the freezer that called my name this morning. We also had a couple of ears of corn I bought yesterday - and potato salad I made yesterday. This was one easy meal!
The corn went on first. Well-buttered and with salt and pepper, I wrapped it in foil and put it on the upper grill rack for about 10 minutes. The steaks got salt, pepper, and garlic - and onto the grill they went. I put the corn on the lower grates while the steaks cooked.
A few minutes later, dinner was served.
Sometimes simple is good.
Burgers
If you're gonna have a burger, have a burger! A real one. With lots and lots of stuff on it!
This was an 8oz wagyu burger - what they call American Kobe. I've never had real kobe beef and am not in a hurry to part with the funds necessary to do so, but these are pretty good burgers. And they're made even better with cheese, bacon, lettuce (iceberg, of course!) tomato, red onion, pickles, mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard.
And french fries.
A burger such as this is not easy to consume. In fact, it's down-right difficult. Even cut in half, everything is slipping and sliding, juices dripping everywhere. It's a mess. But what a fantastic-tasting mess!
It takes numerous napkins - we just bring the roll of paper towels to the table - and even then, we have to wash hands up to the elbows when we're done.
And it's seriously worth every bite.
Perfect Grilling Weather
Yes. Perfect grilling weather. Actually, it has been pretty perfect all day long. It barely hit 70° today. Part-sun and part-overcast. All the windows have been open and I'm listening to a symphony of birds out in the back yard.
A pretty perfect day. This is the Spring we haven't been getting. Lazy days with a book in the back yard. Or - since it is Basil Rathbone's birthday today - a Sherlock Holmes marathon on TCM.
And a pretty perfect day calls for a pretty perfect dinner. Porterhouse steaks seemed to fit the bill quite nicely.
There were a couple of slices of bacon in the 'fridge that just called for topping baked potatoes - and mixing into a container of fresh peas.
And what's a steak without grilled onions to top it all off?!?
It ended up being more food than any two people could eat - but we have luncheon leftovers for tomorrow.
And Cybil ate well, too.
Flank Steak on the Barbie
Flank steak. Once upon a time it was an inexpensive piece of meat. And then - sadly - it was "discovered." The price has risen dramatically over the past few years.
One of the reasons I used to make my Oriental Flank Steak with Spicy Garlic Sauce for crowds because it was so economical. Now it's top-tier appetizer!
But I still but it because it's one of the most flavorful cuts of meat on the steer. Cooked right and cut right, it's tender and juicy - and it takes any and all marinades and rubs. Versitile, it is.
Tonight i just salt and peppered. Nothing else. A good piece of meat doesn't need anything else. The mushrooms I cooked in a pat of butter and then a splash of beef broth. Spinach and a couscous blend.
Tomorrow I'm heading out of my local shopping area to visit an Italian Deli/Cafe in Norristown. I met the owner last night at a function at the Elmwood Park Zoo and want to see the place up close.
I'll be reporting back if it's as good as I hope it is!
Filet Roast on the Barbie
FINALLY! A day with Mary Poppins Weather! (That would be practically perfect in every way for those who are not up on their Mary Poppins trivia!)
After the past few days of scorching heat and primordial humidity, today's 76° with no humidity was a welcome respite. The windows are all open, a breeze is blowing through the house... Life is good.
And so was dinner!
I picked up a small filet roast and onto the grill it went. Boursin Mashed Potatoes - nothing more than basic mashed spuds with some Boursin cheese added to them - and green beans almondine. A bit of a classic dinner on a perfect evening.
And to make good even better, there's four different flavors of ice cream in the freezer.
Life is good, indeed!
Sapporo Teriyaki Beef
A recent posting on a San Francisco bulletin board I am a member of - The Western Neighborhoods Project - had me looking through some old recipes. Lord knows I have recipes - cut out from newspapers and magazines that go back years and years. If I started cooking right now, I could never get through them all.
One recipe caught my eye... a teriyaki sauce made with beer. I don't know where the recipe originated or who wrote "Sapporo" on the yellowing newsprint - probably a San Francisco Examiner newspaper - but it was intriguing enough to finally make it.
And I'm glad I did. This is going to become a staple in our house! It may even get made for Christmas gifts. It's that good!
I used it to marinate strips of beef - top round - that I quickly grilled after marinating about 2 hours.
I had bottles of Sapporo, Molson, and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in the 'fridge from my last Wegman's beer run (which pretty much was the reason I jumped on this one today) but I imagine any beer would do. The actual recipe just calls for a 12 oz can of beer.
Sapporo Teriyaki Sauce
- 1 12 oz bottle Sapporo beer
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup mirin
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tbsp chopped ginger
Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan. Bring to boil and reduce by half. Strain and cool.
Definitely a keeper.
Boursin Mashed Potatoes
Tonight's dinner was all about the mashed potatoes. Boursin Mashed Potatoes.
Boursin is a soft, creamy cheese that hails from France, but is also manufactured right here in the good ol' USofA. Besides the obvious crackers and bread, it mixes well into sauces and is especially good mixed into mashed potatoes. Really especially good.
I don't remember when I first had Boursin. It was years (and years and years) ago. Maybe Tahoe in the '70s? We were all pretty adventurous cooks back then. Boursin would have been just the thing to liven up one of those pot-smoking-and-wine-drinking evenings with the roommates on Canterbury Drive... Ah yes... the good old days... 20' ceiling, wall of windows, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, loft... We paid $400/mo rent - split 4 ways. I'd move back into that house in a heartbeat. Serious good times were had by all!
But I digress...
The concept/recipe is pretty basic - just add some cheese to your favorite mashed potato recipe. Simple but oh, so flavorful! It really takes the spuds to the next level. There are quite a few varieties out there but my favorite remains garlic and herb.
The rest of the dinner was steamed wax beans and grilled burgers with a wild mushroom sauce.
I picked up some 90/10 ground beef because it was on sale for slightly less than my normal 80/20 and am sorry I did. The burgers just lacked flavor and were dry. What I saved in a couple grams of fat I totally lost in flavor and enjoyment. Back to the 80/20 next shopping trip.
Dessert will make up for it, though... A variation on my Aunt Kathleen's and Cousin Kate's Malt Shoppe Pie!
Pasties
I had taken a piece of round steak out of the freezer this morning with no clear idea of what I was going to do with it. When I got to work, we had the BBC playing on the radio and the idea of making pasties came to me. Gee. I wonder where that idea came from?!?
But pasties were on the mind and, I figured I had the ingredients at home. I love not having to shop.
Pasties for dinner.
For a nano-second I toyed with the idea of buying a pre-made crust but immediately discarded it. Homemade is better.
And as I was getting ready to chop the beef for the pasties, I saw a pretty good-sized hunk of meatloaf in the 'fridge. Waste-not-want-not. The beef went back in the 'fridge and I cubed the meatloaf for the pastie. Came out excellent! It really was the perfect way to use up leftovers.
I made a full batch of dough and used half to make four pasties. Victor used the other half to make a tart.
Pastie Dough
- 2 cups flour
- 1/3 cup pastry/cake flour
- 2 sticks butter, frozen
- pinch salt
- 1/2 cup ice water
Using a food processor, add flours, salt, and sugar. Pulse to mix.
Chop up frozen butter and add. Pulse until butter is incorporated and mixture looks grainy.
Slowly add ice water and pulse until mixed.
Turn out onto counter. Press and form mixture into two disks . Wrap in plastic and refrigerate about an hour to allow the flour to properly absorb the water and to relax the gluten.
Pasties
- 3/4 pound beef, chopped
- 1-2 medium-sized potatoes, small dice
- 3 carrots, small dice
- 3 stalks celery, small dice
- 1/2 onion, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup shredded cheese
Cook vegetables in skillet until almost tender. Add beef and cook until done.
Add seasonings. Add heavy cream and heat through.
Remove from heat and add cheese. Cool.
To assemble:
Divide dough into 4 balls. Roll each out on floured board to about 8" circles. Scoop generous cup onto each round. Brush edges with beaten egg and fold in half to seal. Use fork to crimp edges.
Bake in 375° oven 35-45 minutes or until well-browned and heated through.
These really were a lot of fun. Totally different and perfectly filling.
And speaking of fillings... the possibilities are endless!
Meatloaf and Fresh-Baked Bread
It's still colder than cold outside. Spring has not sprung.
I have all sorts of plans for the coming warm weather... Lots of salads, of course, but I also want to play with a "BBQ Sauce of the Week" idea... There are just so many BBQ sauce ideas out there that I think it might be fun to see just what I can come up with. I want to redo the Root Beer BBQ Sauce - it just didn't have enough of a root beer kick, and I'm thinking different fruits - peaches, definitely - and different chilis, some regional differences... the possibilities are pretty endless and should keep me busy for a while.
But that's tomorrow - or, next month. Whenever the weather starts getting better. In the meantime, it's winter food. Meatloaf.
Meatloaf is a non-recipe meal, generally. I just put stuff together and that's that.
But every now and again, I need to do something just a little bit different. I started hunting through old recipes and found this in an old Gourmet MNagazine:
Meatloaf
Gourmet | February 2008
Ian KnauerThis is the perfect antidote to the Sunday blues, not least because there will be enough left over to pack sandwiches for Monday's lunch. A mix of beef, pork, and bacon ensures meatiness, with Worcestershire sauce, chopped prunes, and cider vinegar added for good balance and occasional suggestions of sweetness. Because the loaf is baked without a loaf pan, there's plenty of well-browned crust to go around.
Yield: Makes 6 servings with leftovers
Active Time: 30 min
Total Time: 1 1/2 hr
ingredients
- 1 cup fine fresh bread crumbs (from 2 slices firm white sandwich bread)
- 1/3 cup whole milk
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 medium celery rib, finely chopped
- 1 medium carrot, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/4 pound bacon (about 4 slices), chopped
- 1/2 cup pitted prunes, chopped
- 1 1/2 pounds ground beef chuck
- 1/2 pound ground pork (not lean)
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Garnish: cooked bacon
preparationPreheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.
Soak bread crumbs in milk in a large bowl.
Meanwhile, cook onion, garlic, celery, and carrot in butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes. Cover skillet and reduce heat to low, then cook until carrot is tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, allspice, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 1/2 teaspoons pepper. Add to bread-crumb mixture.
Finely chop bacon and prunes in a food processor, then add to onion mixture along with beef, pork, eggs, and parsley and mix together with your hands.
Pack mixture into a 9- by 5-inch oval loaf in a 13- by 9-inch shallow baking dish or pan.
Bake until an instant-read thermometer inserted into center of meatloaf registers 155°F, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.
Of course, I didn't follow the recipe, but it was my base.
I didn't use bacon, prunes, ground pork, or parsley. I more-or-less followed the rest of the recipe, using three pounds of ground beef, three carrots and three stalks of celery.
I also didn't bake it in a baking dish.
It really came out good.
And I baked bread.
I've been a bit remiss in my artisan bread-baking and thought it time to get back into it.
The bread is just super-easy to make.
- 6 1/2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 tbsp yeast
- 1 1/2 tbsp salt
- 3 cups water
Mix all ingredients, cover, and let rise three hours. At this point you can punch it down and refrigerate.
When ready to bake bread, cut off 1/4 of the dough and for into a ball. Place on cornmeal-sprinkled baking sheet or bread peel. Let rise 30 minutes. Cut deep slits into dough with very sharp knife.
Preheat oven to 450° with pizza stone on middle rack and rimmed sheet pan on bottom rack.
Slide dough onto hot pizza stone and immediately add 1 cup of hot water to sheet pan.
Quickly close oven and bake for 30 minutes.
You can add different flours to the basic recipe. I usually do 4 cups white to 2 1/2 cups whole wheat. Today I did 1/2 cup rye and 1/2 cup buckwheat to 5 1/2 cups white.
It came out great.
Asian-Inspired Flank Steak
I have a recipe for flank steak that I have been making for years... It's double-marinated and, served cold, is a great hors d'oeuvre or salad topper, and makes a great sandwich.
I was kinda thinking of that recipe when I picked up this flank steak yesterday, but decide today to streamline the process and just do a simpler single marinade.
Rice wine, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, black pepper, and chili paste (sambal oelek.)
And it worked quite well! Lots of oomph and lots of flavor.
An Asian-inspired flank steak needs an Asian-inspired vegetable to go along with it. I had green beans and peas in the freezer - the green beans won. I sauteed a bit of onion in sesame oil, added the beans and a splash of rice wine and soy sauce and a sprinkling of black sesame seeds.
And white rice. Yes, I know that brown rice is better for you, yada yada, yada, but white rice works so much better with Asian flavors.
I just used up the last of my favorite rice - Lundberg - and none of the local stores carry it, anymore. It's whole-grain rice with a really rich, nutty flavor and chewy texture. I bought up the last of it when the local PathMark stopped selling it.
However... the internet and free shipping means I'll be having more delivered next week right to the door. Every now and again, technology really makes me smile.
C'mon Spring! I'm seeing some nice rice salads in my (warmer-weather) future!
American-Style Kobe Beef Burgers
I just cooked us up some American-Style Kobe Beef Burgers. I was prepared to say "eh" but they were actually pretty good - and actually worth the $5.99 for two 8 oz burgers.
American Kobe is raised differently than its Japanese cousins. First off, it's not getting the massages and piped-in music. The American ranchers are going for genetics and feed more than anything else - and in the case of the burgers, they succeeded.
It's supposed to be high in fat - in Japan they actually call it white steak - but the fat itself is supposed to be better. It has a higher percentage of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and a better ratio of mono-saturated to saturated fat.
It's still not exactly health food, but it's an improvement.
In other news... we're off to San Francisco in the wee hours of the morning to see the family. There's definitely going to be some fun meals there!
Stay tuned!