Beyond the Normal Steak and Potatoes

This weekend was a lazy weekend. We didn't really feel like doing a whole lot of anything. We were going to go to the lake and meet some new friends but decided it was 1. too hot, 2. we didn't get up till 10 AM Saturday morning and 3. We would have had to drive at 8/9 am after going to bed at 3:30 AM/4:30 AM. Yeah not so much. So we decided to stay in for most of the weekend.

We drove into the city to go to Best Buy and Bed Bath and Beyond. We looked for bread pans (the ones you would make french bread loaves in - or even find mini ones to make hot dog buns.) for my pretzel bread adventures. No luck, the man at the store that we asked said "It really isn't baking season." Um, excuse me, it's always baking season. I even said "It's always baking season." LOL

So we got whisks, my whisk recently broke - grr, granted I've had it for quite some years now and wasn't what I would call a SUPER sturdy whisk. Basic and cheap from Walmart. So got that and headed off to Bets Buy. Mike wants to get a good tough camera for when he goes duck hunting this fall/winter. From what he says he inevitably ends up in the water and so a water proof camera would be a fantastic idea. His phone stays in a zip lock or air tight container and he doesn't really want to ruin an expensive electronic device, phone, camera or otherwise. So we found what he was looking for and then they didn't have it in stock. We ended up leaving and going back to the apartment and he ordered it online. Should be a fun toy. Won't have to be just for hunting. :)

*the wheels are turning for food pictures*

So that day we went to "Mighty Melt" for lunch, I got the cheese sandwich on wheat where he got the Chili Cheese potato. HOLY CRAP was that a HUGE potato. The Frito's on top were meh and stale and the knock off type. The cheese was just your basic nacho cheese dip and the chili was actually quite surprising. I would say it was the best part of that potato. My sandwich was good, fair amount of cheese but not too much and the veggies that were on it were good too, lettuce, tomato and mushroom. The wheat bread was border line dry but not bad. will probably stick to the white when I go back.

Beer brats are the lighter ones and
chicken chipotle jack are the brown ones on the left

That night we did bratwurst on the grill and used the pretzel bread buns to hold them. We sauteed up onions and peppers to put on top and then topped with spicy mustard. They tasted great, the only issue we had was that the pretzel buns had gotten hard. They had been in zip lock baggies, so not sure how they got hard and almost rock like. Edible but the crust was tough.

sauteed peppers and red onion

I made mine work and finished it all, hand held. Mike chose to cut his up with knife and fork.

Brad on pretzel bread, onions, peppers and mushroom rice

So because I've posted pictures of Mike cooking he took my phone and decided it was time for one of  me cooking. Yes I do cook, I prefer to bake but I do cook. I help with the pan work while he works the grill and the knife. 

Me laughing once I realize what he is doing.

 So that was dinner Saturday night. We ended up falling asleep not long after, about 10pm on the floor and couch. Sprawled out and tired old people that we are. (26 and old already haha.)

So Sunday we got a take and bake pizza from Papa Murphy's. Mike wasn't feeling leftovers since that was what he had been eating for a week. We had a chicken, bacon and artichoke de-Lite pizza. Was fabulous.

Then we napped. Like I said, lazy and relaxing weekend. We then got up and headed out to our friends house for a swim and some people time. We were also told to take home some bags of groceries - they had a neighbor moving who cleaned out her pantry. Free food, not going to argue. She says she'll have baking stuff soon too. YAY!!! I'm excited about that.

So after getting some vitamin D and having some time with friends we headed out to come back and make dinner. We had, that morning, picked up some lamb steaks, sugar snap peas, sprouts, onion and Greek seasoning. So came back and Mike prepped the onion, tomatoes and garlic for the veggie stir fry that I would be cooking up and he prepped the grill for the lamb. He coated each side of the meat with a generous sprinkling of Greek seasoning (Go to Walmart and pick up some - fabulous on lamb).

Sprouts - fresh

Tomatoes fresh from our friends garden

Garlic Herb seasoning from our local farmers market

Snap peas and onion saute

All veggies mixed in and sauteed up

So after coating and chopping up veggies he got them on the grill, the grill tried to flame broil them at one point, making cook time shorter than expected but still turned out great.

Mike saving the Lamb from the flames

A little charred but not badly

Mmmmm grilled lamb steaks :)

So Mike saved the lamb from a fiery death and promptly brought them in at a medium rare temp and doneness. :) Then we heated up some of the left over mushroom rice from the night before and plated.

From the rice, my steak was
much smaller than Mike's MAN steak ;)

From the veggie side of the plate

Let me just say this about the look, fresh and crisp on the veg, rice was good and the steaks were beautifully pink. Oh, yum, come play in my mouth for a while.

Moving on to flavor, the char really did not affect the flavor much, if at all. In my case I thought it was pretty good.

I may have mentioned this before but when Mike starts grunting and making yummy sounds while eating you know it's good. I agree - it was FANTASTIC! Mike used choice phrases. "Fucking amazing" "God damn that was good!" "That was awesome!" and so on. Went on until we went to bed. I am in total agreement. I even would be quoted, while getting water 2 hours later "Oh my god that was amazing."

This was definitely a hit and was definitely worth the time and effort and will be done again.

Y'all should try this too, amazing. No real trick to it, just cook. So, allez cuisine folks!

Whiskey Tango Steak Night!!!

Ok so maybe just Whiskey in the steak marinade, but YUMMMMM! When Mike and I are high fiving each other over such a great dinner you know we have a hit on our hands.

Again, another creation from the "big book of food." The Roomie decided steak over lamb and boy it was a good choice. So the menu for the night was:

Sirloin steak
Mashed Potatoes
Grilled Veggies
and a Mushroom Gravy

But let's embellish a little. That menu sounds like a pretty basic mid-western meal. Well you may be right but damn meat and potatoes is just a good way to go.

So here is the revised menu so you can start drooling like we did.

Sirloin steak marinated in a whiskey brown sugar marinade served with a baby red potato mashed into a heavenly smash with garlic and butter with a side of grilled California mixed vegetables with olive oil and garlic herb seasoning with a great side of mushroom gravy to serve on top of the steak and potatoes.

So now then you ask, what does this look like???? Well I am guessing you are salivating. Too bad these pictures aren't scratch and sniff, oh man you should have smelled this. The steaks only needed an added salt and pepper (light) to spice up the marinade for grilling.

So to start we marinaded the steaks in this fabulous whiskey marinade (we even bought cheap whiskey - McCormick's for $5 - tasted great! You are welcome to use Jack if you prefer). Here is the recipe:

1/4 cup whiskey (your choice to go expensive or go cheap - we couldn't tell the difference)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 Dijon mustard
1/4 cup finely chopped green onion
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
ground black pepper to taste

Stir together whiskey, soy sauce, Dijon mustard, green onion, brown sugar, salt, Worcestershire sauce, and pepper. Add to chosen meat - sirloin steak in our case. Marinate over night or at least a couple hours. (We marinated over night)

Marinated Steak - just started grilling

From there we started making the mushroom sauce/gravy.

The mushroom gravy we cheated a little bit and used pre-made beef gravy and added some ingredients.

So we took this "savory beef" gravy. The gravy on its own is not that tasty. So we checked out the recipe for mushroom sauce from the "big book of food" and added white cooking wine (instead of white wine as stated in the book). We then cooked down mushrooms and browned them with some green onion.

freshly cut white mushrooms: courtesy of
Mike the ninja knife master

DON'T CROWD THE MUSHROOMS ;)
or they won't brown

So now we add the mushrooms and onions to the gravy.

Thickening process

Started cooking after browning mushrooms

We ended up having to make a roux (Mike made - I do not have the patience, when I thicken gravy I use cornstarch. He says that doesn't taste quite as good. I am sure he's right.)

Here is the gravy after adding the blonde roux.

YUMMY!

Of course we also added salt, pepper, rosemary, garlic powder and the white wine. Roomie didn't care for the rosemary and, therefore, didn't care much for the sauce/gravy. But Roomie liked the steak, taters and veg.

We cheated on the taters since neither of us wanted to boil and mash (even though that's probably my favorite way to eat taters).

Can I just say though, these didn't even need butter added. It's an "add boiling water" and wait 5 minutes potato mix. Just yum!! I was shocked for a potato flake mix. Definitely recommended.

So by this point food is starting to come in from the grill.

Steaks ready to come in - veggies in the foil

Can we eat now?

Steaks smelled AMAZING when they came in. Was so ready to eat at that point. So Mike got plates out and we dug in.

The veggies came in and looked great.

Now to eat and show off the skills of cooking.

My steak was done more medium rare/medium while the rest were closer to medium/medium well. Still so so so delicious.

We will definitely make this again. Maybe next time we will mash our own potatoes and make our own gravy but in the mean time this did a great job of satisfying our hunger.

Grill Master Mike

Alright, summer time + chicken + Mike = grilling time. So last night was the night for a summer tradition.

So Mike fired up the grill, broke out some of the new spices and got to work. Yesterday morning we had been talking about what sounded good for dinner. I said, what are you craving? He replies with "chicken." So what's better than summer time and chicken then BBQ chicken.

We had gone to the Farmer's Market on Saturday and picked up some needed and delicious spices. He got the garlic herb he was wanting and running low on and I picked up more sweet & smokey. He had some sweet and smokey (has a BBQ flavor) already and mixed with sirarchi sauce to create a wet rub.

Then he sliced some zucchini and yellow squash into beautiful discs and laid them out right on the grill to get some nice "tan" lines. He also prepared some asparagus with the garlic & herb spice and probably some butter but couldn't tell as it was in the foil and he forgot to photograph it ;) Trimmed asparagus and butter with the garlic herb seasoning all in foil and placed on the grill makes for tender but crisp deliciousness that is asparagus.

Oh well, it looked amazing. He said it was delicious. So I believe him. I've never eaten anything he's made that I didn't like. I like some more than others but that's true with my baking too and he'll say the same.

Grillin' Time

Tonight we grilled out. Despite the weather having difficulty making up its mind to rain or not.

It held off enough that we could definitely grill out.

The menu tonight was:
--jalapeño and pepper jack burgers
--grilled onion rings
--grilled peach quarters
--German potato salad
--fresh fruit salad.

Big menu, yes. Delicious, yes.

This morning we headed out to find the fruit we wanted to use. We went to the local Italian market and got pineapple, kiwi, cantaloupe, and strawberries. We then ran around town trying to find onion which, for whatever reason, was impossible to find loose yellow onion. So back to the market we went after purchasing the bacon, vinegar and beef.

Mike of course did most of the vegetable and fruit chopping, he has a new knife now that is specifically for vegetable chopping. He started to get the hang of it. Still a bit unsure of the new knife as it is a different style than a chefs knife.

While he prepared the fruit salad I began preparations on the potato salad, which I have no recipe for. It's just something you watch generations of family members make and you just know by look and taste. A little of this, a pinch of that, a squirt of this.

Basic recipe is:
5 lbs potatoes (mom uses russet, we used red)
1 small bottle cider vinegar
3/4 pkg bacon, diced
1 onion diced
Spicy brown mustard
Garlic powder
Cornstarch or flour for thickening

Boil and peel potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces.

Fresh boiled and cut up potatoes, red potatoes. Easiest to peel after boiling. Skin peels right off with your hand.

Cook bacon and onion down until bacon is slightly crisp and onions translucent. Then add a nice squirt of spicy brown mustard, dash of garlic powder and then add a healthy portion of cider vinegar. After that, mix in watered down flour or cornstarch to mixture until thickened slightly.

Vinegar/Bacon/Onion sauce

Slice up boiled and peeled potatoes into bite sized pieces. Pour vinegar mix on top. Put in oven at 300 degrees for up to 40 min and then serve.

German Potato Salad fresh from the oven

The burgers were pepper jack cheese, shredded up, dice jalapeño and then an egg for binding purposes as well as worstershire (sp?) sauce and basic seasoning.

Action shot, Mike's favorite

Grilled peaches had a dash of sea salt and the grilled onions were seasoned with Tony Chachere's creole seasoning and a squirt of olive oil.

Grilled peaches, white peaches, surrounding the grilled deliciousness of onion

All in all it was a great dinner. As usual. Had a minor injury prepping the peaches. The pit was not cooperating and so in my desperate attempt to quarter this peach I had the misfortune of the knife slipping and cutting my finger. (picture included. There is blood)

Injured finger, right ring finger

everything is better with a band-aid

So despite the injury and stubborn peach we had a successful dinner with juicy and flavorful burgers, hot potato salad and delicious fruit.

Yummy!!

Now we are both stuffed to the brim and going to digest while watching a movie.

Final Product, fruit salad included here, on top of the peaches. YUMM!!