Yes I know, more beef

I've been pounding the steak drum pretty hard over the past couple weeks, but it's my first food love.  The one good thing about hitting the same repeatedly in a short period time is that it gives you a chance to hone your skills cooking an item plus you get an opportunity to try different cooking methods.  This one was served with a hollandaise sauce.  I wanted to grill the steak but it appears I'm down one burner on my grill, so I need to get that figured out before I do anymore grilling.

Here's everything ready to go.  We've got a new york strip steak, butter, a lemon juice and salt mixture then egg yolks, water and sugar.

The steak after being cooked off in grapeseed oil in a cast iron pan.

The beginnings of the hollandaise sauce.  The egg yolk water and sugar mixture got whisked for a couple of minutes.

The completed sauce.  To make it I took the inital egg mixture and then whisked the butter in one tablespoon at a time over a pot of simmering water and then the lemon juice mixture got whisked in.  I will say, traditionally hollandaise is one of the more difficult sauces to make mostly because you're trying to emulsify two different types of fat, egg yolk and butter with lemon juice.  But this one worked wonderfully.

The completed presentation.  The garnish is fresh chives from my garden.

A little more comfort food

This one came from America's Test Kitchen.  Braised Brisket with smashed potatoes.  So here's the picture evidence.

So here is everything ready to go into the pan.  Brisket, flour, garlic, tomato paste onions, brown sugar, chili powder and cayenne mixture, chicken broth, wine, bay leaves and thyme.

The brisket got seasoned with salt and pepper and then placed in a super hot pan with some oil and seared off.  Here is the brisket halfway through the searing process.

The completely seared brisket.

The onions and brown sugar go into the same pan that the brisket was seared in.

The onion mixture about halfway through the cooking process.  The garlic, and tomato paste have been added at this point.

The the sauce was finished with the flour and the wine mixture.  Everything was then placed into a baking pan and covered with flour and baked for four hours.

The cooked brisket.

Boiled red potatoes smashed with a butter cream cheese mixture along with chives.

The final plating.  Not pretty, but it's comfort flood so it doesn't have to be. 

This was a great dish for me, because I did pretty much everything yesterday and then just baked off the brisket to reheat for an hour or so while I was at the grocery store this evening.

Another steak dish

Like I said earlier, steaks are my ultimate comfort food.  So, I made another one from Bobby Flay's Bold American Food.  This one is served with a chipotle butter.

The items for the chipotle butter.  Butter, chipotle pepper and garlic.  These items took a spin in the food processor and then was seasoned with salt.

The butter mixture wrapped in plastic wrap.

The mixture for the steak.  New York Strip, cumin, salt and pepper.

The steak seasoned with the cumin, salt and pepper goes into a cast iron skillet with bacon fat.  Yes I said bacon fat, the second best fat on the planet behind duck fat.

The completed steak.

The final presentation.

Photo Dump: Week of 3/19/12 in review

I'll warn you now, this is going to be a huge post.  Primarily because I've been lazy all week and haven't gotten any posts up.  Please forgive me dear reader. 

Tuesday's meal
Steak and potatoes, stupidly simple and I got to use the grill.

Really not much to talk about in this one.  The top picture is a beautiful new york strip steak.  The steak got seasoned with salt and pepper and grilled for about 8-10 minutes.  The bottom picture is the final plating.  You've got the steak in the middle which was served with a bit of red chile infused dijon mustard and then a baked potato.  This type of meal is really comfort food 101 for me.

Wednesday - MASSIVE FAIL ALERT
You remember last week when I posted the Argentinan stuffed flank steak.  Well this meal was supposed to be a slightly more americanized version stuffed with potatoes and spinach.  Let's just say I'll let the pictures speak for themselves and I'll offer a few comments at the end.

Here we have bacon, cheddar cheese, potatoes, spinach, flank steak and barbecue sauce.

The cooked spinach, which was seasoned with salt and red pepper.

Cooked bacon, which was mixed into the potato mixture.

The finished potato mixture.  This includes the cooked potatoes, shredded cheddar cheese and the bacon.

What I ended up serving.  Basically what happened is that the flank steak was too thick to roll so I ended up pan frying it.  The potato mixture is beneath the steak.  Overall still very delicious but oh so frustrating.

Thursday - Comfort food again
Chicken and Dumplings served with baked beans.

What can I say, I love chicken and dumplings, and this version from America's Test Kitchen Favorites might be one of the best versions I've had (sorry mom and grandma). 

The stuff for the baked beans, bacon, onions, molasses, mustard and of course the beans.

The bacon frying away.

The onion joins the bacon.

The final mixture.  I know it doesn't look very appetizing, but here we have all the ingredients in the pot and it is now ready to go into the oven for 4 hours.

Here's the stuff for the chicken portion of the evening.  The chicken thighs are in front, flour, mirepoix (onions, garlic and celery), sherry, chicken broth and milk, thyme and bay leaves.  The chicken was seared off and then removed from the pan.  Then the vegetables went in for about 5-7 minutes, then the flour was added.  Once the flour had cooked for a couple minutes the pan was deglazed with the sherry.  Finally the broth mixture was added with the thyme and the cooked chicken.  The whole mixture was then simmered for an hour. 

Here's the completed broth ready for the dumplings.

The dumplings couldn't be more simple.  Flour, salt, baking powder and milk.  Then mix. and this is what you get.

After the broth is cooked, golf ball sized dumplings went into the pot for about 15 minutes.

 Here are the dumplings in the pan.

Here is the completed dish while still in the pan.

Here are the completed baked beans.

And here is the final presentation.  Absolutely delicious.

It's breakfast for dinner

Had some Huevos Rancheros for dinner tonight.  Not much else to say other than that, so off we go.

The first picture is the stuff that went into the black bean chili.  This includes cooked black beans, crushed tomatoes, onions, cumin and oregano, jalpenos, salt, pepper, garlic, paprika, and cayenne.   All these ingredients went into a pot and cooked for about 10 minutes.

The second picture is what went into the rest of the dish.  Corn tortillas and cheddar cheese went into the oven until the cheese was melted, the eggs were to be poached in the homemade salsa that is in the background.  The salsa included tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalapenos, salt, pepper, and white wine vinegar. 

Here is the completed black bean chili.

The melted cheese on the tortillas.

Here's the salsa in the pan and the eggs on top.  The eggs were then poached until cooked through.

The plating really suffered on this one, mostly because the eggs fell apart when I took them out of the pan.  Oh well, overall a pretty decent meal, besides it's always fun to take a dish that is generally considered breakfast food and have it for dinner.

Don't cry for me Argentina

Yeah this meal is no where near authentically Argentinian but it was inspired by Argentina and their wonderful beef and spicy chimichurri sauce.

 Here we have the flank steak, the potatoes which have been seasoned with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes, a tomato and fontina cheese mixture which will be stuffed inside the beef and in the food processor is the completed chimichurri sauce which is a combination of parsley, cilantro, garlic, lemon juice, jalapeno, olive oil, salt and pepper.

The flanks steak stuffed, rolled and tied and ready to go into the pan.

The completed steak.  The steak was seared off on the stove top for a total of about 6 or 7 minutes and then finished in the oven for a few more minutes.

The completed potatoes after spending about 45 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

The final plating.  The steak is a perfect medium rare.  The presentation still needs some work.  It's getting closer to restaurant quality, maybe the problem is that I'm putting my entire dinner on the plate rather than restaurant size portions.