how you doin’?...

Porterhouse with MacDonalds fries

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:51:42 -0500

They weren’t really MacDonalds’ fries, but she said they tasted just like them. Which I took as a compliment... until I remembered she prefers Burger King fries, so now I’m not sure what her real intention was. Anyhoo, this was the best steak meal we’ve cooked in some time. Probably because we used the weber grill instead of the stove top. And maybe ‘cause it was a darn t-bone: 1 part ny strip steak, one part filet mignon, and 1 part dy-no-mite.

The inspiration for this came from this
NY Times Magazine article I read today.
However, as you can see what we ate really
wasn’t anything close to it. I thought I was
going to do pretty much exactly what it
described but as I began to fill the wife in on
what was for dinner, she wasn’t having any
of it. The idea of roasted root vegetables
was essentially repulsive to her (go figga), so
we settled on this glorious Porterhouse and
some fantastically roasted steak fries, plus a
side of salsa/chimichurri.

I don’t really know technically what a chimichurri is, but this thing we make isn’t as soupy as salsa typically is, so I call it chimichurri. Bascially I take 4 o 5 plum tomatoes and hollow them out with a spoon to remove all the soupiness. Then finely dice up the tomatoes, combine that with about half of a small yellow pepper - finely diced, plus half a jalapeño, finely diced, plus a good handful of cilantro and the juice of half a lime. Also add in a good pour of olive oil, then salt and pepper, a little garlic powder, and then some cumin. Stir it all together and adjust seasoning as needed.

I should have said start first with the fries,
‘cause you can do everything else while they
roast. Peel 2 russet potatoes and cut into
long wedges. Pour a bunch of olive oil,
salt and pepper over them. Add a little
oregano if you want and also some celery salt.
Roast for 20 minutes on 450, flip the fries
and roast another 10 or 15 minutes at 400.
Remove from oven and toss in a T of butter,
add some more salt, plus some chopped
parsley and some microplaned lemon zest.
Stir all together and put it back in the oven
to stay warm while you wait for your steak to rest after coming off the grill. BTW, the steak was simply brought to room temp before cooking, seasoned with most of those spices from the NYTimes recipe and then cooked about 6 minutes per side on a hot grill. Rested and sliced. Spoon pan juices over the top after serving. Delish.

Linguine wit Clam Sauce

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:43:49 -0500

Thankfully I have a wife who can cook, because I completely ruined my back tonight taking out the returnables. Just bent over kind of funny to pick up the blue bin full of glass and plastic and whammy(!), lots of hurt. Note to self: bend at the knees. We’ve made this numerous times in the past, but it’s been awhile so it tasted especially good. And I didn’t have to do any heavy lifting in the kitchen because I was unsucessfully too busy trying to find any possible position that would allow my back some relief. Hence, no real pictures.

Chicken Off the Rails

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:35:26 -0500

This dish really didn’t go the way it was supposed to. It was simple pan seared chicken cutlet accompanied by some roast vegetables and some jasmati rice. Unfortunately I was lacking the proper ingredients to make the sauce. Before we started I cleaned out the fridge and threw away the chicken broth from last week, assuming we had more in the cupboard. Turns out we did not. So I was forced to use beef broth, and while it wasn’t bad, the flavors just didn’t quite line up properly.

Jake’s Saloon

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:26:55 -0500

“Whether it is just to grab a quick bite, or to catch up with old friends while watching the game on a big screen... Everything your senses crave... All in one place, it can only be Jake’s Saloon...”. Everything your senses crave? Translation: don’t eat here. Unless you’d like a voluminous offering of fried food to choose from off of a grimy menu. We had to work late and we had no energy to leave the neighborhood, so it wasn’t our fault. At least somebody liked it.

AUGUST

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:37:17 -0500

In the city for 4 days of toil. One thing to look forward to is the end of each day which, as you know, turns into what is called evening. That is when the eating and drinking portion of the 24 hour cycle begins. In my opinion, that is generally the most important thing happening during any given orbital pass of our great fireball, currently scheduled to flame out in approximately 4.57 billion years. While you wait for that to happen, I’d highly suggest a dinner at August when you’re in town (Urinetown). By the way, the bacon braised kale was out of control. Let the image parade commence...

Don’t Really Know What to Call This

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:21:56 -0500

And you’ll probably create something different than this when all is said and done. This is a complete original. Never done it before fer sure. And tonight’s recipe had inspiration, but since there’s a big push to do something somewhat inventive, I honestly can say it’s original. Spaghetti Collins was the starting point for this dish. After reviewing it and going down some other pasta avenues I saw the need to work in some crispy bread crumbs and anchovy flavors.

So, you can use the Collins recipe above as a base, just keep in mind you want to trade out veal stock for clam juice, plus add a little chicken stock and anchovy paste. Multiple extras added in as well such as canned tuna, jalapeño, parmesan, and parsley. Add a little jalapeño to the sauce, plus a heavy dose of lemon zest. Meanwhile, add some fresh bread crumbs to a pan of butter to crisp up. Then toss some canned tuna (we used some sashimi grade albacore, but next time might use some yellowfin) in a little butter or oil, salt and pepper to plate on top of the pasta along with some diced parsley. When the sauce is essentially done, add the cooked pasta to the sauce so it all absorbs, along with the cheese to melt. Plate and top with the tuna, breadcrumbs and parsley.

jukabox:

It’s What’s for Dinner

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:02:16 -0500

All rolled up into balls of magic. Specifically Moroccan Beef Meatball Tagine. And listen up crackers (you know who you are), it’s a NEW recipe, never been cooked before by moi. I was chided today after my own admission yesterday that I was not living up to my promise of newness. Well here’s some newness for ya. Takes a little time - plan on about 90 minutes total - but nothing terribly difficult going on here. And super tasty. I guarantee it’s gonna require you going out and investing 15 dollars in spices that aren’t currently in your pantry, but what the hey.

I accidentally bought watercress tonight instead of spinach, so we had to omit that portion of tonight’s entertainment, but otherwise it was pretty dang tasty. Overall, fantastic flavors. That’s about all I got for ya.

The Soup w/ the Beans that are Black...

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:55:14 -0500

...plus the cumin and the jalapeño. Say it in Arnold Schwarznegger’s voice. First, an apology. When we started this blabbing back up 2 weeks ago I insinuated that I’d have some new dishes to offer, but it appears we’re continuing to rehash the same old hash. Well, that’s the way it is... sosueme. I think what happened is once the blog stopped awhile back, so did the inspiration to create something new and unique on a regular basis. That being said, I’m sure we’ll stumble across some dish that hasn’t already been talked about here. Give it some time. Take a deep breath. We’ll get there eventually. Let’s continue.

So, once we put down the crossword we
got onto the cookin’, or mostly P got on
with the cookin’. She’s the black bean soup
queen. She’s also the pea soup queen
but I don’t let her wear that tiara too often.
I handle the bread on this one. Cut up some
french bread in any shapes you want and
pan fry it up with some butter salt and pepper
until crisp and browned to your liking. Okay,
I’m getting bored now... click on that photo
to the right if you’d like the recipe. We like to
add some Tabasco as well. Music:

United States of Hating Mondays

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:56:22 -0500

Nothing in particular ran horribly off the tracks... this Monday was simply like most; just not a lot of motivation being summoned up to apply to the money making machine which is my job. So, Mondays Bad is a good general mantra for all things pertaining to the first day of the work week. Twas time to think about the dinner hour, and the wife wasn’t due home until the actual time to eat, plus I’d been craving a Wolfpit Pizza, plus our weekly craving of pizza not having been fulfilled by a subpar pizza this past Sunday, a pizza from Bang Bang seemed in order. We loves the Wolfpit, which is bacon, onion and chopped tomatoes. Is it the best pizza we’ve had? No. Is it the most edible pizza in Norwalk? Yes. Does their webmaster need some help in a BangBang.com update? Yes (that was rhetorical). Poor imagery commences here:

Flounder w/ Roast Veggies

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:08:29 -0500

I knew I wanted roast veggies but I was floundering as to what to serve with it. Get it? HIlarious, I know. Fo shizzle tho, I had read this NY Times article this morning and I couldn’t shake the roast veggie thing. I was craving it with steak, but we’d just had steak. Same with chicken. I didn’t want to do pork, so that pretty much left fish. Flounder looked the best at the store so we ate flounder.

The roasted veggies turned out to be just butternut
squash and russet potato. Roughly cubed and tossed
with a bunch of olive oil, garlic powder, oregano, salt and
pepper and a dusting of smoked paprika. Thrown into a
425 oven and roasted for about 45 minutes, turned the
veggies every 10 or 12 minutes. When complete, toss a
couple T of butter into the pan and toss until melted. Then
season again with salt.

They turned out well, although I like them a little crisper.
I think by cooking the squash and the potatoes together,
the squash actually steamed the potatoes a little bit and
held back on the crispiness. Next time I’d roast them in
separate pans and I’d add a little brown sugar to the
squash beforehand.

Fish was simple. Combined in a small bowl some olive oil, lemon juice, cumin powder and chopped garlic. Brushed this on the fish and then added salt and pepper. Then seared in a pan with melted butter on both sides until complete. Brush the fish after each side is cooked and then melt a teeny bit of extra butter on top at the end.

By the way, if you’ve got an iPhone you should get this app. My friends B&T turned me onto it and it’s great when you’re at the market and are unsure what fish you “should” be buying. Comes in very handy. And it’s free!