Posts Tagged ‘Cooking’

Prime Rib & Potato pizza

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

Today I wanted to make pizza, but at the same time get rid of some of the leftovers we have accumulated from Christmas celebrations. I used both ham, chicken, and prime rib. The most notable pizza was made with the prime rib, hence the picture above. I thinly sliced a thick piece of prime rib and put them on a regular homemade crust with pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese (recipe found elsewhere on the site). On top of that went some roasted red potato wedges. Yum! When it came out of the oven I topped it with some thin slices of asiago cheese.

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Frittata

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

Yesterday I got up early, still jet-lagged from my trip to China, and decided to go to the grocery store at 6am to stock up the fridge a bit. I decided that I was going to make a frittata so I picked up some shredded potatoes, some tomatoes, cooked turkey, and some eggs.

When I got home I put together the following ingredients in a 12 inch oven-safe skillet:

  • 1 lb shredded potatoes
  • 3 diced roma tomatoes
  • 6 oz diced cooked turkey
  • 2 medium shallots sliced thinly
  • 1 cup of thinly shredded mozarella cheese
  • salt and pepper to taste

Layer all the ingredients evenly and pour over 10 eggs that you mixed together. Cook at 350F in the skillet for 35 minutes or until the eggs are just set.

If you didn’t have a (now) picky 4 year old, you could add some diced green/red pepper to the mix along with some scallions.

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Redwine and Creme de Cassis marinated flank steak & Herb and Cheese Pork Tenderloin with grilled sweet potatoes and grilled polenta

Monday, May 25th, 2009

I wanted to grill out again today, and I had a perfectly fine flank steak in the fridge that I took out from the freezer yesterday. I had just finished watching another episode of Bobby Flay’s “Grill It” where he marinated some beef in Creme de Cassis and Red wine. It certainly sounded good to me, so I knew what to do with the flank steak.

  • 2 lb flank steak
  • 2/3 cup red wine
  • 1/2 cup creme de cassis
  • 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
  • fresh ground pepper
  • pinch of kosher salt
  • oregano

Remove the sinew and extra fat on the flank steak. Cut in some 1/4″ deep cross marks on the flank steak and sprinkle generously with the kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, and oregano. Put the remaining ingredients in a zip lock bag and put the flank steak in the marinade. Refrigerate for an hour before letting it come to room temperature to get ready for the grill.

I also had a pork tenderloin in the fridge that I wanted to grill at the same time.

  • 1.5 lb pork tenderloin
  • sprig fresh thyme
  • sprig fresh oregano
  • 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
  • 1 1/2 cup of fresh grated asiago & romano cheese
  • 4 cloves chopped garlic
  • fresh ground pepper
  • kosher salt

Remove the fat, sinew, and silver skin from the pork tenderloin. Butterfly the tenderloin into a 1/2″ thick flat piece. Sprinkle the seasonings and cheese mix on top of the tenderloin and roll it up tightly. I used some butcher twine to keep the roll together for cooking. It’s fairly easy to tie a few butcher’s knots to keep it together.

The tenderloin needed a little longer cooking time than the flank steak. The flank steak had a nice char to it and was perfect medium rare in the thicker part. The Creme de Cassis really came through in the final product. The pork tenderloin was also perfectly done although a little on the dry side. Also had some nice grill marks on the outside. Next time the pork tenderloin should really have some kind of gravy to compliment it.

I wanted to grill some vegetables and had a roll of polenta from Trader Joe’s that I wanted to grill up too.

  • Roll of organic polenta from Trader Joe’s
  • 1 large sweet potato
  • 1 cup fresh grated asiago & romano cheese
  • oregano
  • fresh ground pepper
  • kosher salt
  • 1 clove chopped garlic
  • 2 tbsp olive oil

Peel the sweet potato and cut it into about 6 equal sized slices. Brush olive oil on each side and sprinkle with ground pepper and kosher salt. Open the roll of polenta and cut them into even sized slices (about 1/2″ thick). Brush both sides with olive oil and sprinkle fresh ground pepper and kosher salt on them. Mix the cheese with the chopped garlic, oregano, and fresh ground pepper.

Put the all the slices over a medium hot fire. The polenta will stick pretty bad even with the olive oil. Leave them for a few minutes – enough to get some grill marks. Once you flip them over sprinkle with the cheese and herb mixture on top – it will lightly melt as the residual radiates up to through the cheese. Even with the sticking it turned the polenta turned out pretty tasty and almost creamy.  The salty cheese mixture on top worked well with it too.

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Salmon Burgers

Friday, May 15th, 2009

I had some salmon in the fridge that had been sitting for a few days and wanted to try some other than plain boring salmon fillets. So I decided to dice it up finely and make some burgers out of it.

  • 3/4 pound of fresh salmon
  • 1 egg
  • Kosher salt
  • Fresh ground pepper
  • 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp sesame oil

Dice the salmon, but don’t mince it as you want some texture left in the finished burgers. Add egg, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and sesame oil. Mix together and add the breadcrumbs a little at a time.  Form 4 burger patties and fry them in olive oil for about 4-5 minutes on each side.

Overall the burgers turned out pretty good and would make a good fish burger with maybe a nice lemon vinaigrette.  The sesame oil didn’t add as much flavor as I was hoping for, so I would leave it out next time. To spice it up I would add some fresh herbs next time – maybe some parsley or cilantro and a little garlic. Adding some diced fresh shrimp to the salmon mixture would provide an interesting texture differences.

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Quick soup base

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

We bought a rotisserie chicken at Sam’s Club today to use the cooked chicken meat for salads during the week. I separated the white meat from the dark meat which I’ll be using to do some chicken tacos. I usually just toss out the carcass, but today I wanted to make a quick soup base out of it. I put it in a stock pot and added:

  • 1 carrot chopped
  • 3 small stalks of celery chopped
  • 2 mini bell peppers (yellow and red)
  • 1 small piece of ginger
  • 1 crushed clove of garlic
  • large pinch of oregano
  • pinch of fresh cracked pepper

I slowly simmered the carcass and the chicken wings with about 1 1/2 quarts of water. In the end I strained the meat and veggies out from the soup and I was left with about a quart of soup that I’ll be putting to use later this week.

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Grilling again part 2 – pork tenderloin

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

Pork in marinadeBefore going to London last time I had some fairly tasty marinated steak at the airport. It was a lime and garlic marinade of sorts. I got two pork tenderloins while shopping today in anticipation of putting them on the hot grill.

I decided I wanted a combination of lime juice, chopped garlic, and oregano. I trimmed down the pork tenderloins and put them in the following marinade:

  • 4 cloves of chopped garlic
  • 1 lime – juiced
  • pinch salt
  • fresh cracked pepper
  • 1 tsp dried oregano from Penzeys

On the grillI left them for about an hour in the marinade before the breads from the previous post were about done. It took about 10 minutes on each side to get them to have the right feel and they went into tinfoil for 10 minutes to rest.  After resting for 10 minutes I cut them into thin slices and the inside was cooked perfectly – just past pink without drying out.

Ready to sliceThe lime and garlic came out fairly well, but could use some sweetness for balance. I would maybe add a little brown sugar to the marinade to get it just right. If you wanted to, a little spicyness wouldn’t be bad either!

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Pork meatballs in roasted red pepper sauce with brown rice

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

Been a while since I had time to cook. Today I decided to make some pork meatballs and put them in a curry sauce. After looking at what I had in the cupboard I decided to make it a red pepper sauce as I had a quart of Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato sauce from Trader Joes.

The pork meatballs had a few inspirations, I think the recipe I made up speaks for itself:

  • 2 lbs ground pork
  • 2 medium shallots diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic diced
  • 2 large Hungarian green peppers small dice
  • 1 large piece of roasted red pepper (Trader Joes jar)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tbsp dried oregano from Penzeys
  • 1 tsp dried thyme from Penzeys
  • 1 cup of grated (microplane) romano cheese
  • Salt + Pepper to taste

Mix the shallots, garlic, hungarian pepper, roasted red pepper, oregano, thyme, salt + pepper, romano cheese, and eggs thoroughly. Add the pork and mix until everything is uniform.

Bring 4 qts of water to a rolling boil and add a tbsp of salt. Use a spoon and the palm of your hand to shape the meatballs into 1 inch meatballs. Gently drop the meat balls into the boiling water. They will be cooked all the way through once they rise to the surface. It takes about 2-3 minutes until they’re done. Take them out and reserve on the side.

Meanwhile you can start the sauce:

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 medium shallot diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1 large Hungarian green pepper small dice
  • 4 small yellow bell peppers sliced
  • 1 cup frozen shelled edemame beans
  • 2 cups frozen corn
  • Salt + Pepper
  • 1 qt roasted red pepper and tomato sauce from Trader Joes

Saute the shallots and garlic in the olive oil. Once translucent add the Hungarian pepper. Once cooked down a little add the yellow bell peppers, edemame beans, and corn. Once the temperature is back up add the roasted red pepper sauce, rinse out the container with a cup of water and add to the pot. When coming to a simmer add the reserved meatballs. Once heated through again it’s ready to serve.

Served with brown rice from the Zojirushi. Yum! Sorry – no pictures.

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Stir fried pea tips

Saturday, January 31st, 2009

One of the things I really miss from my few trips to Beijing were the absolutely fabolous stir fried pea tips (Dou Miao) from Din Tai Fung(*). I’ve tried making it a few times before after finding Peat Tips at Shuang Hur on University Ave in St. Paul. They usually turned out OK, but very bland. I remember the liquid tasting like chicken broth, but it wasn’t soupy by any means. The flavors didn’t have any strong components that were easy to pick out. So I figured I could try a splash of regular chicken broth at the next attempt – It really didn’t do much.

Back then I had done some Googling, but just wasn’t able to find any recipe and I didn’t know the Chinese name for it at the time so I forgot about it until I got a craving for it yesterday triggered by having the dish last weekend, when Sarah and Jesse brought it over from Little Szechuan.

Hoping I’d have better luck this time I once again turned to Googling, and the blog Life kept coming up in my searches with this recipe for Dou Miao. I was a bit skeptical as I remember the dish being delicate and I didn’t think that both garlic and ginger fit in. One thing that did strike me right off the bat was the use of granulated chicken broth to get the chicken flavor without the dish turning into soup – I remember that I had the exact same can from when my coworkers from Beijing were over about a year ago. Back then we used it in some traditional Chinese boiled dumplings that were out of this world.

The basic ingredients were fresh pea tips, ground ginger, salt, sugar, chicken broth mix, and sesame oil to finish. The pea tips in the pictures on the site look a lot smaller than the ones I’m able to get here. The stems of the pea tips available here are very thick, so I cleaned them out and removed lots of the stems.

I used fresh, chopped ginger for my dish and fried it until golden brown in peanut oil. Then added the rinsed pea tips. They cooked down a little bit and I added salt, 1 tsp sugar,  1 tsp chicken broth mix, and 2 chopped cloves of garlic.  Stir frying for a few seconds more I decided to add just a tiny amount of water as the chicken broth mix was dosed based on the  larger amount of pea tips used in the original recipe and it seemed to cling to the leaves without dissolving.

Next time I will probably try to dissolve the chicken broth mix it in a bit of boiling water first. After stir frying I pretty much realized that I need many more pea tips next time.  They whittle down as much as spinach. I used about half an lb before cooking this time.  It could also use a bit more sesame oil.

The dish was finished off with just a little dash of sesame oil. It was very tasty – close to what I had in Beijing. I’m sure it will get better as I try making it again.

* Din Tai Fung is most known for soup style dumplings. They are some of the tasties dumplings I’ve ever tasted. If you happen to be in one of the cities where they have a restaurant it’s worth going out of your way for. I have since going there figured out that the way you get soup into a dumpling is to make a very gelatenous soup (boiled pigs skin?) that you chill and mix with your dumpling filling. I will have to try this in the near future too.

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