London Broil with smashed potatoes and gravy

I cannot get enough of a good london broil. Fun fact: apparently, that is not an actual cut of meat, but a cooking technique for a certain kind of top round roast. And I have been slicing it wrong forever. I love the "Ask the Meat Man" site.

Damn, beef has been expensive lately. Whatever, I needed it today and the boyfriend was craving mashed potatoes and gravy. I usually marinate this overnight.

2 1/2 lb london broil marinade:
Lee & Perrin's worcestershire... so that's how you spell that
A few splashes of whiskey
A splash of liquid smoke
2 garlic cloves, pressed
Turmeric
Thyme
Black Pepper

I take a pyrex pan that is just bigger than the roast and throw the liquids in and squish the meat around in it. Then, rub around the pressed garlic, throw on the spices and rub everything in. Flip, repeat. Let sit for a day, flipping once part way through.

Heat the oven to 325F and pull the meat out of the fridge so it's not frigid when you throw it in. When you put it in the roasting pan, throw down a smidge of canola oil first. Salt the roast well with kosher salt on the top side, then drip dry, flip it over into the pan and salt the other side. I don't like doing the whole "dry first with a paper towel" thing on this since it pulls off some of the spices and garlic. While this is cooking (maybe 50 minutes?), boil some yukon gold potatoes to smash. I used three, added a few tbs butter and lots of salt and pepper while smashing. I skip the other dairy products, butter is good enough for me.

I felt like simple tonight, so I had this with some corn. I drained a can of corn and fried it with some garlic and butter, with a sprinkle of s/p.

Gravy. Fucking gravy. Beef gravy is my nemesis just like rice. I'll attempt it again tonight, hopefully it won't inspire they boyfriend to open (shudder) a can of store bought gravy, as he likes a nice thick gravy and I generally don't deliver.

Here's my latest effort. It will work eventually.

Combine:
1/2 cup beef broth
1/2 cup leftover marinade
1/2 cup red wine
Pan drippings

Throw the wine in the pan to loosen up the bits in the bottom. Use a wooden spoon if necessary, then throw it in a small pot with the rest. Boil this for at least five minutes, until it starts to reduce a bit. See earlier posts on evil marinade.

Combine 1 tbs of cornstarch with a small amount of liquid, either more broth, wine or water. Stir very well to combine and add to the liquid. Whisk, whisk, whisk! Season with lots of s/p and pray.

Arabic yogurt chicken with tzatziki, hummus and cucumber tomato salad

I can't go long without some sort of middle eastern food. This is a simple chicken dish that is super tasty.

Chicken marinade:
1 cup greek yogurt
2 large garlic cloves, smashed
1 tbs red wine vinegar
1 tbs paprika
1 tbs oregano
1 tbs fresh sage, chopped
2 tbs fresh parsley, chopped
1 tbs cumin
1 tbs salt
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Mix it all together and marinade a few chicken breasts in it for at least an hour, hopefully longer. I usually cut each breast into a few strips. Shake off excess marinade and grill it up. If you're going to bake it instead, at least brown the chicken first. This is not pretty if you don't.

Tzatziki:
3 persian cucumbers, peeled
1 cup greek yogurt
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 garlic cloves, chopped small
5 grinds black pepper
Kosher salt

Grate the cucumber into a strainer. Put about 2 tsp kosher salt on them and let them drain for at least half an hour. Squeeze out any excess moisture. Stir everything together, add salt to taste. Let this sit at least an hour to let the flavors blend.

The salad is close to one a friend of mine made for me years ago.

2 persian cucumbers, peeled, seeded and diced
3 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/2 onion, small dice
2 large garlic cloves, smashed
Juice of 2 lemons
1 tsp sumac
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 bunch chopped parsley
Feta cheese

Chop the cucumbers and tomato, throw in a strainer with some kosher salt and drain. Combine everything in a bowl and toss

Hummus

1 can garbanzo beans
2 tbs tahini
2 cloves garlic
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt
Throw the beans in a pot and boil. Once this cools, add that and everything else into the food processor and blend.

I usually serve this with rice pilaf or maybe some roasted herbed potatoes.

Asada BBQ Dips - pico de gallo, guacamole and red salsa

Today we're having a family barbecue. I'm making a few dips to go with the carne asada.

Pico de gallo:
6 big roma tomatoes, seeded
1/2 big yellow onion
1 jalapeno
1/2 bunch cilantro
Juice of 1 lime
1 tbs kosher salt

This is the basic raw salsa that goes awesome with tortilla chips. I pulse everything in a food processor until it is very finely chopped but not a mush, a little at a time, then combine it. If you like it chunkier, you can just chop everything small.

I discovered a new trick today to make it less soupy. Chop the onion and tomato first and sprinkle it with the salt. After it sits for a bit, a lot of the moisture will come out and you can pour that off before adding the rest.

Guacamole:
3 large avocados
5 cloves garlic
1/3 large red onion
2 limes
Black Pepper
Kosher salt

Finely chop the garlic and onion and add the juice of the limes, pepper and salt. Mix. I like it to have some texture, so I do the avocados in two batches. Add two avocados and smash with a fork until well combined. Add the last avocado and smash it most of the way, leaving it a little chunky. Yum.

Red salsa:
6 big roma tomatoes
1/2 big yellow onion
2-3 serrano peppers
1 lime
1 tbs kosher salt
1/2 bunch cilantro

Chop the tomatoes and onions into quarters, and halve the peppers lengthwise. Throw some oil into a pan - I usually use canola but today safflower worked well - and cook the veggies in batches. You want them to brown a little but not completely blacken. Let them cool and then throw then in the food processor with the cilantro and salt. Add some water if it seems too thick. Add the juice of the lime then add more salt if needed.

And there you have it: the super simple trifecta of dips.

Chicken with pseudo tapenade

I love olives. I love tapenade too. Google insists I am spelling that wrong, but whatever. I got some fresh olives the other day for some salad jars and I had some left over. I also love chicken but seriously, how many times can you fry up some chicken breast the same way? Here's what I did:

Chicken:

2 chicken breasts
Kosher salt
Pepper
Usual spice (Equal parts paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper)
Olive oil

Pseudo tapenade:
10-12 kalamata olives
1 ripe tomato
A few stems of parsley
7 basil leaves
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tbs olive oil
1 pinch salt

To start, combine all the tapenade ingredients. Chop the tomato and olives very small and mix all together. Let this sit for a good while before serving, anything less than an hour doesn't do it justice.

For the chicken, when you're ready to eat, simply season each breast with a bit of the usual and more kosher salt and pepper, heat up the oil really hot and do a decent browning on each side. This is important - if you don't crisp it up now, it will get soggy under the tapenade. Throw it in the oven at 350 for about 10-15 to cook through.

Serve chicken covered by a spread of room temperature tapenade with some pilaf with a bit of feta. I'm thinking broccoli will go well with this. Yum.

Pork and veggie stir fry

I really feel the need to get a few veggies in my dinner tonight. My recent Dorito and fast food binge has left me spent. So this is an old favorite with some new tweaks that cut down on the chemicals in everything I used to use.

Ingredients:
1 lb pork, chopped into 3/4" pieces (this works with chicken or beef, too)
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 inch ginger, grated
2 garlic cloves, grated
Salt and pepper
Rice wine vinegar
Mirin
1 package stir fry veggies - usually broccoli, carrots and snow peas
1 package (three serving) dry Japanese soba noodles (I used to use Maruchan Yaki-Soba but those seem to be pretty full of stuff I can't pronounce)

Mix the meat with the next five ingredients. Let it hang out for a bit.

Cook the noodles according to directions, mine are two minutes in boiling water.

Get a frying pan (hopefully with rounded edges, a wok would rock) hot and add in peanut oil. Once that gets super hot, throw in the meat, drained from the marinade. Set the marinade aside. Spread the meat out a bit or do it in batches so it doesn't just steam. After a couple minutes, when it starts to brown well pull it out. Strain it but save the juice and throw that in with the marinade.

I'll pause there. Generally, you shouldn't use a marinade in the dish, but as long as you boil it, it should be fine. Feel free to leave it out, I like it in.

Add a little more oil, throw in the veggies. Cook until they get a little tender but not soggy, maybe 4 minutes. Pull those out and throw them on the meat.

Add in the juice from the meat and veggies and boil that a few minutes (dangerous marinade, remember?) Then throw in a splash more soy sauce, sesame oil and maybe some mirin or rice wine vinegar if you've got it. I always forget the mirin so I added some sherry. Throw in the noodles.

Heat the noodles for a few minutes, throw everything else back in and enjoy the party.

Notes: Apparently I am out of sesame oil, so I threw in a spoonful of tahini instead. Wonder how that's going to turn out.
I usually use more garlic and ginger, but it would probably be overwhelming for other people. We're both smokers, we need stronger flavors.

Chicken sammich with sun dried tomatoes and goat cheese

So a happy accident at the grocery store today led to some fun stuff. I'm trying to pack a lunch more often now and I misread a Martha Stewart recipe for a sammich. Hers called for farmer's cheese, I got goat cheese. And of course, I got the garlic herb variety.

I know nothing about goat cheese, but the awesome checker at Sprouts (my local grocery that isn't in the top three chains) was very talkative. I loved that. I bought some lavash bread which started the conversation, we discovered neither of us had tried it. When she saw the goat cheese, she said it was awesome, like super intense feta.

Once I got it home and realized I bought the wrong thing for the MS recipe, I thought: if goat cheese is intense feta, sun dried tomatoes are intense tomatoes. And I went from there.

So here is my happy accident sammich. I sampled everything on the way, so I have high hopes it's going to be yummy. My only concern is making this ahead for work tomorrow and it getting soggy, but I over toasted the bread so I hope that offsets it.

4 oz cut up chicken breasts *
2 slices toasted bread, well done
1-2 oz goat cheese, hopefully the garlic and herb kind
3 pieces sun dried tomatoes, chopped
Baby spinach

I got chicken breast cutlets that cook super fast. I cooked them on the Foreman for about three minutes, you could bake them at 325 for the same or fry them. Let them cool.

I over toasted some bread and let it cool. Top half got well chopped sun dried tomatoes, bottom half got the goat cheese. Throw the chicken on the bottom, give it some pepper, smush some spinach on, add top half and have some yum.

I hope this works without the squishy bread.

* My usual plain chicken rub: equal parts paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper. Update: This was awesome, but came out kind of dry. Next time when I cut up the chicken I'll try mixing it with some of the oil from the sun dried tomatoes. Luckily, no squishy bread!

Chicken Stock

Once I figured out how cheap this is compared to buying cans, and how much better, I never buy store bought anymore. I usually use thighs or legs, but I've also just used a cut up whole one. If I have a carcass from a baked one that makes it even better. I also save the stems from mushrooms when I make them and always have a big bag in the freezer. Same with parsley stems.

2 1/2 pounds chicken pieces

1 large onion, quartered
2 stalks celery, rough chopped
2 carrots, rough chopped
2 leeks, green parts only, chopped
Handful of mushroom stems
Handful of parsley stems
2 bay leaves
1 tsp peppercorns

Throw the chicken in a large soup pot and bring to a boil. Once the nasty white stuff comes up, skim it. Add in everything else, then simmer for a few hours.

Strain the stock and throw it in the pot or a big bowl. Once it cools, the fat will stay on the surface and will be super easy to skim. If it comes out perfect, the stock will be almost jelly like.

Freeze whatever you won't use in the next couple of days.

I love the little plastic freezer jars from Ball to store this in, you can just squeeze it right out when you need some.

Shrimp Scampi with asparagus and orzo

I had a craving for scampi today and a bigger craving for a veggie to counteract my teenage style eating habits of late. I'm only halfway through this and it already smells aaaaamazing.

Can you tell I love asparagus with seafood? Yeah...

Olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 large shallot
1 tbs dried oregano
Salt and white pepper
About 30 medium shrimp
1 large lemon

Heat a good amount of olive oil in a pan and saute the garlic and shallot for a bit. DON'T let it brown or else you have to start over. Once it's getting near done, add the oregano and season with salt and white pepper. Let it cool, then add that, the lemon juice, a bit of lemon zest and the shrimp in a bowl to hang out for a while.

When you're ready to cook, you can either bake it, broil it, or saute it. Either way, it'll be done in about five minutes.

Throw a bit of lemon on some asparagus, season with salt and white pepper, and throw it in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Cook up some orzo in chicken stock, drain, add butter or olive oil, salt, pepper and some feta.

Perfection.

A couple of notes:
This feeds two in my house, but we are shrimp fanatics. We will throw down over the last shrimp, so I always make way more than I think I need. Still never enough. This would probably feed four in a non-insane household.
Also, and this should be fairly obvious even though I led with the shrimp, you'll want to start the orzo, then the asparagus, then the shrimp to have everything done at the same time.

Whoops

Apparently everything I have written in the last year or so didn't post, and all my pictures got screwed up. Whoops. I smell a catch up project coming on!