A Weeknight Dinner

I've gradually gotten back into cooking, first in my trusty office chair, then standing on one leg, and now, finally, I'm back on my two feet! Hubband and I worked together to make this a few weeks ago, while I was still on one leg. He made it possible for us to eat outside in the garden, which was a huge treat for me, having been stuck in the house so long! 

We shared one of the thick NY Strips that I butchered up and individually froze; Hubband grilled it after we concocted a dry rub of sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, cumin, clove, chili powder, and cayenne. The rub turned into a flavorful crust after a meeting with the grill, and I sliced it and laid it alongside some simply roasted Brussels sprouts (olive oil, salt, and pepper) and our surprise side of the night. I don't even know what to call it, but it really ended up being the star of the dinner! I thinly sliced a yellow onion and caramelized it along with two zucchini that needed to be used up. When they were soft and browned, I added a minced garlic clove, a tiny minced jalapeno from our garden, fresh thyme, and a half can of creamed corn leftover from corn muffins, then finished with a little butter and pepper. The corn added wonderful sweetness that played with the caramelized vegetables, but the little hint of garlic and spice kept a great balance.

It was a great weeknight dinner!

Zucchini-Onion Side Dish

Not only does this dish lack a snazzy name, I don't have an exact recipe, as this was yet another case of me making something up on the fly with whatever I had. This should be close enough. 

1 med. yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced

2 med. zucchini, thinly sliced width-wise

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp minced jalapeno, seeds and rib removed

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

1/2 can of creamed corn

1 Tb butter, unsalted

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. 

Place a large skillet over medium heat. When hot, spray with a little nonstick spray or add about 1 Tb olive oil, and add onions. When they are translucent and beginning to brown around the edges, add the zucchini slices. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until onions and zucchini are both deeply browned and limp. Add garlic, jalapeno, and thyme leaves and stir until fragrant. Add creamed corn and heat through, then stir in butter to finish. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste. 

A Dinner for my Valentine

Valentine's Day is pretty low-key around Chez Marshmallow. We buy each other a card, I make a nice dinner, and we enjoy each other's company. With our wedding anniversary just a few weeks after, it seems silly to celebrate a 'Hallmark holiday' to excess; we'd rather splurge for the real occasion that comes soon afterward. 

This year was a little different because Valentine's fell on a Saturday. Because we got to spend the whole day together instead of just the evening, we split duties: Hubband made me a lovely breakfast, and I made him a nice dinner. (Hubband made homemade pecan waffles with a banana-pecan-maple topping! If he continues this amazing cookery learning curve, I shall have to give up my spoon!) 

Dinner started with a classic French Onion soup, courtesy of CI. While tasty, it was very classic, and I wished it had a little punch or twist to it. The typical crouton topping was made of a very good whole-wheat pain levain (toasted on both sides, please) and cave-aged Gruyere. 

The main course was a NY Strip, seasoned generously with salt and pepper and seared in bacon fat. I paired it with sauteed green beans and a new side: dried mango braised with onion and a chile. 
The new side dish was adapted from Jean Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman's Simple to Spectacular. Their recipe called for dried pears, which I couldn't find to save my life. I used mango instead, as Hubband and I are fans. The side was different and very tasty, but I think it could use more tinkering. Why, for example, should I soak the dried fruit, and then braise it with chicken stock? Why not just braise it directly from dried? Yes, it would take longer, but the fruit would take in more flavor from the onions, bacon, thyme, chile and stock instead of already being engorged with plain water. This is definitely worth revisiting, so if I come up with a technique I really like I'll post it in the future. 

Dessert was caramel cake, this time with added coconut on top which was a delicious addition suggested by Hubband. (See? I'm going to have to retire.) 

 

Vegetarians, Avert Thine Eyes.

I like vegetables. I really do. All different shapes, sizes, and colors of vegetables. You never would have known that if you peeked in my fridge last Saturday.

On the bottom, there are two half-sheet pans holding 5 slabs of cured pork belly, patiently developing a pellicle and waiting to be smoked. (Look! A bag of leftover acorn squash, next to the pork belly! See? I like vegetables!) On another half-sheet pan above them, we find 8 hand cut NY Strip steaks. How do I know they are hand cut? I own the hands that did it. Having broken down many a beef tenderloin for filet mignon in the past, I was comfortable trying my hand at the big honking piece of meat we found, and carved it into 1.5 inch thick steaks. They are sitting, uncovered, in the fridge for a bit of dry-aging. It really only takes about 15 minutes of work to butcher out the steaks, and the price is outrageously low. This is good quality meat, made even better by the dry-aging, but because I did the little bit of extra work myself the price comes out to about $5 a steak. One steak with a couple of sides is enough to feed the two of us, so that's a pretty great deal. 

But what about that other giant lump of meat, you ask? Oh. That's 3 big slabs of baby back ribs, also destined for the smoker. Hey, if you've already got the thing fired up, might as well get the most out of it, right? We took the bacon, the ribs, and some applewood chips over to my brother-in-law's house on Sunday, smoked the bacon till it reached a mouth-smacking shade of juicy red-brown (and an appropriate internal temp) and sliced off a few strips, for research purposes, of course. Mmm. So much better than my first batch. I used pork from free-range Ossabaw hogs this time, and it's obvious. The meat is sweeter and much more tender, and the slabs are much easier to slice. Unfortunately, the price to overnight ship 25 lbs of meat from South Carolina is considerable. 

We provided the meat, so my sister and her husband provided the sides, and whipped up pasta salad, baked beans, (which sat in the smoker beneath the ribs, to catch some goodness) and a fabulous grilled romaine salad, topped with freshly smoked bacon and chopped red onions cooked in the rendered bacon fat and then deglazed with balsamic, and sprinkled with a little parmesan. Well done, K. I should have taken a picture. It was a really nice impromptu late lunch/early dinner, and we invited K's father-in-law, sister-in-law, and our mom over to share. 

Monday night the bacon was still lurking in the fridge, not yet portioned and frozen, and I couldn't resist it's siren call. "BLT", it said. "But I don't have any bread, and I haven't got time to bake any today!" I mentally wailed. "BLT!", it insisted. So I boiled up half a bag of whole wheat shells, cooled them, and tossed in some crisped bacon pieces, romaine lettuce, some great cherry tomatoes, mayo, black pepper, and celery salt. Voila, BLT pasta salad. I served it with roasted chicken breasts that I had marinated with rosemary and red jalapenos from our patio garden. Delicious.

"BLT!"