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Tag: beef

I may have been raised in a barn, but I have never been to a barn raising

**Just so you’re warned – in this entry, I talk about my family’s insanity. I don’t think it comes off as funny and wry as discussions of one’s family’s insanities really should. You might want to just scroll on by.**

So my sister is visiting for Memorial Day weekend, and that means a decent bit of weirdness caused by the family trying not to be weird – such things are very stressful.

So part of the way my mother knows to express her competence at being a human being (and I’ll admit to doing it too) is by providing food. This isn’t even so much hospitality as a desperate contest to be able to fit in with society. We’re good with cooking, but we’re a little bit clueless on the normal society bits – most of it gleaned through reading Miss Manners and textbooks on grammar. No, really.

So anyway, there was a trip to the supermarket wherein my mother selected the most expensive beef cuts available, despite me going up and whispering that she could get some expensive ones (for my sister, her husband, my father (since he has dental work that appreciated more tender cuts of meat), and possibly even herself) but I would be very happy with a cheaper cut. Reason why #1: now that I live on my own, I make a point of never paying more than $2/lb for meat and would rather go without meat (not a hardship) than pay more money; reason why #2: I have simple tastes and appreciate what is there, and I can get just as much enjoyment out of a tougher and less perfect steak; and reason why I had the balls to mention it to my mother: she hadn’t bought it yet – I don’t believe in complaining once things are a done deal, but if I can fix something before it happens, it seems unfortunate not to mention it. Anyway, my mother did not listen to me, and she bought obscenely (in my land, at least) expensive meat.

And then after my father cooked these lovely steaks to perfection on the grill, there was disaster in which one of the steaks fell to the floor. Not the indoor floor, which had been cleaned recently. No – the garage floor. The garage floor that is very very gross – not in chemical ways, but just in the ways anywhere that is fairly outdoors but trapped in a mostly enclosed system can be.

So my father lets out a wail of disaster. My mother panics. And I see only one way to fix the problem: I grab it up quickly, rinse it (all the happy grill flavor rinsing down the drain), pat it dry with paper towels, and turn around. Ummmm… OMG! I am a bit horrified by this solution, but I am weighing in my head the likelihood of any bacteria/contaminants just being on the surface and being able to be washed away since there is no visible detritus. But also that I know there is much nastiness on the floor… so I offer to eat this particular steak, since I know I have a fairly robust immune system and digestive tract. Also, I am perfectly happy eating all the sides and avoiding the meat (especially since there are usually plenty of leftovers). But, no, apparently my steak is cooked a little less, and it would be too much of a bother to cook it another few minutes to get it to the stage where my parents can eat it – so they split the washed steak as planned.

*blink*

So my parents ate the meat, and they seem fine.

But given that a) my father must have some meat to eat, and b) my mother doesn’t cope well with any amount of stress – what would a normal person do?

Some how throwing it out just didn’t seem like a viable option – but I think that’s the answer. Wouldn’t that have stressed other families out as well? Why was this weird action the easiest course of action?

And will my brother-in-law ever be willing to visit again?

Braising in the Sun – Beef Braised Beef, Braised Kohlrabi, Kohlrabi greens with garlic

Last night’s dinner was all full of experimentation.

My grocery has had cheap chuck roasts (and small ones, too!). And instead of making my standard pot roast or swiss steak, I happened across a recipe on the internet for beer braised beef (from [redacted]’s del.ici.ous links)

So I went and bought a six-pack of Negra Modela on my way home. I added the salt and pepper to the raw meat, and then I let it sit for a hour because I went to a demo at the restaurant school nearby last summer and the chef had said that rubs that included salt are used incorrectly when they are added right before cooking – instead they should sit on long enough that the salt not only draws out moisture, but also then re-dries forming a little crust of salty goodness on the outside of the meat. Whatever – I gave it a try.

After the browning stage with just the salt and pepper, the roast smelled wonderful and was very tasty (What? I hadn’t had lunch!).

I put in all three onions that the recipe called for (but none of the shallots because I didn’t have any and how were you going to notice the difference between onions and shallots in a dish with flavors this heavy?) and then I remembered that my roast was a little smaller than the recipe called for, so I pulled out some of them halfway through cooking – they are destined for an onion and potato curry with yellow thai noodle sauce.

Added beer. Cooked. Ate some ramen (because starving!). Flipped the roast. Dipped a piece of bread in the goody and ate that – MMmmm tasty! Cooked. Ate a yogurt cup. Made and ate a side dish. And then the roast was finished! So I nibbled at a corner and put it aside to be tonight’s dinner because I was full and it was 10pm.

Verdict: even with mexican beer, the beef tastes belgian. I think I’ll thicken the sauce to make gravy, and maybe that will give it a more yumminess. I secretly think that I should have added one of those mini cans of tomato paste to the braising right at the beginning, but I am not wise in the ways of tomato paste and do not keep those little can in stock. Maybe I should start.

ETA: Pulled beef out, brought liquid to a fast boil, and put a heaping Tablespoon of whole wheat flour in a little mesh strainer and sifted it in slowly while stirring – made a very tasty gravy.

About half an hour before the roast finished, I started preparing a side dish. Well, it ended up being two side dishes by accident. But I was trying a new vegetable kohlrabi.

A bit of preliminary research turned up that it was a member of the cabbage family and “just like broccoli.” Only it’s leafy and bulbous, and not much like either of those things, so I was puzzled.

Finally a found a recipe that seemed made just for this vegetable, instead of randomly substituting it into a brussel sprout recipe: Braised kohlrabi with garlic and parmesan

And thus I had a theme for the evening – braising everything!

And then I cheated on it because right after I had prepared the kohlrabi for the recipe, I realised that it wasn’t going to use the greens – so I cut them up into little strips and threw them into some olive oil a few minutes after I threw in some garlic. If I had thought it through, I think this is a dish that would really have been improved with the use of my fancy olive oil (I am starting to be able to taste the differences). And then, since I was shredding parmesan anyway, I tossed in a goodly handful of cheese before eating it

verdict (Greens): Reminded me a lot of broccoli rabe leaves. Soft and tasty without being bitter, but with a lovely amount of spiciness.

Right, so the real recipe – sauteing garlic and kohlrabi in butter was a brilliant way to start. Turns out that half an ice cube tray of duck stock melts out to exactly 200mL – win! So I had much more flavorful stock going in that is called for.

verdict (bulb): Again, color me unreasonably skeptical – it was just like broccoli. Well, broccoli stems. Only easier to peel and with more surface area. I’ve been using broccoli stems for years to replace water chestnuts from recipes – and kohlrabi will be even better. I am all impressed with this new (to me) vegetable.

Now I have leftover duck broth infused with the essence of garlic, butter, and kohlrabi. Do I (a) use it to marinate a chicken leg quarter as I thaw it, or (b) make some rice, pour that in, maybe cook a few greens for on top, and call it dinner?

Cowboy Chicken Fajitas w/ Mango Salsa, Ma Po Tofu variation, Pumpkin & Lentil Mulligatawny

I am so hungry. Every now and then – two or three times a year, I’ll be at a point where it feels like I can eat infinite quantities of food and still be hungry (or at least able to eat more). It’s a bit weird since just last week, I was getting full at the drop of a hat (or fork, as the case might have been), but I can roll with it.

I have fun food things going on.

I made an amazing dinner last night.

It started off with the acquisition of a mango.

So I looked through my spice rack (which is painfully small due to the amount of space int he apartment) and came up with one of the odd spice blends I have adopted due to my mother’s neglect. Cowboy Barbecue Rub. Who can resist that name? Its ingredients are: chile powder, garlic, onion, black pepper, cilantro, cumin, oregano, basil, cinnamon, clove, cayenne – and it always smells like it has dry mustard in it, but apparently it doesn’t.

So I pulled out one of the packages in my freezer with two chicken breasts and dumped a lot of the seasoning in there – and then left it to thaw/marinate in the fridge for a couple days.

Last night, I started off making a mango salsa by slicing purple onion very thinly, cooking it until caramelized, adding a little bit of the seasoning, and then adding the diced mango to the pan just briefly. Then I poured it into a container and added red wine vinegar (less than a teaspoon, I think) – popped that in the fridge.

Then I cooked the marinated chicken on slow heat because I was worried about the whole breasts cooking through – I put some aluminum foil loosely over the pan to keep some of the moisture in.

I assembled all the other ingredients I had to make the meal – red oak leaf lettuce, sharp cheddar cheese, tortillas, sour cream, and an avocado – and then I had an anguishing decision (and called both my mother and Meghan for advice): do I serve it as a plated meal, a quesadilla/fajita kinda of thing, or as a salad?

Oh, yeah – there was also a random sweet potato that I cut up and turned into french fries while I was making the meal.

Both my advisers agreed that it should be fajita night. Oh, man – great decision! MMmmmm!

There’s some salsa and a breast and a half of chicken left over, so I put them together to co-mingle until I turn them into another meal.

~*~

So tonight, I am thinking of putting together ground beef, mustard greens, and possibly an eggplant. To me, this says spicy chinese food. None of my chinese cookbooks agree with me. I think I just don’t have the right cookbook.

So plan is – clean as much of the greens as I can be bothered to do. Pickle them (cook briefly in boiling brown sugar and rice vinegar). Then brown and drain the beef. Add onion, garlic, and eggplant. Add some five spice powder. Perhaps mix some spicy stir fry sauce with some oyster sauce so that it doesn’t blow my head off. Add greens.

I have a feeling that this will taste more like an experiment than something good, but we’ll see.

~*~

When I start cooking tonight, I shall also be putting a pumpkin in to roast and lentils to soak because I’ll be setting up the soup that [redacted] suggested in the comments to the last entry. I don’t have lemongrass, but other than that, I’m good – limes are even on sale this week.

It sounds like I won’t actually be using a whole can of coconut milk (it’s just a small pumpkin) – so either the rest will go with the chicken and mango somehow (Oooooo) or I can make sweet coconut rice.

Okay, so I need to do a quick inventory of which perishables will not be used up in this clever plan.

produce
1 zucchini
3 apples
2 (peeled!) sweet potatoes (yeah, so either I vastly underestimated the size of a cut up sweet potato or overestimated my capacity – basically I had three potatoes, so that’s how many I peeled) – they might end up wasted… or maybe I’ll make some random mashed potatoes.
probably some of the mustard greens will be left over
1/2 head red lettuce
scallions (can totally go in the chinese food)

meat
1 cup beef stew
duck stock! (duh! So freeze half in the beef stew container once you empty it, and use the rest to make the pumpkin lentil soup)
lots of meat is on sale this week. I need none of it.

bread
breadcrumbs – so these aren’t really perishable, but I have leftover bread I dried to turn into bread crumbs, but my container is all full.

dairy
2% milk
light cream
greek yogurt (which I bought without a plan because it was there!)
sour cream
cream cheese
gorgonzola
italian seasoned cheddar (open!)

Why have a calendar, when you have food?

It’s the end of the season, and I have an abundance of food.

food I have
Not frozen meat
8 or so assorted pieces of Kentucky Fried Chicken
leftover filet mignon (with sauteed peppers and mushrooms on the side)
bacon (this usually is just assumed, but I thought I’d throw it on the list today)

Frozen Meat *means should be used soonish
ground beef
hamburger patties
meatballs
taco seasoned ground beef
london broil marinated for stir fry*
chicken breast
diced roast pork* (only 1 meal’s worth)
chicken backs for stock

sorely tempting meat on sale this week
ground beef $1.69/lb
skinless boneless chicken breast $1.99/lb

bread
tortillas
I have a bread machine!!!
1/2 pound of bread leftover from a loaf

Produce
10 peaches of dubious virtue (these are the least ripe ones from the $5 of peach seconds I got at the farmers’ market and put up and sugared and put in the back of the fridge to ferment. Now my container is full, and I need to think up something different for these last few)
10 pounds of potatoes
5 bell peppers
2 zucchinis
3 long skinny eggplants
carrots
jalepeno peppers
2 apples
garlic (whole and peeled)

Dairy
sour cream
cheddar cheese
2% milk
heavy cream
and end of a blue cheese that should be finished soonish
cream cheese

OMG food!
I looked through all my cookbooks for stuff for peaches and potatoes (separately)

One of my favorite cookbooks, Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen, had a recipe for a frittata that not only included potatoes, but also bell peppers and day old bread! Score. I had that last night, but I put all the stuff on the list, anyway, just so I could brag about finding the perfect recipe. I wonder how well the potato frittata will reheat? I’ll find out eventually, I guess.

Cooking With the Seasons had an exceptionally tasty-looking peach dessert, but I’ll need people over to try that. Hint. Hint.
ETA: I lied. The recipe is in Winterthur’s Cullinary Collection, which also has an interesting recipe for a pie with dates and sesame seeds that I might like to have help trying to create some moot.

Otherwise, it looks like I’ll make a coriander and peach chutney/salsa thing and find a good meat to put it with… my choice would be lamb, but it’s looking like chicken is the available option.

I have separated the chicken into meat, crunchy bits, and refuse. I can’t quite bring myself to toss the crunchy bits. They are so tasty – there must be a way to use them without the hideous gluttony of a meal of chicken skin. Crumb topping for casserole?

I’d been planning to put the filet mignon with peppers and mushrooms either in tortillas or over rice all mexican-y with maybe the zucchini and perhaps a can of beans. I think the starch shall, instead, be diced potatoes. Lots of diced potatoes. And I could probably grill down at least one additional bell pepper. I might be able to put away five or six lunches from that dinner.

Ummmm… eggplant. That could go with potatoes in a curry. With jarred tomatoes (from [redacted]’s mother!). And… ummm… lots of jalepenos. Yeah.

So what else is urgent? I should have a bell pepper left, unless it self destructs before I get to it. More potatoes. Some pork for a small dish. Beef for a stir fry. Wherewithal to make hella tasty mashed potatoes to feed a large army. Bother – peaches still, I can’t imagine the chicken using up more than half what I have. Oh, and cooked chicken. Right.

So I need salad greens. I think a chicken, peach, grilled onion salad with stilton would be kinda tasty. Maybe some toasted almonds in that. But way too early to buy the greens yet.

roasted pork with potatoes and carrots and gravy. *yawn* Boring, but it’ll still be tasty.

And then I thaw the meat for stir fry again and make it right quick. Probably by this time I will need to buy more bell peppers. There can be potatoes in stir fry. Totally.

Ooh, and the Better Homes and Gardens has a recipe for bread machine potato bread that starts from a real potato.

Yeah. That should feed me into next month. And I think I’lll still need brilliant ideas to eat everything.

And I have a hankering to make lots of bread… only no room to eat it.

ARGH! I forgot about the three pounds of dates I bought to stuff for an SCA event and never got around to doing anything with… and the container of feta cheese and the bag of walnuts. Is anyone throwing a party any time soon who wants to join me in making a tasty little finger desserts?

Meanwhile, I am feeling both antisocial and lonely… and not quite sure what to do with that.

Miscellany – Pot Roast

Who recommended Garth Nix to me? Who ever you were – brilliant suggestion. I bought the first book, read it through, was excited and interested the whole way through, and am now going to buy the next book. By the time I finish the fourth book, I shall be cursing your name because the series isn’t finished.

The weather could be like this all the time, and I could be happy.

I have a pot roast on the stove waiting for me to eat it for dinner tonight.

How I made it:
I cut up 3 slices of bacon and cooked them in a soup pot.

In a bowl, I mixed black pepper, paprika, a little bit of cinnamon, and ground thyme with 2-3 tablespoons of flour. I put a small london broil in the flour, flipped it, and then jabbed it repeatedly with a fork. Then I turned it over and jabbed it some more. Repeat – until it dangled limply and was fully floured.

Then I put the floured meat into the soup pot to brown in the bacon fat.

I cut up a bunch of onions, and added them to the pot as well. Oooo, and garlic, too. And I threw in a few baby carrots.

Then it was time for some liquid. I started with three capfulls of Manischewitz wine. You know that whole thing about not cooking with wine you wouldn’t drink? Forget it – this wine is the best cooking wine ever! Food just tastes incredibly rich, if you add Manischewitz. Then I dumped in the chicken stock I had hanging out in my refrigerator.

Then I browned the rest of the flour in the bowl and made a roux – and then pulled some of the liquid from the pot until is was thin enough to pour into the pot without making lumps. I probably should have just put the flour in right after I added the meat, but I forgot.

And it should be tender and ready to eat my tonight. I’ll put it over rice and maybe cooks some greens on the side.

I joined a gym. It’s right on my way home from work. There’s a gym bag under my desk at work with shoes and socks and pants and everything – And now I have no idea how to schedule time to go. For example, tonight I need to leave right after work to get to the farmers’ market in time to get veggies. There is no excuse for it being way early september and me only having winter vegetables in the house.