Grillin' in the Rain

I had really high hopes of utilizing my apartment complex’s charcoal grill; however (and ironically I may add for Arizona) during the heat wave throughout the entire country, it rained all weekend here.  Even I don’t think it’s right to complain about 85 degrees, even if it is colder than usual.  So I waited until the last possible minute before deciding the grill was not going to work.  One thing I have learned about cooking, adding rain water consistently to cooking food is hardly ever a good idea. 

Dinner: Turkey burgers, potato salad, and “grilled” squashes with goat cheese

Emily’s assessment: Tastebud scrumpfort food

Beverage Selection: Boonyville ESB for preparation; M. Chapoutier Cotes du Rhone Red. 

I’m not even sure if that’s the winery that makes the wine or the name of the wine itself.  I am atrocious at French.  When I was in grad school, I was consistently trying to pronounce the names of French authors.  After several unsuccessful tries, my professor forbade me to attempt to speak French in front of her because I was so bad.  I now understand why the French knew so quickly I was not a native speaker when traveling through Paris.  I chose this wine, because I wanted something light to go with turkey and I like wines from Cotes du Rhone, because it’s like the bastard child of French wine regions (I would say red-headed step child, but one of my best friends has red hair and takes quite a bit of offense to such statements).  So what you end up with is some really decent French wine at half the price.  Caveat: I know hardly anything about French wine, but it does tend to be lighter than California cabs on average. 

One thing I did hear this week that I thought very helpful about wine was a chef talking about the “oakiness” or “woodiness” in wine.  He compared that flavor to salt in food.  He was saying how the right amount of salt makes all the flavors pop, but if you use too much, you say it’s salty.  It’s the same thing with oak in wine.  Just the right amount and it makes all the other flavors explode, too much, and it’s something between cardboard and Welch’s.  I thought that was a interesting. 

I realize the dinner list does not sound horribly exciting at first glance.  I’m trying to get away from the Puritan habit of titling the menu in such a long way, that there really is no need to even write about the experience.  My grocery store/farmer’s market had all the main ingredients on sale this week.  I was probably the only person at the store having an ethical dilemma about whether to buy 99% fat free ground turkey or 93% ground turkey.  My trainer grills me about my diet and has the ability to hurt me through excessive workouts if I am not good.  He doesn’t really grill me about my diet, but his workouts border on insanity.  I worked out my legs with him July 4^th weekend.  Two days later, I literally could not walk.  Sitting down that day was a decision that took an extraordinary amount of critical thought and weighing the advantages and disadvantages. 

I decided to go with the 93%, because you have some fat when you’re making burgers…it’s the American way.  I still had some sundried tomatoes and fresh rosemary from last week’s adventure, so those got cut up and thrown in with the meat.  I added some roasted garlic and white pepper. 

Yep, that’s how I roast my garlic – the toaster oven. 

So after my assistant and I formed our burgers, we discovered we had made a burger family.  Clockwise from upper left: Papa burger, Mama burger, Child burger, and midget burger. 

In the final photo, you’ll notice a mint green colored substance on the burgers.  That is a lemon-artichoke pesto to add a little zip to the burgers.  That’s actually why I roasted/toasted the garlic in the first place, I just had extra, so I threw it in the turkey. 

The green is from all the fresh basil I put in and blended in the mix.  It’s actually a little too smooth, because I think most pestos have “bits” of basil instead of paste, but when you throw on a top bun so you can’t see it and just taste it, it’s delicious. 

As much as I would love to claim the genius of this potato salad, the method was given to me by a dear friend from long ago.  I think it’s really reminiscent of the Ohio heartland from whence it came.  You actually bake the potatoes after you’ve diced them so they keep a decent shape.  I used red and gold potatoes to add a little color.  All it is the baked potatoes, bacon, mayonnaise/Greek yogurt mixture, green onions, and sugar.  It’s the sugar that really sets this off…an odd ingredient, but it makes it really unique.   I’ve found that if you need to use mayonnaise for something, if you use like 2 tablespoons and the rest yogurt, you still get the creamy consistency of mayo, but with way less nastiness and guilt, which you can use on the bacon. 

Ah, and finally, what I consider to be the crown jewel of the meal, the side vegetable.  I used Italian squash and zucchini mixed together for color.  I sliced them so they wouldn’t fall through the grill.  Turned out that was unnecessary.  I kept them as dry as I could, I put just a tiny bit of olive oil over all of them, but not much.  Once they were grilled, we layered them, drizzled them with good olive oil and balsamic vinegar and tossed them with chopped basil and goat cheese. 

I was most excited about this side dish.  It was simple, healthy, and I think it looked great too.  My trainer will be upset about the goat cheese,  but I think with everything else, I should be able to walk after my workouts this week. 

I know it's late this week, but here is a preview of next weeks' meal. 

That is a vat of homemade lemoncello, a sweet, strong Italian beverage, recipe courtesy of the aforementioned red-headed "non" step-child friend.  Obviously, I will need to make something Italian to go with that, and it will be gluten-free. 

Summer Sale Extravaganza

Cooking started a little early, even for me this week, but I think it will be worth it.  I’m attempting 2 new things this week: ceviche and sun-dried tomatoes.  I’ve wanted to try ceviche for a long time, but have never really seen it on a menu at an opportune time.  If you don’t know what ceviche is, it’s a chilled seafood dish where the seafood is not cooked according to a traditional method.  When I was working at the Blue Marlin in SC, when I would take home any scrap of food offer to me, George, one of the cook’s, gave me wahoo, but it was 2 days old.  He put some lemon juice on it and told me it would preserve the fish, but that lemon juice was a “cooking agent,” and would thus also “cook” the fish if left too long.  You make ceviche with some raw shellfish, throw in some citrus, and let it chill.  I really wanted to make something that went well with summer.  It’s been hot here for a while, so I thought some lighter food would be appropriate.  At the same time, I hate cold food for dinner most of the time.  Breakfast is usually cold, lunch is always cold, if you have time, you should have hot food for dinner.  I tried to combine hot and cold this week for dinner. 

Before I get too far, I have to give mad props to Em.  She made scallop creole last night for me and it was amazing.  We both learned how hot a habanero pepper really is.  In fact, I’m really peppered out at this point.  I cut up the habanero Sunday night and didn’t wash my hands well enough.  Unfortunately, I made this important discovery after I scratched my eye.  Then on Monday, I swear my finger tips felt burned when I was out in the sun.  Then I cut up a jalapeno for the ceviche and once again touched my face.  It really only takes two times to be sick of your face burning.  I digress.  My beautiful girlfriend made me some delicious southern cooking and a red velvet cake to match. 

Starter: Iceburg wedge w/ low-fat herbed dressing topped with cherries and avocado

Dinner: Broiled Halibut w/ Peach and Jalapeno Ceviche and warm broccoli salad

Wine selection: Kief-Joshua Chenin Blanc

Strange selection?  Emily and I went wine tasting in Sonoita, southern Arizona.  It was my 2^nd time tasting in that area, and despite what you may think (I thought the same thing) their wines are really, really good.  I originally heard the region was similar to some areas of Tuscany, which actually made some sense when you see the area.  This time I was told the region was similar to Spain, Burgundy, and other parts of Italy.  So if you’re looking for European wine tasting on the cheap, you can fly into Tucson, and in 3-4 hours traveled to 9 different wineries from all the major regions of Europe.  Chenin Blanc is my favorite white wine, but it’s so hard to find.  It’s a “full-bodied” white, but not oaky like Chardonnay and not too grapefruity like Sauvignon Blanc.  It’s more of a subtle melon and pear flavor.  I thought it would be a good summer wine and if there was any leftover when dinner started it would go well with the salad dressing and wouldn’t overwhelm the citrus on the fish. 

Cooking started on Friday when I put the tomatoes out to “sun-dry.”  It’s actually remarkably easy – cut some tomatoes, place on cookie sheet, place cookie sheet on the hood of your car like they used to do in Tuscany, and wait several hours. 

 I was a little overzealous with the first tray and they sun-dried to the cookie sheet, which we added a little water too and after a few minutes, they were ready.  I wanted to do another tray though and not have to add water, but I was not successful in that endeavor on my second attempt either.  The 2^nd batch was sun-dried, rain-kissed, and then sun-dried some more.  I haven’t gotten sick from them, so overall, success!  They did taste good too. 

I think the hardest part of making this meal was figuring out the timing.  Actually, I think it’s more that I was excited to start cooking, but time is fairly essential when it comes to preparing and eating semi-raw fish.  So I would just periodically cut vegetables throughout the day to keep myself occupied as though I was doing something.  Cutting up the herbs, shallots, onions, broccoli…that was all fine.  When it came to slicing the cherries, that required a Ph.D. in fruit machetectomy.  For whatever reason, my gym has a revolving thing of quotes, and one of them is about cherry seeds having satanic power according to the Dead Sea Scrolls.  With how hard it is to get those things out, I now want to see what else might be true in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I chopped up fresh mint, rosemary, and chives and mixed those together with fat-free Greek yogurt and vinegar and instant low-fat dressing with flava’.  I topped the wedge with the de-satanized cherries and threw on a few slices of avocado.  The avocado seemed perfectly ripe, but when I cut it open, it was thoroughly bruised.  How the hell do you tell a bruised avocado at the store?  I had enough for the salads.  Just to make sure, I threw a chunk of goat cheese on the side. 

The ceviche was fun to make.  I had to blanche fresh peaches.  Who blanches things anymore?  The last time I heard about blanche, she was a character on Golden Girls (this is what I grew up watching with my mother, an unfortunate part of my pediatric development).  Produce is so cheap and fresh out here, I have to take advantage of it.  So I blanched, peeled, and cut the peaches (easier than the cherries).  Most of the stuff I read on ceviche had a large quantity of lemon or lime juice in the marinade.  I saw an Emeril recipe that used tequila.  It didn’t really feel like a tequila night, so I made my marinade with a little bit of brandy.  I thought it would add a little sweetness to the marinade.  I used the cut-up peaches, bay scallops, shallots, jalapeno, and lime marinade and let it chill for about 2.5 hours.  I stirred it about every half an hour, not because I was supposed to, but because I can’t leave it alone.  It was very fresh tasting and light, but I wasn’t completely happy with it.  Either the marinade needed something else to take a little bite out of it or I should have charred the jalapeno, because it still had a strong grassy flavor that just didn’t quite gel with everything else. 

For the broccoli salad, I used that summer broccoli salad with raisins and cheddar cheese in a sweet dressing as inspiration, but I really wanted the side to at least be warm and healthier than the original.  I thought I would just swap the main ingredients, sun-dried tomatoes for raisins, part-skim mozzarella for cheddar, Greek yogurt for the dressing, and bacon for bacon.  First rule of cooking, bacon makes everything better. 

I baked the broccoli until it was just starting to brown.  The side ended up being saltier than I expected, but the creaminess fit in really, really well with the citrus of the ceviche. 

And finally, the halibut. 

I get really excited when halibut is actually affordable.  A non-interesting fact about my family, at Christmas time, all my siblings gather around the table with my Dad and we then take turns sharing our stories about who got the best sale at the grocery store for the year.  I did find chicken breast fingers for $1.67 pound, but the halibut will be my opener for Einstein Christmas 2011.  It’s such a meaty, subtle white fish.  With all the other flava’ going on in the meal, I didn’t want to do too much else to the fish.  I mixed together some lemon juice and olive oil to just coat the fish a little and keep it from drying out and then a little S&P under the broiler and it looked great!

That’s my meal for this week.  Overall, I accomplished that summer taste I was going for.  It was light, fresh, and flavorful.  Thanks for reading.  Not sure what next week’s meal will be.  I haven’t checked the grocery store fliers yet. 

Philly Cheese Steaks

I have decided to start blogging, because I am consistently talking in an excited manner about my culinary “creations.”  Many of my friends share this passion with either their own culinary adventures or their enjoyment of consuming other’s culinary creations.  This blog came about over the past few years, because I have been making Sunday dinners to enjoy while watching some HBO show.  Starting at the beginning of this year, I have sought to use more healthy ingredients and still make something edible.  Of course, this first blog has few, if any, of the healthy ingredients I speak of.  This creation came from Emily’s suggestion that we make Philly cheese steaks over a campfire when we were supposed to camp last.  The National Park Services decided, however, that wood and charcoal fires for cooking were not a good idea in the Arizona desert, so we were unable to enjoy that experience.  As such, I have morphed it into what would hopefully be a delicious meal.

The overall purpose of this blog is to appeal to my friends at all levels of culinary enjoyment.  There will be a mix of culinary logic, how to, and the occasional drunken metaphor to describe the experience.  Without further adieu, I say thank you for reading, I welcome your comments, and I hope you enjoy what follows.

This week’s course: Philly cheese steak, sweet potato fries, and bleu cheese coleslaw.

Wine inspiration: Inversion IPA, from Bend, Oregon.  (This will usually be a wine selection that is not necessarily meant to pair with the meal, but rather with the preparation of the meal.  Why should you drink wine when cooking?  Well, if the meal turns into a complete disaster, at least you had fun messing it up.)  The ideal beer to pair with a philly steak is actually a week old opened can of PBR (that’s how you explain most sports fans in Philadelphia).  No one is Arizona sells such a delicacy, so I chose this instead.

Main Course: Cheese steak with charred poblanos, porter braised mushrooms and onions, and caramelized shallot mayo

Emily’s Expression: “It was a flavorgasm.”

I started caramelizing the shallots.  I hate caramelizing onion-type things, because it seems so easy, but I always feel like they end up burning, despite constant watch.  Of course, this was no exception, but they did end up partially golden and partially very brown.  Maybe that’s the carmelzing idea, but they did taste delicious and do the trick in the mayo.  I used the same pan to brown the mushrooms and onions, because I knew braising the veggies would actually take the most amount of time of all the preparations.  Mushrooms gain most of their flavor from cooking and onions’ flavor deepens and the possible harshness evaporates.  I also seasoned the vegetables with a little salt and pepper.  Salt prevents onions from browning as fast allowing them to grow tenderer.  Once the vegetables were lightly browned, I transferred them to a stock pot and poured in about 2/3 of the porter and a little more salt and pepper.  I turned up the heat until the beer was boiling, then turned the heat down to medium low for the alcohol and liquid to boil away, leaving only the chocolate maltiness in the vegetables.

While the braising was taking place behind my back, I quickly made the mayo.  I always like to make any type of sauce with as much sitting time as possible.  It makes sense to me that those ingredients need time for the flavors to meld (kind of like how letting the rage from past relationships melds into a good sense of humor; however, I do not recommend letting your sauces age for multiple years).  So I took my caramelized shallots and chopped them up really fine, stirred them into some olive oil based mayonnaise with 2 dashes of hot sauce.  A nice flavorful spread for the bread.  Yep, I said that. 

I started on the poblanos next.  I used poblanos, because I hate green peppers.  Poblanos have a little more heat and little less of that earthy-grassiness overwhelming in green peppers.  Cutting the pepper on its sides makes seeding unnecessary and you are left with 4 semi-equal pepper pieces.  I put them on a cooking sheet under the broiler (or on the grill), took a few sips of beer (shots can be done at this point depending on your confidence level) and once the skin began to blister and blacken, I turned the peppers over until heated thoroughly through the other side. 

Finally, I could get to the beef – where the real fun began.  I chose to use a dry-aged ribeye steak, mostly because it was on sale.  I think Ribeye makes the best shaved beef, and there was only 1 place near me that has the capability to shave raw beef.  It’s a gourmet food store, which I think would be better marketed as a “you’re really old and have lots of money, so we’ll let you way over pay for something that sounds really awesome, but doesn’t make much difference in the long run” store.  This is why I would have failed at a marketing career.  I think the key to a cheese steak (besides great bread) is tender beef.  Ribeye is the most marbled of all cuts of beefs, so when it’s shaved for sandwiches, it will always be tender.  I could have used a leaner cut of meat, like sirloin or NY strip, but it could have ended up being chewy.  About 30 minutes before cooking, I splattered it with Worcestershire sauce. 

...but I do not recommend Worcestershire shots. 
I’m convinced that Worcestershire will only help any type of cooked beef by making it more moist and more flavorful...almost good enough to eat right there and then. 

I threw that mound of meat into a sauté pan with salt, pepper, and fresh garlic, and cooked it for about 3-4 minutes mixing as needed for (almost) perfectly cooked beef.  When the beef was just about done, I folded (“threw”) in the mushrooms, onions, and peppers which made me think my cheese steak was now healthier.  I topped the filled hoagie bun with pre-packaged deli sliced provolone and put the sandwich under the broiler until just starting to brown.  It looked like something I would eat, so I did. 

Side dishes: Baked sweet potato fries with parmesan and bleu cheese coleslaw

Emily cut up 1 massive sweet potato into steak fry-sized pieces.  We tossed around ideas of other uses for the interestingly shaped sweet potato, but I will leave that for someone else’s blog.  We tossed the pieces in a bowl with some olive oil, salt, and pepper.  I spread the pieces in a single layer on a cookie sheet and baked them in the oven for about 25 minutes, give or take and turned them once.  When they were just about cooked all the way through, I changed the oven setting from bake to broil to give the baked fries a little bit of crispiness.  However, I learned that baked fries can go from “almost awesome” to burned in a window of 7 seconds.  As soon as I rescued the vast majority from the overwhelming electric broiler, I threw ‘em back in that first mixing bowl and sprinkled them with some parmesan.  Ta da – gourmet baked fries that are crispy, and yeah, I used a little bit of oil, but 1 Tbs compared to the usual 1 Vat necessary for crisp fries.

For the coleslaw, I made the dressing first, but did not add the cabbage and carrots.  If you want to ensure those stay crispy, you want to wait until the last possible minute before combining with the dressing.  So after all the not-so-healthy deliciousness, here is where I finally pull a little calorie trick.  The dressing is made with fat-free yogurt, white balsamic vinegar, and blue cheese crumbles.  Add a little salt and pepper, and you have a low-fat, low-cal slaw dressing that I made in less than 2 minutes.  I’d love to tell you I spent the remaining time chopping cabbage and carrots, but why do that when you can buy it already cut up and in a smaller size than a human head? 

So there you have it.  Philly cheese steaks with 2 moderately healthy sides on 1 delicious plate.  Let me know your thoughts.  I realize after reading this that it is a bit “instructive,” my next entry will not be so.  Apologies until next week.  I’m not sure what I’m making yet, but I’m thinking some kind of fish.  I’m looking to see what’s on sale and besides, I have to get back to that healthy stuff.