Sunday's Dinner

In a previous post I stated that this week I would not be able to make another fancy dinner for you, but I found some funds and made it possible! The post before this one shows the menu for the night and I was able to deliver...almost.

Carrabba's is a great place to go eat with an even greater price tag ($$$$). One thing that I do normally tend to always order from Carrabba's is The Johnny. The Johnny comes with a steak, chicken breast, and your choice of side. With the chicken there is a dollop of goat cheese on top, which makes the food that was already mouthwatering even more mouthwatering. Goat cheese is a sweet and pasty cheese that has a really smooth texture and is a great balance to the meaty flavor of steak or grilled chicken. Simmering some tomatoes on a small burner with a tiny bit of bacon fat and/or olive oil really made them juicy to add some more flavor.

For starters I began the dish with a spinach salad with a bacon vinaigrette. Following the appetizer I presented a NY strip with green beans almondine. To finish up the course I made some banana pudding.

Spinach Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette.

What you need:
A bag of baby spinach (Maybe use a half bag if you want your dressing to cover everything)
2-3 mushrooms very thinly sliced
1/4-1/2 red onion julienne sliced
1 hard-boiled egg chilled, peeled, and diced into coins
4 pieces thick-sliced bacon (about 4 ounces), finely diced
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon honey or sugar
1/2 teaspoon smooth Dijon mustard
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Dishes you may need for this salad:

Wide serving dish

Small saucepan for making dressing

Slotted spatula

Step One:

Put spinach in serving dish (after rinsing your spinach you nasty salad chef).

Spread out your onions and mushroom and boiled egg on the salad.

Step Two:

Fry your cut up bacon in a sauce pan. Remove bacon with a slotted spatula and put bacon on a paper towel. Save your bacon fat about 3 table spoons and add your Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, and sugar. This is going to happen pretty fast, which is why I didn't take many photos of this process. It's a salad, it's pretty easy, sue me. It's going to make a really good smell, but while the vinaigrette you made is still cooking, take it off the heat and add to salad. When you add it to salad give it a light toss to get that bacon fat dressing everywhere. This dressing is very good. Add the bacon that you earlier had set aside, on top of your salad.

 My mistake was to use the whole bag of spinach, so the dressing didn't get everywhere like I envisioned. In all though, once you pick the good pieces out for your salad you will taste the dressing and it is sooo good. 

Grilled Rare Steak with Green Beans Almondine

The process of making your steak and green beans should start with the green beans because they require more time and attention.

Green Beans Almondine

What you'll need:

1 lb. snap green beans, rinsed, and snapped ends (from the produce section)

Little 2.5 oz package of slivered almonds

1 tbsp of bacon fat

Salt

Pepper

Dishes needed:

Little saucepan

A pot to boil your green beans in

A dish with ice and water

A pan or wok to sautee your green beans

Tongs

Step One:

Heat your bacon fat in a little sauce pan. Once the bacon fat is completely melted, turn your heater down to a low medium and add the almond slivers.

Let the almond slivers cook for about 5 minutes, stirring your almonds as to not burn them. When your almonds are nicely toasted (golden brown color) set them aside for later use.

Step Two:

Put your green beans in a very shiny pot that reflects your skull and cross bone pajama pants that feel like HEAVEN. If cooking in your pajamas is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Any-who, add water to your pot of green beans. Fill it up pretty good to where the green beans are swimming in the water. Add some salt to your water, it's okay, go ahead don't' be afraid.

Boil those beans.

Now the trick to getting your green beans to that vibrant green color, only boil your green beans for about 3-5 minutes until they get that green color then stop the presses. Remember that dish of ice and water that is listed? Better get that ready because....

Step Three:

Use your tongs and get those green beans out of the boiling water into your ice water! This process is called blanching. Blanching is the process of cooking your food to where it retains the flavor and the vibrant color that your food will produce once cooked to a certain specification, then adding it to ice water immediately stops them from cooking so the color and flavor can be locked in. Let those beans blanch and cool of for a sec, and get your big wok or pan ready to a medium-high heat with some left over bacon fat.

Step Four:

When your beans have cooled off a bit, and your pan has had the bacon fat melted, use your tongs again and grab your beans. When you remove the beans from blanching, use your tongs and shake your beans a little bit to remove excess water. Add your beans to the pan and listen to the sizzle sizzle! Stir them around a bit while they cook, pushing them around with your tongs. If you like them a little al dente, remove them and place on a serving dish when they are still kind of hard, if you like them kind of flimsy, add some more bacon fat and let them cook a little longer.

Step Five:

When your green beans are too your liking, them remove from the pan and place on serving dish. Spread your almonds from earlier over the beans and you have a beautifully presented side dish of green beans.

OMG New York Strip (My first time operating a grill by myself :))

What you need:

Just some NY strip steaks from the grocery store. Little did I know that the seafood market at the grocery store would have given me better steak, but I thought they were only seafood people until my mom told me they are butchers too. D'oh!

Liquid Smoke (or Worcestershire sauce)

Salt

Pepper

Maybe some garlic salt or season salt

Minced Garlic clove

Items needed:

Foil cut in squares big enough to fold and completely cover steak

A large mixing bowl

Paintbrush thingy

Step One:

Now previous to making this dinner, I first made the banana pudding (sugar soup, more on that later) and let the steaks marinade in their seasoning in the fridge. Please note that all ingredients needed for the steak are optional...other than the steak of course, unless you like eating air.

Put some liquid smoke, and minced garlic in your metal bowl.

Mix it around

Now place your steak on the foil, brush your steak with liquid mixture from bowl, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and other seasonings.

Flip meat.

Repeat on other side.

Fold up the foil around the steak.

Repeat on the next few steaks.

Put your marinading steaks in the fridge and leave for a few hours to just chill in those juices.

Clean your area.

Step Two:

Turn that grill on!

Turn you grill on its highest heat and leave alone for a bit so that the heat can cook off past grilling endeavors.

Step Three:

Let the meat cook for 3-4 minutes for medium-rare on each side. In my world rare or medium-rare is the only type of steak that exists. So if you like yours cook-cooked, then look up the times your damn self. I have a blog to write!

After your 3-4 minutes on each side, flip the steaks, and repeat for the same time.

Step Four:

Once steaks are cooked, remove from grill and place on a large serving plate. Cut the first steak in the fattest part of the steak to see if the steak is cooked to its desired doneness. If not, throw that baby back on, if so, keep it.

Additional steps:

In your green bean wok or pan, keep it dirty with that bacon fat and throw on some cherry tomatoes until they are squishy and soft. 

Open your package of goat cheese and slice into dollops to be put on top of the steak.

This completes the meal! Now kiss my feet and worship the ground I walk on! Heh...not really. So this is my amazing steak dinner:

NY Strip, Green Beans Almondine, Spinach Salad!

Now if this too green for you, please feel free to make some mashed taters or baked po-tay-tuh.

Tonight I will post how to NOT make banana pudding. Later this week, I will include a homemade pasta tutorial. You only need eggs, flour, a large surface, and a rolling pin! I think that most people have those items at home (although you may need to sweep the cobwebs away from the lack of use).

To readers: Thank you for reading! I have accumulated over 200 views in the three weeks I have created this blog. I only have about 3 real posts now, but eventually I will be updating more frequently so you're not reading the same thing every day. I have been telling my bosses, my co-workers, friends, and family all about my blog. I have gotten a lot of good feedback so far, and would love for you to tell your friends and family about this blog too! More views = more and frequent posts for your reading pleasure, you food voyeurs.

Seacrest out,

Sarah in her kitchen.

twitter: @insarahskitchen

On the Menu Tonight...

Appetizer:

Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette

Main Dish:

New York Strip Steak
accompanied by goat cheese and cherry tomatoes

with

Green Beans Almondine

Dessert:

Banana Pudding

Uh-oh!

Unfortunately for this week I will be unable to make my dish I have been wanting to make, due to financial problems.

Next weekend though I hope to be able to bring you another main dish with dessert this time. 

I'm thinking porterhouse steak with goat cheese and roasted tomatoes, with green beans almondine. Then to finish to meal off with a raspberry and chocolate mousse? Thoughts? Suggestions? Comment below you crazy opinionated people and let me know!

Ching chong bing bong,

-Sarah

Fried Kreplach and Coq Au Vin

Here I am again. My mom, sister, and I cleaned the house and it feels great inside. Tonight I just made some plain spaghetti with caesar salad and garlic toast. It was not that great of a feat to render it necessary to post on here. One thing that I would like to put on here though is that after we were all done eating my delectable Prego assisted spaghetti dinner, I pureed a small portion of it in the Ninja Blender and fed it to my 7 month old niece. At first she seemed skeptical and had a funny confused face the whole time she was eating though. Come to find out the reason she had that face is because she had a blow-out in her diaper. Bad Aunt Sarah! Ok my intent here is to not make you naseous while I talk about poopy diapers. I know why you're here. You're here to see how last nights dinner was created, ruined, then fixed, and enjoyed by all!

I started with an appetizer called Fried Kreplach. A few weeks ago a few friends of mine convinced me to finally get out of the house and go eat dinner with them called Kenny and Ziggy's. Kenny and Ziggy's is ....all right. We all ordered some open faced sandwiches to compliment our beers and found that our reubens were blanketed upon blanketed with warm cheese. Now I usually love cheese, I could put cheese on anything (not unlike my tabasco obsession) but this... this was an absurd amount of cheese. It peeled off like a 1/2 in. layer of a peeling sunburn from that one time you decided that your paley white skin might actually tan this time and left your 70 SPF sunblock at home then continued to stay outside for hours. Anyway, the shining star of the night was the fried kreplach. It was amazing! Who thinks to put meat in a wonton wrapper and then dip it in apple sauce? Not us non-kosher people, that's for sure. It was relatively easy to make, but all of the recipes online were for boiled kreplach. Has nobody else ever felt the need to post a recipe online of fried kreplach? Obviously not, which in itself should be a sin. It would be even more a sin if I didn't guide you through this amazing journey of frying my own kreplach. Ok enough talky, more showy!

Fried Kreplach

(I will picture many steps. Some pictures I have excluded because I feel they may be unnecessary. Look out for text links to link you to a left out image.)

What you'll need:

1 small onion

1/2 lb. ground beef

some fresh thyme with the leaves taken off the stick

olive oil

1 egg

12 wonton wrappers (found in refrigerated produce by tofu stuffs)

1 pan for browning meat and frying kreplach

and a brush for eggwash (I just used a marinating brush)

and a flat surface that you can get messy (I used foil so when you're done you can just throw it away)

and a cooling rack (optional)

Step one:

Brown your ground beef on a medium to high heat. Once it is mostly browned, then add your onions until they become soft. While your mixture is sizzling it may be a good time to beat your egg in a small mixing bowl for the egg wash you will need in a minute. You'll know the meat is done when it looks like this.

 

Step two (with great picture formatting):

Put your little brush in your egg wash and paint only two adjacent sides of the wonton with your eggwash. Any more than that is overkill (Please refer to casualties located at the bottom of this long post)*

Grab just a small spoonful  of cooked meat and onions and place it directly in the middle of the wonton.

I found it easiest to put the wonton in the center of my hand, paint the edges, then while cupping the wonton in my hand put the meat in the middle. Then stuff the wonton inside as much as you can and completely close the two ends without eggwash to the ends with eggwash.

Continue until you have this beautiful array. Oh, what's that? A glass of wine? Foreshadowing to my next recipe? How did that get there?

Step three:

Add some fresh oil (I used extra-virgin fancy olive oil) into a pan. You can use the same pan you browned your meat in, just wash it out and put in new, fresh oil. Fill it until your wontons are about 1/3 immersed. Now fry these suckers up.

Make sure your oven is on a medium-high heat.

Your kreplach will bubble up with the air that has been trapped inside the wonton. That's ok because it makes your kreplach really crispy and airy, just make sure you get everything to a nice golden brown. Of course you should flip them when the edges get golden brown. If you did not know that all ready maybe you should stay out of the kitchen.

Step four:

When your kreplach have become that delicious golden brown, put them on a little wire rack over a plate to let the oil drip off. If you put them on a paper towel too I suppose that could work. Just don't flop them on a plate all willy nilly though, then you will have soggy kreplach. You don't want soggy kreplach.

Finished Product!

Yes, there were casualties*

Serve 3-4 at a time with a side of sour cream and apple sauce. Place on a square dish and take a grainy picture on your tablet at some obscure angle as to hide the atrocious mess you have in the kitchen. If you're too impatient to go through all that just grab it off your cooling rack and dip it into a container of your sour cream and apple sauce. Double dip if you want, use both dips at once if you want, go crazy!

Yeah I brown that meat. Yeah I do.

Now onto this Coq au Vin that I just won't shut up about. So I used this recipe here by some lady named Anne Burrell, because hey, she had a really cool hair style, played with fire, and the recipe was rated easy! HA! Ok here are the ingredients as listed on the recipe, but I made a few changes.

Coq au Vin

(Disclaimer: This did not turn out the way I though it should have. Please read my warnings, so if you attempt this you will not have the same problems! Burnt bacon is never good.)

What you'll need:

1 6-8 lb. capon or large chicken

Salt (not pictured)

Olive Oil

Flour for dusting

1/2 lb. of bacon (or bacon lardons if you can find em)

3 ribs celery

1 onion cut into 1/2 inch dice

2 cloves garlic, smashed

1 lb. white buttom mushrooms

1 cup marsala cooking wine

3 cups of a hearty red wine (I used Shiraz. A nice pinot noir works well)

1/2 lb pearl onions

3-4 cups beef stock

1 bundle fresh thyme

3 bay leaves
1/2 cup tomato paste

Cookware:

A large dutch oven

A small sauce pan for blanching pearl onions

2 seperate cutting boards. 1 for raw chicken 1 for produce

1 cookie sheet to place flour on for dusting

Tongs, big butcher knife, spoon for tasting

Step one:

All right. Take your thawed out chicken and place it on a cutting board (preferably a glass one to avoid raw chicken blood from getting into the porous wood).

Cut your chicken into about 6-8 pieces. Cut off your dark meat which would be the legs and thighs. Then cut off your white meat with would basically be two chicken breasts, cut off the wings, and get off what else you can. Generously salt your butchered friend.

When your chicken is cut up, and you're worried about the chicken getting its juices everywhere and wondering if in the next 24 hours you're going to be sick out of both ends because of salmonella, then you're doing good. Ok but seriously, sift some flour onto a cookie sheet whilst bringing some oil to a simmer on medium-high heat in your dutch oven. With your tongs take your first salted chicken piece and flour that meat then IMMEDIATELY place in the hot oil. Make sure your oil is hot before you do all this! Brown your little chickens (Don't need to be cooked, just browned for them to be nice and crispy).

 Now place your browned little chickies on a big dish that is covered with paper towels. Leave your chickies alone for now.

Step two:

Empty your chicken grease out of your hot dutch oven. My grease was really brown looking and did not look at all appetizing, but that's what Anne did in her video so I figured "Hey, why the hell not?" This marks the beginning of my bad ideas.

Now the recipe calls for bacon lardons, I for one, have no idea what a bacon lardON is, so I just got a pound of sliced bacon and diced it up. Now splash a small amount of olive oil in your dutch oven and add your bacon, diced celery, and diced onion. Do it all at once; don't follow her recipe. Who on Earth would tell you to cook your bacon until it is dark and crispy and then tell you to keep cooking it even longer with your other dry vegetables? Anne Burrell would, that's who. Sorry I'm holding a grudge. Simmer that stuff up for a few minutes and it will REALLY start smelling good. After a few minutes have passed and your vegetables are soft, add the smashed garlic and cook for 1 more minute.

Step three: Do a better job than me.

So needless to say, my bacon burnt to a dry, brown, and smelly crisp by the time I added my mushrooms. In order to decrease the dryness of this burning disaster I went ahead and added my 1 cup of marsala wine. It sizzled really loud, then I turned down the heat, added the mushrooms, put another 1/2 cup of marsala wine in there and it was ok. So after your veggies/bacon/garlic are nice and cooked add your mushrooms until they look like they are getting juicy and are soft, then add 1 cup marsala wine. I am not going to give you a time frame, just use your brain. If your food is still burning and your kitchen smells bad, add a little bit more of marsala. At this point I was so dissappointed in myself, all I wanted to do was mope around like George Michael on Arrested Development after Egg broke up with him.

I had to push on.

I ended up skimming out the burnt bacons* and placed them with my chickies on the paper towel and snacked on the bacons throughout cooking the rest of my meal, because from here it still is going to be another hour.

Step four, five, six, infinity because that's what it feels like and because I stopped taking pictures:

Add 1 cup of tomato paste to your mushroom, bacon, and veggie delite. Mix that stuff around until your mushrooms are pleasantly coated with the tomato paste. Now add your 3 cups red wine if you haven't drank it all ready. Now we're cooking. Yeah...now we're cooking. In your small sauce pan bring your pearl onions (with the skins still on) to a boil. When your onions are boiled and soft, drain the water and place them in a bowl and off to the side and let them cool. We'll deal with that later. Bring that dutch oven to a boil and let that wine cook for about 5 minutes.

After your 5 minutes are up, now it is time to add the dark meat. Add your legs and thighs ONLY. Place them so that they are 3/4 to fully covered. Add beef stock to completely cover them (beef stock gave it a better flavor than I think chicken stock would have done).  Add your thyme bundle and all then add bay leafs. Bring your chickie wine concoction to a boil. Once it has boiled, then reduce heat, add 2-4 pinches of salt, stir, and let simmer for around 20 minutes.

Man that was a lot. Either I'm a Chatty Cathy, or I feel like I am not explaining this enough to you. At this point in time while your chicken simmers, I bet your kitchen is an absolute mess! Unload some dishes from the dishwasher, add more dishes that you were using earlier. Disinfect your counter tops with some all-purpose cleaner or lysol. Be sure: clean the area where you dealt with raw chicken with a disinfectant and very very hot water. If you used a paper towel throw that nasty thing away, if you used a dish rag, put it in the washer immediately so you will not be tempted to use it elsewhere and spread the bacteria! If cleaning your kitchen doesn't take 20 minutes, then go play some Candy Crush Saga on Facebook, go have a cigarette, or go call your grandma. Waiting in front of cooking food makes the minutes longer.

When your 20 minutes are up with the dark meat, you're not done yet. You gotta get that white meat in there. Remove the dark meat from the Vin sauce and place on a serving dish. Place white meat in the Vin sauce and add more beef stock to the sauce until 3/4 to fully covered. Let it keep simmering for another 20 minutes. Maybe add another dash or two of salt. If you want to make some roasted potatoes to go along with your meal I suggest putting them in now and using this simple recipe.

At this moment your onions are over there saying "Hey, I know you've been slaving over this meal for about an hour now and you just want to give up, but what about me?" So, make your little pearl baby onions happy and see if they are cool enough to handle. With a paring knife, cut the little tops off of the pearl onions and squeeze from the butt of the onion and the pearl onion inside will pop right out. Keep tediously cutting and popping out your onions and add to the sauce.

Wow, am I done yet? Well if it has been 20 minutes since you've put in the white meat, then YES, YES IT IS TIME. Glorious time for eating, now that you're so worn out, pissed off and hot that you're not even hungry. I'll be damned if I don't make myself eat this french cuisine after I've spent over an hour with my head drooped above a hot dutch oven with a perplexed look on my face the whole time.

My God. If you tasted your sauce prematurely, before now, it probably just tasted like really bad wine with burnt bacon dust, then you must taste it now! Those 40 minutes of simmering in chicken really pays off. The chicken was so tender and the taste was so robust, that the roasted potatoes were necessary to add some blandness and cleanse the pallette for all of this flavor!

There ya have it. My Saturday night in a very long written out and verbose nutshell. If you've made it this far then I applaud you and your amazing attention span. Even I'm bored with writing this, shouldn't you be bored with reading it? I had a few misfortunes in the kitchen tonight, but at the end of it all, as tired as I was, I and the rest of the family enjoyed it immensely. This goes with saying that if you were drinking red wine, while you were cooking, the chicken might not taste that good because your mouth is probably all purple and tangy tasting. Cleanse your pallette with some milk or ice water and a slice of bread before digging in so you can really appreciate the wine flavor associated with the dish. I hope the pictures helped and that your bandwith isn't compromised with all of my high quality .jpgs from my tablet.

It has now officially taken me longer to write this blog out than it did to make this Coq au Vin. With that said, the Coq au Vin I would not shut up about is being locked away in my brain, and not to be uttered out of my mouth for awhile. Goodnight all, tomorrow is Monday. It is a new week and start it with a smile. :)

Arrivederci,

Sarah

*Here are pictures of my casualties.*

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Sneak Peak

Hello! Sarah checking in. Last night was a long productive night of mishaps with the Coq au Vin but turned out deliciously. I have a few things to do, but in order to help some of you impatient people here is a little sneak peak of the final product:

Fried Kreplach! An appetizer make of ground beef and onion wrapped in wontons, fried, then dipped in apple sauce and/or sour cream! These had everyone in my house saying "yummmm." I made more than necessary so I could save them for later, but no way, these were way too good. They were eaten all in one sitting!

I will type out the recipe and post the pictures in sequence later tonight. These are fun and easy to make.

Now the entree course, the most anticipated Coq au Vin! Oh man, did I have some problems with this one. The recipe rated this course on an easy level. After I laughed about that for a minute, I would seriously consider this an intermediate level. Either that or the recipe was confusing. Although I had complications, it turned out quite delicious, aromatic, and very flavorful. The picture could have been better but I was so worn out by the end of it that I just slopped it together on one of my fancy plates and took a quick pic on my tablet.

Later tonight though, there will be a more detailed update. I am very eager to update you on my cooking endeavors from last night but I have to gather my sequential pictures from both my tablet and my mothers iPad.

Until then, you may drool over my photos of last night's dinner all you want. I have to go run errands and clean the house and maybe make my homemade laundry detergent to make the house smell like soap and save some mad $money$ on laundry.

Nos veremos despues,

Sarah ;-)