Month: September 2018 | Burned at the Steak

A Slight Of Hand Mandoline

I have lots of slicing and dicing and chopping type tools across the various appliances alone, not to mention the mandolines. But the one I use the most is the hand held mandoline. I love love love this thing. It was inexpensive and it has…

Chicken Life

Panic has discovered that a just blushing tomato is edible and has started eating just ripening tomatoes on the vine. Does she target the small tomatoes? Of course not. She goes after the giant fruit. What a jerkface. But the forecast is showing intermittent days…

White Trash Minestrone

Ugh the tomatoes. I spend all year chomping at the bit to seed and transplant and grow and eat heirloom tomatoes. One month after the fruit starts coming in, I’m sick of tomatoes. I am tomato’d out, man. But I grew such bitchin’ tomatoes this year, I can’t stop now. So here it is….quick and dirty. My white trash minestrone soup from my single mom days. I’m hoping I can use plenty of tomatoes for this. It’s a large quantity, so be prepared to serve it to guests or freeze it. I freeze mine in anticipation of colder days coming up. I can pop it frozen into a pot and reheat it in no time. I haven’t made it this way in ages. When I have an abundance of zucchini, I add that in, too.

Print Recipe

White Trash Minestrone

Ingredients

1 gallon chicken broth
4 to 6 cups pureed fresh tomatoes
1 whole bulb of garlic peeled
1 box frozen chopped spinach
2 cups cut green beans fresh or frozen
1 can cannelini beans drained and rinsed
1 can garbanzo beans drained and rinsed
2 cups sliced carrots
2 cups chopped celery
1 medium sweet onion chopped
2 cups cooked ditalini
Olive oil
Handful chopped parsley and herbs of your choice basil, oregano, etc
Kosher salt
Fine ground pepper
Grated Parmesan for garnish

Instructions

Saute the carrots, onion, and celery together in about 2 tablespoons or more of olive oil in a large stock pot. Add the chicken broth and tomato mixture and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Boil for about 30 minutes.

Add in the spinach. You can drop it in frozen. Plop! Add in the herbs of your choice.

Reduce the heat to low and simmer for about an hour (I simmered mine for a couple of hours while I got some work done). Add in all the other ingredients.

In another smaller stock pot, heat salted water on high to a boil and cook the ditalini, drain, and add it to the soup at the last minute. Salt and pepper to taste and garnish with cheese if you like it.

Salsa Day

My kitchen counters are covered in tomatoes. I have them falling all over the place and the fruit flies are having a party. Some of the tomatoes came in cracked and I knew I was tempting the fruit fly fate fairy (try saying that more…

Oven Dried Tomatoes

In an effort to reduce the tomato quantities covering every surface in the kitchen, I took all the smaller fruits and the cherry tomatoes and oven dried them all day yesterday. I managed to get two full sheets done by 9pm before heading to bed. …

Surf And Turf. Or….Date Night At Home.

Last night I had to make two different dinners. One for the toddler. And then one for after said toddler goes to bed. The first one was grilled whole chicken with sauteed green beans. Draper Farms was on sale and I needed to make some chicken stock. The second was a date night dinner. I know it’s Tuesday. But sometimes….a girl just needs to vent. And when I vent, I make sous vide beef tenderloin from our cow in a beurre rouge, whole artichokes with garlic butter, and steamed baby lobster tails drizzled with clarified butter.

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Surf And Turf

Ingredients

The Beef:

1 beef tenderloin about 2lbs
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
fresh cracked pepper
2 sprigs rosemary

Beurre Rouge Sauce:

2 tablespoons minced shallot
2/3 stick unsalted butter
1 cup Zinfandel
1/4 cup pomegranate vinegar
2 bay leaves

The Lobster:

3 tablespoons garlic paste
2 sticks butter
kosher salt

Instructions

The day before, whisk together the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste and pour it over the tenderloin, placing one sprig of rosemary on each side of the roast and marinate it overnight. Preheat the sous vide vessel to 135. Cook the tenderloin in the marinade for two hours, remove it, and let it rest.

Meanwhile, cook the minced shallot, wine, and pomegranate vinegar together in a saute pan until the mixture has reduced by a third, then reduce the heat to low and season it with as much or as little fresh cracked pepper as you like.

At the same time in another smaller sauce pan, melt the 2 sticks of butter together with the garlic paste until the butter separates into a yellow clear looking oil on the top. and keeping it on low, stir in a pinch of kosher salt.
Remove the tenderloin from the cooking bag and marinade and either sear it in a cast iron skillet with a splash of peanut oil or grill it until desired temperature and then let it rest.

While the tenderloin is resting, steam the lobster tails covered until the shells turn red and remove them from the heat leaving the lid on. Whisk the unsalted butter into the wine sauce one pat at a time over low heat. Leave the finished sauce on the heat while you remove the lobster tail shells.

Spoon the finished wine sauce on the plate, place a piece of tenderloin on top, and spoon more sauce over.

Place the lobster tail in a small dish and spoon the clear butter over it. Use the remaining garlic butter mixture for vegetables. (I served this with whole artichokes not pictured here)

Sunday Brunch At The K Bar Steakhouse

Whoooweee we finally made it to this brunch. It’s our third attempt. Being from the land of over the top buffets, it was no Vegas Sunday brunch, but the food was dang delicious. Mostly. Well, there was one exception. Just say no to previously frozen…

Endless Tomatoes

Here it is, the end of September, and the tomatoes are still rolling in. At least now I know that three hundred tomato plants are sufficient. I can’t even process any more tomatoes because the tomato freezer is jam packed. So now it’s all fresh…

Sushi And The Hills

With the state of our fish stocks and everything going on with our oceans right now, I’ve had a really hard time eating fish I didn’t catch myself. Consequently, I’ve eaten a lot less fish in these past years and I’m particular about what fish I’ll eat and where it came from. Otherwise….pass. And then there’s the sushi problem. Sushi is an addiction. Hubs reluctantly forgoes sushi because of my personal feelings and food politics about everything I just said. But it’s so delicious that it’s hard to pass up. We do it. But it’s hard. We went from eating it once a week to maybe twice a year.

That brings us to this evening. I was shopping for some seafood to fill some crepes for an upcoming event, when I came across a half of a yellowtail sushi grade tuna. I clutched my pearls and gasped. Could it be? Was it real? Was I dreaming? How much? 50 bucks?! Hubs and I have never gotten out of a sushi restaurant for a pittance of 50 bucks so this was a steal. I hopped on the bat phone and called Amanda to make sure she was down to eat this thing because Hubs and I wouldn’t be able to do it alone. She was in so I perused the internet for some recipes. There aren’t many, but I used them all. With some tweaks. Duh. And I added a couple of my own. Also duh.

Matt and Amanda Hill trade beer (they have a local brewery here) with a guy that goes salmon fishing. They had given us a giant piece of salmon for some halibut Hubs had gotten in a tomato trade with a coworker. It was serendipity. Of course, I had to make my salmon tartare. And of course, it was divine.

Fresh Pineapple Upside Down Cake

It’s no secret that I’m a terrible baker. I have two girlfriends, however, that are both incredible bakers….Diane and Jennifer. I know that they’ll be annoyed looking at this recipe because I use a shortcut with a box mix, but it’s ok because I use…