What's cooking? (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

Here is last night’s meal: I marinated the skirt steak for nearly 24 hours in garlic, oregano and olive oil, and served it with a southwestern mix of veggies and grains:

Tonight is gonna be a leftover night, and then I’ll be back at it tomorrow for Taco Tuesday!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Taco Tuesday, didn’t get the perfect shot but I was very satisfied:

Normally we’d season the beef manually but Amazon Fresh had Taco Bell seasoning and it seemed like just the kind of silly indulgence that would be a fun break from more balanced meals.

 

[DaveF]

I forgot the photo. But last night, I sous vide'd tenderloin steaks, finished on the grill. Generally, I think sous vide is too much work for filet; grilling is easy enough. But I've got time to kill on cooking, so why not do it the hard way?

Medium Rare. Gorgeous and delicious. Except might wife wants hers Medium.

For next time, these changes to try:

• Find timing for Medium Rare in a Medium sous vide bath. I can cook hers just so, and start mine ten (?) minutes later to get my medium rare
• Brush them with veg oil before the grill sear to get better sizzle and sear. The steaks are so lean and dry out of the sous vide, I don't get good searing
• Or, I could leave them on the grill for perhaps 30 or even 60 seconds on a side for the sear. I was doing 15 seconds and rotating sides. And it didn't affect the interior. So I could go longer.

 

[Brian L]

I forgot the photo. But last night, I sous vide'd tenderloin steaks, finished on the grill. Generally, I think sous vide is too much work for filet; grilling is easy enough. But I've got time to kill on cooking, so why not do it the hard way?

Medium Rare. Gorgeous and delicious. Except might wife wants hers Medium.

For next time, these changes to try:

• Find timing for Medium Rare in a Medium sous vide bath. I can cook hers just so, and start mine ten (?) minutes later to get my medium rare
• Brush them with veg oil before the grill sear to get better sizzle and sear. The steaks are so lean and dry out of the sous vide, I don't get good searing
• Or, I could leave them on the grill for perhaps 30 or even 60 seconds on a side for the sear. I was doing 15 seconds and rotating sides. And it didn't affect the interior. So I could go longer.

Dave, different timing in sous vide won’t matter. The internal temp, which is what defines doneness, will be the same. I am in the same boat...I prefer medium rare, my wife medium to medium well.

But here is a tip I picked up online to deal with different preferences for doneness.

Start your wife’s first at whatever temp she wants. After the normal cook time, stop the cooker, throw in some ice or cold water, and reset the temp to the lower temp what you prefer. Drop your steak in and let it cook for the normal time, while leaving your wife’s steak in the water.

Since the water is now below her desired temp, her steak won’t get any more done while yours is cooking. When yours steak is done, they are both done, and proceed with the sear.

The only downside is it takes twice as long as cooking both steaks to the same temp. But since you don’t need to babysit a sous vide cook, you can go about your business. Learning this simple technique was a game changer for me.

 

[DaveF]

Crisis Chicken Saltimbocca with wine reduction sauce, sourdough bread baked by a friend, leftover canned peas, and some extra prosciutto I cooked in the sauce because why not.

 

[DaveF]

Leftover steak became a steak sandwich on my friend's sourdough bread. A little butter and grey poupon. I forgot to add the cheese. Ah, well, I've got steak enough to do this again tomorrow.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

You all are making me hungry.

 

[BobO'Link]

It's your own fault for visiting this thread...

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Crisis Chicken Saltimbocca with wine reduction sauce, sourdough bread baked by a friend, leftover canned peas, and some extra prosciutto I cooked in the sauce because why not.

Don't forget that "saltimbocca" is Italian for "jumps into your mouth".

 

[DaveF]

Crisis cookies

 

[Malcolm R]

I need to bake this weekend. I'm thinking Lemon Raspberry muffins.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I forgot to snap a picture, but I got away with some quick cooking and use of frozen components to whip up something good in quick time.

I had a package of turkey cutlets frozen for a rainy day. Defrosted them. Sautéed them and whipped up a quick pan sauce. Steamed some frozen broccoli. Microwaved my last two potatoes so I didn’t have to turn on the oven for just one thing. Looked and tasted pretty good.

 

[DaveF]

Pandemic Pancakes

 

[The Obsolete Man]

No pictures, but I'm here to complain about the appalling state of ground beef in quarantine times.

I'm making chili, which will last me a few days (more likely a week).so, I picked up a pound of ground beef. The grocery store traditionally ground and packaged it in store, but they've seemingly had to go to prepackaged stuff. Okay, we're in the midst of a plague, I get it, you take what you can get. I've had Walmart stuff before (which this isn't), prepackaged usually isn't bad.

But when I opened and cooked it, what I got was beef mush that cooked up into grape nut sized pellets. How could they do that to hamburger?

Farewell good ground beef, I hope to see you again on the other side of the virus.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

I like using stew beef for chili.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

I like using stew beef for chili.

I did give that some thought, but couldn't find any of that anyway.

Maybe next time. Does sound like a good idea.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

I like using stew beef for chili.

I often find cheap cuts of steak cheaper than "stew beef" or hamburger. I take the time to trim it and cut it up small before I make chili out of it.

 

[DaveF]

Homemade vanilla ice cream and homemade angel food cake!

First time trying to make the angel food cake. Had some minor problems, particularly I had a brain glitch and set the oven at 375 instead of 325. I caught the error in time to drop the temperature to 300 and pull it out early. It came out well enough, didn't burn and cooked through.

The real hard part was getting twelve egg whites. That was a tedious process, and fishing out the bits of shell that I inevitably dropped in was a pain.

But with practice, this should be an easy cake to make.

 

[DaveF]

And ordered a meatloaf pan. My last pan died a year or two ago. Decided I want to make meatloaf again, so time to buy a new one.
Nordic Ware 45930 Naturals Meat Loaf Pan, with Lifting Trivet

I've got the Nordic Ware baking sheets and am happy with them. For meatloaf, corners and seams are bad. So after looking at recommended loaf pans, I realized the reviews were for breads. A little more stumbling around and I found that Nordic Ware has loaf pans without corners and seams. And then I found they've got one specifically for meatloaf, with the perforated lifting trivet, so the great and fans runs out rather than pooling in the base of the meatloaf.

It will also work as a bread loaf pan, if I decide to cook the rare loaf of bread.

 

[BobO'Link]

And ordered a meatloaf pan. My last pan died a year or two ago. Decided I want to make meatloaf again, so time to buy a new one.
Nordic Ware 45930 Naturals Meat Loaf Pan, with Lifting Trivet

I've got the Nordic Ware baking sheets and am happy with them. For meatloaf, corners and seams are bad. So after looking at recommended loaf pans, I realized the reviews were for breads. A little more stumbling around and I found that Nordic Ware has loaf pans without corners and seams. And then I found they've got one specifically for meatloaf, with the perforated lifting trivet, so the great and fans runs out rather than pooling in the base of the meatloaf.

It will also work as a bread loaf pan, if I decide to cook the rare loaf of bread.

We normally cook meat loaf in an 8x8 Corningware dish like this:

We'll switch to a larger rectangular or oval one when a larger loaf is needed.

I was all set to give you grief over a specialized pan for meat loaf until I took a look at that Nordic Ware. While it still is pretty much a one-trick-pony affair I *do* like the lifting trivet. It's much easier than what I do with the baking dish (an oven glove to pick up the dish with one hand, large spatula to hold the loaf in place, pour off the grease into a jar for disposal). However, a mesh style cooling rack that fits the dish would likely work just as well. I may have to look into that as the cooling rack has lots of uses.