Skirt steak! Not something I make with any regularity. But it was FULL of good, beefy flavor. It marinated for just about an hour in an oil/soy sauce mixture and grilled for 2-3 minutes per side. Topped with some caramelized onions. Really good stuff! I forgot to remind my hubby to slice it across the grain – but it really didn’t matter much because the meat was super-tender.

The other night I opened the freezer door and stared in there, wondering what to fix for dinner. You ever do this too? Chorizo? No, not for dinner. Must have bought that 6 months ago when our son-in-law was coming down, then I didn’t use it (he loves chorizo, obviously). Andouille sausage? No; I usually use that with something else, not as an entrée; not time for that. Chicken breasts? No, tired of those. Oh, what’s that package? Skirt steak. Well, why not? It had been in the freezer for well over a year, probably longer than that, and it had gotten tucked under something else so I hadn’t noticed it. My normal method of defrosting meat is to put it in a big bowl filled mid-way with water, and weighted down so the meat stays under the water (and therefore stays quite cold). This is assuming it’s in a Ziploc bag or vacuum sealed, of course. In a few hours it was completely defrosted.

I have a recipe for Mexican style skirt steak on my blog, but it’s part of a multi-dish ethnic dinner. Way too much work – besides I already had the side dishes picked out (also items from the freezer). I could have gone to Eat Your Books to hunt for recipes within my own cookbook collection, but I was in a hurry, so I just did a Google search for “skirt steak,” and one of the early search results was this recipe, from She Wears Many Hats, a blog I wasn’t familiar with. Amy’s recipe was very easy – the marinade went together in a hurry (some oil, soy sauce, a little bit of rice wine vinegar, ginger, garlic, S & P and it was done. It went right into the Ziploc bag I had used in the freezer. I squished it around a bit so all the surfaces of the skirt steak were saturated with the marinade and I plopped it in the refrigerator for awhile.

We were on a timetable (gosh, I hate those nights sometimes – have to sit down to eat by 6 in order to be at choir rehearsal by 7). We prefer to eat at about 6:30 or 7 on most nights. It’s just the routine we’re into.

I’ll include the recipe for the caramelized onions too. I made these a week or so ago, using a new recipe that included a little bit of dark rum and thyme, and served it with something else. But those little puppies go a long way, so I had sufficient for another meal. It was just perfect with the steak. The sweetness of the onion blended so well with the steak. My DH grilled the meat in no time at all – probably just 2-3 minutes per side – as we wanted it to be rare to med-rare in the middle. I got dinner on the table before 6 and dishes were done and put away in ample time.

What I liked: the flavor of the beef – the marinade isn’t overpowering at all. The soy sauce is mellow in this as well – I used Trader Joe’s low-sodium. Also loved the caramelized onions on top. Make a bunch so you can have left overs. My plan as I write this, is to serve the leftover beef on top of a Greek salad.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. Delicious. I’d make this again.

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Just because I write a food blog one could assume that I know a lot about cooking. And maybe I do, but I don’t put myself on any pedestal about it. I do a lot of reading about cooking, food products, cultural differences about food and herbs and even the more scientific aspect of cooking (because I happen to be intrigued by that part). But let it be known that I have cooking failures. Not frequently, but often enough to make me stop short and re-think what I know about cooking!

In the last couple of weeks I made a pork dish that was abysmal. I faithfully took photos of it, thinking it would end up here. Uh, no. Awful. Discard those photos. I made a soup one day. It was flavorless. Chuck that recipe in the trash can and dump those photos. I made a cranberry cornmeal pumpkin muffin last week. I had great hopes for that – it was a recipe I found about 15 years ago in a friend’s community cookbook (I love fresh cranberries in things other than sauce). The resulting muffins were just barely okay warm from the oven, but by the next morning they were leaden hockey pucks.

Then I’ll tell you about the breakfast egg dish I made. Meaning I’ll tell you not to make it! It was along the lines of an “impossible pie.” With cheese, asparagus and fresh zucchini in it, I thought it would be lovely. Not.

Would you believe I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and nearly burned them all. Not so they were inedible, but I sure screwed up that day. My mind must have been somewhere else. I kept forgetting to set the timer!

On the positive side of the cooking equation, for Easter dinner we did contribute a nice, big ham from the Berkshire pig we bought last summer. It was raised by a local 4-H kid. We’ve purchased a quarter of a pig before, but decided last year that we really wanted it to be a Berkshire (aka Kurobuta). Our friend Fay, who lets the 4-H kids raise said pigs on her rural property bought the other quarter. Let’s just say the meat has been wonderful!

Easter afternoon I made the creamy mustard sauce I’ve made several times. It is just stupendous with ham. It’s mostly cream, uses dry mustard, vinegar and egg yolks. Easy to make, really, and has just the most wonderful flavor, heavy with a vinegar tang.

We took that to the family dinner. I’m so glad I got some leftovers of the ham (pictured up above) so at least we’ll have a few sandwiches and maybe a pot of lentil soup, or split pea.

Now, back to the less than perfect meals of late. My DH and I are on a “mission” of sorts these days, about steak. In some soon time frame I’ll be telling you all about it. Dave is just finishing reading a book about it. It has to do with corn fed vs. grass fed beef. So we did a test run last week by buying two different steaks – top one at left is a ribeye (my favorite) – and the lower one is a New York strip (Dave’s preferred cut that day). Both were grass fed here in California. We bought the meat at Whole Foods – the only local place (so far) we’ve found that carries fresh grass-fed beef. The results were lackluster. It could be that the particular producer doesn’t grow the best of grass fed. It may be that we’re just not used to grass-fed taste (it is different – supposed to be more flavorful). For sure the meat was leaner, although looking at the slabs above you’d not know it. There was ample marbling in the ribeye. Not much in the New York. My DH doesn’t mind a tougher chew on a steak. I do, which is why the ribeye was so much better for me. It was tender – very tender, really. It just didn’t have any exploding beefy taste I had expected. We’re not done researching this.

Whole Foods did have several other beef cuts (grass-fed) in the refrigerator case, including some stew beef, so I decided to try that too. Bought 2 pounds. First I went to Eat Your Books and found a recipe I wanted to try from the The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century. The one by Amanda Hesser. That I love. But first I must tell you . . . I’m not saying anything disparaging about the recipe. Just me, the cook, the preparer, the screwer-upper. I mean, how difficult can it be to make beef stew? I’ve made stew hundreds of times, just not with this recipe. But I don’t think the recipe was the problem except for maybe one little step. More on that later.

I followed the recipe to a T. After browning or sautéing some onion and shallots in bacon fat, I rolled the beef in some seasoned flour and browned the pieces in the fat left in my big Le Creuset pot. I didn’t crowd the meat (because then it steams rather than browns). The recipe indicated you need to brown the meat really well, to get that delicious fond on the bottom. Okay, I was fine to this point. Then you remove all the meat and start making the liquid that the meat cooks in. First, in goes the brandy – and you’re supposed to be able to scrape up the fond off the bottom. There was ample blackened stuff on the bottom. No problem there, although I couldn’t scrape up much of anything – it was pretty far stuck onto the pan! Next step was to add a copious amount of Dijon mustard (1/2 cup of mustard – that’s a LOT). Then came beef broth and some grainy mustard.  Once you add the meat back into the pot you cover it mostly and let it simmer for 90 minutes. I assumed that all that blackened fond would release once the stew simmered awhile with the volume of liquid in the pot. Ahem. Wrong. When I returned in an hour to check on it, nearly ALL the liquid had evaporated and the meat was cooking/burning (obviously at too high a heat) on the bottom of the pot. I think I didn’t turn the burner down to the really low setting when I walked away from it. Oh my. Because the sauce/broth contained a lot of prepared mustard (Dijon, good stuff, not hot dog mustard) as it evaporated it was thicker. Thicker = burn.

The stew wasn’t done yet, I knew. An hour and a half of cooking would not be enough to tenderize tough beef cuts. I added in the carrots plus a couple of cups of water and cooked it for another 30 minutes, at which point it was supposed to be done. Uhm. Wrong. Not done. Tough. Dry meat. Awful. I had my DH test a piece. His was barely edible. It was now 7:00 pm and I was impatient. I dragged out my pressure cooker (it lives on a shelf in our laundry room) and poured it all into that, and cooked it for a short time. But then I had difficulty with my pressure cooker. Sigh. It had been awhile since I used it and I wasn’t convinced it was holding pressure correctly. It was spitting steam and water out the edges (gasket problem, perhaps). I brought the pot up to pressure three times in about 20 minutes and each time I sensed a problem. But it was enough to at least get the meat a bit more tender. During the last time I added in the mushrooms so they cooked just enough to eat.

Well – of course, you want to know how it was? I ate about 2 pieces of the beef – it was just too chewy and dry for me. But it was my fault – I’m sure that cooking it at too high a temp during that one hour period just destroyed all the collagen which would be soft and supple if kept just below a simmer! I’ve altered the directions just a bit in the recipe below. The sauce was delicious – and I liked only adding carrots and mushrooms (no potatoes). You also add in a little jot of red wine at the end along with some more of the grainy mustard.

Now, let’s talk about the pot! That blackened stuff on the bottom was still there after all that cooking. I couldn’t scrape it off with a spatula or a stainless steel scraper either. More sighs. I promised my DH that I wouldn’t make him clean the pot (he did offer, but I felt guilty). First I filled it with hot water and simmered that on the stove for about an hour to loosen it, I hoped. Dave did scrape a lot, and using a stainless spatula got a lot more of it off. Then I resorted to using Barkeeper’s Friend and a heavy-duty scrubby pad and got the remainder off. I wasn’t sure my Le Creuset pot would ever recover! Bless it’s little pea-pickin’ heart, it did!

So, all that said, you see, I do have cooking failures. I’ve just had more than usual in the last several weeks. I do hope this isn’t a sign of something . . . but you can make this stew yourself. It has great flavor – just watch the fond and the temperature in the pot.

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Whether or not you have a sous vide, you could still make the deliciously spicy (horseradish) and pungent (Dijon mustard), yet sweet (honey) and herby (fresh mint) glaze that goes on the steaks. I loved the glaze and would definitely make it again. The steaks were good too!

We had offered to take ribeyes to our son and daughter-in-law. For Sunday dinner. So, I decided to sous vide them, since I hadn’t done that before, with steaks. $35 worth of steaks (3 very thick choice ones from Costco) went into individual pouches (pictured left, in the rack that comes with the SousVide Supreme Sous Vide Water Oven. I cooked them at 131° for about 2 1/2 hours. The sous vide directions say you can cook these for 2 to 8 hours. What that means is they’re done in 2 hours, and you can hold them at that temp for a max of 8 hours. After 8 hours the meat will begin changing its chemistry (at least that’s what I think it means). I quick-chilled them in a big bowl of water and ice once I removed them from the sous vide and took them to our kids’.

Once we were about ready to eat I removed the pouches from the refrigerator, slathered on the glaze (more about that below), put them on a hot-hot stove-top grill and seared them. I’m still learning all these techniques – and I learned another one on this occasion. When you try to sear cold steaks that have been cooked sous vide, you need to leave them out at room temp for awhile. I seared them, cut into them and discovered that the searing (about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes per side) didn’t heat the meat all the way through, so the centers were still a bit tepid. I put them back on the grill for another 3-4 minutes total and they were just perfect. It would be ideal to open the cooked pouches (when they’re at 131°) slather on the glaze and put them directly on the grill. Next time I’ll do that.

Now the GLAZE . . . it’s so very simple to make. Stir in a small bowl the mustard, bottled horseradish, honey, mint and pepper (I didn’t add any salt). The only thing you need to remember is that with honey in this glaze, it will make the steaks caramelize very quickly – long cooking would make the glaze burn. Soooo, if you make this glaze for regularly-cooked barbecued steaks, don’t put it on the steaks until they’re just about finished – like during the last 3-4 minutes of cooking. You could also put it only on the top (glaze the top after you’ve seared one side and turned it over). The sauce is piquant. Mustardy. Spicy and herby. This recipe came from Jason Logsdon’s sous vide book Sous Vide Grilling.

What I liked: I loved the sauce. I’d have liked it served at the table too, so I could have dipped each piece of meat into it. A lot of the sauce ended up on the grill itself, stuck to it (I used a ridged grill to get grill marks). The steak was tender enough (not the most tender I’ve ever had) but it was consistently pink through the whole steak, which I liked too. The sous vide approach went fine – I’d just make sure to take them out of the pouches and go directly onto the outdoor grill next time.

What I didn’t like: really nothing specific. I could have wished the steak itself was more flavorful – seems to me like some steaks you buy just don’t have a lot of beefy flavor anymore. Why is that?

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Even if you don’t own a sous vide, you could make this in your slow cooker on low. And in either case, make the microwave creamy mustard sauce to serve on the side.

It seems that the only time of year I make a corned beef is in March, near to St. Patrick’s Day. Otherwise if they’re available in the markets I just don’t “see” them. I bought mine at Trader Joe’s. And if you haven’t noticed, corned beef is mighty pricey! I was shocked. My small 3-pound corned beef was nearly $17. And it would barely serve 6 people. But I wanted to try cooking it in my SousVide Supreme Sous Vide Water Oven. For those of you who aren’t into sous vide, just skip down below to the sauce part if that’s what interests you.

Consulting a variety of sources about the sous vide corned beef (2 cookbooks and about 3-4 online recipes, plus a phone call to my sous vide expert, Russ), I finally decided to cook it for 10 hours close to 180°. By the time I decided what to do, it had gone past the point that I could cook it for 48 hours. I was down to 24, so obviously I did the 10-hour cook. Actually I set the temp to 178°.

To say that I had some difficulty would be an understatement. I’m new enough to sous vide that I was in alien territory when I came into the kitchen, 3 hours into the 10 hour cooking and found the lid of the Supreme standing nearly upright, tipped up at about 75°. At 8 that morning I’d pressed the corned beef into the Supreme’s accompanying rack, and placed the rack in Supreme, with the meat on the bottom rung, put the lid on top and left the house. In the interim time, somehow, fluid had rendered out of the corned beef which creates a gas, so there was a whole lot of air in the pouch. The gas/air was a lot stronger than the rack in holding the roast underwater and it had actually turned the rack upside down, hence popping off the top of the machine. So, the beef was more or less floating on top. Not exactly what sous vide is all about.

I had to manhandle the darned thing to get it turned back down-under, on went the lid and I put a bunch of book on top of the lid. No more mishaps exactly. BUT, after 10 hours I dismantled everything and lo and behold, the roast had come loose again and had pushed itself toward the top. About an inch of the roast was up above water line. Sigh. But, since I cooked it at 178° I knew the meat was done. No fluid had leaked out of the bag – at all – and no water had leaked into the roast. It’s a chemistry thing, though, about the gas. Next time I will have to figure out a way to weight-down the meat – something heavy that will sit on top of the meat and not have enough room to roll over when the gas creates inside. I have one particular casserole dish in mind that will probably work. Or maybe I’ll need to put a real honest brick, wrapped in foil and put into a Ziploc bag to place on top – except that a brick might turn on its side, so that probably won’t work. It would have to a a big cement paver just the right size as the interior of the Supreme!

The roast rested a bit while I made the veggies and the delicious mustard cream sauce. The meat was sliced (easily) and served on heated plates, along with some simmered potatoes, cabbage and onions. The SAUCE: it was quick to make – in the microwave. It’s all the usual steps to make a cream sauce (half and half and chicken broth for the liquid), but just requires opening the door of the microwave through several steps. It took about 4-5 minutes to make it, though. Easy enough.

What I liked: perfect texture, still moist, sliced easily, good red meat color. I’ll probably try it again at long, slow cooking, but I liked this one just fine. The SAUCE: oh gosh. Delicious. I liked it a lot as an accompaniment to corned beef. It was also just fine on the left overs.

What I didn’t like: nothing, really. I’d make them both again.

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A new and different way to make a burger. I used beef, but you could easily-enough use ground turkey or a combination of both. There’s a delicious spinach, onion, and mushroom sauce spooned over the top and it’s nestled on a toasted  piece of bread.

When I saw the photo of this recipe at Pioneer Woman in 2011 (she didn’t cook them, she just had a link), the link sent me to Pink Parsley’s blog – she’s the one who prepared this burger. At the time I just saved it in my to-try internet file on my computer. My recipe program (MasterCook) will sort easily enough, so I looked up ground beef recipes and this one sounded good. Oh, yes, indeed it was.

First I must tell you I made a few minor changes to the recipe (I put part of the mushrooms in the sauce; I added another pinch of nutmeg; I used a piece of whole wheat grain bread, regular size, not the Texas toast called for; I added more half and half than indicated to thin out the sauce; I used a 6-ounce pkg of fresh baby spinach, not the 8 ounces called for; and I added 2 more T. of butter to the spinach sauce – after tasting it I thought it needed it).

The burgers are easy enough – some sautéed sliced and chopped mushrooms, garlic, a tiny bit of soy sauce, fresh thyme, fresh parsley, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper all go into the ground beef mix. I patted them out and used the Cook’s Illustrated technique of pressing the center down (a big dip) since burgers always seem to mound up – it worked like a charm, I must say.

Meanwhile, I made the sauce – basically a white sauce with some half and half and chicken broth, some onion, with a jot of nutmeg and cayenne, the spinach (it’s a lot, but it cooks way down, of course) and some Parmigiano cheese. Very easy to make – and if time permits, you can do it an hour ahead and just reheat. I toasted the bread in my toaster oven, grilled the burgers on a stovetop grill, and served it up. A great recipe.

What I liked: the variety of flavors in the dish – the beef, mushrooms, spinach, the cream sauce that makes it silky easy to eat, and the little bit of crispy toast on the bottom. The flavors were wonderful. Definitely worth making. I’m so glad I have 2 burgers left over for another dinner in a night or two.

What I didn’t like: nada, nothing. A definite make again dish.

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An old-world kind of meat sauce for pasta, but it’s different than anything I’ve ever made before, filled with ground meats as well as ribs and little beef rolls too. And meatballs; how could I forget the delicious little mounds you see above!

Visiting the library recently, I decided to go down the cookbook aisle and see what new ones they had on the shelves. Nothing very new, but I glanced at one Italian cookbook and decided to check it out. It was written by Eleanora Russo Scarpetta. Now, I didn’t know who she was until I started reading. She’s been a “regular” visitor on Martha Stewart’s show for several years, and after several successful visits, because lots of people asked, she decided to write a cookbook, Eleanora’s Kitchen: 125 Fabulous Authentic Italian-American Recipes. She got on Martha’s show because of her relatively easy and unique method of canning tomatoes (also in the cookbook), but Martha liked her, obviously, so she’s been back often to cook her style of Italian food.

Many of her recipes are her mother’s (this recipe included). Scarpetta is a housewife, not a TV star or a food network diva. She has children she cares for, meals to fix, grocery shopping to do, etc. She’s adapted many of her family’s recipes to our American tastes, and she definitely cooks the Italian-American style. I read all the stories and every recipe in the book. And this recipe is the only one I copied out to try. It was just unusual enough that I wanted to make it.

It does have a regular meat sauce, and it has very flavorful meatballs; but the unique thing (to me, anyway) was the addition of ribs (like baby backs or country ribs, either one) and a few small stuffed rolls of beef. In Italian the latter are called braciole (that’s a link to my own recipe for braciole).

Scarpetta explained in the write-up about this recipe that in the old-world (Italian) family, it was called “Sunday Sauce” because it was something made on Sundays, after going to Catholic mass, and they sat down to a big meal at midday, the big meal of the day. The sauce (with pasta) became the entire meal, as well it should since it contains several pounds of different meat. The Italian mama or grandmama made pasta, a salad, and served bread alongside. That was dinner, and any leftovers went into a different dish later in the week. Scarpetta also explained that in her family home first you ate a small plate of pasta with just the meat sauce on it. Then you ate the second course of the meats, meatballs, along with a salad, bread and fruit for dessert. The meat variety intrigued me, as well as the two courses. We didn’t eat it that way.

We were in northern California a week or so ago (celebrating our oldest grandson’s 18th birthday) and I suggested we try making this dish for the family. There’s a photo of our 14-year old granddaughter Taylor making the meatballs. A big job! My daughter Dana and I made the rest of the sauce.

The sauce simmers for an hour or so. The meats are browned on all sides and added to the sauce and cooked just long enough to get them cooked through. The meatballs can be browned separately then cooked in the sauce, but we decided to bake them (an alternative) in the oven for 40 minutes, turning them once halfway through. Then they were added to the sauce and cooked for awhile.

I must make a confession here – we made the braciole according to the Sunday Sauce recipe, but we cooked it altogether too long. We made this meat sauce the day before we ate it, and we reheated it the next day and let it simmer slowly for an hour or so. That was in addition to the hour or so it had cooked the day before. Too long! So, the beef braciole were dry, chewy and mostly tasteless. A lesson learned.

Also, I must tell you that the recipe called for 2 pieces of beef cutlets. It’s been a looooong time since I read a recipe with beef cutlets, let alone seen any in the market. I didn’t even remember what they were, although my head said it was round steak. Searching on the internet I learned that lots of people think beef cutlets are cube steaks (cube steaks are round steaks that have been put through a tenderizing machine by the butcher). Well, I just thought we’d use the round steaks. I sliced it in 3 thinner steaks to stuff and roll. I pounded the heck out of them to tenderize them myself. If you decide to do that part of this recipe, take heed and don’t overcook the braciole. They need 1 1/4 hours total and they’re done!

When we reheated the sauce (everything was in the one pot at this point) the pork country ribs all fell apart, so they were distributed throughout the sauce. Not what was intended I’m sure! I removed the pancetta also because it was a funny, long fatty piece by that time. We actually didn’t eat the beef braciole in with the sauce – we left it out – it had flavored the dish and would be used for something else. We also added more salt (depends on how salty the canned tomatoes or puree are as to how much is needed) AND we added some Italian seasonings. Dana and I found it odd that this sauce contained no herbs except the 3 leaves of fresh basil. That was IT. And we thought the sauce was bland. So we added some dried herbs during the last 15 minutes of cooking. Use your own combination if you’d prefer. And perhaps it was sacrilegious to do so, but it’s what we liked. It’s included in the recipe, but noted as my additions.

What I liked: first and foremost, the meatballs. I loved the flavor of them. Also the texture (with the addition of the minced up bread in it). Note that there are no herbs in the meatballs, just parsley, grated Pecorino and garlic. We also ended up putting Italian sausage in the meatballs – it was supposed to go in the sauce, but I misread the recipe and it got put into the meatballs instead. So if you make the meatballs, you might want to add some Italian sausage to it – it did have some herbs in it, obviously. I did like the sauce – probably because of the flavorings provided by the beef and the country ribs.

What I didn’t like: hmmm. Probably I should tell you that this sauce is a lot of work. I had helpers in the kitchen so that really made it easier. Would I make it again? Only if I had help. I’d definitely make the meatballs again, though (with Italian sausage added into it). Also, once I input this recipe into my recipe software, it shows about 1000 calories per serving (including the pasta). I find that hard to believe. Obviously the amount serves more than 12. Scarpetta’s recipe indicated it served 8-10. We served 7 and had at least half of it left over.

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This barbecue sauce is so different than almost anything you’ve ever tasted. Who would ever – ever – think of making a barbecue sauce with watermelon? You need to like sweet BBQ sauce, however, to like this. It’s really very sweet. If that meets with your taste, you’ve just got to try this.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a cooking class with a different instructor. It was all about flank steak (pictured above). I really thought we were going to learn all about the meat itself – the chemistry of it, I suppose – the why of flank steak recipes. Flank steak is such a different cut of meat. Not that the instructor didn’t mention a couple of facts about flank steak – she did – but it was about 2 sentences and then she was off and running with a recipe. I expected at least one recipe (out of 5) that required a marinade, when in fact, not even one of them was marinated.

Now my understanding about flank steak is that, of course, it’s extremely lean. Probably the leanest beef cut in the animal.

Here in the photo at left you can definitely see the lengthwise striations (the grain) in the meat – an important point since those long meat strands contribute to the toughness of the meat. Your butcher will have removed the fat flap and silverskin, so all you really see is the very lean meat. In the photo at right you can see the very thin slices that are ideal for flank. The thinner the better. You always want to slice flank steak across the grain. And if you can do it on an angle, you’ll get a nicer (bigger) slice of meat, and it’s a more attractive portion for serving.

Flank steak used to be considered a poor man’s meat, since the cut was not as desirable as other steak types. And it still is a distant cousin of  a Porterhouse, of filet mignon. Yet it’s not inexpensive today – over time it became more popular and therefore the cost of flank steak has risen considerably in the last 50 years. The problem with flank steak is that it’s a muscle meat – it is exercised with every step a steer makes. See the chart above – the flank is on the underbelly (see turquoise section just above the steer’s privates). Hence it has lots of connective tissue which is why it’s often a tough piece of meat.

There are two methods of tenderizing flank steak – with an enzyme (like papaya, pineapple, fig, kiwi and ginger) or with an acid (citrus juices, soy sauce, vinegar). Both methods work and they both have their pluses and minuses. One of the minuses is that enzymes mostly sit on the top of the meat and if you marinate meat for very long the exterior of the meat becomes mealy when cooked – because the enzymes don’t penetrate the meat, but stay over-concentrated on the surface. I’ve had that happen but never understood why. I learned more about flank steak in 10 minutes of reading my reference book On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen this morning than I did in a 3-hour cooking class. That is my go-to book for understanding the science/chemistry of just about any food I might consume. And as for marinating – definitely my choice is to use an acid – and if it marinates overnight at least, you’ll end up with a much more tender piece of meat.

Now, back to the cooking class. I may not prepare a single one of the meat recipes from the class, although IF I decided to marinate the meat, all of the recipes would be improved. In all 5 recipes, the meat was too tough for me. And hard to eat in a classroom setting with just a regular knife. There were 3 sauces that went with the flank steak (one a salad dressing, and two sauces). It’s the sweet barbecue sauce that I’m going to share today. It was very good. Really, very, very good.

You need to love a sweet sauce, or you won’t like this at all. Since my DH is diabetic, I’ll need to use very little of this sauce on anything I might make. It contains a lot of ketchup, which also contributes to its sugar content. When I tasted the first bite of the finished sauce my mind immediately did a Proust-ian moment, the whole thing about our memories of food, like Proust’s madeleines. Anyway, my brain said watermelon rind pickles, a memory I dredged up from my childhood and long-lost relatives. There aren’t any watermelon rinds in this sauce, though – it must have been the proportion of acid to sugar that made me think pickles. But that gives you a clue as to whether you can taste the watermelon in this barbecue sauce? Yup, you sure can! I’m going to try a few of these recipes in coming weeks – using a marinade. I’ll let you know how they turn out, but meanwhile, the sauce is excellent and worth making. And if you ever have some leftover watermelon and everyone is tired of it – you now know what to do with it!

What I liked: the watermelon flavor that certainly came through. The sauce is reduced down (the watermelon provides a significant amount of fluid to the sauce, so it needs to be rendered down to a thicker consistency). It would be good on any meal – beef, pork or chicken. I wouldn’t do it on fish – not the right kind of sauce for fish. It should keep for weeks in the refrigerator.

What I didn’t like: really, nothing. It is sweet, though, so I’ve reduced the amount of honey added to the sauce as you’re cooking it.

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If you need yet another recipe for a nice, big rib roast, this is a good one. From a cooking class with Phillis Carey several weeks ago. I took photos of it, but they didn’t come out very well, so I found one on the internet and asked permission of St_Gleam at Flickr – she kindly said yes, I could use her photo.

The roast itself is not prepared or cooked in any unusual manner, really. It’s slathered with a bit of unsalted butter, some dried thyme and pepper. It’s roasted. In the interim time you make the delicious – that’s dee-lish-us – sauce to go alongside. It has bacon and port in it – and red wine. All things that give it plenty of punch and fantastic flavor. I couldn’t get enough of that sauce. And it looks just like that sauce in the photo, there. I could have had a little bowl of the sauce and spooned it right into my mouth!

Try this recipe – it’s a good one. And for SURE make the sauce!

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Oh my goodness, were these delicious. But then, what’s to complain about when you’re eating beef tenderloin? You can make this with top sirloin, and since the meat marinated for several hours, it should be sufficiently tender. But the tenderloin, well, it was just perfection. I’d make these any day – well, probably for a company meal since it’s a special occasion kind of meat.

Although you’ll see a lot of ingredients listed below, the marinade comes together very easily. The meat marinates for 2-8 hours, then you grill the kebabs and serve over rice with some of the sauce (set aside, but made from the marinade before you add the meat). The rice is a good vehicle so soak up some of the great-tasting sauce. It’s really an easy dish to make. This was from a Phillis Carey cooking class some months ago and on my notes I wrote “fantastic.” That’s my code for a really special recipe, meaning Phillis outdid herself on this one!

You can make this with leg of lamb, and I don’t know why you couldn’t make it with chicken (thighs, I’d suggest) as well. Or a firm fleshed fish would be fine too. It’s really the method you just have to get down – nothing more than combining the marinade in a heavy-duty plastic bag (sealing type). Make this, okay?

What I liked: the flavor is just stupendous. And since the marinade also becomes part of the finishing sauce, it’s really easy. I mean REALLY easy. And it’s nice that this can be served with plain rice, so that’s a part of the meal that doesn’t require some special preparation. It also looks really attractive on the plate with the green onions and toasted sesame seeds on top.

What I didn’t like: nada, nothing.

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Usually when I post a meat recipe I will post the side dish separately, but these two are just so good together, I’m recommending you to make this side dish right along with it. This is a special occasion kind of meal, obviously, since you’re going to buy filet mignon, but you’ll thank me for it (well, unless you’re counting calories, or fat grams, that is). Don’t send the nutrition police my way – just blame the creator, Phillis Carey, who makes these fantastic combinations so hard to resist.

The filet mignon is a cinch to make. The hardest part will be making the trek to buy good meat somewhere. Ideally buy it 1 1/4 inches thick, or even up to 1 1/2. You season the meat with salt and pepper, grill it 5-7 minutes per side (depending on whether you want med-rare or medium), then you put some little pieces of Gorgonzola (not Blue – Gorgonzola, please) on top, close the grill lid for the 2nd half of the cooking time, garnish with slivered sage leaves and you’re done.

Meanwhile, you will have gotten all the prep work done on the pasta – cook it, obviously, and make the mushroom creamy sauce (with Tawny Port added in). What I’ve done is go to buy a bottle of Tawny Port (it’s not the most common of ports – but it’s ideal for cooking). I think mine came from Trader Joe’s. That way I always have it when I need it for cooking. Phillis likes using Tawny Port – just the right amount of mild to sweet taste. Anyway, make this!

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