Pepper Steak

Every Valentine’s day the local butcher shop has beef tenderloin on sale.  And every time we get tenderloin we make a roast (this roast) because, well, it’s really good.  I tend to stick with winners when dealing with expensive cuts of meat.  As a result I’d never made a filet steak and now I had a perfect opportunity.  You see, I was planning a surprise dinner for Karen.  One thing I’ve learned is that if you’re planning a surprise dinner and they might come home late, a roast is a bad idea.  If you think that special someone is coming home at 6:30 and she comes home at 8:00 then you’re stuck with a really overdone roast.  But steaks cook quickly.  Steaks can be prepared while they watch, preferably after the kids go to bed.

Most of my culinary knowledge comes courtesy of Alton Brown.  And it is on his show that I was first introduced to Steak au Poivre.  (Here’s the recipe)  It’s got just a few ingredients.

Step one is to season the meat all over with salt.  Then crush the black peppercorns and press them into the meat, covering both sides.  Then cook the steaks.

When the steaks are done take them out and let them rest.  Then pour in some brandy and let the alcohol cook off.   Now I’ve read elsewhere (like Anthony Bourdain’s cookbook) that to make the sauce you need veal stock and demi-glace, but Alton just adds heavy cream and that’s good enough for me.  Let it reduce until it coats the back of a spoon.  You’re done.

Now I looked for more interesting things to serve it with than merely potatoes, but I haven’t seen many who mess with tradition.  Who am I to disagree?  I served mashed potatoes and a green salad that, I’ll admit, I asked Karen to make.  But I made 2/3 of dinner.

I did, however, overcook the steaks.  They were medium well to well, just a tiny bit of pink in the middle.  Too bad.  I’d rather they moo in pain when I cut into them.

How do I cook a cardinal?

Last year I used my cooking to predict the winner of the Super Bowl.  (Click here for the link)  It worked with amazing accuracy, but I had no idea just how much affect my cooking has on the outcome of football games.  Let me explain.

We had a friend over to watch the games this weekend and so we decided to cook as if there was a party.  I made a bunch of food that was heavy on the prep work and light on cooking effort, so we could watch the game relatively undisturbed.  Then the Eagles started to play badly and Arizona took a big lead early in the game.  It was then that I realized something.  Our menu consisted of chili, cornbread, and chips and salsa.  Southwest food!  

Then I realized something else.  Even though Ben was dutifully wearing a Steelers jersey, Karen had dressed Nate in red.

See? Even Nate was shocked that the Cardinals won.  These two minor infractions cost Philadelphia the game, I’m sure of it.  So now I understand that my cooking has some mystical powers to it, giving me the power to change the fates of NFL teams.  I apologize to the city of Philadelphia, but I didn’t discover this power until after halftime.  Perhaps it was the wings I made a little  later that sealed the win for the Steelers, I don’t know.  I took Bobby Flay’s dry jerk rub recipe and made some jerk wings, and these were some birds that really bit you back (just like the Ravens) when you bit into them.

Have no fear, Steelers nation, I won’t be cooking again until I find a recipe for Primanti sandwiches.  And also, does anyone know, are cardinals game birds or something?  Maybe  close to pigeon, I could cook a squab.  

I’m even afraid to heat up the leftovers.

I’d have taken a picture, but where to begin?

Ever have one of those meals where you don’t just ruin one thing, you ruin everything?  Read on.

This is (for the most part) a PG-rated blog, so I’ll say that dinner Saturday evening was a comedy of errors.   Karen and baby had come home from the hospital on Thursday, so I bought some steaks and was ready for a good cookout.  A friend had given us some vegetables from his garden, and coupled with some stuff that we’d grown, I could make a nice grilled vegetable dish, and all that was left was corn on the cob.  Karen wanted some mashed potatoes too, so that was her physical activity for the day.  And lastly we decided to steam some broccoli for the boys since they don’t like the grilled vegetables.

While shopping Saturday morning I assumed we’ve got most everything for the grilled veg.  I got a red onion just to be sure, but that’s it.  Come to find out all I had from my friend’s garden was two yellow squash.  Oh yeah, and the red bell pepper we’d grown had gone bad this week while we were at the hospital.  So now my grilled veggies consist of two yellow squash, a red onion, and some tomatoes.  No zucchini, no red pepper, no roasted garlic.  I suppose that’s when I gave up on it.  Karen tried it, but that was about it.  I went ahead and steamed enough broccoli for all of us. 

I then set about undercooking grilling the steaks.  I grilled them, covered them, and let them rest.  When I started slicing them I realized that they weren’t rare, they were in fact raw.  Nice.  Back on the grill they go.  After the second time they were at least cooked to temperature.

Broccoli.  Let’s see, it’s green and looks like little trees?  You cut them up and steam them for, how long is it again?  Maybe I didn’t cook them long enough, maybe the water stopped boiling.  Whatever.  They were undercooked as well.  I’d say it was like biting into a stick, but I didn’t even try it.  All I had was the steak, corn on the cob (made by Aliyah), and Karen’s mashed potatoes. 

I was so frustrated I left the dishes where they lay and cleaned up the remnants of my failure the next morning.  I’d blame this one on the new baby, but you’d never buy it.  What’s this blog called again?

White Pizza

It’s been a long time since I posted about pizza. In fact, it’s been almost a year since I last took a picture of one of my pizzas. That’s because this is called Mark Ruins Dinner, and I’ve found a great recipe and I’ve been using it exclusively with equally great results. But Lately I’ve been trying to come up with variations from our usual fare so I decided on white pizza.

I don’t know a whole lot about white pizza. For instance, what to use as a sauce? Do I just use olive oil? What kind of toppings would go with it? I don’t know. So I did some research on the food network and I found this recipe by Emeril, which uses a roasted garlic sauce. Sounds good, now what?

I started with my favorite pizza dough: Whole wheat and rosemary pizza dough from Pinch My Salt. I’ve tweaked it a little and I hope Nicole isn’t too offended. First, I’ve been using bread flour instead of all purpose flour because Karen told me to, and it works out really well. Also, when adding this flour the recipe calls for three cups, and I use three and a half cups. I was having trouble with the crust being soggy when the cheese and toppings were done, and this did the trick. I’ve also been using the stand mixer to do the kneading for me because I always do it wrong by hand.

The roasted garlic sauce was actually pretty easy to do, but in Emeril’s recipe it’s hard to follow because he mentions the last step first. I will list it here in its correct order.

Roasted Garlic:
2 heads garlic
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a small baking dish with aluminum foil.

Cut the top quarter from each head of garlic and place, cut side up, on the prepared dish. Drizzle with oil and season lightly with salt and pepper. Turn the garlic cut side down, and roast until the cloves are soft and golden brown, about 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let sit until cool enough to handle.

Over a small bowl, squeeze each head of garlic gently with your fingers to expel the cloves. Add the olive oil and stir with a rubber spatula to blend thoroughly. Spread the mixture over the pizza crust.

Yield: Each head yields about 1 1/2 tablespoons, 2 heads about 3 tablespoons

See, that was easy, right? Now, for the toppings. I was thinking simpler is better, so I just put some basil leaves and fresh mozzarella on top.

In all this pizza is okay but it could be better. Even with the basil most of what you taste is garlic. It could use something to lighten it up a bit. To that end Karen isn’t a really big fan right now. In fact I’ve made this pizza twice now (yes, the same exact pizza twice) and this last time she ate none. Neither did Aliyah. Does that count as ruined? When I asked Karen how to make it better her suggestion was to add tomatoes.

At least the picture is nice, right?

Officially summer

It took Mother Nature until Memorial Day weekend to get the memo that she was supposed to be warming things up. This has been a very cold and rainy spring, but this past weekend was glorious. That is, until dinnertime on Monday.

Isn’t that awesome? Just about the time I go outside to fire up the grill I feel raindrops. Karen made some kebabs, and those actually cooked on the grill, but the chicken ended up being cooked in the microwave and seared on the grill. While pulling the chicken off the grill in the rain I dropped one of the drumsticks on the ground in my haste. Oops.

We actually grilled every day this weekend, which was sweet. Sunday’s main course consisted of mesquite smoked chicken with homemade BBQ sauce. I got it from Weber’s cookbook and it turned out pretty good. It was for a whole chicken cut in half and cooked on the grill. I got the mesquite chips from Lowe’s because that’s where all good food comes from. But the recipe called for granulated garlic and onion. Here in PA farm country we don’t like that spicy food so we don’t carry it. I used minced instead, and it tasted okay to me. The directions said to use indirect heat, which looks like this:

And then it said to close the lid and let it cook for an hour and fifteen minutes. Remember what happens to chicken when I close the lid on the gas grill? Me too. At this point I’m scared because it’s almost 7:00pm and I’m just now making dinner and if it’s Chernobyl Chicken we’re eating it anyway. Then the spices on the skin turn this really encouraging shade of black, and I’m checking to see if Papa John’s is still on speed dial. But as it turns out this method of grilling chicken wasn’t all that bad. The drumsticks and wings dried out a bit (the kids eat those parts, so who cares?), but the breast and thighs were very juicy. Who knew? Just cut the bird in half and toss it on the grill. Karen said she could taste the mesquite smoke, but I wasn’t really sure what that tastes like, so I don’t know. But it did taste better than it looked.

Karen can vouch for me (this is the point where Karen speaks up and vouches for me).

A little reward, you’ve earned it…

This is my 100th post. I always knew I was this long-winded, but I didn’t know you had it in you to stick around this long. Thank you. For your diligence I reward you with a story that is now legend in our household lore.

The Burgers

It was October 2006 and raining and really too cold outside for grilling, but we’d made burgers for the grill. Karen’s mom was visiting so I wanted to “treat” her to my hamburgers. Well, we have an indoor grill, and let’s face it, cooking with a gas grill isn’t real BBQ anyway.

For those of you unfamiliar with our kitchen we had a Jenn-Air range that was about as old as I am. And Jenn-Air ranges come with an indoor grill insert and, well, let me show you what it looks like:

So your food sits on the grill grates (on the right), under that is the heating element, and under that is where those knobbly looking things go. They’re heavy and they have wire supports for the heating element. Apparently they do a good job of collecting grease too, but we’ll get to that. We’ve cooked steaks on the grill before with moderate success. It’s actually not a bad idea for when it’s raining. But we’d never cooked burgers on the grill before, and I figured it would be just like steaks. Oh, and another thing, this time I left the heat turned all the way up to high. And why not? Charcoal grills have no real heat control anyway, right? I’m not really sure what the instructions say to do in this instance, but real men don’t need instructions, right?

So I’m cooking burgers. I’m the man, I cook the burgers. They’re about three quarters done and I see this tiny flame peek out from underneath the heating element. Hmm. A little bit of grease, it should burn itself out soon, I think. It doesn’t. It starts growing. Apparently burgers have a lot of fat in them, but then I already knew that. I turn the heat off. The flame (at this point I should say flames) keep getting bigger, until they are reaching up and licking the bottom of the microwave.

“help” I say very sheepishly. From the dining room I hear Karen say “What now?”

“f- f- fire” I say sheepishly. Everyone comes in. Karen, Karen’s mom, Karen’s sister. At this point I’m thinking two things: Where are the boys? Ben is asleep in his swing, Isaac is asleep in bed, Jonny is in the bathtub. The other thing I’m thinking is Who the f— puts wallpaper behind a stove? Seriously, shouldn’t there be tile back there? The previous owners of this house did nothing right.

Wait, the stove is still on fire. I’m wishing at this point that we had a fire extinguisher. Karen put a pot lid on the grill, but the fire is under the grill so that doesn’t work. We don’t have enough baking soda. So we all wonder what to do. How much time until the wallpaper catches fire? I make an executive decision. Everything has to go. I grab my kitchen tongs and, starting from the top down, I take each piece individually outside to the back porch.

“WAIT!” says Karen, “Save the burgers!” I can see the headline now: Woman Rescues Burgers, Serves Them To Firemen While Her House Burns Down. Once the burgers are safe I take everything else outside in the cold and rain.

The burgers weren’t very good, but now we have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.

Later that week the same exact thing happened to Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America. That’s why I like him so much. He’s so much like me. He put the fire out by emptying a box of kosher salt on it. Good to know.

Wings & mushrooms

I’m starting to enjoy posting football food. I get to use my grill. But alas, cold weather is on the way and I will have to move my enterprises inside soon. We’ll see if Man Food can be made indoors.

So this past weekend I was thinking wings. Karen gave me these great grilling cookbooks for my birthday and I’ve got to use them, right? Weber’s Big Book had two recipes I wanted to try. And I found a recipe in Bobby Flay’s book for grilled portabella caps. Sounds like fun.

Among the ingredients for one of the wing recipes was Tabasco, for heat. My wife is from Trinidad; we don’t have Tabasco, we have Chatak, remember? I used two teaspoons of it in the marinade and bought an extra gallon of milk.

I made two different kinds of wings.  They were both very good, but I only marinaded the sweet & spicy ones for a couple of hours. I ran out of time Saturday night, but next time they’ll both marinade overnight. Of what I made, the last wings on the grill had more pepper to them. Either the extra time in the marinade helped, or pepper sauce sinks to the bottom.

As you can see I can burn chicken on a charcoal grill just as well as I can on a gas grill. It helps if I’m paying more attention to the game than the grill.

I liked the looks of Bobby’s grilled mushroom caps, but decided to take things a step further. He wanted Parmesan cheese crusted over the mushrooms toward the end. We didn’t have any fresh parmesan so I figured I could use mozzarella, and I even decided to put a little slice of tomato under the cheese. (I’m thinking pizza here. Genius, I know.) Toward the end I found some shredded parmesan in the fridge so I threw that on too. They turned out great, but in the future I’d make them out of regular sized creminis so that they’re bite-sized. I’ll keep you posted.

After all was said and done I had 3 good appetizers suitable for catering my Super Bowl party this year, should I have opportunity to host one. Go Steelers.

Postgame sliders

This is Part II from my previous post on chili. That one was running a little long so I decided to give the sliders their own post.

If you have enough energy after eating all that chili, you can go ahead and make some sliders, or mini hamburgers, as a postgame top off. I got this idea a couple years ago from a cookbook for toddlers, and it said that these were just as popular with adults as they are with kids. Further confirmation came from Top Chef last month, where they made these for late-night partygoers in Miami.

I love mushrooms. The problem with putting them on burgers, however, is that they all tend to fall out onto your shirt. You can’t taste them on your shirt. I’ve been on the lookout for months for an idea to put shrooms on a burger successfully. And I had my epiphany right there in the supermarket. I know, I’ve had those before, but I didn’t have the kids with me this time. My idea: small burgers, big mushrooms:

I know what you’re thinking. Thank you, I thought it was brilliant too. And while I’m grilling mushrooms I may as well grill some onions too. Oooh, and I found this great recipe for grilled fries from Bobby Flay, so we even have a side dish.

So how’d it go, you say? It went well. I took a pound of ground chuck and mixed it with a pound of what I later found out was Karen’s special ground round that she uses for a “burn Mark’s taste buds off” Thai dish of hers. So the burgers should be awesome. I mixed in 3 minced cloves of garlic and some kosher salt. Out of 2 pounds of meat I ended up with 17 burgers, so that’s about 8 per pound. I basically shaped them to be a little bigger than the rolls.

I slice up an onion and those big shrooms and take everything outside. I put the onions and mushrooms on the piece of foil and transfer it to the grill, only on the way everything drops to the ground. One of the mushrooms actually breaks into five pieces upon impact, furthering my humiliation.

I salvaged one of the mushrooms and grilled dinner.

I learned something. When grilling mushrooms, don’t put them on foil. They stick. Put them directly on the grill, or maybe even in a little cast iron skillet on the grill. That sounds good. Put the onions in there too, while you’re at it. Now I’m getting hungry again. Anyway, everything turned out well. I did char the fries a bit, but it was getting dark and I couldn’t really see that well. But I did make a successful mushroom swiss burger:

Next time I may make my own burger buns, Karen’s already tried it.

Halftime Chili

Yes, football is back. It’s really been too long. In honor of this auspicious occasion (and in appreciation to NFL officials for scheduling Cleveland in Mike Tomlin’s coaching debut) I’m making Man Food. But it’s not just Man Food, I’m providing a public service here. You see, all prep work is done before the game or during commercial breaks. I told you I’ve got your back. If you start about an hour before the game you should have the chili simmering nicely just in time for kickoff. At least that’s how long it took me.

Many people make beef chili, many people make bean chili. I always put both in. And we also always have it with rice. This is due to Karen’s Trinidad upbringing. They have rice and beans. All the time. And I must admit it’s very good that way. I just won’t win any awards for this because all competition chili is either one or the other.

Chili is actually pretty easy. You start by chopping up some veggies and sweating the aromatics (as Alton Brown likes to say).

Then you dump everything else in, bring to a simmer, and then go watch the game.

Wait! I almost forgot. You know, I was on my way to the couch when I remembered the beef. I had my Bettis jersey on and everything. Don’t forget the beef. Note: Do not sear the meat before you put it in. I did this once. Can you say shoe leather? This was our steak, and yes I chopped it into little bits.

If you want rice, you can start that at about the time the Brows fans start chanting “Brady Quinn! Brady Quinn!” At the two minute warning go chop the cilantro (my secret ingredient. Shhhh!) and stir that in.

You’ll know it’s done when:

At halftime everything is ready, go enjoy.

WARNING: This chili is extremely filling and possibly nap inducing. Beware eating this dish during an exciting game; you may fall asleep during the crucial last few minutes. Perhaps you should only make this when your team is playing the Cleveland Browns.

Labor Day Chicken

The saga of the charcoal grill now complete, I turned my attention to what to cook first on my new purchase. Well, chicken, of course! But how? I must admit that those grilling books Karen got me are a bit intimidating. Bobby Flay likes to play around with gourmet ingredients that I just didn’t have time to shop for, so I opened up Weber’s Big Book. Karen got some small NY strip steaks and I knew we were having drumsticks, that’s about it. Then Karen told me that she bought veggies to make a new BBQ staple of ours, ratatouille. Very nice. While the coals are warming up I can cook the veggies on the gas grill. So let’s fire up the charcoal.

Hello my old friend, it’s been too long:

Yes, I’m a pyro at heart. Veggies cooking and coals warming:

Karen thought I was silly for using both grills at once. I reserve the right to be silly.

Then there was the small matter of the chicken. There was a recipe for “Margarita Chicken” in the book so I made the marinade and set the chicken aside for a few hours. It called for tequila but I didn’t have any so I used rum instead. The book also had a recipe for salsa that it said would go well with steaks, so I made that too. I tried to take a picture of the chicken cooking, but my camera is being stupid. Too many things to focus on I suppose, I’ll just have to buy a new camera. So did I burn the chicken?

No. To all you who thought I was crazy when I said it was the gas grill’s fault for burning the chicken, I give you positive proof. Add ratatouille, some steamed potatoes (that were on the grill a little too long), and some salad made by Karen and you’ve got dinner.

I’m back. Football this weekend. My house. Go Steelers.

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