Jerk Kabobs and Pineapple Salsa

There is a show on a couple of networks that deal with Hoarding.  It makes me think of my cookbooks.  I have a lot.  I mean A LOT!  Most of which I have never opened other than the day they came in my house.  Some I have had since I was a kid.  My first cookbook, Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, is still around.  It is old, I am sure it was old when my mom gave it to me all those years ago.  Back to the hoarding shows.  I rarely use any of these cookbooks so why do I keep them?  Byrd doesn't know, I don't really know, except there maybe an outstanding recipe in one of them I can't live without.  The answer to why I keep them is the same response from the people on these shows. I can't live without something I don't use, that's just silly. This kind of freaks me out.  So in order to not think of myself as a hoarder of cookbooks I have made a deal with Byrd.  I will find a recipe in each one of them that is worth keeping, if I don't find one we can give it to whoever takes used, or hardly used cookbooks.  All of the kitchen gadgets are safe for the moment, they aren't in plain sight.  I hoard those too.  Now where the hell do I start?  After deliberating on this Byrd and I decided that on the nights we cook from a book, she will pick the book and I will find a recipe.  This being the first time she couldn't decide. She handed me two.  Good Housekeeping Favorite Recipes Grill It! and Shall We Gather(This is a regional cookbook from my childhood home town of Wetumpka, AL). I looked through both and decided to go with Grill It! Dave at MYOTG has been using pineapple in several recipes and they all have looked great.  With that in mind this recipe jumped off the pages.  Jerk Steak Kabobs with Pineapple Salsa.

Jerk Marinade
2 green onions, minced
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon grated, peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
Mix all ingredients together.
I used a 1 1/2 lb boneless sirloin cut into 1 inch cubes.  I put the steak in a zip top bag and then poured on the marinade.  The recipe says to marinate the steak for 15 minutes, I had more time than that so it bathed for 2 hours.
After smelling and making the marinade I decided to make a second batch to use with some vegetables.  I sliced red onion, squash and zucchini and marinaded those for an hour.

 I put everything on my little hibachi.

The recipe said to serve the Jerk Kabobs with a pineapple salsa. I made this first and let it sit in the fridge while everything else was prepared.  I made a few changes to the salsa for my tastes.  I added extra cilantro.

Pineapple Salsa
2 limes
1 ripe pineapple (rind removed) cored and coarsely chopped
1 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
1 green onion, sliced
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

I pulled the meat off the grill first to let it rest while I finished the second batch of veggies.  Now all together.

With the salsa now.

First things first, this was delicious.  The meat was tender and full of flavor.  Byrd normally doesn't like allspice due to its cinnamony taste, but it was subtle enough and with everything else worked well.  It had just the right amount of sweet and heat.  The vegetables as well.  Although next time I would leave the cayenne out of the veggie marinade, all together it was a little spicy.  The pineapple salsa was fantastic, a great accompaniment to the meat.  A bite with all three was even better.  I will be using this marinade for all sorts of things in the future.   There were a lot of tasty looking recipes in this book and I can't wait to try more. 1 cookbook saved.

Prime Rib

Everybody has family traditions. Byrd's family has the Easter Prime Rib. It is the only meat that can be served.  I love this tradition.  This year will be a little different from the years past, instead of cooking everything in one house we are cooking at home then transporting our items. This year as usual we are in charge of the protein, but since we have done some baking lately we took on dessert as well. A double layered White Chocolate cake with Lemon Cream.  It is not a far drive to Byrd's parent's house, so no problem. There were going to be 6 of us at dinner so I got an 8.5 pound Ribeye Roast.  I had the butcher at our local Publix do the prep work for me on this one.  He removed the bones then tied them back on for flavor while cooking.

Prime Rib Rub
2 Tablespoons of sugar
2 Tablespoons of fresh cracked pepper
1/4 cup fresh minced garlic
1/4 cup liquid smoke
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup kosher salt

Give it a good rub down, and let it sit over night in the fridge.

Yesterday morning I got up and preheated the oven to 400, while letting the meat get to room temperature. After 10 minutes of searing the meat on 400, reduce the oven to 225.  This is when I insert the meat thermometer.  We reached 120 internal (rare) about 3 1/2 hours later.  I took it out of the oven and got it ready to travel.  By the time we reached the PIL's internal temp was 138, and ready to slice.

I love prime rib.

Simple and delicious. The crust from this rub is great, and the meat was tender enough to cut with a fork. Great prime rib. We served this with homemade Au Jus, and a creamy horseradish sauce, but they didn't make the picture. Not everybody wants to wait for me to take pictures.  As for traveling with the dessert, I will get to that tomorrow, but here is what it originally looked like.

My first Brisket

I have been cooking a lot of red meat lately, due to the new diet Byrd and I are on.  But there is one that I haven't cooked.  The brisket.  I have been scared of this meat for awhile.  I have heard it is difficult, temperamental, and easy to dry out, but I am a sucker for a good deal.  I was at the grocery store and  they had a special on briskets, so of course I bought one.  I chose a little one(2.49 lbs.) not wanting my first brisket to be too expensive, in case I ruin it. But once again I am up for the challenge, and have a great wife that is up for trying my experiments.  With not much of a plan in mind I used the only rub I keep around, Rut's Rub.  I have used this rub on ribs, butts, chicken, sausage and just about every other meat I can think of, but not red meat.  It was on hand and I like the way it tastes, so I went for it.  I have done a little research on briskets, so I at least knew the temperatures to look for.  I also decided to go with apple chips for smoke, because I had them on hand, why else.

I got my temperature right on the smoker and put it on.  I knew I had several hours until it would be done so I used a little of the cabbage I bought for a St. Patty's day treat to make my mom's slaw.  This is a really easy recipe that I love.  Shredded cabbage, thin sliced white onion, oil, white vinegar, sugar(well Splenda, still no sugar in the house, thanks diet) and celery seeds.  It needs at least 4 hours to marinate, better overnight, good thing I had plenty of time.  

In order to have a little more on the plate I thawed out some corn(no its not on the diet, but a FEW carbs won't hurt), added a little butter, salt and some of the afore mentioned rub to have a balanced meal. 

I pulled the brisket when the temp reached 160 degrees, I wrapped the brisket in foil with a little beer and apple cider vinegar in the bottom for steam.  Then put it back on the grill until it reached 190.  It took about 5 hours and 45 minutes.  I pulled it from the heat and let it rest while I cooked the corn. 

It smelled great.  I was really excited about my first brisket.  After it rested, for as long as I could let it, I pulled the corn off the grill.  Really should have given the corn more time, but hind site is 20/20.   So after it rested I sliced it, not sure if I did this the right way, but it looked and smelled great.

With everything ready to eat.

I added the juice from the bottom of the foil package back to the top of the sliced pieces.  It was better than I thought it would be.  I truly am happy with the outcome of my first brisket.  The slaw was good as usual. Now the corn, it felt hot and smelled good, but I guess it wasn't completely thawed when I put it on the grill.  Nice and hot on the outside and still frozen by the cob.  I am glad this was the worst part of my first brisket cook.

Herbed Strips

Night two of the red meat diet, calling it this makes it sound better to me.  I looked around several sites to find a quick steak rub or some way to change up the flavor a little bit.  I came across a few herb encrusted steaks, but nothing matched what I had time for, bad planning on my part, they looked delicious.  I did come across a jar of herbes de provence in my pantry.  This particular blend was: Winter savory(no idea what that is), thyme,rosemary,basil, tarragon, and lavender flowers.  Everything sounded great except the lavender, which reminds me of lotion for some reason. The blend smelled good, so I used it. I was really looking forward to getting these on the grill, but oh the wonderful weather of Alabama.  It started to rain. I am glad I have the grill pan.

I wish we could have had potatoes, but Byrd wanted me to try her mom's creamed spinach recipe.  Creamed spinach from my childhood was not a pleasant memory to bring up, so I steamed a little broccoli just in case. The creamed spinach was easier than I would have thought.  Cook frozen spinach, squeeze out all the water, return to pan, then add butter and 1/2 a package of cream cheese.  Very simple. 

The steak was delicious.  The herb blend added a great flavor that I really enjoyed.  The creamed spinach was great, it did not give me nightmares like it did when I was a child.  I am now over that food phobia.  When being forced to eat a lot of steak, I know tough life, it is nice to find new ways to flavor the meat.  

New Diet

Until yesterday I haven't had much to say about my wife, Byrd, being pregnant.  A few things have changed:

Her steaks are now med/med well, instead of rare/med. rare

She doesn't have wine/beer while we are in the kitchen, or anywhere.

She eats all the sweets she wants, well she did that before she was pregnant, so no change there.

She loves potatoes, which she never really cared about before.

Yesterday the doctor told her that she is anemic.  Low iron count in her blood.  So 1st hiccup and not a big one, well for me.  New rules:  Very limited intake of sweets, this is a big one for her.  Lower carb intake, no more potatoes, no more wedges, her favorite side item as of late.  She also has to take Iron supplements, which we have been told is like adding concrete to the stomach.  The good news is the doctor told her to "eat lots of red meat" and "leafy green vegetables"  So we are looking at a high protein, low carb diet.  This part works for me. I will miss the carbs, but I get to have a lot of steak, so I think I will be ok.

I have always loved a spinach salad, with hot bacon dressing.  So for tonights dinner I set out to finally make homemade bacon dressing.  I found a simple recipe from Paula Deen for the dressing.  I followed the recipe, except I used Dijon mustard instead of the honey mustard, I had it in the house.  As for the salad, thin sliced white button mushrooms, red onions, hard boiled eggs, and of course bacon.

For our red meat, Publix had top sirloin filets on sale so that's what's for dinner.  I don't normally marinate steaks, but in order to get a little flavor in the sirloins, I used some Pilleteri's Original Marinade.  This is a product of Mr. P's Butcher Shop and Deli, which is a great little local place.  My little Hibachi doing its job.

I tossed the fresh spinach, onions, bacon, and mushrooms in the dressing.  Then plated them and topped with the egg.

  

The steaks were definitely not the star of the show, the spinach salad was.  Now that I have a bacon dressing under my belt we will have it more often. I know it is possible to cook a sirloin where it is tender and juicy, I just haven't figured it out yet.  This I will work on. I have a lot of red meat to cook in the upcoming months so I am up for the challenge.

Braised Beef Short Ribs

If only you could smell my house right now.  It is unbelievable.  But since you can't I will just tell you about it and show you some pictures. A month or so ago I read an article in Fine Cooking about short ribs.(This last link has the exact recipe I followed.  Except I added in a little paprika during the 3rd step.)  Then a few weeks ago I had my first short ribs at a local restaurant, Do-Di-Yos.  So I got out the article and made the decision on what's for dinner. This being the first time cooking them, I chose the simplest recipe from the magazine.  I started by searing the ribs in some olive oil.  This picture shows how this eye on my stove tilts to one side, so I have to constantly spin the Dutch oven throughout the sear.

I removed them, and added the vegetables. Carrots, celery and onion.

Then added the paprika, garlic, bay leaves and a little Red wine.

I put the ribs back, then added more red wine and beef broth.

Brought it up to a simmer then put the top on and in to the oven for 2 1/2 hours.  Every 40 minutes I turned  the ribs in the braising liquid.  Here are the ribs after the alloted cook time, while I finished the sauce.

Here is the finished dish with some roasted potatoes.

This was a labor intensive dish, but very well worth it.  The meat fell off the bone and the sauce was phenomenal.  Next time I cook this one, I will double the recipe so there will be left overs.

Surf and Turf

So after a long day of having fun in the sun and tasting BBQ, we thought a great surf and turf would be the right ending to the day.  We stopped by Blalocks, the local fresh seafood and specialty market, and picked up some ribeyes and scallops.  So as the sun set we started on dinner.  I say we here because it wasn't just Byrd and I.  We had two other great cooks in the house.

With four of us in the house we had them cut us a couple of 20 ounce steaks.  A little salt, well what I thought was salt, actually sugar and pepper.  Then a little Worcestershire.  

We cooked some bacon then wrapped the scallops. No seasoning needed.

We are not allowed to have a charcoal grill on the patio, so a tiny propane tank Webber has to do.  In order for this not to be an all meat dinner we grilled an onion as well.  We cut a wedge out of the top then added some butter, garlic and Worcestershire sauce and made a package out of foil.

The onion after the grill did its job.

My cousin took care of the scallops.  Searing them in some browned butter.

We also had Byrd's favorite, potato wedges, but no pictures this time.  The scallops were the real treat of dinner, they were delicious.  I will have to keep the browned butter cooking method in mind next time I have some fresh scallops. I haven't cooked on a gas grill in a long time, so I did over cook the steaks a bit, but nobody complained.  The meal was a great ending to an outstanding weekend.  It is always nice to get to spend time with family, especially when they love food as much as we do.

Potato.....and Steak

I hate to see my grill being put through this. Snowy rain is not its favorite weather, or mine. This is a sad grill.

With the unusually cold, wet weather gone for the moment, time to get back outside. I love the combination of a steak and potato as most people do, but sometimes find it a bit monotonous. Time to try a new potato. So after reviewing a few methods from fellow bloggers, My Year on the Grill and Evanspices I decided to give it a shot. What could be better than a potato off the grill?

I was glad to get back outside, so here is my now happy grill.

The potatoes before they went on. Most people would use butter or some form of oil from a bottle to grease up the potatoes. Since I keep bacon grease in the refrigerator, a glutton/southern thing, thats what I used to help the Kosher salt stick. I left them on indirect heat for about an hour and a half.
The steak was lightly seasoned with salt, pepper, and onion powder. Then cooked for about 3 minutes a side. I love the bone-in rib-eye, or actually any bone-in steak. You get to eat steak and then eat a rib.

Here they are side by side, almost spooning each other. These are quite a pair.
A potato from the grill is absolutely delicious, much more flavor than coming out of an oven. I was really surprised at how much the potato soaked in the aroma of the grill. Next time I will put a few in the smoker and see the difference. I wonder what smoked potato salad would taste like? Oh, and the steak was pretty good as well.

Steak Frites

When trying to figure out dinner, steaks are an easy and delicious way to go. Steak and a baked potato will always be a great combination, but sometimes it's nice to change things up a little bit. I have a love for all cuts of beef, so going to pick out the steaks for the night I came across one I have never cooked. The Chuck Eye Steak. I have actually never heard of this cut of beef before, so I had to look into it. The chuck eye steak is cut from the chuck eye roast, makes sense. It is further down from the rib roast, the ribeye steak, so is less tender and flavorful than the delicious ribeye. It also said that it has a tendency to dry out. I hate dried out, over cooked steak. So I knew this was going to be tricky. I seasoned the steaks well with salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder. I cooked them over medium heat so they wouldn't dry out.

There are so many ways to cook the potato. One of our favorites is to cut them into 1/4 in sticks and then soak them in cold water. Then pat them dry and toss them in olive oil and a good dose of pepper. Into the oven in a non stick pan on 450 for about 30-35 minutes, flipping every so often.
A good drizzle of chunky bleu cheese dressing and it was delicious. I have no regrets on the chuck eye steak. It was delicious, as most red meats are.

Filet Oscar

With a little time off from work, and by a little I am not sure when we will go back, Byrd and I decided to take a trip to the coast. My favorite kind of trip is one with no agenda. This was definitely one of those. Relax, eat, regenerate, and of course eat more. No better place than the coast. Here is our view from the patio.

And here right before sunset.

After a couple days of doing nothing, which was great, we decided to head to a local cheese farm my parents told us about. So we drove into Elberta, about 20 minutes north, to Sweet Home Cheese Farm. A great little out of the way spot that offers a wide variety of homemade cheeses. After trying around ten different cheeses, we decided to get 7. All of the cheese was great, but our favorites were habanero with a slice of granny smith apple, toasted onion with pear, and garlic with the apple.

Being the night before Valentines Day we thought a steak dinner was in order. I seared the filets, seasoned with Cavenders, on both sides in a grill pan then placed them in the oven for about 8 minutes. Normally I don't leave them in this long, but they were thick steaks.
I also roasted some asparagus in the oven with a little olive oil and Cavenders. Since we were at the beach, and kinda on vacation, I made a Bearnaise sauce and added a little fresh lump crab meat, making it Filet Oscar, I think.
I am not really sure if this is exactly Filet Oscar, but in my mind anything with sauce, asparagus and crab meat is Oscar. Dinner was delicious and the company better. Also Byrd really loved the fact that dinner matched the plates.

The what's for dinner question?

In my line of work I am around food all day. That doesn't stop me from thinking of lunch while I eat my breakfast, which these days consists of coffee and yogurt. I think of dinner while eating lunch. I know it is sad, but this is how my mind works. Food. So while eating lunch with my wife, Byrd, who I am lucky enough to work with, I ask the daily question, "what are we having for dinner?" Which unless one of us wants something particular goes like this...Me "I don't care I will eat anything." Her "I don't care either" Usually followed by Her: "Pick something." So as usual she went to the store to pick out dinner for the night. Steak. Specifically Filet. I love when she makes decisions like this.

It has been an unusually cold winter here in the south. So one of my favorite grills, my Hibachi, took a beating. It is the perfect size to cook for two, and for now(not to rip off a great song) it is just the two of us. And it was a gift from my in laws. So yesterday I spent a few hours cleaning off all the rust. I have made a promise that I will not let this happen again and bought a cover for it. So here it is clean, I wish I would have done a before and after.
Back to the filets. With any good steak salt and pepper is about all you need, but from time to time I use Cavenders all purpose Greek seasoning. I love the flavor and it creates a great crust. Here is the revitalized little grill in action.

The steaks came off the grill after 7 or so minutes rare to medium rare which is our temperature. Byrd rubbed some potatoes in bacon grease, yes we keep it in the refrigerator its a southern thing I guess, and kosher salt, wrapped them in foil and baked them at 450 for an hour. We had some lima beans in the fridge so they made the plate as well. This is how dinner turned out.

I don't know if it is true but it has been said that the skin of the potato has more nutrients than all of the insides. Whether it is true or not I am lucky that I love the outside and Byrd loves the inside.