Summer Grillin'

Ah, summer. Nothing beats an evening spent out on the deck, grilling something delicious, sipping a beverage, and spending time with loved ones. The hubs and I are somewhat novices at the grill, having spent the last 3 summers in a third-floor walk up apartment with hardly any outdoor space. We did once have a tiny hibachi that we kept on the balcony of his Lincoln Park high-rise apartment. We had two plastic chairs and would sit out there, looking out over a lovely...parking lot. Needless to say, we've upgraded our view a bit:
Last week we bought an inexpensive charcoal grill at Home Depot and have been grillin' fools ever since. I'm coming to the realization that you can grill just about anything - last night we did these colorful veggies:
Simply brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and grill until they reach your desired doneness, turning every so often. I like mine a little on the charred side). The asparagus and pepper will cook rather quickly, while the onion takes a bit more time (be sure to leave the skin on the onion to keep it from falling apart on the grill - and don't slice it too thin). Asparagus would benefit from a grill basket, (we lost one in the charcoal), but we haven't found one we like yet.
I found a great website that shows you exactly how to grill corn (it's so easy). Click here.

And then there's meat, of course. My favorite thing to do is just go to the butcher shop and see what looks good that day, then bring it home and grill it! Last week I got a lovely flank steak, then came home and found this great marinade recipe online. We already had all the ingredients in our pantry, and I'm guessing you might too!
I served it with some oven-roasted sweet potato fries. Such a tasty meal, and so simple. Make this tonight!

Yesterday we had an All-American suburban day - we bought a lawn mower, mowed the grass, and then grilled burgers. I guess it's official now, we're suburbanites!
Perfect Hamburgers
from America's Test Kitchen
Note: ATK says that it is imperative you do not push down on the hamburgers as you grill them - this will squeeze out their juices and they will be dry and nasty. (My wording, not theirs).

Ingredients:
1.5 lbs ground beef
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Vegetable oil

Place the ground beef on a large plate, sprinkle with the salt and pepper, then work it into the meat with your hands. Form into 4 balls, rolling the meat around in you hands, then patting flat into a patty (approx 1 inch tall). With your thumb, make a little indentation in the center of top of the patty. Coat each patty with 1 tsp of vegetable oil.

Grill over high heat (a single layer of charcoal) for about 5 minutes per side or until they reach your desired doneness. My husband insisted we cook them to well done (it was Sunday and the good butcher shop was closed, so we had to get supermarket meat) so we used the instant read thermometer to check for doneness (170 degrees). They were still quite juicy and delicious.

Do share your favorite grilling recipe in the comments! I've got endless summer nights ahead, need more things to grill!

By Popular Request: Pastitsio

Pastitsio is essentially "Greek lasagna". It is undoubtedly on the menu at every Greek restaurant in America - along with moussaka, it's one of the most popular Greek-American dishes. Unfortunately, restaurant pastitsio often disappoints. Sometimes they drench it in a red sauce, often times you can't taste the nutmeg in the sauce, or the sauce is bland, or the bechamel is like glue. The good news is: you can easily create delicious pastitsio in your own kitchen! I've adapted (slightly) this recipe from the Greektown Chicago cookbook. We've made it for friends and received rave reviews.

Pastitsio
adapted from Greektown Chicago cookbook

Note: for this recipe, it is best to use Greek pasta that is made for pastitsio. If you live near an ethnic grocery, they likely stock it. Greek Misko No. 2 is what you want. If you can't find it, substitute penne or macaroni pasta. Your ethnic grocery will likely have Myzithra cheese as well. If not, substitute grated Parmesan - but I really urge you to get the Myzithra, as the flavor will be much more authentic!

Ingredients:
2 lbs ground beef
2 TBSP water
2 medium size onions, chopped fine
1 lb macaroni
1 cinnamon stick
2 TBSP tomato paste, mixed with 1 cup water
2 cups grated Myzithra cheese
10 TBSP butter
5 eggs, separated
1 qt milk (best to use whole)
3/4 cup cake flour
cinnamon and nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Bechamel sauce: Make this first so it has ample time to cool. In a 2 quart sauce pan, bring milk to a boil. In a separate saucepan, melt butter and slowly stir in cake flour, until it forms a smooth paste. Add hot milk. Stir continuously over a low flame until it thickens. Set aside to cool.
Pasta: Boil macaroni in salted water according to package instructions (you want it quite al dente since it will bake in the oven later). Drain and let stand while you prepare the meat sauce.
Meat sauce: In a large skillet, cook onions in the 2 TBSP water until transparent. Add ground meat and cinnamon stick. Cook until meat is lightly browned. Add diluted tomato paste, and stir well. Add cinnamon, nutmeg (a healthy amount - you want to be able to taste a good amount of these!), then salt and pepper to taste. Cook slowly until the meat is cooked and most of the water has been absorbed. Remove from heat.
Combine: Place macaroni back into large pot, then add meat mixture. Blend well. In a seperate bowl, beat 5 egg whites with 1 egg yolk and add this to the mixture. Slowly mix well (use your hands for best results). Add 1/2 cup of the grated cheese, and continue to mix.
Bake: Spread the meat/macaroni mixture into a 9x13 or square baking dish. Sprinkle remaining cheese and some cinnamon over the top. Beat the remaining 4 egg yolks in a large bowl. Slowly add the cooled Bechamel sauce to the beaten yolks. If it's too thick, add a little milk while beating. Spread evenly over the meat/macaroni mixture. Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour.

Whew! Seems like a lot of steps, but it actually doesn't take too long to get it into the oven. The meat sauce is easily prepared ahead of time - and actually we have even prepared it up to the baking point one day in advance of a dinner party and baked it right before guests arrived.

If you're tired of the same-old lasagna, give this a try to mix things up a little. It has a much different flavor profile than Italian lasagna. The cinnamon and nutmeg in the savory sauce gives it a wonderful depth of flavor, and the creamy Bechamel on top gives it a rich, stick-to-your-ribs kind of goodness. Enjoy!

Braised Beef Short Ribs

yes, that is a giant bone

After a week of the vegan diet (well, we may or may not have succumbed to a little cheese, shhhh), the hubs and I were ready for a meaty meal. I've been wanting to do beef short ribs for some time now, so it seemed like the perfect time to give it a try. Smitten Kitchen has a great recipe, but it seemed a little too involved for a weeknight, and I didn't want to buy port for the sauce. America's Test Kitchen had a similar recipe, albeit quite a bit simpler, so I chose that one. This is a perfect dinner party meal - it only takes about 30 minutes to get it to the point where it braises in the oven for 2.5 to 3 hours. So you could easily prepare it a few hours before your party, and the house will be full of delicious smells when your guests arrive. Then you just pull it out of the oven and plate it!

I was really happy with how this turned out - the sauce had a great depth of flavor and the meat was oh-so-tender. I served it with Ina's Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes and a green salad. The only thing I would do differently next time is trim a bit more fat from the ribs before cooking. The leftovers tasted great the next day, too!

Braised Beef Short Ribs
from America's Test Kitchen

Note: ATK recommends English style short ribs, but I could only find Flanken style. Either style works with the recipe. English are a bit cheaper if you can find them.
Ingredients

6 pounds bone-in English style short ribs, trimmed
Note: this was a monstrous amount for 2 people - I bought about 4 pounds but kept all the other recipe amounts the same - ended up with a little extra sauce but that was fine with me! If you're making it for a party, gauge about 1 pound per person.
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 onions, chopped coarse
2 carrots, peeled and chopped coarse
1 rib celery, chopped coarse
9 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp tomato paste
3 cups dry red wine (I used a pinot noir I had lying around)
4 cups low sodium chicken broth (I use Swanson organic)
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, drained
1 tsp dried thyme
3 bay leaves

Directions:

1. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 300 degrees. Pat the ribs dry with paper towels, then season with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Brown half the ribs, about 10 minutes, then transfer to a large plate (Note: it took me 3 batches of browning). Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat and repeat with the remaining ribs.

2. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat from the pot and return it to medium heat. Add the onions, carrot, celery, 1/4 tsp salt and cook until the vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Stir in the flour and tomato paste and cook for 1 minute.

3. Stir in the wine, scraping up any browned bits. Stir in the broth, tomatoes, thyme, bay leaves, and browned ribs. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook in the oven until the meat is tender, 2.5 to 3.5 hours.

4. Transfer the ribs to a large plate and cover with foil to keep warm. Strain the broth into a large container, let settle for 5 minutes, then skim any fat from the surface using a spoon. (Note: I strained half the sauce and left the other half alone because I wanted the chunky veggies! Not exactly sure why they'd want you to discard all those good veggies.)

yes, we eat in front of our TV. don't judge! :)

Man Night

Yes, that's right: Man Night. Not to discriminate or stereotype any particular types of food. This meal was purely inspired by a work of art: Tom Ford's brilliant film A Single Man, starring Colin Firth. Watch this movie. This weekend. Go. It's one of the most painfully beautiful things I've ever seen. After seeing it in the theatre with BFFs Nicholas and Casey, I drove home in silence, completely stunned by what I had just experienced. When I got home, I could only make myself a large vodka martini and stew in my cloud of pontification (what? who says that?). Luckily, Nicholas was available for dinner and broke me from my art induced funk (don't you love those?) and we decided that the only appropriate meal would be steak. Something about a big slab of red meat just felt right after being completely drawn into America 1962 and having my heart ripped out.... or maybe I just wanted to emotionally eat. Either way! We settled for burgers that night with a pact that "Man Night" featuring steak would happen soon. And here it is:

Above you see the klorious meat counter at Gene's Sausage Shop. All grass-fed beef. Given to you by a butcher. Who maybe has a touch of a German accent. It's incredible. It's like choosing your own steak at the Texas Roadhouse, but better because you'll be making it yourself and you won't have to sit next to a table filled with screaming kids throwing peanut shells at each other.

We picked out two beautiful ribeyes and headed on our way. Step one was getting a nice sear on the steak, courtesy of a rub of some fancy salt and pepper.

Then the steaks were laid in a hot grill pan, but don't wiggle them around! You want some nice grill marks. After a few minutes, give them a flip. You should see this:

Then these bad boys went into the oven at 325 until they still had a little reddish-pink in the middle. Remember, they need to rest for 5-10 minutes and will continue to internally cook! Other than that, the level of doneness is completely up to you. Some people prefer blood, some people prefer rubber. I'm not here to judge (well.... for the most part).

While cooking a man meal, I strongly encourage the drinking of whiskey:

The sides to accompany this simple, hearty feast? Oven roasted brussel sprouts (which the fallible foodies are obsessed with) and a baked potato. The brussel sprouts were simply halved and thrown into a baking dish with olive oil, salt and pepper. They were cooked at the same temperature as the steak, then while the steaks were resting, we jacked up the temperature to 400 to give them a nice finish. The baked potatoes were filled with homemade tzaiki, Nicholas' own recipe (to follow... unless you want to put it in a comment!).

Good food with a good friend inspired by a breathtaking work of art. Man. That's life!

Ground Beef Take 2

My fellow fallible foodie and I must have been on the same wavelength this week, because we both bought the exact same organic grass-fed ground beef from Gene's (or rather, my husband bought it, as I was schlepping myself from gig to gig to rehearsal on Sunday, our usual shopping day). My husband isn't into the whole "paying more for food" thing (and neither am I, really, but I'm trying to come to terms with it), so he must really love me to go out of his way to get the good stuff. As Mark said, it isn't cheap, but we compensate by cooking more vegetarian dishes and trying not to make the meat the focal point of the meal. Case in point, we stretched the 1 lb of ground beef into two meals for each of us - then the $7 spent on meat doesn't seem like as much.

The hubs took the lead on this meal - yes, I married a Greek man who can cook. It's ok to feel jealous. ;)

Greek Meatballs (keftethes)
(adapted from a Greek cookbook my mom bought him for Christmas - it's one of those old church ladies compilation type thingies)

Serves 4

1 lb ground beef
1/2 c dried bread crumbs
1 small onion, minced
1/4 tsp dried oregano
3 garlic cloves, minced


Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, using your hands to mix thoroughly. Form into balls. Saute in olive oil in a hot non-stick skillet until evenly browned, about 3-5 minutes per side.

My husband is also the homemade french fry champ. They are so easy! - and without the Guilt of the Golden Arches.

Homemade French Fries
(1 potato will serve 2 people)

1 or 2 baking potatoes
olive oil
salt and pepper

Peel and cut the potatoes into matchsticks. Let them soak in a bowl of cold water for a few minutes while your oil gets hot in the pan. Use enough oil to completely cover the potatoes, and wait until the oil is just smoking to add the potatoes to the pan. Fry until golden brown, turning several times throughout to avoid burning.

a three-burner night at chez Emily. more on that tomato sauce later...

our take on burgers and fries

And that my friends, is how you make the bad-for-you stuff seem not so bad at all! (We also had a big bowl of broccoli).

TV Dinner

Ok, this is actually nothing like a TV Dinner but it's a one dish meal which makes it perfect for kicking back on the couch with a beer (or two...) after a long day. This is a Cuban Beef Picadillo, from Williams Sonoma's "Food Made Fast: Weeknight." If you haven't already guessed, I'm obsessed with Williams Sonoma. It's adapted because the recipe calls for Beef Stock. As you know, we're trying to only make our own stocks during this challenge, so I decided to simply up the spices and throw in some red wine and some water to compensate. It turned out pretty well this way, maybe a little richer tasting than this dish really should. This is served as a tribute to the famous Cincinnati "Skyline" Chili, over 100% Whole Wheat Pasta and with some shredded Wisconsin Cheddar. Also, I made some garlic bread out of the Honey Oatmeal bread I had made last weekend (bread recipes are coming!). Garlic bread made out of a slightly sweet bread like this is out of this world! Who doesn't love salty/sweet?

1/2 Large Yellow Onion, shopped

1 Lb. Organic Grass Fed Ground Beef*

3 Cloves Garlic

2 Tbs. Chili Powder (+ a touch more)

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp. ground allspice

I can diced tomatoes

Handful of Raisins (as much or as none as you want)

2 Tbs. Tomato Paste

1/4 cup Red Wine Vinegar

1/2 cup Red Wine

1/2 cup Water (this and the wine are my broth substitutes)

Salt and Pepper to taste

*A note on Beef: I decided to use Organic Grass Fed Beef, which as you can see is not inexpensive. However, I do think as a society we should be more concerned about where our meat comes from. No, I didn't see this cow before it died, and I have no way to prove that this meat is morally superior to other ground meats found in supermarkets, but it has to have at least a slightly better impact on the environment/my health/our collective future as omnivores than meat from a feedlot. If you can afford it (and you probably can, just don't so much meat!), I encourage the search for better meat! Is it really too much to pay for an animal that died just so I can sit on my ass watching people belt out of tune on "American Idol?" I think not.

Soapbox mode: Off.

To make a delicious meal in around 45 minutes:

Get a pot of water boiling, then add in some 100% whole wheat pasta and cook until al dente. Drain and keep aside. (This would also be good over rice).

Saute the onion in a large frying pan. warmed over medium heat with a tablespoon of olive oil. Cook until translucent, then add your beautiful beef. Stir occasionally until the beef is cooked throughout, then spoon out any fat (I didn't really do this because I didn't have a ton of fat... go figure).

Stir in the garlic, chili powder, cinnamon, and allspice. Then add the tomatoes, wine, water, vinegar, water, paste, and raisins. Keep at a simmer, uncovered, and cook until a stew-like consistency is reached (see below), stirring occasionally.

Stew-like consistency!! I know, this doesn't look incredible in the picture... trust me, it's yummy.

Add salt and pepper to taste, then serve in a large, shallow bowl overtop of the pasta with some bright yellow cheddar cheese grated on top (Hey Cincinnati!).

You've all probably noticed by now (like how I'm addressing this blog like we have a viewing audience of millions? Someday!) that I'm not an amazing photographer. You'll have to take my word for it that this meal is delicious, easy, and incredibly satisfying on a midwestern winter's night.