Flatiron Steak Salad

Ding ding ding! Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! Last night I made a fabulous salad for dinner. It was a huge hit and absolutely delicious. It's a definite keeper. Check out the Flatiron Steak Salad with Thai Dressing in this month's Food and Wine. The flavors were amazing, and we drank it with Dulle Teve, a Belgian Tripel Ale, since I was unable to find the recommended beer. (BTW, watch out - there's a higher alcohol content here...rough, rough morning.)

Let me know what you think. I was thinking that next time I might make it just a tad spicier, and add a little avocado.

The End of the Lamb

So, I finally finished off the lamb from the leg I cooked, making a slow-simmered lamb ragu served over rigatoni. It was rich, filling and the lamb melted in your mouth. This is a perfect dinner for a cold night - just needs a nice green salad with a tart vinaigrette. Here's the recipe, based on a Bon Appetit recipe, but altered since my lamb was already cooked:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 lb white mushrooms, quartered
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tspn fresh rosemary
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
1 lb cooked lamb, cut into large bite-sized pieces
3/4 white wine
3 cups beef stock
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 lb rigatoni
grated parmesan cheese

Saute onion, mushroom, garlic, rosemary and basil until vegetables are soft. Add lamb, wine, stock and tomatoes. Stir, cover and cook over medium low heat for 1 hour. While sauce is cooking, cook rigatoni until al dente. Spoon sauce over pasta, and pass cheese.

Serves 6.

Lamb Pitas

Still working on some lamb leftovers. So, we stuffed some pitas with our choice of cooked lamb, diced tomatoes, diced cucumbers, crumbled feta, hot sauce, calamata tapenade, chopped red onion and a quick garlicky yogurt sauce: 1 cup low-fat yogurt mixed with two minced garlic cloves, a teaspoon chopped dill, squeeze of one lemon, salt and pepper. Also, to heat the lamb a little without drying it out I cubed it and sauteed it for just a minute or two in some hot olive oil, so it got a little crunchy.

New Year's Lamb

I wanted to try something new and exciting for New Year's Eve, so I made my first Leg of Lamb, the Roast Leg of Lamb with Fennel Butter recipe from the Epicurious website. It was fabulous! The only change I made was to use a semi-boneless rather than boneless leg (because that's what I could get at the last minute). I cooked it until it was 130F, and it was a beautiful medium rare. The sauce was extremely tasty and easy to make.

I served it with a slightly boring broccoli cauliflower gratin from Epicurious - it was good, but nothing special. However, with a lot of tasty additions - more salt, cheese, etc, it might make a nice veggie main course.

Also, we started out with some Crab Canapes from the same website, which were good with champagne.

Happy New Year!

Pasta carbonara

I thought I loved carbonara but had just never found the perfect recipe. My attempts were either too dry, too greasy or too heavy. The latest Food and Wine edition has a recipe I thought looked simple, and even better, I had almost all the ingredients in my kitchen.

It was very easy and only took about 30-40 minutes to make. I made only two changes: I used a combo of linguine and fettucine (what I had in the pantry), and I used half and half instead of heavy cream (same reason).

The results? Well, it was very tasty, not dry, not greasy, but still heavy. I guess that's just the nature of carbonara. Next time I might do something blasphemous and add some cherry tomatoes at the end to lighten it up.

The end of summer

With a frost quickly approaching, I decided to cook some of my garden's green tomatoes that will probably never have a chance to ripen. I made a fried green tomato salad of arugula (tossed in a red wine vinaigrette), bacon, crumbled blue cheese, and, yes, fried green tomatoes. I served this on the side of a steak that had first been marinated in the juice from half a lime, 2-3 minced garlic cloves, salt, pepper, and olive oil, and then was grilled. Easy, simple and very yummy.

one of my faves

There's nothing better than lentils, sausage some sort of green and a nice bottle of red wine. This time the green was kale, in a lentil, sausage and kale soup. I could eat this year-round, and, if I had my way, I'd plop a fried egg on top, too.

Spending in order to save

In an effort to use up food we already have I sometimes find myself spending more than I should. Well, it wasn't crazy, but lamb is probably an expense that wasn't necessary. But it's just so damn good. Last night, in an effort to use up some tomatoes and feta, I made a lamb, feta, and tomato baked pasta dish. Also, any chance to use some of the mint that just grows and grows in the garden is an opportunity I can't pass up. Drew made a roux, then added crumbled feta. In a lasagna dish, I tossed the creamy mixture with halved red and yellow cherry tomatoes, small pasta shells, minced fresh mint, and some homemade lamb meatballs (1 lb ground lamb, 1/2 tspn each of allspice, ground clove, cayenne pepper, salty and black pepper, and 1/4 cup bread crumbs, 3 minced garlic cloves). I baked the dish at 425F for about 30 minutes, when the pasta started to brown a little on top. It tasted very good. I would have liked it a little bit creamier, and may next time add some mozzerella to the creamy mixture, but Drew said he wouldn't change a thing.

Fun Computer Problems

Very thrilling computer problems have kept me from posting about lots of cooking I have done in the last week. Early in the weekend I made a pseudo-Mexican dish to use up a lot of food we had hiding in the fridge. Drew's reaction: It's like a fiesta in my mouth! I thought it was tasty, hearty and filling - just the kind of thing you want to eat on a cool fall night. Of course, its 95 degrees outside.



Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
One rotisserie chicken, with all meat pulled off and shredded to bite-size pieces
2 carrots cut into 1-inch pieces
10 small red potatoes cut diced
cumin
cayenne
salt
pepper
1 red onion diced
1 medium can black beans (drained)
10 soft tortillas
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup half and half
taco sauce
1 diced tomato or dozen diced cherry tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 375F. Seperately, mix the carrots and potatoes with a half teaspoon each of the cumin, cayenne, salt and pepper. Put each in separate oven-proof dishes with a little vegetable oil, and bake for 20-25 minutes, until they are done and the potatoes are a little crispy - may need to cook the potatoes a little longer than the carrots.

While carrot and potato are cooking, saute the red onion until soft.

Once all three are cooked and have cooled, place in a large bowl with the shredded chicken and the black beans. Mix, and taste to see if it needs any more of the spices.

Turn oven up to 400F.

Spray a casserole dish with non-stick spray.

Place about 3/4 cup filling in each tortilla, and put each snugly in the casserole dish. (may have some filling left over. Do fun and crazy things with it unrelated to the dish.)

In a food processor or blender, blend 3/4 cup cheddar with half and half and couple of dashes of taco sauce. Pour mixture over casserole. Sprinkle diced tomatoes on top, and top with rest of cheddar.

Bake for 20 minutes.

FRIEND IN TOWN

Sure, most people would want to show off where they live by taking their friend out to dinner in the city's hippest neighborhood. We're not like that. We force them to stay inside and eat my food.

Saturday night I made an herb-roasted chicken to celebrate the visit of my friend Uri. Also, my mom had brought by earlier in the week green beans from their garden and some country ham to cook with it. I used both in a green bean country ham risotto. Also, I roasted some roma tomatoes for a little tang.



Here are the recipes:

Roast Chicken

INGREDIENTS

3 lb chicken (remove plastic bags inside cavity and use for something else)
1/2 cup fresh minced herbs (I used rosemary, sage, thyme, basil)
salt and pepper
3 minced garlic cloves
1 lemon or small orange cut in half
1 small red onion cut in half
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 425. Wash chicken inside and out, and sprinkle all over with salt and pepper, and rub olive oil on it, too. In a small bowl, mix herbs with garlic and salt and pepper. Place lemon and onion halves in cavity of bird. Lift skin above breasts up just slightly and push herb mix under skin, carefully, so as not to tear skin. Rub any extra herbs on the outside. Tie legs up.

Place bird in roasting pan breast-side down, and roast for 5 minutes. Next, turn it to one of its sides and roast for 5 minutes. Then roast for 5 minutes on the other side. Finally roast breast-side up for an hour. I got this method from Jamie Oliver and its a good way of getting color all over the bird. After an hour, cut into the thigh area to see if the bird is done. If not, cook some more!

Risotto

INGREDIENTS

Olive oil
2 shallots, minced
1.5 cups risotto
3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
3/4 cup chopped country ham
1 cup white wine
1.5 cups green beans, chopped

Saute shallots in olive oil. Once soft, add risotto. Stir for one minute. Add chicken broth, 1/4 cup at a time, and country ham, and just keep on stirring. Yup, that's what you have to do with risotto. Once I had used up all the broth, and still needed more liquid, I started adding with wine. I stirred and added until it was done.

While it was cooking, i cooked the green beans in boiling water for about 3 minutes. Then I put them in an ice bath.

Stir the green beans into the risotto.

FINALLY, the last night Uri was in town Drew broiled a beautiful piece of steak, and I made a fried green tomato salad. This was much more successful than the last time I tried to make fried green tomatoes. The key is getting the oil hot enough. If you don't it just turns to mush in the oil.

Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

5 medium green tomatoes, cut in 1/2 inch slices
2 cups cornmeal
pinch each of cayenne, salt and pepper
1 egg, beaten
About 1 cup vegetable oil
4 strips bacon, cooked, broken into 1-inch pieces
blue cheese salad dressing
pickled red onions
4 cups arugula
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 lemon
1/4 tspn pepper
1/4 tspn dry mustard
1/2 cup olive oil

Heat oil in nonstick pan until hot but not smoking. Combine cornmeal, cayenne and salt and pepper in a small bowl. Dip tomato slices in egg and then cornmeal mix, and then place in pan. Continue with rest of slices. Do not crowd pan. You should only have to flip each slice. Once golden brown place on a paper towel-lined plate.

Make lemon dressing. Whisk the juice of one lemon, vinegar, pepper and mustard. Slowly whisk in olive oil. Toss arugula with dressing. Place fried green tomatoes on top of greens. Sprinkle crumbled bacon and pickled red onions on top and drizzle blue cheese dressing over the top. I never said it was healthy.

There just aren't enough meats on sticks

So I finally got to meet my friend Elizabeth's fiance Garrett when they came over for dinner the other night. For the special occasion, I made the kefta and zucchini kebabs from the Epicurious website. I also added a couple of cherry tomato kebabs, which were marinated in the zucchini marinade (lemon, salt, pepper, olive oil, sugar). The lamb was really outstanding - ground lamb mixed with cayenne, cinnamon, minced parsley & cilantro, allspice, minced onion, salt and pepper. And a tasty yogurt dip, for which I doubled the amount of garlic. Really tasty meatballs. The zucchini and tomato were good to have on the side, but I didn't think the marinade added a lot of flavor. Also had a good loaf of crusty bread and a bowl of calamata olives. For dessert, since we are swimming in peaches right now, we had the Peach Tatin from the Food and Wine website. Now, I love this recipe, which I've made several times before, but it didn't turn out as well as it has before - primarily because of the time delusion I was suffering from. I didn't cook it for close to the time needed, so the puff pastry just didn't get a chance to really do its thing. Oh well. Also, the corn syrup got a little too dark, though I don't think that really affected its taste. Still, it was a wonderful night. And it took me a while to recover and write about it in part because of the three bottles of hearty red wine we had with the meal. Yum. (that may have played a role in the time delusion.) And we liked Garrett too!