Blue Cheese Crusted Steak with Port Wine Sauce

Success!

We don't eat steak very often.  Generally it's when we want to enjoy a nice bottle of cabernet sauvignon and can't think of something to go well with it other than "steak."  I've had blue cheese crusted steak in restaurants many times and made a strip steak with a gorgonzola sauce.  But I've never attempted the crust myself.  Tonight, I was inspired.  I wanted to both enjoy some cabernet sauvignon and eat enough blue cheese to stop my heart. The crust turned out perfect!  The cheese had just the right level of softness and the panko mixed in with the cheese was crispy.  I reduced the port wine sauce a great deal so it didn't ruin the crisp of the crust. Asparagus isn't the best side dish for this steak because asparagus is the wine killer.  But hey, I love asparagus.  The side dish is irrelevant, really.  The showcase is the steak, the cheese, and the sauce.

I know my presentation is mostly always the same: meat on one side, veggie on the other, ne'er the twain shall meet.  Someday, I'll get better.  Just not tonight.  

Quick Beef Stroganoff

Normally when I hear the words "beef stroganoff," I think of the uber salty and gross frozen meals I used to nuke for lunch at work.  The ones with the limp noodles, mushy vegetables, and "meat" of questionable quality.  But I love egg noodles and the picture for this recipe gave me hope that beef stroganoff could, in fact, be edible and even tasty. True to its name, this dish was very quick!  I loved it, and will definitely make it again for a good work night meal.  The sauce was nice and creamy, I added extra hot paprika to give it a kick.  I used skirt steak instead of flank steak because I didn't feel like buying 2 lbs of steak when I could get  1/2 pound instead. I used full fat sour cream instead of nonfat. The only other change I made was to buy crimini mushrooms instead of the exotic blend, which my grocery store didn't have.

Flank Steak with Corn Salsa and Roasted Potatoes

Back when I was in law school and Dave and I were just dating, he was the cook.  I could successfully boil water and sometimes nuke some ramen without needing to call the fire department.  Occasionally I made "gourmet" ramen which consisted of a sytrofoam cup of ramen with some sliced green onions, a packet of soy sauce, and maybe some Tabasco if I was feeling adventurous.  Dave on the other hand, made actual food.  He used to marinate flank steak and grill it, and it was awesome, especially when my idea of cooking meat was to keep it on the stove for so long that it made "well done" look practically raw.

When I was teaching myself to cook, I bought a copy of the Wine Lover's Cookbook and found a recipe for flank steak with corn salsa.  The first time I made it I thought it was super complicated based upon the number of ingredients in the recipe.  But it was so good that I've made it a ton over the years and now it doesn't seem that tough any more.  It's labor intensive because of all the chopping, marinating, and roasting, but it's definitely worth it!  The salsa is only slightly spicy, most of the heat in this dish comes from the potatoes because they're roasted with jalapenos.  If cooked properly, the flank steak should be tender and relatively pink the middle.  If it's overcooked it'll be tough.

Rib Eye with Gorgonzola and Hazelnuts

I don't cook steak very often since I don't eat a lot of red meat.  That said, every once in a while, I crave steak.  Perhaps it harkens back to my college days when I subsisted off substandard salad bar and ramen because the "meat" served in the cafeteria was of dubious quality and cooked beyond recognition.  Whenever my parents came to visit I wanted STEAK every night.  I'm sure Outback made a killing during Parents' Weekend. 

This recipe is from The Wine Lover Cooks with Wine, which is a great book if you like using wine as an ingredient.  This steak dish also lets me eat blue cheese, which is one of my favorites.  The original recipe called for Roquefort cheese, but the store was out of it and I bought some blue cheese instead.   I also topped it with hazelnuts instead of walnuts.  It's served with a side of jalapeno roasted potatoes, which are simple to make!

The wine sauce has a great flavor, and the cheese goes very well with it.  It's also a good match for the potatoes.  Looking back, I don't know if I needed to keep them separate in a bowl, the sauce was good on them!  

Smoked Lasagna. Or, My Dad is Awesome for Humoring Me.

Last Sunday was Father's Day.  My mom is in Ireland with her cousin.  At my parents' house, she's the cook.  So for the past two weeks, Dad has been eating Bachelor Chow.  He's always been willing to eat my experiments, so I decided to feed him a few times this week.  For Father's Day, I made lasagna.  Now, one of my rules of cooking is never to experiment on guests.  Normally, I only cook tried and true recipes for my friends and family, because I know some of my experiments end up looking like Klingon food, and sometimes they probably taste like it, too.  But, I was having problems choosing the perfect dish to cook for my dad.   He's the opposite of a picky eater, but I wanted it to be special.  

I got it in my head that I would make lasagna.  Prior to this, I had made lasagna once in my entire life.  And that, according to the date stamp on my picture, was in June 2008.   So pretty much three years ago.  It was a spinach lasagna.  My dad is a meat fan, so I decided to use a new recipe, thus violating my rule about experimenting on family.

After extensive googling, I decided to make Michael Symon's lasagna recipe.  I love Michael Symon, to the point where I happily fangirled all over myself when I went to his restaurant, Lola, with my husband and in-laws.  Anyway, I picked his recipe because it wasn't super complicated.  And it was Michael Symon, how could it go wrong?!

The lasagna looks awesome.  But you should smell my house.  And my hair. 

This recipe seemed like it would make enough lasagna to feed a family of 25 for a month.  But, somehow, it all fit into this dish.  It's not deep enough to be a lasagna dish, but it's the most appropriate dish that I have. 

Goulash: A Spicy Way to Use Leftover Ground Meat

I love goulash! It's a great way to use up leftover ground meat.  You can use ground beef, lamb, veal, or a combination to make this dinner.  I think I've used ground pork, too.  My love for goulash began when I was a kid and my mom made a dish called "American Chop Suey," which was shell pasta, ground beef, onions, canned tomatoes, and spices.  Later on, I started calling it "goulash" because it reminded me more of Hungarian goulash than it did chop suey.  (Who was it that said if you order chop suey, you get what you deserve?)

This recipe began as one of Rachael Ray's 30 minute meals.  But, I've been making it for years and now it's very different.  The basic ingredients are the same, but I've changed the spices and ratios.  The original recipe is here, but it won't taste nearly as good as mine! ;)  This is a great comfort food, and it's easy to make if you've got some random leftover ground meat in the freezer.   

Goulash! Also a great way to use radishes

BBQ Beef Brisket with Grilled Salt and Vinegar Potatoes

I figure I'll start off with a tried and true recipe that, while I don't make very often, is always very tasty.  When my husband and I got married, his family put together a box filled with recipes from their family and friends.  This brisket was one of them. Unless I'm experimenting on friends, I usually cook for two.  So, I scale a lot of recipes to avoid waste; leftovers tend to sit in the fridge until they achieve consciousness.  This recipe is unusual, in that it makes good leftovers that I actually ate.  I brought them to work for lunch.  The original recipe called for 4 lbs of beef for 8 people, so I wanted 1 lb for the two of us.  The smallest piece Wegman's had was 5 lbs, but they cut it in half for us.  I love sauce, so I went ahead and made the full recipe instead of scaling it for two. 

The home made BBQ sauce is the focus of this dish.  I've tweaked the sauce a little because I feel like 1 tsp of chili powder is never enough.  Celery seeds are a very important part of this sauce's flavor.  The sauce freezes well for future use.  Aside from needing to cook for 3+ hours, this recipe doesn't involve a lot of work.  The sauce is very easy to make. I decided to top my sandwich with some caramelized onion.  This was the first time I've done this, and it worked really well!

I paired the brisket with some grilled salt and vinegar potatoes.  For most of my life, I thought potatoes were the Devil's Tuber, but more recently I've been trying to eat them more.  I like potatoes when they are seasoned well or have some kind of extra flavor added to them.  I still can't eat them plain or even worse, mashed (yuck!).  This recipe caught my eye because it looked like a healthier alternative to my favorite type of potato chip: salt and vinegar.  While they smelled good, these were a bit of a disappointment.   They were quite limp despite the extra time they spent in the grill pan.  Perhaps it's because I used my grill pan instead of my real grill.  Maybe they needed significantly more time because they were larger potatoes.  Regardless, they didn't cook for long enough or the pan didn't do as good of a job as a real grill.  I suspect that 1/4 inch is too thick.  Next time I attempt these, I'll set my mandoline to 1/8 and see if that improves the texture, or use smaller potatoes if I can find them.  I'll definitely try them again because I love vinegar and grilling is a healthier alternative to frying or eating potato chips.