Not really a cook. A salad with last of the left over tri tip. Tortellini salad from a local farm store. Lots of feta in the salad. Sometimes I get a bit carried away. A low effort and satisfying, delicious dinner.
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Braised venison tips in gravy over brown rice.Attached FilesComment
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Tonight homemade pasta with pan seared scallops. Pasta coated with lemon olive oil and squeezed lemon. Garnished with Cilantro and Parmigiano Reggiano . Even though we made tomato sauce today that needs to rest in the frig overnight and be reheated for the best flavor.
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I have been wanting to make french onion soup since forever, so I finally went ahead and did it. I followed Brian Lagerstrom's recipe, which is meant for those who do not want to stir for five hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MmwGZ7cOdQ
One of the things he has you do is make your own beef stock, which is something I've also never done.
You roast three pounds of beef shanks and two pounds of marrowish bones (I used neck) and a pound of 80/20 ground beef at 450 F for twenty minutes. Here's my tray before the oven.
Once that has roasted (and cooled slightly) in it all goes into a pressure cooker along with five liters of water and pressure cooks on low for two hours.
For the onions, find yourself five pounds of yellow onions.
Slice the tip and end off of each one, then length wise, peel, and slice thinly pole-to-pole. Wow....this is a lot of slicing. My arm ached after going through all of that. You then dump all of the sliced onions into a dutch oven along with a full stick of butter and some salt.
That goes into a 400 F oven, covered, for one hour.
You then stir, crack the lid a bit, and let go for another hour and forty-five minutes to two hours, stirring every-so-often.
Now you place the pot on the stove over medium-high heat and do three deglazes of the pan, twice with water, and the final time with dry sherry. The idea is to get some fond on the bottom of the pan, evaporate the liquid and then repeat. After the dry sherry iteration, you add in some salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, some thyme and bay leaves, and two liters of the beef stock you made, and let it simmer for 30 minutes.
In soup containers, ladle in enough onion mixture to all most fill it, add in some sourdough croutons (diced sourdough bread tossed with olive oil, garlic powder, and salt, and toasted at 350 F for 20 minutes), then a healthy layer of shredded gruyere cheese, and top with a slice of provolone.
Place it under the broiler until the cheese is melty and browned.
It will emerge like this. (Did I not find the cutest french onion soup bowls?!)
One of the more lovely dishes I've made, certainly.
Tap in!
This was incredibly good. My wife absolutely loved it. It is very filling, though. I intended this to be an appetizer, but it was so fulling that I postponed cooking the main course for tonight.
The one thing I would do differently is toast my croutons more. They really do need to be "shred your mouth" crispy as Brian says in the video. Mine weren't quite there and got soggy really fast. I'd also like to make my own sourdough bread as the loaf from HEB had a really light sourdough flavor.Comment
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RonB It's not overly difficult or complex, just a bit time consuming.
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Just beef patties and Bacon
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When Henrik put up his recipe for Mango Habanero Sauce, I immediately thought that it would work great with some of my datil peppers subbed in for the habaneros. I finally got around to making some today, and it did not disappoint. The datil flavor also melds perfectly with the mango. I wound up making a double batch, as I had a whole fresh mango and a 28 oz size box of strained tomatoes. I'll freeze several batches to use later.
The sauce was perfect for these shrimp tacos.
More tacos and other things with this yummy sauce to come!
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Sun, blue skies, and 40-50 degree weather in Portland, OR.
That means BBQ Time in my Traeger. Pork Butt, or is that Boston Butt, still a little confused.
Pulled Pork Nachos
No bragging rights, I'm sad, as they were a few degrees undercooked.
SWMBO said I was getting antsy, and impatient.
For the Coverup I pulled the pork butt and then chopped it up.
8 Lbs. pork butt.
Store-bought corn chips
3-Ingredient Queso Cheese Dip - Cooking Classy Ez-Pz we used sharp cheddar cheese
Last edited by bbqLuv; January 9, 2025, 07:09 PM.Comment
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I gotta do that. I have pulled pork in the freezer - would be great for that! -
If ya wanna go completely over the top…
I use one of these… https://www.amazon.com/Weber-Style-6...=ast_sto_d%20p
And put it back into the smoker after I’ve assembled my nachos.
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This is what was supposed to be part II of last night's French Onion Soup. Following a lead from Steven Raichlen, I marinated a flank steak in 2.5 cups pinot noir, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup olive oil, and 2 tsp of Worcestershire.
Now, initially I only intended to marinate this steak 4-6 hours, but as I put it off a day, it was marinating for seventeen hours. I was a little concerned it would be over-marinated. Well, only way to find out is to cook it!
And into a screaming hot cast iron pan it went! (Tip: always pat dry your steaks, else they will stew and not sear.) The cross-hatch pattern is a result of me scoring the steak on both sides to let the marinate penetrate a bit deeper.
Once we hit 130 F, off it came to rest while I made up some others stuff.....roasted some baby asparagus with olive oil, garlic powder, and lemon-pepper seasoning and got that going in the air fryer. I also chopped up some thyme, garlic, and a red jalapeño and added some oil for a board sauce. Plated everything up on a bed of baby arugula.
Pretty.
Nailed the sear, as always, and steak is a perfect just north of medium-rare (I prefer my skirt and flank a bit more well done than my NY strips). The steak had that wonderful beefiness you expect from flank with the hints of umami from the soy and Worcestershire sauces. There was also just a wonderful almost fruity note from the wine and it was not at all overpowering or even front-and-center like I expected it to be.
What I was not expecting is that the crust is not the typical carbon-black crust, but rather has a slight redish-purplish hue to it, like aged cherrywood. It's very subtle, but it is there, and it is really pretty against the red meat interior.
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Brisket over butts on my WSM. I think the smoke ring looks pretty good.Attached FilesComment
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I didn't spend all day in the kitchen on Tuesday to only eat french onion soup that one day.
Now, this is a lunch.
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bbqLuv It is stupidly hot. The cool cheese betrays what is beneath.
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Ok, 21 degrees outside with a lesser wind chill. Ribs that normally take 4 1/4 to 5 1/2 hours were done in 3 1/2 , go figure. Same size rack as always, same temp. Unfortunately the ribs and beans will have to go in the warmer for about 2 hours so no taste results but everything came out great looking anyway. Going to add lime zest tonight as we learned at BarbsBBQ.
Last edited by captainlee; January 9, 2025, 04:52 PM.Comment
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Orange Bowl chow. Mrs Mosca has her double crust pizza from Arcaro’s the Next Generation, so I get to let my imagination loose on what’s in the refrigerator.
Peppers and onions, some Mississippi State cheddar, some thinly bias-sliced kielbasa, a nice Vienna roll, and 50/50 Bier Hall Stone Mustard and Duke’s.
And the pictures tell the rest of the story.
Damn good sammich. Would make again.Comment
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Hambone soup.Attached FilesComment
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I'd have a sh!t-eating grin on if I pulled off that cook!
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