Garlic, garlic, garlic!

Hello! I've mostly been doing old favorites this summer like tuna & white bean salad, or having cold meals like a sandwiches, or a hummus plate with olives and cucumbers. 

I was craving steak and found myself cruising Just One Cookbook. I had to do some extra shopping for this recipe, but it's totally worth it. 

I scaled the recipe down for one, but I will be making it again at full volume. It's too good not to share!

I will note there are a lot of steps, but none of them take a particularly long time. The whole recipe comes together in less than hour once your rice is at the right temperature. It tastes like it took much longer.

Studio Living and I Refuse to Make Boring Salads

I got out of the habit of eatings salads when I had braces years ago. The greens would get caught in my teeth, which was a bit embarrassing and made it a bit hard to eat.

I almost always have a deficiency of vegetables in my diet. One of the ways I get them if by putting things on a bed of spinach. Today, I went for a spinach salad with steak. I complicated things and expanded cooking time, by using the immersion circulator, but I"ll skip that part until almost everyone has their own way to sous vide. A lot of InstaPots have that attachment, for example..

Ingredients for one serving:

• 3 or 4 handfuls of raw spinach, washed, drained, dry, washed again. If it's adult spinach, tear it a bit. If you have a clamshell package, about half will do.
• 4 oz steak, cooked to your liking (you can serve it warm or cold)
• 3 large mushrooms, sliced (I used crimini, white ones work just fine)
• 5 pieces of bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 1 hard-boiled egg
• 2-3 Tablespoons of thinly sliced red onion or shallot
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon of your favorite vinegar. Balsamic doesn't work here, it will overwhelm the bacon. I used a white tarragon vinegar that needed to be used up
• 1 teaspoon mustard. I used dijon.
• Pinch of sugar
• Salt & pepper to taste

Cut/slice/chop your vegetables first. This will make assembly easier. Once that's done, set them aside and start cooking your bacon Move it to paper towels to drain. Reserve one Tablespoon of the bacon fat. Put the bacon and the fat in whatever container you use to make salad dressing (I recommend a glass jar  like one for pasta sauce or wide-mouthed tea bottle).

Cook the steak to your liking (I go for rare). Let rest while you make the dressing.

In your dressing vessel (say that five times fast), add the olive oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper and sugar. If you're using a bowl, whisk thoroughly. If you're using a jar, cover the jar with its lid tightly and shake it for 30-60 seconds. Taste and adjust as needed.

Arrange spinach on a dinner plate. Slice your steak and put it on top of the spinach. You can serve deconstructed (egg, onion, and mushrooms set in little piles on top of the spinach) or add the other ingredients with layers. Or just scatter everything about. Give the dressing another whisk or shake, and pour on the salad. 

I don't make this often, but I really should. It's filling, it's tasty, there are lots of different textures, and it's full of produce. Win all around!

with thanks to Ike and Tina Turner. . .

in one of their shows, Ike and Tina introduced the tune Proud Mary as starting soft and then getting a little bit rough. I thought I'd do that with recipes. For one thing, it will show you something great, and for another, it shows that I am not just critical, I can be pleased.

This week's recipe comes from the Food Network Alton Brown. On his Good Eats show, one episode was dedicated to Steak au poivre.

This recipe is rated as Intermediate, though I found it pretty easy to follow. Let's talk about the ingredients first:

Tenderloin steaks. I actually used filet mignon, which is part of the tenderloin. I can't afford steak very often, so when I make it, I go all out and get the good stuff.

Kosher salt we have a salt grinder and that works just fine. When it runs out, we're buying Kosher salt (which by rights should be called Koshering salt)

Whole Peppercorns easy to find in the spice aisle of your grocery

Olive oil no kitchen should be without it

Unsalted butter generally speaking, I don't cook with butter. This is so I don't have to go visit my friendly neighborhood cardiologist and send his kids to college. I don't recommend switching it out for something less fatty, because the sauce will lose that quintessence that makes this a fabulous recipe.

Cognac I leave the booze shopping to my sweetie, because he has even more expensive taste than I do. For this occasion, we used Rémy Martin 1738 Accord Royal. I am not the first to say this (Alton Brown has said it and so have several others): Don't cook with booze you wouldn't drink.

heavy cream. No, this is not a low-fat recipe. It's also not something I make all the time. A little indulgence probably won't kill you. Having this for a meal five nights a week for a year might, but you'll die happy.

I like this ingredient list. Everything but the booze is found in your average grocery store (here in Connecticut for me that is Stop & Shop). If you know a good butcher, more power to you, but running around to specialty shops is not required.

Remove the steaks from the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes and up to an hour before cooking, sprinkle all sides with salt. Big thumbs up to Alton here, this is a bit of cooking lore some cookbooks assume you know and therefore don't tell you.

coarsely crush peppercorns . . . I like that he presents several suggestions for accomplishing this. For the highest fun factor, go for the mallet.

in a medium skillet. . . this paragraph not only tells you what tool to use (some recipes don't) but exactly what to look for when it says As soon as the butter and oil begin to turn golden and smoke. Here we have a great example of instructions. Go Alton!

Off of the heat if I were to make any change to the recipe, I might bold those four words. I think there would be fewer singed eyebrows in the world. Still, the instructions for setting the cognac on fire (yes, I had to set something on fire in the first real post!) are easy to follow.

I would recommend this recipe for Valentines day, or other intimate occasion, like Thursday. It has the advantage of tasting like you slaved in the kitchen all day, but it really doesn't take very long to make.

Comments, questions? Have a recipe you'd like deconstructed? Let's hear it!