If you’d told me a couple of weeks ago that a week or so after I returned from my trip, having had pasta about 10 times in as many days while in Italy part of the trip, I’d have thought you were crazy. In a general year, I don’t eat much pasta, as you may remember if you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time. I love the stuff, but I just try to limit those kinds of carbs.

But then, since I don’t think I’ve talked about it, my friend Cherrie and I both returned home with food poisoning. She was ill on her return flight. I didn’t get sick until the moment I walked into my house, and then I was just about down flat for 4 days, and only slightly better after that. She and I have pinpointed the culprit as a savory flan we both ordered at our “farewell to France” dinner, our last night in Paris. It’s the only thing just she and I ate at the restaurant meal. It took a full 10 days for that illness to work its way through my system. And I didn’t know it was food poisoning until I went to a doctor. I ate so much oatmeal, rice, yogurt, applesauce, toast and bananas that I don’t know if I ever want any of those things again. Well, except yogurt. I haven’t lost my love of yogurt. Anyway, finally, the day I made this, my tummy began to feel better and I hadn’t had any of those stomach-wrenching pains I’d been having for 10 days, and food began to sound good again.

And I craved pasta, but not just any pasta – I had in mind this casserole I used to fix years and years ago (back in the 60s and 70s). Over the years I’ve adapted it here and there, and never put it on my blog (I guess) because it’s such a simple dish. For me, though, it represented comfort food. I didn’t want mac and cheese, but I wanted some ground beef and tomatoes and pasta. So, it took no time at all to throw this together and I now have 4 more ample single-serving casseroles of it in the freezer.

This is just a combo of ground beef, onions, garlic, seasonings, canned tomatoes, cheddar (or Velveeta in my case because I had some in the refrigerator – because I’d tried to eat a toasted cheese sandwich one of my days when I was really sick) and Mozzarella. I also added a little jot of Worcestershire sauce too, though that was never in my original recipe. If  you do a search for Johnny Marzetti, I expect you’ll get about 6 million results. It’s spelled all different ways (like Marzett, Mazetti, Mazetter), and who knows who Johnny was, way back when. But a dish is named after him.

Casseroles in general are meal stretchers – this one with pasta and tomatoes in it, it resembles spaghetti. Actually, when I made it I scooped some into a single-serving casserole dish, topped it with Mozzarella and didn’t even bake it – I stuck it under the broiler in my toaster oven until it turned golden brown. But baking for about 15 minutes will heat it full, all the way through. If you’re in a gigantic hurry, don’t bother with the baking – just stir in the cheese until it melts and scoop it onto plates.

What’s GOOD: This is a really easy and simple dish to throw together in about 30 minutes or so. While the pasta water is heating, make the sauce. Once the pasta is done, combine everything, add the cheese and you’re done. Or bake for a little bit. It’s a kid-pleaser and will feed a crowd for not a lot of $$.

What’s NOT: it isn’t a sophisticated dish in the least – just good old plain food – but tasty. No down side that I can think of.

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Just plain steaks are fine, but don’t you sometimes want to put something on them, to give them an added lift, or some different flavors?

Recently I invited my/our son Powell and his family over for dinner. (And the good news is that I was able to do enough walking and standing in the kitchen to pull it off.) I have meat in my freezer. Oh my, do I have meat in the garage freezer, and I can’t believe that it’s been nearly a year since my darling DH died, and I’ve hardly made a dent in the meat stash. I’ve purchased plenty of chicken breasts and thighs, and salmon steaks which crowd in there, and go in and out, but I have numerous cuts of beef, pork, whole chickens and fish fillets that are now more than a year old. I’ve GOT to do something with them.

The good news was that I WANTED to cook. Those of you reading this, who don’t know me very well yet, won’t understand. In the last year I’ve hardly wanted to cook at all. But I also had my darned foot injury that for 7 months has kept me from standing at my kitchen counter much at all. That’s completely healed now and I’m trying to push my limits a bit. Am walking some every day to flex those tight ligaments, tendons, the plantar fascia and the Achilles tendons too.

In coming days  you’ll see a couple of other new recipes I tried out for this dinner (a crostini appetizer using green peas, and a fennel vegetable side). I also made my favorite Crisp Apple Pudding, one of my signature, very homey desserts. My grandson Vaughan was salivating from the moment he heard Grandma had made the apple pudding, which he just loves. He could hardly eat his dinner because he wanted that dessert so much. Then he wanted seconds, but mom and dad said no.

Anyway, back to the steaks. They were ribeyes (USDA prime, from Costco). Powell grilled them for me, and I handed Powell this little bowl (above) to season them. He used the trusty Thermapen to make sure the steaks were cooked to perfection. The 4 of us shared these 2 big steaks. I have some leftover which I’ll use to make a nice steak salad, I think. Karen brought a lovely green salad (with the first of our spring strawberries) and left some greens with me which will make a nice start. Maybe I’ll have that for dinner tonight.

What’s GOOD: just something different. I liked the spice combination. It was easy enough to make. Just remember, spice blends should not be kept for more than a month, so use it up, or make a smaller batch to begin with.

What’s NOT: nothing, really. Same as above, a spice blend doesn’t keep more than a month, so use it up.

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Can’t you just tell how fork-tender that roast is? It cut like soft butter, and oh, was it full of flavor! It’s marinated overnight in a red wine mixture, then cooked on low, or in a slow cooker for hours and hours. Then the marinade, which was the cooking liquid also, became the sauce. Hope it’s okay that I use the word “yum.” Such a trite and over-used word, but, gosh it was.

It’s been ages since I’ve fixed a chuck roast. I mean ages. I have a recipe here on my blog from 2010 for a French pot roast, that’s just succulent and wonderful. Worthy of a company meal. I’ve been making that version for 40+ years – it’s on my list of favs, it’s so delish. This one is similar, but it’s an Italian version and done in the slow cooker. It uses Italian wine, pancetta, veggies and Tuscan herbs. And the sauce, oh my yes, that gravy was divine. I’d have liked to have that as a bowl of that gravy as soup, except it’s probably too rich for that. The recipe came from Diane Phillips, at a class my friend Cherrie and I took recently. Diane prepared recipes from one or more of her books. Diane has authored a whole bunch of cookbooks. She’s a blond Italian, and owns a home in Umbria that she and her husband/family visit with regularity. Every time she comes home she has a whole bunch of new recipes to try. I’ll be sharing several other recipes from the class. This was the stand-out, although everything she made was really good.

Cooking for one doesn’t lend itself very well to making this, unless I cut it way down in size and just ate it for a couple of meals. It would be better for a company meal. As I’m writing this, it’s been a couple of weeks ago that we went to the class and had this, and I’m craving it. Maybe I’ll have to plan a small group dinner and if I plan ahead, perhaps I can do it all. But really, this is done in the slow cooker, so how easy is that?

The meat is marinated overnight in a Barolo wine mixture with herbs and garlic. The marinade later becomes the cooking liquid and is also the sauce for it too. The meat is browned, then all the other stuff is added in (pancetta, onions, carrots, celery, dried porcini mushrooms [Diane adds this because she thinks a little bit of porcini mushroom bits – dried – add a lot of succulent flavor to long, slow cooked meats] and some demi-glace or a beef soup base. You can do this on the stovetop (instructions for both are given below) or in a slow cooker.

After the beef has become soft and tender, it’s removed, then  you make the gravy by adding a little beurre manié (butter kneaded with flour). If you like a thicker gravy, just make more of that mixture to add in and cook it a bit longer. Diane recommended this be served with garlic mashed potatoes, buttered noodles or some Tuscan white beans (recipe to come). I’d have liked to lick the plate if that tells you how much I loved this.

What’s GOOD: everything about it was wonderful. You do have to plan ahead since it marinates overnight. The beef becomes so tender, and the vegetables are still slightly visible (and colorful) so you can do with the meat/gravy, a carb and a salad or a vegetable, not both. Worth making and as I mentioned above, it’s elegant enough for a company meal. Doing it in the slow cooker makes it a no-brainer. The wine in this is the star of the show, really – it’s what flavors this throughout.

What’s NOT: only that you have to start this the day before.  And you’ll need to make the gravy at the last minute, but it will only take a few minutes.

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Dinner needed in a hurry? This is a great make-ahead meal that requires very little time in the oven. The salad with cucumber provides some vegetables and the Greek tzasiki-type sauce on the meat just makes it perfect.

A couple of weeks ago I spent the weekend with daughter Sara and her family. And Sara wanted to spend part of Sunday doing some make-ahead meals for her family. Both of the kids are in sports, so weeknight mealtimes have to be jammed into what little time Sara can carve out of the late afternoon or evening. Sabrina drives herself mostly, but John the younger sibling is just 13, so he must be delivered and picked up and often John Sr. stays and watches his practices. Anyway, this is one of the meals we put together and Sara was kind enough to give me a portion so I could make it once I got home. I baked mine in 2 ramekins (just easier for my single portion).

The recipe came from Cooking Light. Since making this Sara and I both agreed on a couple of things: (1) we would switch the amount of lamb and beef – we both wanted a more lamb flavor; (2) the baking time was not enough. So the recipe below has been changed. We also used full fat yogurt, but you don’t have to. We also thought that if the meat loaf was just slightly bigger, we could have eaten just one, so if I did this again, I’d do just that – I’d mound the meat loaves in the muffin tin or ramekin. You’d need to up the baking time if you did that. Lamb is rich, so halving the 2-meat loaf portion would cut down the calories significantly. The original recipe called for 10 ounces of beef and 5 ounces of lamb. That’s been switched, just so you know.

The other problem I had was that the meat loaf wasn’t really done well enough at 7 minutes baking and 3 minutes broiling. I did another 3 minutes of broil, and still the meat was really rare when I ate it (note blood-rare juice coming out of the left meat loaf in the photo). So I’ve upped the baking time to 9 minutes and 3+ minutes broiling. Do check the internal temp if you can – it should be about 160-165°F. The other things could be that pressing the meat into the muffin tin allows contact on the sides with the meat – maybe done that way it cooks in the shorter time. Just use a meat thermometer and gauge accordingly. In ramekins they didn’t quite touch the sides, so that may be why they weren’t quite so “done.”

The sauce was easy enough to make – it’s the standard kinds of ingredients for tzasiki sauce and was made ahead. On the recipe below I’ve also included instructions for freezing the meat – make them into mounds that will fit in a muffin tin or ramekin, place on a parchment or plastic wrap lined baking sheet and freeze, then package them for longer freezer storage.

If you added vegetables to the salad (it already has cucumber in it, but you could add bell pepper, for instance) you’d have a complete meal with the meat loaves, sauce and the salad.

What’s GOOD: these were tasty. Not necessarily off the charts, but not every meal can be that way, anyway. I would like them better next time with more lamb, hence the change in the recipe below. They were certainly easy to make and very quick for a weeknight dinner – providing the meat loaves were defrosted. The sauce is really good – don’t skimp on that part as I think it makes the dish.
What’s NOT: nothing, really. Altogether a good dish and easy.

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You know what “maque choux” is?  Kinda sounds like a sneeze, but no, that’s a French phrase that’s actually Cajun and Native American. Pronounced it’s “mackeh-choo,” sort of. Corn isn’t part of either word. Wikipedia doesn’t exactly define the French words, so I had to go look it up just cuz I’m curious. More literally translated it means “messy pairing,” but in common parlance it’s that corn mixture above. In the American South “everybody” knows what macque-choux means. Phillis Carey made hers with bacon and some heavy cream. I don’t know that those things are traditional. But hey, it absolutely works here and it’s SO good.

In the cooking class, Phillis prepared this with top sirloin steak. Not my most favorite cut. She mentioned that you could use ribeye or even flank steak (I’d marinate the flank a bit in something to tenderize it first – not anything very highly seasoned – then still use the Cajun rub on it too). But with a tender ribeye – oh yes, that’s what I’d use. If you decide to use top sirloin, do cut the slices thinly.

You can barely see that there’s a tiny bit of cream in the corn relish. Mostly I think the cream got boiled down, or maybe my serving just didn’t get all that much. But in any case, the maque-choux is just the best part of this dish. It’s made with fresh corn (if at all possible), bacon, onion, garlic, red bells, green onions and cream. Quite simple. And you can make it the day before if that helps you with timing.

The steaks must be at least 1 1/4 inches thick. That’s imperative for making this dish work. The rub on the steak was also really easy. Below is a recipe for making it, but you can also just buy it. I think Paul Prudhomme makes one, but Phillis recommended the one by Spice Hunter if you can find it at your local store. If you make up a small batch from the recipe, make double, but just use it within a month or two as it doesn’t keep all that long. Be sure to blot the steak well with paper towels before you start. Phillis talked to us about seasoning the steak – usually I would oil the meat then sprinkle on the seasonings. She said no, that’s the wrong way to do it – pat the spices on first, THEN gently spread on the oil. She says the seasonings stick better that way. Who knew?

The steaks are grilled – use whatever method you prefer – allowed to rest for 5 minutes then served with the macque-choux spooned over the center or at one end (i.e., don’t cover the steak with the corn). Phillis also said this dish is just fabulous served ON a bed of mashed potatoes. Hmmm. That sounds really good and I may do it that way next time.

What’s GOOD: the relish is the best part. Get fresh corn if possible, but frozen will work. The corn relish elevates this dish to something very special. The Cajun rub was also very good – I’d use that again on chicken perhaps.
What’s NOT: nothing at all – it’s a fabulous dish.

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I was in the mood for some kind of fancy burger. I perused my to-try recipe collection, and up popped this recipe, from Food52 for a Japanese style burger (they called it a chopped steak) with an unusual sauce of caramelized onions, tamari, sake, Madras curry powder and ketchup. What a combination, I thought!

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you’ll notice an absence of much of any Japanese influence. I eat sushi once in a blue moon, and only if it’s tuna or a California roll. I spent a couple of months in Japan years ago (1965 to be exact) and I wasn’t particularly enamored with the food. Tempura was good, but even then I knew it was rich and it didn’t appeal to me every day. If there were sushi restaurants in Japan when I was there, I sure never saw them. Probably the thought of eating raw fish made me cringe. Gyoza, however, I love. Fried, of course. I buy the ones at Trader Joe’s now and then and like them. I like my own better – they have more shrimp and pork in them, but oh, gosh, are they a lot of work. The TJ’s ones will do me just fine! I did make sukiyaki at home for some years after my 1965 trip, but even that recipe has disappeared and I haven’t craved it. Today sushi is king.

And, since we know from all the health experts that we shouldn’t OD on salt, I am careful about cooking with or using too much plain salt, or soy sauce, for instance. And with the scare about arsenic in rice, I also limit how much rice I eat.

All that leads up to the fact that this recipe appealed to me recently, tarmari included! As I write this, my best friend Cherrie is in Hawaii in a timeshare they’ve owned for years. She’s with her friend Jackie who also loves Hawaii as much as Cherrie does. Cherrie’s hubby, Bud, is fending for himself at home, so I invited him to come have dinner with me. Right now I have no working outdoor barbecue (an outdoor kitchen is under construction, and I’ll share the photos when it’s done) so it needed to be something cooked on the stovetop or oven. Bud is going to give me some barbecue lessons (you may remember I’ve mentioned here, that I really don’t know how to barbecue – Dave always – always did the barbecuing). I do understand the technique, but I need guidance about the brand of barbecue I have. Bud and Cherrie own the same brand (gas). I don’t know whether I mentioned it a week or so ago, but recently my cousin Gary flew down to visit me (stories on that soon) and his 2nd night here I defrosted a prime steak and I DID barbecue it. It took longer than I’d thought it would, but I think the fire wasn’t quite as hot as Dave would have used. But it worked perfectly, and the steak was done just the way I liked it – seared and charred on the outside – and at a perfect 125-128° temp on the inside, solidly pink with no gray anywhere. I was quite proud of myself. Back-patting here, okay????

A trip to the market ensued because I didn’t have the right combo of ground meats (half ground chuck, half ground sirloin), tamari, sake, and enough onions to make the caramelized ones needed for the burgers and the sauce. One thing I wondered about was what’s the difference between soy sauce and tamari. Well, not much, but tamari is generally less salty (good) and it’s also a thicker sauce than soy sauce (good in this instance since it was in a sauce). I also didn’t have sake on hand.

One thing you need to know about this dinner, if you haven’t made caramelized onions lately, is that it takes a long, LONG time to caramelize onions. And you’d be amazed at how much you start out with (2 1/2 cups) and what you end up with (about 2/3 cup). I forget how long it takes (at least 45 minutes) – good thing I started working on dinner at about 4:00. I took the photo before the onions were fully caramelized. I figured you’d not be able to even see them against that black nonstick pan if I took the photo later, when they were nearly the color of mahogany.

I made Marinated Tomatoes to go with it, and some nice steamed broccoli. (The recipe indicated sliced tomatoes, broccoli and rice are standard sides with this burger.)  Our markets are just now starting to get good tasting tomatoes, so I used Kumato again, because I really like their flavor. And I made an ancient recipe of mine for a French-style poppy seed egg noodle dish which I’ll post in a few days. I didn’t serve rice, as any self-respecting Japanese person would eat with this.

The gist of the recipe is as follows: you cook up a ton of onions (chopped) until they’re caramelized a dark brown but not burned. You mix up the ground meat, eggs, seasonings, some bread crumbs soaked in milk (which gave these burgers perfect texture, IMHO). Most of the caramelized onions are added to the burgers (reserving the remaining for the sauce) and you gently shape them into 6 thick burgers. I pressed an indent in the middle which worked like a charm for a more evenly flat shaped finished burger. I refrigerated the burgers on waxed paper at that point. Meanwhile I set up all the things to go into the sauce – easy. I made the noodle dish and that went into the toaster oven for 25 minutes. I’d already made the tomatoes and they were chilling in the refrigerator. I prepped the broccoli in my cute little Lekue steam case, drizzled lightly with oil. The burgers are sautéed in butter (not much) – seared to get a nice dark crust on one side, turned over to do the same on the other side. I used my instant-read thermometer to test the meat – I wanted it to be 130°, or even a bit under. The burgers were removed to a hot plate in a low oven while I mixed up the sauce. To the pan I’d fixed the burgers in I added the flour and curry powder and let that sizzle just a bit, then added the reserved onions, tamari, ketchup, sake (with sugar dissolved) and finally water. That just cooked slowly for a few minutes. I added a tetch of water (about 2 T) because it got thick quickly. That’s it. Burgers were plated and the sauce spooned over the top. Garnish with parsley if desired.

What’s GOOD: the flavor of the burger was stupendous. It was just tender, just cooked through, just perfect. The sauce was a bit salty tasted on its own (so be careful not to add too much salt to the burgers themselves, but they do need a little bit), but with a bite of the burger it was great. Altogether fabulous dish. It would be worthy of a company meal for sure. Not difficult for a weeknight meal except for the caramelizing of the onions.

What’s NOT: regarding flavor, nothing. Just know you have to stir and cook those darned onions for a long, long time.

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Gee whiz – I sure should have photographed these delicious meatballs on a colored plate, eh? I darkened it a bit so you could see some contrast. Can you even tell they’re meatballs? No matter, though, if you have a hankering for Swedish Meatballs – it’s the taste that will win you over.

Only a couple of times have I dined on Ikea’s Swedish Meatballs. We used to have the store near us, but they moved to a much larger building about 15 miles away, so I don’t visit it very often. But I’ve not forgotten how delicious their meatballs are. For whatever reason I was craving comfort food, so with some defrosted ground beef on hand, I decided to make this rendition (from the Food Network) of Ikea’s Swedish Meatballs.

I do recall when I had Ikea’s version, the meatballs were very soft. To me, that means filler, and yes, I suppose these do have some (bread, in this case), but not enough to make them quite fall apart. Almost, but not quite. The onions and garlic are cooked separately (to make sure they’re  cooked through), then combined with some milk (so the milk soaks into the bread completely). I didn’t have any dry bread crumbs, but had fresh. I should have used less milk, so my meatballs were very wet. The baking process, though, cooked off the liquid.

Once you form the 1-inch meatballs, they’re refrigerated for about an hour, then baked in a hot oven for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile you make the sauce, which is really just a beef broth gravy and a bit of heavy cream at the end. The only unusual thing in it is Worcestershire sauce. Not in the recipe, but I did put in just a little bit of freshly grated nutmeg in the gravy. Allspice is the predominating spice in the meat, with a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg, giving them that distinct taste. Just before serving, the meatballs are added into the gravy and heated through.

The pièce de résistance, though, is the jam. Traditionally it’s lingonberry (which you can buy at Ikea). I had some Montana huckleberry jam which was just great with it. Each and every bite should have just a tiny bit of the jam – it gives it a hint of sweetness. I served this with mashed potatoes (I think that’s traditional) though some serve it with egg noodles. You’ve heard me say before that I think Costco’s instant mashed potatoes are great. I wouldn’t serve them for Thanksgiving or a fancy dinner, but they’re amazingly true to home made mashed potatoes. And ever-so easy to make. In this case the gravy and meatballs are the stars of the show anyway. The potatoes are almost an afterthought, but a necessary one.

We had a friend over for dinner – Irene – who has Norwegian heritage. She swooned over these meatballs and said “oh, these taste just like my mother used to make.” You can’t get a more hearty recommendation than that, can you? I sent her home with some left overs.

What’s GOOD: Oh gosh, we thought these were wonderful. Absolutely mouth-watering delicious. Whether they’re true to the store’s version, I don’t know, but they’re very, very close and definitely worth making. Yes, I’ll be making them again, according to this recipe! I have another version of Swedish Meatballs on my site, but these are better!

What’s NOT: not a thing.

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Since I have so many tenderloin recipes on my blog already, I debated about not posting this one. But the sauce won me over. It’s just really good and full of concentrated flavor. If you’re having a bunch of folks over for the holidays, or some special dinner, there’s almost nothing easier than a beef tenderloin.

It’s always the cost of a whole beef tenderloin that stops me from roasting one more often. And when I entertain I often have just 6 people. Not worth doing a whole tenderloin for 6 – unless you really crave roast beef sandwiches – and I mean roast beef of the highest order – the next day! But the left over meat is never as good as it was when it was served first. So do plan this when you have at least 8 people. I really think you could serve 10 people with one, but if you want those nice, thick 1-inch slices, you’ll feed about 8+.

If you’re a Costco shopper, you can buy a whole tenderloin, pre-trimmed of fat, sinew and silverskin, for about $100. I’m quite willing to pay the higher price to have it pre-trimmed, as I really dislike having to do it myself. Costco carries both, so you can choose.

If we’re going to talk about sauce – and yes, we are – this one’s really good, and actually I think it’s a benefit that you have to make it earlier in the day or the day before. There is no way you can make this sauce in the time the roast is in the oven, which means the sauce IS a bit labor intensive. The biggest chore is preparing 1 1/2 cups of chopped shallots. That’s one heck of a lot of shallots. They’re kind of tedious to peel and chop. That alone will take you 20+ minutes, I would guess. The sauce isn’t hard to make, although you do have to reduce down the sauce at two different times in the process. But it all comes together and it can be cooled down and refrigerated overnight. Just at the last you mix in a thickening roux and it’s ready to serve. When Phillis Carey made this, she served it with green beans and mashed potatoes with loads of crimini mushrooms in them. And the gravy kind of went all over everything.

Maybe I’ll have to just plan a dinner party so I can make this and enjoy whatever left overs there might be.

What’s GOOD: well, to me the sauce makes this. There isn’t anything all that unusual about a roasted beef tenderloin – but the sauce here puts it into a regal league. I’d definitely make this again.
What’s NOT: only the time it takes to make the sauce, but it can be made ahead. It’s the sauce that makes it, so don’t even think of not doing that part!
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Most evenings I don’t serve any carb with our meal. We just don’t need it. Not that we wouldn’t LIKE to have some, but we know it’s better for us if we don’t indulge in potatoes or rice or some other kind of starch. Even bread. So, this revision was borne of that wish – could we have my old favorite, cabbage patch stew that is usually served with a lovely fluffy mound of whipped potatoes on top?

If you click on the link above, you’ll go to my 2007 blog post about this – one of my all-time favorite family meals. It’s a soupy, stewy kind of dish that I originally got out of a little Betty Crocker cookbook that was given to me when I got married the 1st time in 1962. Looong time ago. It’s SO very easy to make – all in one pan except for the potatoes.

Back some years ago I made a Kalyn’s Kitchen recipe for a kind of cheesy cauliflower dish called Twice Baked Cauliflower that gives you the illusion you’re eating baked (mashed) potatoes with all the trimming like sour cream, bacon, chives, etc. Every time I make those, I think about our friend Lynn (and his wife Sue) who now live in Colorado. Lynn, you see, abhors cauliflower. I served those to him one night – didn’t even mention what it was – he ate it, loved it, and somewhere in the conversation I mentioned cauliflower. Lynn turned a bit blue. CAULIFLOWER? No. That couldn’t have been cauliflower. He simply doesn’t EAT cauliflower. But he did. Now whether he’s ever eaten it since, I don’t know. (Sue, you’ll have to tell me . . . she reads my blog.)

SO, all that said, I decided to lighten up my old favorite by making it with half ground turkey and half ground beef, and then to make the “mashed potatoes” with cauliflower. The only carbs in this dish come from the one can of kidney beans that are also part of the recipe (and whatever little amount of carbs exist in the other vegetables). The beans – I left those in – they’re more complex carbs. As for the cauliflower – just TRUST ME about this – you’ll hardly know you’re eating cauliflower. I’ve re-written the recipe completely below, including the cauliflower mixture. If you eat the cauliflower “mashed potatoes” straight, yes, you’ll probably notice they don’t quite taste like potatoes, but when it’s mixed with the herby, spicy stew mixture, you simply don’t know. It has almost the same texture as mashed potatoes.

What’s GOOD: This is a very healthy meal – especially if you use all turkey or use less. Or no turkey, of course. The combination of veggies just works. What can I say. And the mashed potatoes cauliflower put it into the comfort food category. Make a double batch and freeze the left overs (freeze the cauliflower separately – come to think of it – I’ve never frozen pureed cauliflower so don’t know absolutely how that would be once defrosted – let me know) – that’s what I do.
What’s NOT: absolutely nothing. I love this stuff.

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This is a post about the technical side of grilling steaks – the photo is from an earlier post – which happens to be our favorite steak preparation. Click this link to go to that recipe.

We do enjoy a steak with some regularity. My DH would probably eat a steak about every 3-4 days if I’d let him, but since I know we should limit how much beef we eat, we have a steak probably once every 2-4 weeks. And I cook beef in one or another form (ground, short ribs) maybe once a month too, although generally we’ll have more than one meal out of it, so technically we eat it more than once, twice or three times a month. If we go to a steakhouse, sometimes Dave will order a steak there as well. I almost never order a steak out because I’m pretty certain the steak we’ll eat at home is better tasting and more tender. I’m not sure about most beef purveyors, either – what do they feed the cattle? Fillers? And solely corn and grains at the end? – which is so awful for their digestive tracts. Lots of cattle are near death when they’re slaughtered because of what the feed lots force them to eat. All of that came from a book we read about steak: Steak: One Man’s Search for the World’s Tastiest Piece of Beef. I have yet to write up an essay/post about that book. I’ve been meaning to, because I found the book absolutely fascinating.

In the last couple of years you may have read some of my posts about how and what we’ve done at home to improve the chances of a good, juicy tender steak.

(1) We now buy nearly all of our steaks from an organic grower who raises his stock about 50 miles from where we live, and he sells his beef (and lamb, chicken and pork) at a Saturday farmer’s market. He raises grass-fed beef (very, very chewy meat) and some he raises with just a short time of eating a special diet of legumes and grains (no corn) developed by a university. We buy the latter because it’s got the perfect combination of taste and texture. We can order ahead if we want, or just show up at the farmer’s market and decide on the spot from what he has available. Many people have standing orders. Some buy a whole steer and request part of the order to be delivered every month or so.

(2) We use a very expensive (for a thermometer) Splash-Proof Super-Fast Thermapen to test the temp of the steaks. We like medium rare, and usually remove the steak from the grill at about 125° give or take a degree or two.

(3) We let it rest under a light tent of foil for 7-8 minutes.

(4) As for cooking the steaks – we were using a method developed by Hugh Carpenter to grill – mark the meat (grill marks) then move it over to the indirect heat area of the grill and wait until it reached the desired temp. And we thought those things were working well, although we had one complaint – by the time the steak got to our plate and on the table, it was not hot enough for my DH’s tastes – he wants a hotter, almost sizzling steak. We hadn’t experimented with that method.

We’ll likely be changing some of our grilling from now on after reading an article over at Serious Eats. It details 7 things that are myths about grilling, about meat, etc. I found the article quite fascinating. I’ll give you a quick synopsis here:

Myth #1: “You should let a thick steak rest at room temperature before you cook it.”

Apparently it’s  not necessary. It just means the steak spends less time on the grill if you do let it sit out. Otherwise, the author found no difference to taste or how it cooked.

Myth #2: “Sear your meat over high heat to lock in juices.”

Nope. Definitely a myth. The article says: “When cooking thick steaks, start them on the cooler side of the grill and cook with the lid on until they reach about ten degrees below final serving temperature. Finish them off on the hot side of the grill for a great crust. For thinner steaks (about an inch or less), just cook them over the hot side the entire time—they’ll be cooked to medium rare by the time a good crust has developed.” The analysis is that once the steak has cooked on the slow side for awhile, the flat surface is drier, therefore when you do put it on the hot side, it will give you a better crust and grill marks.

Myth #3: “Bone-in steak has more flavor than boneless.”

This is one that I certainly thought was true, but tests proved it made no difference. But, if you like to gnaw on bones, do cook bone-in.

Myth #4: “Only flip your steak once!”

Isn’t this one of those quintessential mental pictures of a guy at his grill, flipping those burgers or steaks? Here’s what the article says: “. . . multiple flipping will not only get your steak to cook faster—up to 30% faster!—but will actually cause it to cook more evenly, as well. This is because—as food scientist and writer Harold McGee has explained—by flipping frequently, the meat on any given side will neither heat up nor cool down significantly with each turn.”

Myth #5: “Don’t season your steak until after it’s cooked!”

The explanation for this one is kind of long (go to the article to read it in full), but the general theory is that we put steaks on the grill when they’re too wet. Steaks have got to have a dry, dry surface. The article’s “takeaway:” You can get away with salting just before cooking, but for best results, salt at least 45 minutes—and up to a couple of days—in advance, letting your steak rest on a rack in the fridge so that its surface can dry and the salt can be absorbed into the meat. Serve the steak with crunchy sea salt at the table.

Myth #6a: “Don’t use a fork to turn your steak.”

You know you’ve read about it – don’t puncture any piece of grilled meat (steak, pork chop, tenderloin, even chicken) because the juices will escape, resulting in a dry piece of finished meat. The truth:  muscles in steak are little tiny, miniscule water balloons, he explained, and indeed, if you puncture a steak you likely will break a few, but his tests showed it was such a finite amount to hardly matter.

Myth #6b: “If you cut it open to check doneness, it will lose all its juices.”

Certainly I’ve wondered about this, but I still have done it anyway – especially when Dave has brought a piece in from the grill about 20 minutes early and he says it’s done (per the thermometer). I never want to serve an undercooked chicken breast or steak, or pork chop. A few juices may be lost, but it doesn’t seem to affect the final result. He recommended using this method only if you don’t have a meat thermometer, or you don’t trust what it says.

Myth #7: “Use the “poke test” to check if your steak is done.”

You know this one – press your finger on the meat itself – if it’s fleshy like the inside of your palm, it’s really rare, closer to the thumb it’s medium-rare, etc. The writer says that not everyone’s hands are alike – some are more fleshy than others, so that makes this method a crap shoot. His answer: use a Thermapen.

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