Posts from the ‘Beef,Pork,Lamb’ Category

Apr 18

Lamb Shoulder Roast With Spring Vegetables

Friends came over for Easter dinner and I wanted to serve a special main dish that screamed Spring, what comes to mind is lamb and to accompany the lamb a variety of vegetables. I bought a boneless lamb shoulder roast weighing 3.65 pounds trimmed and tied. I really don’t cook or eat that much meat especially roasts and did a search online for some ways to prepare.A meal that was simple, no fuss and tasty was key. Jamie Olivers roast lamb shoulder sounded great, flavored with rosemary, salt, pepper and garlic and roasted until so tender it falls apart. The rosemary in my garden is still around, can’t believe it lasted outside all winter and I had just enough for this recipe. Mr. Oliver cranks up the heat in the oven as high as it goes, lays rosemary and unpeeled garlic cloves at the bottom of a baking tray or roasting pan, rubs the meat with salt and pepper, gives it a good dose of olive oil, puts more rosemary and garlic on top of the meat, covers and roasts. Once you put the pan in the oven you immediately lower the oven temp to 325 and leave it for about 3 1/2-4 hours. In the end you have a lovely tender and fragrant lamb roast. After roasting you make a gravy from the pan drippings. The meat was so tender I couldn’t slice it, it fell apart as I touched it that’s why it looks so sloppy. It really was so good and so easy to prepare, no fuss at all.

The vegetables I used are peas, carrots and asparagus. The carrots and asparagus were roasted in the oven and the peas steamed and smothered in butter. I also had some small yukon gold potatoes that I boiled then drained, put in a buttered oval casserole and oven roasted at 400 degree’s covered with foil until the potatoes just began to brown, approximately 45 minutes.

There were leftovers which I made into a shepherds pie, just mix leftover gravy with the meat and vegetables, mash some potatoes, spread on top and bake at 400 degree’s until the mash crust is browned and filling is bubbly.

Jamie Olivers Roasted Lamb Shoulder

One boneless lamb shoulder roast (Mine was 3.65 lbs)

1/2 bulb garlic peel on and gently smashed

2 red onions peeled and quartered

6-8 sprigs fresh rosemary

olive oil

salt and pepper

You will need a roasting pan with a lid or if you don’t have you can cover this with tin foil. Heat the oven as high as it goes which in my case was 550 degree’s. Drizzle a little olive oil in the bottom of your pan and lay several sprigs of rosemary and half of the garlic which you smashed peel and all. Rub some olive oil on the lamb and season with salt and pepper. Lay on the rosemary and garlic. Put another sprig or two of rosemary on top along with the rest of the garlic. Surround the meat with the onion quarters and put the lid on or cover tightly with foil. Place in the oven and immediately lower the temperature to 325 degree’s. Roast for 3 1/2 to 4 hours.

Remove from the oven and pick out the rosemary (discard), onion and garlic. Pour through a sieve, pressing the onion and garlic and pour into a pan where you will reduce by about 1/3. Make a slurry using 1 tbs of flour and add to the reduced pan juices along with some wine, broth or water, just a little. Whisk until it thickens. Serve along side the roast.

My favorite part of the meal is the spring vegetables, I wasn’t lucky enough to find them at the farmers market, there are still a few weeks left before they appear according to the farmers. I was able to get some incredibly fresh vegetables at the store and some frozen peas. No recipe required for the vegetables, the carrots and asparagus are oven roasted with salt and pepper and olive oil, the peas are steamed and then I put them all together on a platter with some good salted butter.

Leftovers made into shepherds pie

Jan 13

35 Comments

Beef And Eggplant Ragu

I love a good meaty pasta dish, it’s rich and perfect cold weather fare. This recipe couldn’t be easier, and has a surprise ingredient, eggplant which adds an amazing flavor and texture, it’s similar to a bolognese but not your traditional recipe. I have posted recipes from Windy before, well, it was a few years ago and I posted her recipe for turkey meatballs in a cream sauce. She doesn’t have a food blog but I think she should. Her recipes are delicious, nutritious and budget conscience. Whether making this for one or a family (it tastes even better the next day) you should give this recipe a try. You can use whatever type of pasta you like, whether long noodles or a substantial pasta like rigatoni it is wonderful, gnocchi would be great as well.

Beef and eggplant ragu

Serves 4 generously

4 garlic cloves chopped
1 shallot chopped
1/2 small onion (red or yellow)
1 lb 80% Lean ground beef
1 small Eggplant peeled and cubed
1 28 oz can Tomato Puree
1 cup red wine
Salt
Pepper
3 Bay Leaves
1 tsp sugar (optional)

Dice and sautée garlic, shallots and onion for about 3 min. Add ground beef. Cook until ground beef is browned then add eggplant and cook about 4 min longer. Add canned tomato, wine, salt, pepper, sugar and bay leaves. Cover and simmer for about 20-30 min.
Cook pasta of your choice. I used fettuccine. Toss pasta with sauce and sprinkle pecorino Romano on top. Also good with a dollop of ricotta. 😋

Oct 13

22 Comments

Guest Post – Keralas Creative Kitchen

The next guest post comes from Sumith whose amazing blog Keralas Creative Kitchen is a compilation of delicious recipes and artistic food styling. I was so thrilled that he agreed to do a guest post for me. Thank you so much Sumith this is a gorgeous dish and everyone please visit his blog you will be inspired and amazed because it is about much more than just cooking. Sumith takes you on a journey of the senses, an artistic romp with food. I hope you enjoy, follow the link below to see this post.

Thank you Sumith!!

Spiced Stir Fried Sirloin Steak- Sense of touch in cooking and eating food

Sep 13

70 Comments

Stuffed Peppers, A Visit From A Friend And Nectarine And Meyer Lemon Preserves

Two weeks ago a new farmers market popped up only 2 blocks from my home. It’s small only 2 stands one with baked goods and the other fresh fruit and vegetables. It does not have an abundant selection but the vegetables are good and fresh and it’s great to have a farmers market during the week and near me. I’ve shopped there the past two weeks and have some beautiful produce to work with.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve made stuffed peppers, a really long time, I’m not sure why because I like them. I usually stuff the peppers with meat and rice and vegetables and simmer them in a tomato sauce, actually when I first made them years ago I saw a recipe using Campbells tomato soup. I made them on the stove top and the peppers were soft and tender and the filling was delicious, I always topped them with some cheese which melted on the peppers and the sauce that you spoon over the pepper was really good. So I bought some tomato soup and decided to recreate this forgotten recipe. I have never seen a purple pepper before you can see it below, I thought it was so pretty I had to buy it and thought it would be nice to have an assortment of colors. These are great because they are already individually portioned and with a salad you have a great meal. For a vegetarian version you can add lentils or beans instead of the ground meat, even tofu would be good.

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Makes 4 large stuffed peppers

1 lb ground beef, pork, turkey or chicken

1 cup cooked rice, white or wild or both (I used wild rice)

1/2 cup cooked yellow split peas

1 medium onion chopped

1 large clove garlic minced

1 cup diced fresh tomato tomato

2 cups chopped kale (uncooked, it will cook down)

1 cup grated cheese, your choice, I used manchego and cheddar.

1 can tomato soup or tomato sauce + 1 can water (a can of soup is 10 3/4 oz)

Ready for the oven

Boil your rice in salted water until it’s cooked al dente. You don’t want it completely cooked or it will turn to mush when it’s cooked in the pepper. In another pot boil the yellow split peas in salted water until soft but a little toothsome.

Heat oven to 375 degree’s. Pour the tomato soup or sauce and water in a baking dish and whisk to combine. Clean your peppers, cut the top off and clean the inside of the pepper removing seeds and membranes. If the peppers won’t sit well cut/shave a very thin slice off the bottom of the pepper being careful not to cut a hole or the filling will fall out.

Heat a little olive oil in a skillet and add the onion and garlic, cook until soft and transluscent. Add the ground meat and cook until meat is browned. Drain any fat, season with salt and pepper and set aside. Add a little more olive oil and cook the kale until softened. Chop the tomatoes and add to a mixing bowl along with the meat, onion,garlic and kale, mix in the rice, split peas and cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Note: It’s important to season along the way then before you stuff the peppers season again if needed. The cheese acts as a binding agent but you can also add a beaten egg.

Stuff each pepper all the way to the top gently pressing the filling into the pepper and place in the baking dish sitting in the tomato soup. Sprinkle a little cheese on top. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake for 45 minutes, uncover, increase the temperature to 425 and cook another 15-20 minutes. The peppers should be soft but not falling apart.

Over the weekend I got to meet Gerlinde- Sunny Cove Chef. Meeting other bloggers is wonderful and a great perk that comes with blogging, she is such a lovely and sweet person. We had lunch at a local restaurant and walked around the neighborhood. Gerlinde is German by birth and lives in sunny California. She is also an accomplished and avid traveller, part of her blog is devoted to her travels, she calls it Wanderlust Blog. She brought me a gift, so sweet of her. Some meyer lemons from her tree, beautiful ceramic egg cups, some German pesto salt and some tea. I used one of the lemons with the nectarines to make this preserve. An unusual combination, maybe, but it works and the preserves are delicious, a little tart, a little sweet and the meyer lemon adds this wonderful flavor that is distinct to that citrus fruit. I only made one 16 oz jar using the nectarines I had that were over ripe.

Nectarine and Meyer Lemon Preserves

Made 1 16 oz jar

5-6 nectarines peeled and cut into slices- they were sizeable nectarines so if yours are smaller use more

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

pinch of cinnamon (about 1/8 tsp)

Juice of one meyer lemon (You will put half of the lemon in with the nectrarines while cooking)

Add the sliced nectarines to heavy bottom sauce pan along with the sugar, honey, cinnamon,lemon juice and half a lemon. Bring to a boil on medium high heat. Then reduce the heat to medium and continue cooking until thick, test it by placing a spoonful on a cold saucer it should thicken when it’s ready. It cooked for close to an hour. Place in sterilized jar, seal and process with your preferred method. No shots of this open the jar is sealed, waiting for winter.

Aug 19

136 Comments

What’s A Food Blogger To Do?

Green Market Haul

Lately I have been a pretty sorry excuse for a food blogger, sorry about that, I have several excuses, busy, it’s too hot to cook but honestly I think that I feel lost, not terribly motivated and a bit forlorn because I have gained weight. I love food, cooking it, eating it, shopping for it and blogging about it. Taking photo’s of what I prepare (when they are good) makes me happy. Unfortunately, the food I make ends up in my mouth at least a good portion of it, some gets farmed out to friends and family and even charity but what ends up in me has caused me to gain weight. I wish I were the person that could eat whatever they want and never gain an ounce but thats not me, I wish I could happily exist on salads and low fat food and no sugar, but thats not me either. There has to be a balance and I have not found that yet. I’m also not an exercise fanatic, sure I walk every day, walking Percy doesn’t really count because thats not much exercise, he is very slow. The heat has also taken it’s toll, making me lethargic, I just don’t want to be outside it’s too uncomfortable. After some soul searching and a glance in the mirror I decided to try to find my balance and watch what I eat, the reason for this post is that over the next few weeks you will not be seeing anything remotely fattening, no cakes or pies or bread or heavy calorie laden meals. I have to do it for me and I am challenging myself to come up with some great recipes that will help me, if you all have something you love comment and provide the link to your recipe. Will it make me happy, not really, I would rather eat what I want, but if I slim down a bit maybe I will feel better about myself. I will still be posting recipes but until I find a balance in my eating I am staying away from the foods I love namely sweets, bread, rice and pasta. The photo’s you see I posted on the Food52 app for “not recipes” I will be posting these over the next few weeks, they are simple and delicious and fit into my diet.

I have always fought to keep my weight down, I tend to yo yo. Years ago I saw a nutritionist who put me on phen phen, I was not dramatically overweight and just wanted to lose about 20 lbs. Well let me tell you that stuff works, I had no ill effects, I took a very low dosage about a quarter of what the Doc prescribed and the weight came off, too much really. People were actually telling me I need to gain weight, that felt good no one ever said that to me before. I was on it for a year and then the bottom dropped out, they took one of the phen’s off the market because some people had heart related complications. He put me on other meds that I didn’t like, they didn’t work and made me feel bad so I slowly gained weight. To this day I still have not gained back all of the weight I lost I have gained a good portion back though. A few years ago I tried South Beach and was very successful losing a lot of weight and I really liked the low carb and low sugar diet, I never really felt hungry and the weight melted off. When I started competitive cooking on Food 52 and Whole foods, and blogging about it I gained back most of what I lost on the South Beach plan.

strawberry buttermilk smoothie

I have to try again and if I cook the food I like then I gain weight. I am active, I work, I walk, I am constantly doing something but evidently not enough to mitigate the amount of calories I consume. I recently tried weight watchers, I really don’t like counting points or weighing food, the thing is I know how much I should be eating, I know my portions are too big. Portion control is key along with making the right choices.

Sorry to bore you with all this but I wanted to lay it all out and explain why you may not see much from me for the next few weeks. The Holidays are coming, I can hardly believe it, and I can’t afford to allow the usual holiday weight gain to happen on top of what I have gained over the years. As you age your metabolism slows down, at least for some of us, and all of that needs to be taken into consideration when deciding what goes on your plate and into your mouth.

Here is a light, quick and delicious stir fry that I am making tonight. I use skirt or flank steak cut into strips it cooks up in no time and is tasty and satisfying without being heavy. Tonight I will have it without the rice just broccoli.

Beef and Pepper stir fry

1lb flank or skirt steak cut into strips

bell pepper, I used rainbow colors, orange, red, yellow. cut into strips

1 medium onion sliced thinly

1 clove garlic minced

1 tsp minced ginger

corn starch for dusting the meat

soy sauce

salt and pepper if needed

Coat pan or wok with a little oil, add the onion and sauté just until softened, add the garlic and ginger, now add the peppers and continue to saute until all the vegetables are cooked through. Remove from pan, add a little more oil if needed and saute the beef just until browned, put the onion and peppers back in the pan, add a little soy sauce, add salt and pepper if needed. Serve over rice or with vegetable like broccoli and I added some quick pickled radish.The broccoli is steamed then drizzled with soy sauce and toasted sesame oil and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Aug 5

118 Comments

Shumai

Sometimes I like to step outside of my comfort zone and make something that is not familiar to me. When eating at a Japanese restaurant there are two things I always order, Shumai and Gyoza, portable little bites of deliciousness with a tasty dipping sauce. Although Shumai is familiar food making it, not so much. The other day there was an email from Food and Wine with a recipe from Andrew Zimmern for Shumai, looking it over it seemed straightforward and simple to make, both of these are requisites when I tackle a food that I have not cooked before. I did not own a bamboo steamer so I had to buy one, no problem. The list of ingredients were very familiar except for the black vinegar for the dipping sauce, instead I used mirin and rice wine vinegar and it was delicious. I also didn’t have Shaoxing wine or dry sherry so instead I used dry white wine and it turned out just fine. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, did not carefully measure, instead I sort of ad libed and eyeballed the ingredients I don’t think it’s an exact science like baking. The Shumai turned out great except for one thing, I forgot to line the steamer with the cabbage, which I had bought but forgot to use. If you don’t line the steamer the shumai stick, most of the bottoms of the little dumplings were stuck and I had to carefully pry them off, there were some casualties but they were still ok. Thank you to Stefan for pointing out that these are actually Chinese, I should have done my homework but since I ordered in Japanese restaurants I assumed and well you know what happens when you assume. Sorry for the mistake.

These little dumplings are portable and delicious and I thought I would bring them with me to Fiesta Friday #131, Angie is back and the co hosts this week are Su @ Su’s Healthy Living and Laura @ Feast Wisely

Shumai

Food and Wine- Recipe by Andrew Zimmern

Made 22 dumplings

Dipping Sauce

1/4 cup soy sauce (used light- lower sodium soy sauce)

1/4 cup black vinegar (equal parts mirin and rice wine vinegar)

1 tsp Chili garlic sauce

In a small bowl whisk all the ingredients together.

Shumai

12 oz ground pork (I used less probably closer to 8 oz)

6 oz shrimp minced (used less shrimp as well probably 4 oz)

4 scallions chopped – the white and light green parts only (used 3)

3 tbs minced peeled ginger (used 1 generous tbs)

1 tbs soy sauce

1 tbs toasted sesame oil

1 1/2 tbs Shaoxing wine or dry sherry (used dry white wine)

3/4 tsp salt (used scant 1/2 tsp)

all purpose flour for dusting (didn’t need it)

round won ton or gyoza skins

napa cabbage leaves for steaming (don’t forget the cabbage like me)

blanched peas to garnish (You could place the pea on the shumai before steaming also)

Mix all the ingredients together, hold a won ton skin in the palm of your hand and place a tbs of the filling in the center. Gently fold the wrapper around the filling, it will stick to the filling. Place on parchment lined baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Place about an inch of water in your wok or a skillet, bring to a boil. Line steamer with the cabbage leaves and place the shumai on top of the leaves leaving some space in between each. Steam them until the filling is no longer pink. It took about 15 minutes (Note: the recipe said 8-10 minutes to cook but I erred on the side of caution because there was raw pork). Garnish each with a pea and serve hot with the dipping sauce.

Jun 24

86 Comments

Chimichurri Marinated Petit Filet With Roasted Potato And Tomato

Kind of a long recipe title I know and I tried every which way to shorten it but wanted it to describe the dish, hence the way too long title. In the summer when it’s hot the last thing I like to do is stand over a hot stove and my BBQ grill is the answer to that. I normally make this with flank steak but there was a sale on petit filet which I love, they are tender and quite tasty and I thought using the same chimichurri marinade for these little pieces of beef would be delicious. It’s so simple and you can actually prepare the meat the night before, marinating overnight makes the meat even more flavorful. The chimichurri I have posted here before, it’s really good both as a marinade and condiment. The leftover chimichurri went on the micro potatoes which I roasted in the oven along with some baby heirloom tomatoes. A simple and delicious dinner that can be made quickly and easily using the grill, oven or stovetop.

Since it’s grilling season and it’s Friday, Fiesta Friday #125 that is I am bringing all of this with me to the party. Angie and her co hosts Quinn from the blog Dad What’s 4 Dinner and the lovely Elaine from the amazing vegetarian blog Foodbod (Elaine sorry this is a post with meat while you are co hosting).

Petit Filet

chimichurri for marinade

2 petit filet totalling about 1 1/2 lbs

salt and pepper

olive oil

Place the meat and about 2-3 heaping tbs of the chimichurri in a zip lock bag, seal, squish the marinade around so it’s covering the meat and refrigerate at least an hour or better overnight.

Take the meat out of the refrigerator, scrape off excess marinade and let meat sit for about 30 minutes to take the chill off. Brush with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

It takes about 8-10 minutes total (for medium rare) approximately 4-5 minutes on each side on a red hot grill. Be sure to cover the meat loosely for about 10-15 minutes before carving.

Tomatoes and Potatoes

Pre heat oven to 375 degree’s.

Using two sheet pans one for tomatoes and one for potatoes, line with parchment. Drizzle olive oil on tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. The micro potatoes can be cut in half or left whole, wash and dry, place in a bowl and add the chimichurri, make sure each potato is covered in the marinade. Place on sheet pan and season with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven until the potatoes are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside and the tomatoes are soft and slightly caramelized. In all it took about 25 minutes in my oven.

Percy with his birthday cake couldn’t resist he loved his cake

May 23

64 Comments

Community Meeting, Half Marathon, Bark Fest And a Noodle Bowl

It has been a crazy few weeks. Have to say it is kind of a blur. Our neighborhood has been fighting a proposal by DOT to change Clinton Ave a two way street into a one way street with TWO buffered bike lanes. Safety for everyone on that stretch came into question. There are many big coop buildings with MANY elderly and disabled residents and we saw flaws in the plan because (in a nutshell) they did not take into account emergency vehicles, delivery vehicles, access-a-ride- fire trucks, sanitation trucks not to mention how the elderly and disabled can cross two bike lanes to get to their vehicles or service car. The plan was ONLY considering cyclists. The 2 way (NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE IN BROOKLYN) buffered bike lane would be curbside thereby eliminating curb side parking for residents with cars, the city has long been trying to make it as difficult, unsavory and as expensive as possible for those who drive. Limited parking would be in the middle of the street and the one lane would be going north bound. Traffic from the eliminated lane would be diverted to my street and one other. My opposition to this plan is because of safety issues for the residents but also the block I live on CANNOT safely sustain any more traffic, it is already a bumper to bumper traffic nightmare during certain times of the day and it would get much much worse.

Even the elected’s had concerns

I don’t own a car, I walk, take public transporation or even bike from time to time and I am all for safety for cyclists but this plan is only taking them into consideration and not the needs of the community as a whole. We fought back and fought back hard, opposition was HUGE and loud and it got ugly because the people from Transporation Alternatives, a very powerful and wealthy lobbying group for the cyclists were there to try to discredit us. In the end DOT temporarily withdrew their proposal and promised to go back to the drawing board, we will see but we are still mobilizing and fighting because the battle is has not been won there is only a short reprieve. More to come on this one.

Brooklyn Half Marathon

I had the honor and priviledge of holding the tape for the winners of the Air Bnb Brooklyn Half Marathon. What a great day it was, beautiful weather for running and over 27,000 runners started at the Brooklyn Museum on Eastern Parkway and the race ended at Coney Island. The race started at 7AM and I had to be at the finish line before 7:30AM, a very early morning, Percy is not used to having his morning walk at 5AM but he was a really good sport.

Bark Fest

Percy is ready for bark fest

My friend Carla and I took our dogs, Percy and Olive to Bark Fest. It was in Manhattan on Pier 97 on the west side of the city. We bought VIP tickets which gave us some perks. It was my first bark fest, last year Nando was very ill and I couldn’t go, I have heard it’s fun so thought we would give it a try.

It was a beautiful day, not too hot a little over cast which was good for the dogs. I would have preferred it were held in a park with grass rather than a concrete pier. The people from Bark Box were the people who organized it. Honestly, it was ok but we were a little disappointed, It was packed there were thousands of people there, only 2 food trucks we had to wait in line almost 2 hours to get something to eat, there was a long line for everything. We got there right when it opened at 2 PM and got a few minutes in the VIP lounge but after that there was over a 1 hour wait to get in. Would I go again? Doubt it.

Spring Roll Bowl

I saw this on Pure Wow and thought it looked easy, delicious, light and fresh and I wanted to immediately make it. I did just that and it was really good, so good in fact that I had to make it again and tweak a bit. The first one I made I used chicken which I sauteed in sesame oil as called for in the recipe, the second time I marinated a pork tenderloin in soy sauce, lime, sesame oil and ginger. It really is a wonderful light meal.

Spring roll bowl with chicken

SPICY PEANUT SAUCE

¾ cup smooth peanut butter

2 teaspoons sesame oil

3 tablespoons soy sauce

¼ cup rice vinegar

⅓ cup water

Juice of 1 lime

1 tablespoon agave or honey

2 teaspoons minced ginger

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon Sriracha

Salt, to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. In a blender or food processor, combine the ingredients for the peanut sauce and process until smooth. If the sauce is too thick, add more water 1 tablespoon at a time. Set aside.

carrot, cucumber,watermelon radish spiralized

The bowl

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts or you can use pork tenderloin

sesame oil

boston lettuce

scallions

carrots ( I spiralized a purple carrot you can grate or cut into strips

straight thin cut rice noodles

cucumbers cut into strips

Avocado cut into slices

sesame rice crackers (optional)

Place some rice noodles in a bowl and fill with boiling water add some salt, add a little salt and let sit until noodles soften.

Clean lettuce and place in bowl, saute the chicken in sesame oil, season with salt and pepper and slice.

Cut cucumber into strips, spiralize or cut carrot into strips.

toasted cashews chopped as a garnish

lime wedges

Add whatever you like, avocado, eliminate meat entirely if you like. Drizzle with peanut sauce and enjoy.

The second time I made it I used pork tenderloin which I marinated in sesame oil, soy sauce and ginger and pan seared then finished in the oven. Takes only minutes.

May 10

75 Comments

Flank Steak With Chimichurri

These last few weeks have been really kind of crazy busy. With the Continuing Ed classes I had to take, my work schedule and community work, I barely had time to breathe. With all that I discovered I am not great at multi tasking, that I am the type that does one thing at a time and when there is too much to do instead of going with the flow and tackling the multitude of tasks I become flustered and end up not doing anything well. During all this hoopla I felt bad about not blogging and made a cake which was a HUGE flop, so bad it ended up in the trash. At that point I decided to concentrate on my courses and I neglected not just my blog but all of yours as well and I am sorry about that. I had to focus and thankfully it paid off I finished the course and some of the planning for a big community meeting, as well as scheduling a block association meeting (another group I neglected). I feel like I am getting back on track, Percy is a dream dog, so well behaved and such a sweetheart, because he is so easy going it allows me time to do the things I need to do.

I don’t eat a lot of meat, I am not vegetarian but my choice of food for the most part is meatless, however when I want meat this is one of my favorites. The chimichurri is taken from a recipe I developed for Food52 back when I first joined their site. It was my first contest win and this recipe was added to their second cookbook. I made a sandwich using thick cut brioche buttered and grilled, marinated flank steak, tomato, mayo mixed with chimichurri. It’s a really good sandwich, big and juicy and thick, my Flank Steak On Texas Toast With Chimichurri was what I wanted but I did not want the calories/carbs from that thick bread so I just made the steak marinated in chimichurri and served with mashed potatoes and salad.

I like to let the steak rest in the marinade overnight, the flavor is pretty incredible when it sits that long in the chimichurri. My steak was uneven in thickness, thin in some parts and quite thick in others. I let it cook almost 5 minutes on each side. The thickest part was a nice medium rare.

The chimichurri and flank steak:
1 1 1/2 to 2-pound flank steak
1 cup flat leaf parsley cleaned and large stems removed, finely chopped (by hand or use food processor)
1/2 cup baby arugula, finely chopped (by hand or use food processor)
2 cloves garlic, minced (you can add to parsley and arugula in food processor)
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
For chimichurri, place the parsley, arugula, garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, olive oil and red wine vinegar in the bowl of the food processor, pulse until everything is chopped and somewhat homogenous, when done scrape into a bowl. Cover both sides of the steak with some of the chimichurri, put in ziplock bag and refrigerate for one or two hours or overnight. Cover and refrigerate the rest of the chimichurri.

Remove steak from refrigerator approximately 30-45 minutes before you are going to cook it. Scrape off some of the chimichurri, salt the steak and let rest. To sear the steak: First with a paper towel pat the steak to remove any excess moisture. In a very hot fry pan lay steak, let it sear without disturbing it. Cook approximately 3-5 minutes on each side for a medium rare steak. (You will have to judge exactly how long to sear based on the thickness of the steak.) Remove from pan, lay on cutting board, pepper the steak now, let rest 5-10 minutes.

Mashed Potatoes

4 large yukon gold potatoes peeled and cut into thick slices

sour cream- full fat (approximately 1/3-1/2 cup)

Butter (approximately 4 tbs)

Snipped chives to garnish optional

salt and pepper

Place potato slices in cold salted water and bring a boil. Continue to boil until the potatoes are fork tender. You can mash however your preferred method is. I use a food mill scooping out the cooked potatoes and grinding in the food mill using the finest disc. I don’t like lumps unless I choose a rough mash. Add the butter first to the potatoes stir to make sure butter is melted, now add the sour cream. Season with salt and pepper. I keep the potatoes in a warm oven covered with foil until ready to serve.

Spoon some of the chimichurri that you didn’t used for the marinade onto the steak and enjoy!!

Feb 7

145 Comments