Post #101 ~ Roasted Yams with Herb Tenderloin and Crimini Mushrooms

This was a quick meal that went from ingredients to table in 30 minutes.  And half of that time was spent on my computer, so it's "walk-away" friendly!

Here's what you'll need:

~ 1 yam
~ Sesame oil
~ Honey
~ Cinnamon
~ Course ground salt
~ Butter
~ EVOO
~ 1 tenderloin steak
~ Fresh herbs of choice (I had oregano and savory on hand)
~ Crimini mushrooms

First, preheat the toaster oven (bake: 375) and wash and pierce the yam.  Then microwave it for one minute (my microwave is a 700 watt one, so time might vary).  Warming it makes it easier to slice.  When it's done, slice it into half-inch rounds.  Put them in a ziplock baggie with a dash of sesame oil, a bit of honey, some cinnamon, and some honey.

: : PAUSE : :

This was total improv work.  In our household, when we make sweet potatoes / yams for turkey dinners, we make a stringy, caramelly sauce to go with them.  It consists of butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, vanilla, and quite possibly more butter.  It's absolutely heavenly.  However, I have the tendency to have very little control when I'm around a pot of the stuff, resorting to eating it not only on my potatoes, but also on turkey, stuffing, spoons, and even, in one desperate moment, off of my own fingers.  So I have yet to prepare it in my own home, for fear I would go into sugar shock and die.

And then what would we do?

So I totally improvised, figuring that roasting made things sweet, and honey made them sweeter.  And cinnamon... well, cinnamon's just plain great.

: : UNPAUSE : :

So into your baggie goes the ingredients and the slices.  Shake them around really well, then lay them on a pan and bake them for 30 minutes, turning halfway through.  Spend the first fifteen minutes doing anything you like, but be on hand for the next 15, because that's when you'll cook your steak.

I decided to keep this really simple, so I did the steak and mushrooms in one pan on the stove top.  Into a pan I put a tab of butter, the herbs, and a dash of EVOO.  I quartered the criminis and tossed them in.  When everything was good and simmering, I put the steak right in in the middle.  I turned it a few times and cooked it for the remaining time until the potatoes were ready.  You may need to toss it back on for a few minutes, or it might be done enough for you at this point.

I enjoyed this meal with a glass of merlot from Red Rock.  This merlot is round, bright and fruit forward, tasting of ripe bing cherries.  It was the perfect companion for this meal - bold enough to stand up to the earthy flavors of the herbed steak and mushrooms, yet soft enough not to fight the sweet, roasted yams.

All in all, a good meal!

Yours in the love of good food and wine,
AL



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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Seventy-second Post ~ Curry Lamb Shish Kebabs with Wild Rice

Tonight I had my friend Jess over for dinner. We had decided (based on a random facebook post) that tonight would be all about lamb. She'd bring a red wine, and I'd create an entrée. So one afternoon when I needed a break from studying, I brainstormed some ideas and sketched this meal out. Here's what you'll need:

For the marinade:

~ one clove crushed garlic

~ curry powder

~ soy sauce

~ white wine

~ apricot jam

~ thyme

~ honey

~ bay leaf

For the shishes (read this post for my rant on the linguistic wrongness of "shish kebab"):

~ lamb tenderloins (or, as it turned out, butterflied leg of lamb)

~ onion

~ yellow pepper

~ garlic

~ baby bella mushrooms

~ dried apricots

For the rice:

~ Uncle Ben's fast-cook recipe long grain and wild rice. Follow the directions and just as it's getting ready to sit and steam for 5 minutes, toss in a good couple handfuls of dried cranberries. This can be made right as you begin cooking - it can steam for a while until you're ready to eat.

I was surprised to learn that lamb tenderloins are not a regularly stocked item; turns out I've just gotten lucky each time I've gone to Wegmans and gotten them previously. This time I found butterflied leg of lamb, and was told by the helpful staff that it is tougher than the tenderloins, but if I plan to marinade it, it will be good. So I made the marinade ahead and let it sit in it for over 24 hours. The end result was super flavorful, tender lamb.

Here's how I made the marinade.

In a sauce pan, start some white wine and olive oil heating up. Add a good swirl of soy sauce and several whole sprigs of thyme and the bay leaf. Add some curry powder. As it starts to seriously simmer, add a few tablespoons of apricot jam and then some honey to taste. Crush in a clove of garlic last of all.

Let it sit and cube the lamb. Put it in a bowl and when the marinade is room temperature, pour it over the lamb. Saran wrap it and let it rest in the fridge over night. In the morning, stir it around and cover it and put it back in the fridge for the day.

Once it's time to get cookin', slice up the pepper and onion while you simmer the mushrooms in some white wine, salt and EVOO. In a separate pan, caramelize the onion with some oil and sugar. When the fire alarm goes off, splash in some white wine (which solves a lot of kitchen problems) and add the peppers. Let them sautee until just tender. Let everything sit and cool in prep bowls. Preheat your toaster oven. When you're ready, skewer your shishes with apricots, lamb, mushrooms, peppers and onions. Place in a pan and pour the remaining marinade over the top. Broil until the lamb is cooked to your liking. We liked ours medium-rare, so it didn't take too long! Serve over wild rice.

Jess and I enjoyed this meal with a Peruvian merlot by Santa Rita. It was spicy and fruity and had a luxurious, velvety finish that paired beautifully with the meal. Naturally, girl-talk paired perfectly with this meal as well, so it was, all in all, a perfect evening!

Yours in the love of good food and wine,

AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Thirty-fourth Post ~ Rosemary Lamb Tenderloins en Papillote

As Entry #2 in the previously mentioned "en Papillote Files," I feature my favorite red meat of all time: Lamb. I don't eat red meat that often, so when I do, I sometimes will splurge on lamb tenderloins. Lamb and rosemary are a beautiful combination!

I'm truly loving the "en papillote" style of cooking. It typically uses no oil and relies on steam for the cooking, so it's healthier than a lot of the pan-cooked options, and it has this way of melding all the flavors together in a way unlike any other!

Here's what you'll need for tonight's dinner:

~ Lamb tenderloins

~ Rosemary (fresh or dried)

~ Balsamic vinegar

~ Garlic

~ Mushrooms

~ White wine

~ Parsley (fresh or dried)

~ Salt/pepper to taste

~ Asparagus

Boil the asparagus in salted water just until tender. Mince some garlic, preheat your oven, cut your cute heart out of parchment (see Post #33). When the asparagus is just pierceable, drain and set aside.

Start a tablespoon of olive oil heating in a pan. Add some balsamic vinegar, minced garlic and parsley. Add the mushrooms and white wine. While that's cooking, ruminate on the essay you're writing. Try to come up with a great experiment design.

::PAUSE::

One thing I've noticed about cooking en papillote is that you don't need to add as much liquid as you'd think. I've been adding about a quarter cup of liquid, and I don't think you need that much. This lamb turned out a little "brothy" - which I guess is okay - and so did the pork I made the other night, about which I shall be blogging soon. The moral of the story: if you like broth, add all you want. If you want a more photogenic presentation, add a bit less liquid than you'd think.

::UNPAUSE::

So your mushrooms are done - add the lamb tenderloins for just a few seconds, browning each side. Now put the lamb onto the parchment. Top with a sprig of rosemary, then add the mushrooms on top, and the asparagus on top of that. Into the spout of the heart, add the juices from cooking the mushrooms (resist the temptation to add more wine and water). Seal up the parchment and bake for 12 minutes. During this time, flip back through four weeks of reading and confirm that the experiment idea you've thought of while cooking will work.

Take the packet out of the oven and carefully (so as not to burn yourself) cut an X into the top of the parchment, revealing all the goodness inside.

I paired tonight's meal with a French Merlot-blend from the Domaine du Poujol from Proteus vineyards. It's medium-to-heavy with an earthy foreground, perfectly complimenting the lamb, with a hint of raspberry. It pairs beautifully with this meal, and, I believe, would go quite well with a steak or beef dish. All in all, this meal was exactly what I needed: quick, nutritious, and brainstorm-worthy!

Yours in the love of good food and wine,

AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Thirty-first Post ~ Sage Marinade Steak with Goat Cheese

So today was one of those days where I was so focused on what I was doing that I basically forgot about food. Me. A foodie. During class tonight I became so discombob-ulated with hunger that I bumbled my way through a study review (Horvath et al., my apologies - I believe that by the end of it, the discussion had incorporated 30 male students, a deck of cards, a few drooling dogs, and Prisoner #819 doing a bad thing).

So immediately after class I headed to Wegmans. You know you've become a frequent customer at a place when you know everyone by name - or at least by attribute: Smiley Sushi Guy, Sweet Butcher Guy, Friendly Deli Lady, Awesome Cheese Lady, etc. So I made my way through my meet-n-greets and bombed around the produce section, also stocking up on the ingredients for tomorrow's lunch-sized Insalata Caprese along the way, and picked out some wonderful dirt-covered Crimini mushrooms and some vibrant green broccoli crowns. Then off to the butcher for some perfectly portioned sirloin steaks and then back around to the cheese shop for something that's been tempting me for the longest time - Palhais goat cheese buttons all wrapped up as cute as can be from Portugal.

So here's what you'll need for tonight's dinner:

~ Sirloin steak

~ Broccoli crowns

~ Mushrooms, washed and halved

For the steak marinade:

~ Wine - whatever you have laying around

~ Olive oil

~ Fresh sage

~ Balsamic vinegar

~ Salt/Pepper

~ Garlic

For the garnish:

~ Crumbled bit of Palhais goat cheese button (seriously - can cheese sound any cuter?)

All of tonight's flavorings are pretty intense in their own right - goat cheese, garlic, wine, sage... so I decided to tone everything down a bit so that the meal would be flavorful, but not overpowering. Follow these steps.

First, I peeled three small garlic cloves, put them in a foil boat, poured a bit of olive oil over them, salted/peppered and wrapped the whole thing up and put it under the broiler.

Then, I washed and halved the Crimini mushrooms. I set them to the side, and started on the marinade. Marinades are pretty simple. Within reason, you can add whatever you want, flexing your creative side, and they typically turn out good. I put some white wine in a prep bowl with some olive oil. I splashed a bit of balsamic vinegar into the bowl and added salt and pepper. Then I decided that I'd tone down the fresh sage a bit by adding it to the marinade rather than garnishing the steak with it when it was done. I stirred everything around a bit, then added the raw steak. I let it sit while I fixed the broccoli.

I know you can buy these newfangled contraptions that steam vegetables for you, but honestly, I've never understood why you'd need to spend extra money if you already have a bowl, some saran wrap, and running water. Just cut up the broccoli into a bowl, add a couple tablespoons of water, cover tightly, and pop in the microwave for 3-5 minutes. WATCH THE STEAM WHEN YOU OPEN THE BOWL. I only say this in caps because I burn myself frequently. Fortunately, I always have a bag of frozen coffee grounds in my freezer (freezing fresh ground coffee beans keeps it much fresher tasting) and it serves as a conveniently hand-shaped thing to grab to nurse one's burned hand. Stir the broccoli around a bit, and if it still has that "dirt" smell to it, steam it for another minute or so.

In the mean time, make a tin foil boat and put your marinated steak into it. Pour the extra marinade over it, and put it under your broiler. I always have better luck with steaks in the toaster oven broiler. I'm not sure why, but at this point in my life, I go with what works. Take the garlic out of the oven and add one roasted clove to the steak. If it's not soft yet, crush it in a garlic press. Even if it's not fully roasted, I still think the process cuts some of that harsh garlic taste that you get from freshly crushed cloves.

Put the steak under the broiler. As previously posted, I like my steak on the rare side. For a small sirloin like this, I cooked it for 7 minutes on one side and 5 on the other.

While it's cooking, I sautéed the mushrooms in the wine, garlic, salt and pepper. I used a leftover inch or two of Vetter Vineyard's Cracker Ridge Rose - my all-time favorite blush wine. It's sweet and jammy, and when used for cooking, compliments earthy tones in food, like these Italian mushrooms, which, up to a few minutes ago, still had the soil from their native land clinging to them.

Check the steak, check the broccoli, stir the mushrooms. Just as the steak is finishing, crumble some of the goat cheese on top. Pop back into the oven for a minute just to soften the cheese a bit more.

This goat cheese is extremely mild, which I think made it a perfect complement to all of the strong flavors in tonight's meal. Using the fresh sage in a marinade gave it a gentler aroma and flavor, and roasting the garlic made it sweet and warm rather than pungent and hot.

I paired tonight's meal with a 2005 Australian Merlot by Tall Poppy (Thanks, John H.!) As Australia is the newest of the new worlds, its wines are often very fruity. However, this Merlot was refreshingly sweet and balanced rather than cloyingly sweet. It gave my tastebuds a punch of fruitiness - ripe strawberries, cherries and raspberries. Again, it was a flavor that I've normally found to be extremely strong that was tamed a bit, if you will, to complement the meal rather than overpower it.

And I've got to take a moment to acknowledge the wonders of our modern world - one can, with minimal effort, enjoy a meal made with components enriched by their homelands of Portugal, the US, Italy and Australia. How amazing and wonderful is that?

Yours in the love of good food and wine,

AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Sixteenth Post: Breaded Chicken with Tortelleni

Perhaps it was because I heard my parents were going to Olive Garden for dinner. Perhaps it's because I've got an open bottle of Merlot screaming for an appropriate dish. Perhaps it's just because I like it. Whatever the reason, I wanted Italian tonight.

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This is a meal that I've altered a bit from my childhood original. My mother learned it from an elderly Italian woman who brought this recipe with her from the Old Country - the original calls for turkey or pork cutlets. However, I had a chicken breast available to me. So I made it work.

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What you'll need for tonight's dinner:

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~ Meat (preferably turkey or pork cutlets) I used one chicken breast cut into strips while it was still partially frozen.

~ Ready-made pasta sauce (of course, the original recipe calls for a home-made pasta sauce learned from this woman from Italy, and let me tell you, if heaven could be created in a pot, it would taste like this sauce. Due to time, I used a ready-made.)

~ Grated cheese (I used Romano)

~ Pasta (I used tortellini)

~ Butter (or margerine)

~ Seasoned bread crumbs

~ Egg

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:: PAUSE ::

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Tortellini is quite possibly the greatest food in existance. You have your noodles, which are pretty great, and cheese, which is quite incredible, and then some genius decided to put the cheese inside the noodle. I'm fairly certain that on that day, the sun shone a little brighter and the world seemed a little happier. Tortellini is perfect by itself, in butter, with herbs, and with pasta sauce. You gotta have a special spot in your heart for these little noodles of cheesey goodness.

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:: UNPAUSE ::

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Start your water boiling. Get out all your ingredients. This is not a meal you want to scramble for. Melt some butter in a stick-free pan. At the same time, have your sauce heating on the stove or in the microwave. To spice up this jarred sauce, I added some cheese, fresh basil, and a little sugar.

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Now, dip your meat in egg and coat in seasoned breadcrumbs. Coat all the pieces, then set them into the sizzling butter on your pan. They will cook pretty quickly.

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Drain and serve your pasta, place some meat with it, and make sure you have ample sauce to dip it in!

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I served tonight's dinner with a Merlot from Mendoza, Argentina. It is fruit-forward and paired beautifully with the salty pasta sauce and the rich, cheesey pasta.

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It's not quite the same as the turkey or pork cutlets, but it certainly fulfilled my desire for Italian! It also shows how versatile this recipe is - try this meal with spaghetti instead of tortellini for a "twist!"

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Yours in the love of good food and wine,
AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.