Not sure how I missed this one. I love potato soup. The ultimate comfort food. My mom used to make a big batch for people at our church that were sick and take it to them.
My lovely bride put together these lovely salmon nachos. She baked the salmon in salsa pimped up with some chipotle powder, chopped serrano pepper, and served on a bed of scoops & shredded cheese with some guacamole and crema. Delicious! She ain't the Queen of the Kitchen for nothin'.
Sous Vide Prime Tri-Tip seared on the infrared burner. With sauteed mushrooms,shallots, thyme, and a splash of vermouth. Spinach and leftover potato salad. Just a touch of snow for special effect.
My wife and I have wildly different tastes. I like bold and spicy flavors; she likes things a little milder. So she was away this evening and I endeavored to come up with something that only I'd eat and I settled on lamb.
This recipe is verygood, especially with as relatively little effort as it is. You start by combining a pound of 90/10 beef and a pound of 85/15 ground lamb in a food processor along with some onion and garlic. The spices are primarily oregano, coriander, cumin, and black pepper. (Hint: make sure your food processor can handle this much! I had to do mine in two batches.)
You then shape the mixture (which is essentially a paste) into 6-7 rectangles and skewer them for easy handling on the grill:
Then, you grill them. It took me about 12-15 minutes to get them to 155 F or so, flipping ever 2-3 minutes. Brian used the wooden skewers, but he was using a gas grill. Even though I soaked mine overnight, they were no match for the charcoal flames. I ended up removing them halfway through the cook. As it turns out, these patties firm up easily enough on the grill that a gloved hand can easily manipulate them.
And, of course, the smell of lamb grilling on a fire is just exquisite.
Check these out.....
I mean, this is actually a decent approximation of gyro meat. The crust mimics that charred outside when it is shaved off of a spit, more or less. They are essentially crusty little lamb meatloafs. Slice relatively thin to get that "gyro" effect.
To assemble these, I used flour tortillas (as did Brian). I liked this. They were less "bready" than traditional pitas, allowing the meat to shine. Also in the video he makes a yogurt-lemon-dill sauce, which goes on next. Then on goes this lovely, exquisite, Israeli salad, which is diced tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, parsley, with some lemon juice and olive oil.
I mean look at this:
After the salad goes on to, then you add the obligatory feta cheese:
These taste incredible. You've got that wonderful lamb flavor with the greek notes of oregano and coriander. The yogurt sauce provides a wonderful acidity and the Israeli salad is just ridiculously fresh. The feta just tops it all off (literally).
Top round beef roast on the rotisserie for sandwiches during the week. Sweet potatoes and acorn squash were wrapped in foil and cooked directly on lump charcoal.
On the theme of "lunch-meat", got a couple of turkey breasts to smoke and slice.
Started by de-boning, then hit them with my rub, and put them in the fridge while I got the smoker ready.
Got the smoker up to 300F when it was about 32F outside. Got the breasts on with probes inserted and let em cook.
And here's the finished product. Took just under two hours to get them to 165F internal. No action photos when they're between bread because I was actually pretty hungry at that point. But overall, a really good cook. Meat is tender and still moist, light good smoke flavor, and while the skin wasn't crisp, it was edible. And didn't use as much fuel as I thought, so that was a bonus.
When I found this two pound block of Cabot's Limited Edition Extra Sharp Cheddar in Costco last week, I knew exactly what it would become.
Cheese straws! I hesitate to call them 'southern' cheese straws although many online recipes use that moniker but, I'm not really sure what they have to do with the southern US and its culinary history. Maybe someone can enlighten me?
Six simple ingredients, flour, cheese, butter, salt, cayenne pepper and water, along with some heat, combine to make one really tasty, cheesy snack that puts Cheez-its and Cheddar Goldfish to shame. They taste amazing with beer or a Syrah/Shiraz.
Grouper Hemingway over angel hair pasta and a petite filet. The former stole the show. Something about capers and lemon juice together sends me to gastronomical Nirvana.
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