My New Grill and Murphy's Law

The old grill was ten years old and I had already replaced the guts once.

At this point, its performance was suspect at best and the results were nearly always disappointing.

I knew it was time to get a new grill.

The dear husband finally agreed.

Naturally I did some research and found the best grill I could

for the amount of money I had available to me.*

It uses "Tru infared(tm)" technology so that there are no hot or cold spots on the grill surface.

That sounded appealing as I was tired of having a warmish area and a cooler area on my old grill.  It had gotten to the point that I had to rely on flare-ups for the food to attain any grill marks.

*In the latest Consumer Reports ranking on grills, all of the top performers were $1,000 or more.  Definitely outside of my budget.  But my grill did get decent enough marks for me.

 I purchased the unassembled grill today and then the Foodie Boyfriend and I spent about an hour and a half putting this together.

And why can't they make assembly directions clearer?

We both grumbled and groused,

but it finally came together.

 

Then it was time to grill dinner.

And Murphy's Law kicked in:

we ran out of propane!

Yep.  Who'da guessed?

So I sent the Foodie Daughter and Foodie Boyfriend off

with the empty tank and some money, with directions to find someplace to exchange the empty tank for a full one.

I was not going to be denied my first meal!

 Finally, we were back in business.

The inaugural meal was boneless pork loin chops rubbed with brown sugar, kosher salt and cracked black pepper, skewers of fresh pineapple, and quartered new red potatoes that had been par-cooked in the microwave for 7 minutes before being tossed with olive oil, kosher salt and cracked black pepper.

I cooked the pork until it reached an internal temperature of 140 degrees.

The meat was moist and tender and we had grill marks!

The meal was worth the wait.

This grill is a keeper.

Happy Falker Satherhood!*

*Oops, this isn't Cake Wrecks™, is it?

(And yes, I wholeheartedly recommend

that you check out this delightful web site.)

Make that Happy Father's Day!

I learned this morning that we would be having not one,

not two, but three honorary sons for dinner.

Is my husband a lucky man or what?

Fortunately I had picked up some boneless rib eyes on sale

this past week.

Now pay attention,

because this is the most important part.

Several hours before dinner is the time to act.

First, clear out space in the fridge.

Then, set out a plate or tray with a rack on top.

Next, place the meat on the rack
and liberally season with kosher salt and cracked black pepper

on both sides.

Place in the fridge uncovered.

The meat will dry out in the fridge,

intensifying the flavors.

We cut each steak in half,

but please feel free to be a manly man and eat a whole steak.

I also would not recommend ever purchasing a steak

that was less than an inch thick.

Trust me, you will be glad you went with a thicker steak.

In the meanwhile,

it's time to make the pea salad.

We start with frozen peas.

No need to rinse or thaw as it is several hours before service.

Then chopped red onion and cooked bacon are added.



Sorry, no measurements here.



It's a process.

A journey.

A personal thing.





Then some sharp cheddar cheese is grated on top.

And finally I added about a teaspoon of sugar and enough

mayonnaise to coat the salad.

We don't like a lot of mayo, so less was used.

You might like more,

so use more.

It's your salad.

Do what you like.

This went into the fridge for the next few hours.

Our last major component for the meal was

roasted Yukon Gold Potatoes with bacon,

onion and Parmesan cheese.

As I planned on cooking the potatoes on the grill,

I decided to pre-cook** them in the microwave for nine minutes.

**Pre-cook: does that mean they are raw?

What does that mean?

And why does Food Network allow its "stars" to use such terms?

Please note that the potatoes had earlier been cleaned but not peeled,

then diced and placed in heavily salted water.

I am a firm believer in working ahead of time,

so I don't mind this initial prep.

After the grill was preheated,

the pre-cooked potatoes were tossed with

lardons of raw bacon, chopped onion and olive oil

with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

Two of the steaks were cooked to medium-well,

while the rest were cooked to medium-rare.


A chimichurri sauce was prepared

along with a compound butter with fresh chives and lemon pepper.

And dinner is plated.

Later, strawberry sorbet is on the menu.


Finally, though my own father has been long gone,

I am fortunate to have both a wonderful father to my children

as well as a delightful father-in-law.

Heh, guess my dear husband had to learn that somewhere, huh?

Have you thanked your father or father-figure today?

Standing Rib Roast

A couple of times a year my go-to grocery store, Marsh Supermarkets, has prime standing rib roasts on sale for $9.99 a pound.*

So of course I have to succumb.

Can't you hear the siren's song?

*Wait, what is this? $14.29 a pound?

Me thinks a visit to the service counter is in store.

After all, we are talking about a $4. 30 a pound difference here.

Screw principle, this is about money!

All bets are off and the gloves come off!

At any rate, let's get to the food.

I allowed the meat to come to room temperature before patting it dry.

Then I liberally seasoned all sides with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

For those of you who are afraid of all things saline, relax.

Not all of this salt will actually 'stick' to the food, thus being consumed.

After searing the rib roast over high heat on the stove, I placed it back on my new, smaller roasting pan.

Perhaps this is actually a "lazy rib roast"?

The standing rib roast doesn't want to stand up.

I washed, cut and microwaved some potatoes in salted water for 5 minutes and 55 seconds.

Hey, it's just easier to keep hitting that "5" button than to hit the "6" button and then the "0" button twice.

What, me lazy?

Well, okay, you caught me.

This time.

I then added one thick-cut slice of yellow onion and two slices of bacon, chopped.

The oven was set for 400 degrees and allowed to come to temperature before the food was added.

I inserted the remote digital temperature probe in the thickest part of the meat.

The alarm is set for 140 degrees.

I never cook meat by time.

There are just too many variables.

What is the starting temperature of the meat, what is the mass of the meat, is the oven properly calibrated, are the planets in alignment, am I holding my mouth right?

Go by temperature, instead.
You won't be disappointed, though it does take some getting used to the timing.

I told you this was a "lazy rib roast."

It fell over again.

I removed the rib roast to a platter, covered it with aluminum foil and then covered it with two kitchen towels so it could rest for 15 to 20 minutes.

I put the potatoes, onion and bacon back into the oven for the duration.

I sliced the meat after it had rested.

Note to self:

Next time set the timer for 135 degrees to allow for carry-over heat.*

*This time I set the alarm for 140 degrees.

This resulted in having the meat range from medium-rare to well-done.

Yes, I was playing it safe - eh, everybody has an off day.

As a compromise (since we had been out of state yesterday, I am sick and I'm just plain tired), for the last side dish I just opened a can of french-cut green beans, drained them, added a splash of white vinegar, a dash of sugar and a slice of cooked bacon that was diced.

Once again I asked for ratings from the family.

Surprisingly, the husband gave this 4-1/2 stars.

Somebody take his temperature.

The Foodie Daughter gave this 4-3/4 stars as she would have rather had "real" green beans.

The Foodie Boyfriend and I both gave this 5 stars.

Yes, it was that good.

Roasted Leg of Lamb with Rosemary

The Foodie Daughter loves lamb, but hates having to work to find the meat. I was lucky enough to find a half leg of lamb at the store. The next step was to find a suitable recipe.

Fortunately the Internet once again came to the rescue as I found this recipe for Roast Leg of Lamb with Rosemary on allrecipes.com.

Here I have assembled:

The half leg of lamb

1/4 cup honey

2 tablespoons prepared Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon lemon zest

3 cloves garlic, minced or grated

1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

I often choose to grate the garlic so that there are not large pieces of garlic in the food.

Now, I would tell you that I decided that upon reading the recipe, I realized that this really did not qualify as a marinade due to the lack of an acid and so I decided to forgo the marinade part of the recipe.

The truth however, is that I neglected to read the recipe the night before, and thus could not marinate the meat overnight.

I do stand by my belief that this really does not qualify as a true marinade though.

I brushed a bit of the glaze on the meat before roasting the leg of lamb in the oven.

Since there was so much honey in the glaze, I added some water to the bottom of the baking dish so that the honey wouldn't burn so badly on the dish.

Unfortunately, it still took some serious elbow grease to clean the dish afterwards.

I ended up having to soak the dish in water with dishwasher detergent in order to loosen the burnt on bits.

The leg of lamb roasted until it reached an internal temperature of 145 degrees.

Make sure that the thermometer does not touch the bone as that would give a false reading.




After allowing the meat to rest under foil for ten minutes, I sliced the roast for dinner.






The remaining glaze was served at the table.



Roasted potatoes and Bacon Broccoli and Craisin Salad accompany the roast.








The leg of lamb was moist, tender and flavorful.

Best of all, there was no need to fight to get to the meat.

The Foodie Daughter was most pleased.

Pork Tenderloin, Remix

At about 10 pm on Sunday evening I suddenly! realized that I would need to think about Monday evening's dinner. And who said that stay-at-home-mothers had an easy life?

As I keep most of the protein (heh, I'm conversant in chef-speak) in the freezer, I really do need to plan my meals at least a day ahead.

Oh, I know, I have some pork tenderloins in the freezer. And I have just the barest inkling of an idea for a marinade/sauce. Quick - off to the kit-cave??

Okay, please bear in mind that this was after 10 pm on a Sunday evening and I am just winging it.

My marinade ingredients are:

red pepper flakes

honey

whole grain mustard

rice vinegar

black pepper

soy sauce

Worcestershire sauce

garlic

ginger

I'm sorry, but as I was just winging this, there are no measurements available. However, I know that even if I had managed to precisely measure the ingredients, I would never have subscribed to these exact measurements again. All I can say is that you should make this to taste.

I started by grating the garlic clove and some of the frozen ginger and I moved on from there.

Taste, taste and taste again until you are satisfied with the marinade.

The marinade was poured over the pork tenderloin and this stayed in the refrigerator overnight.

Then, this afternoon I decided that bacon makes everything better (and keeps the daughter happy) so I defrosted three thick-sliced pieces of bacon for the dish.

I wrapped the pork loin and seared the meat over high-ish heat for several minutes on each side.

A digital remote temperature probe was placed in the meat and the alarm was set for 142 degrees.

Am I the only one who thinks that this picture looks like a lobster? No, just me? Guess I need to go get some therapy then...

Keeping in mind my daughter's preferences, I also prepared roasted red potatoes with bacon and onion and roasted green beans with bacon and onion. Hmm, notice a theme here?

The Asian pork loin ended up being succulent, tender and very flavorful.

Public service announcement: DO NOT, under any circumstances, ever attempt to touch a skillet handle that has, up to very recently, been residing in a 400 degree oven. How would I know that? Um, I don't know? And I really don't know anything about all of those extremely off-color words that were recently released rather explosively in this general vicinity. All I can say is that I am very thankful that my dear husband (have I recently said just how much I love that man?) cut the meat for me and that I am ambidextrous.

Oh, and I really, really want to hurt the builder who decided that my kitchen didn't need more than 2 linear feet of counter top in any given spot. Oh yeah, I have your number. You'd better run. Fast! And you'd better hope that I never catch you.

Er, back to the food...

After blanching the green beans, they were roasted, along with bacon lardons and sliced Vidalia onions for 30 minutes at about 400 degrees.





The red-skinned potatoes were scrubbed before being cut into one-inch cubes. They were then roasted at 400 degrees for 30 minutes before bacon lardons and sliced onions were added. This was then placed back in the oven for an additional 30 minutes.

I do believe that I have found yet another flavorful recipe for pork tenderloin. Even my conservative husband liked this dish. I love it when a recipe comes together.*

*Bonus points to whoever can figure out the origin of this phrase.

Mother's Day Dinner

Today I planned a special meal to celebrate my special day. I decided on rib eye steaks with roasted potatoes.

But first things first. I needed a special barbecue sauce.

I've been wanting to make a pomegranate barbecue sauce for a while now, but have been unable to find a suitable recipe. But no matter. I'll just wing it as usual.

The ingredients are:

Hot sauce

Sweet chili sauce

Honey

Catsup

Pomegranate juice

Onion

Garlic

I later decided that more layers of flavor were needed for the barbecue sauce and pulled out some soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and fresh lemon juice.

The first order of business was to reduce the pomegranate juice to a thick syrup. I also grated the garlic clove and some onion into the juice at this point.



After perhaps 20 to 30 minutes, the juice had reduced to 1/4 the original volume.

I turned off the heat and began adding in the other ingredients, tasting as I mixed to assess the flavors. With a sauce like this, it is important to sample and to adjust to taste.

I was finally satisfied with the sauce and set it aside to cool.

And now for the rest of the meal. I placed the steaks on a rack in a baking dish and liberally seasoned with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. The steaks went back into the fridge for a couple of hours to allow the meat to dry just a bit before cooking.

An hour before cooking, I pulled the meat out of the fridge so that the steaks could come to room temperature before being placed on the grill. This step is important to assure even cooking.

Meanwhile I cleaned and cut some red skinned potatoes. The potatoes were put into a microwave-safe dish and covered with water and seasoned with salt. I cooked the potatoes in the microwave for about 5 minutes.

Then the potatoes were drained and placed in a disposable pan before being drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with kosher salt and black pepper.

The grill was pre-heated and the potatoes were placed on the middle shelf on the grill.

Chopped red onion and bacon lardons were added halfway through the cooking process. Next time I will add the bacon at the beginning, as the bacon cooks more slowly on the grill than it does in the oven.

I also added a couple of small sprigs of fresh rosemary to the potatoes.

Once the bacon had begun to cook, the steaks were placed on the grill. When the meat released easily from the grate, the steaks were turned 40 degrees to create nice hash marks on the meat.

Then the meat was flipped and sprigs of fresh rosemary were placed on top to add a bit of flavor. I also switched the pieces of meat on the grill as my grill has hot spots and cool spots.

The steaks came off the grill and were covered with a piece of aluminum foil and a towel so they could rest before carving. I aim for a doneness of medium-rare, but allow a bit of the meat to reach medium as that is what my husband prefers.

Finally the bacon was cooked through and the potatoes were ready.

The plating.

The steak was moist and succulent. The pomegranate barbecue sauce added just the right piquant flavor to the tender steak.

The potatoes were crisp, the onions tender and the bacon smoky.

Happy Mother's Day to all my maternally-inclined readers!