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Haven't done much cooking to be proud of lately. Most of our meals have been on paper plates for the past 4 months. Slowed down to do a ribeye and street corn casserole tonight and it was a nice change of pace.
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Just another one of those weird ideas that gets caught in my brain and eventually escapes...
A Mexican inspired French onion soup.
Onions and garlic smoked last night for an hour at 180ish. Then sliced and bagged in the fridge for that smoke to spread.
This morning white carmalizing the onions with 2 sticks of butter, I threw ground beef and taco seasoning on the smoker at 240 for about 30 minutes then browned in a pan with 2 heads of garlic. A bottle of modelo to deglaze, then boiled for about 5 minutes to reduce and add to the pot.
When the onions were almost done I threw in a large pinch of mexican oregano and some cumin, finally deglazing with a mix of Titos and a Mexican-American white wine.
Once everyone was swimming in the pot with 3 cartons of chicken stock. Instead of red wine vinegar I used a mix of lime juice and cholula. Also sautéed a diced anaheim pepper.
Instant pot has been on slow cook low all day, then bumped to high 30 minutes before eating.
Then I made cheese croutons by frying thinly sliced panela cheese and also no-oil heating sliced flour tortilla.
Finally eating time, so I shredded some smoked white cheddar I made late last year and also lightly toasted some jalapeno slices and tucked in.
I think a small dollop or sour cream was all that was missing.
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Made hamburgers on the Searwood. 225 until 145, took them off and into the oven to stay warm and then seared them on cast iron once it got to 400 degrees. They were coated with Meatchurch Blanco for some crust and we piled on lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, onions, melted cheese and glop. So good I barely got some really bad pictures.
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On a sandwich kick it seems. Citrus marinated grilled chicken, fresh bread, tzatziki and horiatiki salad.
There's something about sticking a pile of stuff into bread and then stuffing that stuff into your face all at once. By any name, sandwiches are the pinnacle of the human experience.
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Same as last week except this one with Pepperoni.
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Kinda running under the gun with my wife Yvonne having some serious health complications due to a chemo side effect, but did manage to cook twice this past week.
Wednesday (I think?) I pulled out two "London Broil" steak/roasts that I bought at Sam's Club that seemed nicely marbled for a lean cut. I marinated with Meathead 's London Broil marinade from the free side - HIGHLY recommended, and they went on the grill indirect, and wet, per the recipe. I just went with the Genesis for this cook, and got some sear marks after turning off the heat on that end of the grill. I then moved them over high direct heat to get more color at the end, pulling them at 135F.
We had 5-6 meals from these two pieces of beef, including steak and mushroom omelettes for breakfast Saturday, so I think it was a win!
This is after the first flip on the cooling cast iron grate.
And final plating, before cutting. These were very juicy.
I will say that I ended up with the London Broil as it was one of the cheaper cuts at Sam's Club, at $8.99 a pound, which is kinda sad. If you haven't tried it, you need to check out this recipe, which I know I have recommended a number of times before...
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My second cook of the week was last night - I made 3 pizzas. Two were ground beef, olives, mushrooms and onions, with a simple San Marzano based no-cook sauce (1 can crushed San Marzano's, 1 tbsp EVOO, 1 tsp salt). I also made a simple cheese and pepperoni, and forgot to get a picture.
I cheated and used store bought pizza crusts this time. I am working on a making more sourdough crusts for next time....
I was lazy and did not grate or shred the cheese, and just tossed down slices of mozerella, leading to a few "seams" in my toppings....
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Battle of the tortillas. I bought some HEB butter tortillas yesterday, and I ran across this local market near the laundromat i was using and they had fresh tortillas. Both tortillas were excellent. I could really taste the butter in the HEB tortilla. Scrambled eggs, bacon, some jack cheese and Pico de gallo from the local place. The Pico is excellent too. The HEB tortilla is on the left on the plate.
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Smoked giant London Broil on the pellet smoker. Smoked between 225 and 250 until 110 and then broiled in the oven for crust 4 minutes a side and finished with a mustard/bbq sauce glaze. Cut in half down the middle and slice both across the grain for serving.
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Took a bue from ScotA (and Barb's BBQ!). Grilled lamb chops on the gasser. Served with couscous risotto and fava.
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First cook on the new Hasty Bake. Just need to keep practicing to dial in amount of charcoal and height adjustments, but not too bad.
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^ ^ ^
Great looking cook.
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lol....looks like I did lamb, too! I enjoy Greek food, but my success rate doing it at home is not great. Still, last night I decided to give Σουτζουκάκια Σμυρναίικα a try ("Soutzoukakia Smyrneika" or Greek meatballs). I followed the recipe at Dimitra's Dishes (https://www.dimitrasdishes.com/soutz...ked-meatballs/). I often like her recipes as she removed cinnamon from them and I also don't like cinnamon in savory dishes.
Making the meatballs are fairly straightforward. The mixture is a pound of ground chuck, a pound of ground lamb, cumin, garlic, salt, oregano, crushed red pepper, parsley (a lot of parsley!), onion, milk and egg. My mixture was a bit too wet as I let the onions go too long in the food processor (Dimitra warns against this), but I was able to mitigate this by chilling the meatballs in the refrigerator for about twenty minutes.
(These are apparently formed as cylinders rather than balls, so that is what I tried to do. Key word is tried.)
The next step is to lightly fry them (in batches), just to get some color on them, about three minutes a side.
While they are frying, you get the sauce going: crushed tomatoes (I used Muir Glen), cumin, salt, sugar, and crushed red pepper.
Once they are are fried up, put them in the baking dish with the sauce. Put the sauce in first, then the meatballs on top of that! I did not do this and should have.
Bake a 400 F for thirty minutes. Serve with rice, mashed potatoes, or whatever.
These turned out really good. That lamb just adds a certain something. Also, with all of the cumin, I was concerned it would taste 'Mexican.' It doesn't....the cumin, oregano, parsley, and tomatoes give it this warm, fragrant taste that is somewhat unique.
I definitely will be making this again.
Now, one thing I will change is put the sauce in the baking dish first, then the meatballs. (Dimitra does this in the video.) I didn't realize this was important, but you want the tops of the meatballs to be exposed so they caramelize a bit; if they are completely under the sauce, they won't. It's not bad or anything, but I liked the meatballs that has the caramelization on top the best.Comment
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Some recent meals.
Trying different bread recipes for a sandwich loaf. This one was a buttermilk recipe.
Found a grass fed flank steak in the freezer and it made excellent fajitas. Grilled it over lump mesquite charcoal.
I showed a friend how to process tomatoes from the garden, so he brought 3 awesome heritage breed pork chops for dinner. They were incredible. A memorable day. Chops, sweet corn and Caprese from garden fresh tomatoes, and a nice bottle of wine. He said it was a day he will look back on for years as a special day. Great friends and great food, it doesn’t get any better than that.
Saturday my wife made the most tender chuck roast I ever had in my life. It just melted in the mouth.
Had it with potatoes that were loaded with flavor from the meat, gravy, and glazed carrots from our garden. Incredible.
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That London Broil recipe of yours has been a hit here for quite a few years now.
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