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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I know this doesn’t LOOK like an apple cobbler. And it doesn’t really taste like what I usually associate with the words “apple cobbler.” What this is, is an apple-pie type filling with a delicious top crust. But it’s not like a regular pie crust. It’s a kind of shortbread or cookie type top. And believe it or not, it’s also really low on sugar. That makes it a winner in my book.

With a bunch of apples in my refrigerator and a dessert I needed to make for dinner guests, I went searching for a recipe that suited me. This was it – a recipe I found at Simply Recipes a few years ago. I read what Elise had to say about this and knew I needed to try it. First you cook the peeled, cored and sliced apples with just a little bit of sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, flour and butter. You don’t cook this long, just enough to take the edge off raw apples. It takes more apples than you might think – I think I used 6 and it could have used more. Elise’s recipe calls for 3 pounds. I didn’t weigh mine, so I really don’t know how many I had – surely it was more than 2 pounds, but it might not have been a full 3 pounds. It filled up the pie plate, but once it baked, the apples kind of slumped. Mostly it’s because I used some Gala apples – not just Granny Smiths that totally hold their shape during baking/cooking.

The crust is a bit different – it has the usual kind of ingredients, but then it has orange zest and a bunch of chopped up crystallized ginger. You can vaguely make out the little bumpy things all over the raw crust, shown at left. That photo was before I baked it, obviously.

This crust also contained a little bit of butter (just 2 tablespoons) and a cup of heavy cream. That’s what provided the necessary fat to give the crust a delicious crunchy texture.

What I really liked about it was the minimal sugar necessary to make this. As I mentioned, Elise’s recipe calls for just Granny Smiths, but I had just 2 of them, and I had a bunch of Galas. Since Galas are sweeter than Granny Smiths, I cut down even more on the sugar. Elise’s recipe called for 1/4 cup in the filling. I used 2 T. of Splenda instead, so halved it. You’ll need to decide, based on what kind of apples you use, as to how much sugar to add. In the crust, it calls for 1/4 cup also – I used a scant measure of real sugar (not Splenda) as I think real sugar is more necessary in pastry. I could have put in half sugar and half Splenda, though, and it probably would have been just fine.

There’s a photo of the cut. It sure looks like apple pie, doesn’t it. Nope! One little tip I should add to the instructions – I used a pizza peel to slide the crust onto the top of the pie. The crust was fragile. It was thick and weighty, actually, but it was a bit on the dry side, so I knew if I tried to pick it up or roll it onto the rolling pin it would fall apart completely. The pizza peel worked perfectly and I was able to slide it gently into place over the apple filling. (I’ll also tell you that the crust was delicious raw – our son-in-law’s mother Ann was visiting and she and I polished off the scraps in short order!)

What I liked: everything about it – the taste, the texture, the apples, the ginger in it, the fact that there was a lot less sugar than usual. Loved the crust. We served it with whipped cream on top. Loverly, it ‘twas.

What I didn’t like: absolutely nothing. Definitely a make again recipe. Thank you, Elise!

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It was about time I got around to making this salad – it’s been in my to-try file for years. Don’t tell anybody, but this is very low calorie. It’s also delicious, crunchy and a perfect accompaniment to grilled meat. In this case I served it alongside pulled pork sliders.

It was about 4 years ago and I was reading Smitten Kitchen’s blog. She raved. I mean she raved about this salad. I put it into my MasterCook to-try file and promptly forgot it. I have hundreds and hundreds of recipes in my to-try file. I should stop, right now, reading any more food blogs, magazines or cookbooks because I have enough recipes to last me until I’m at least 389 years old. But I can’t seem to help myself. I really do try NOT to buy more cookbooks. But gosh, darned, so many people just write the most beautiful books, blogs and magazine articles! I just can’t help myself!

So anyway, needing a salad to go with the pulled pork sliders I made the other night, I thought a cabbage salad seemed appropriate and this salad fit just great. It was incredibly easy to make. Now the original recipe (which came from Gourmet magazine) called for Napa cabbage. Visiting two markets, I found only Savoy, so that’s what was used in this. Savoy and Napa are similar, although they definitely look different. But both cabbages have more tender leaves, or maybe they’re just thinner-leafed. Anyway, you probably could make this with regular cabbage, but I truly liked the Savoy.

The buttermilk dressing is so very light. It’s flavored with some finely minced shallot, and a little bit of sugar (I used Splenda). Fresh chives, radishes and celery round out the cabbage. That’s it. I liked the look of the radishes on top, so I actually left them in a separate little baggie and tossed some dressing with them and sprinkled them decoratively on the top of the salad. If you make the full 4-cup cabbage recipe, you’ll use all of the dressing. Next time I might make more dressing – not only is it good, the salad might need a bit more. It could also be used on a regular green salad too. Don’t let it sit long, though, on a regular green salad. Because the dressing is mostly buttermilk, it will wilt tender green leaves.

What I liked: well, the calorie count, for one. And truly, you’d never know it’s so low calorie. It’s overall delicious. Yes, I’ll be making it again. When I used the left over dressing I added just a tad more mayo to it (I didn’t quite have enough to dress another cabbage salad) and I liked it a lot. That would “up” the calorie and fat content of the salad, though. It’s really awfully good as it is!

What I didn’t like: nada, nothing.

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Another experiment with sous vide cooking. This time I made pork shoulder (pork butt), cooked it at 140° for 48 hours. And I served it with a very tart North Carolina vinegar sauce instead of the usual ketchup-based barbecue sauce that’s more typical. Mostly I did that because my DH is a diabetic and very rarely eats pulled pork because the traditional BBQ sauce just sends his blood sugar skyrocketing.

At least once a week I’m experimenting with my SousVide Supreme Sous Vide Water Oven. Not every dish I’ve made has made it to a post on my blog, as I’m not experienced enough yet. One pork dish I made was not very good (pork chops were too thin, I think, so it overcooked). I’m liking the long, slow cooking for more things – the less tender cuts. Not steaks and such – they are best with relatively little sous vide cooking. I had a big chunk of pork in the freezer – I’d purchased a gigantic pork shoulder a month or so ago, at a great price and cut it up into smaller cooking portions. But I didn’t have a sous vide cooker then. So the meat was just vacuum sealed with nothing whatsoever in it. I decided to just go with it that way. Nothing else in the pouch but the meat. No salt. No pepper. No onions or seasonings of any kind. I knew I’d need to doctor it up with seasonings later.

So I did some reading about barbecue sauces. Goodness, but there are a lot of different types. I knew there was a Memphis style, and St. Louis style, but that was about it. Referring to one of my Steven Raichlen books, Barbecue! Bible: Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades, Bastes, Butters, and Glazes, I hunted through all the dozens of possible permutations, trying to find one that was low on sugar. We’re mostly tuned into such sauces containing lots and lots of ketchup. Then I read about the sauce that is the favorite with folks in North Carolina. It’s a vinegar sauce and has nary a teaspoon of tomato in it – like ketchup or tomato paste.

So here’s what’s in it – onions sliced thin, apple cider vinegar, water (not pictured), red chili flakes, sugar, salt and pepper. It’s not cooked. You merely combine the ingredients in a bowl (non-reactive) and stir it up. I made it ahead because I wanted the onions to soften a bit in there, which they did. Not only did they soften in texture, but the soaking takes away some of the fresh astringency from raw onions. I covered it and just let it sit out on the counter for several hours.

What you need to know about this sauce is that you combine it with the shredded pork and the meat just absorbs a lot of the vinegar sauce. No, it’s not sour (because the meat has a lot of sweetness to it). You’d think it would be sour. I was unsure enough about this sauce that I took a piece of pork and gingerly dipped it into the sauce to sample it. Oh my. GOOD. Amazing, I thought.

I cut up some green cabbage and put just a little bit of the vinegar sauce on it and served that with the sliders – to put onto the sandwich itself. The meat – so tender and juicy. I added about a cup of the onions and vinegary sauce to it and let it sit for about 5 minutes before I set out the slider buns, the meat, the cabbage. I let everyone make their own sliders. I also made a delicious cabbage salad which I’ll post in a couple of days.

What I liked: the texture and taste of the pulled pork. It was incredibly tender after 48 hours of sous vide. The vinegar sauce was outstanding. I loved it! For left overs I put out regular barbecue sauce (bottled) and some eaters had some of that too.

What I didn’t like: nothing. It was really, really good.

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. . .This recipe hardly even deserves an entire recipe box listing – it’s just pork shoulder, vacuum sealed, done in the sous vide for 48 hours. Done.

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Have you made lemon curd before? I’ve made it oodles of times, but not since last March. I wrote it up here on my blog then. I read a description of lemon curd in the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook – they called some versions teeth-achingly sweet. Gosh, yes. That’s what mine was in 2011. The folks at ATK decided to fix it, and yes, they did. This is my new go-to lemon curd recipe. I didn’t enhance the photo at all – it’s all the egg yolks that give it that deep golden color.

I’d offered to take lemon curd to a friend’s home for a St. Patrick’s Day book group meeting. Each year the hostess and her wonderful husband make an Irish repast for our group. And mid-way through our book meeting they also serve multiple desserts. They make raisin scones too, and it’s for the scones that I usually offer to make lemon curd.

Remembering that last year’s version was too sweet, I pulled out cookbook after cookbook and compared the recipes. Some had nearly double the amount of sugar per lemon juice quantity of others. Whoa! No wonder I was overwhelmed with the sweetness! I should have just gone to my well-used The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Every recipe turns out superbly from that cookbook. With copious lemons on our Meyer trees, it came together in a hurry. I really liked the addition of a few tablespoons of heavy cream at the end. It just smooths it out, somehow. I chose not to strain it (to remove the bits of lemon zest and any eggy things). I chilled it in a bowl over ice and gave it to the hostess. But not without a couple of teaspoons to taste, of course! It’ll be my forever favorite, I suspect.

What I liked: it’s easy. Delicious. Just the right amount of sugar to lemon ratio. It will keep for several weeks too, if it were to last that long. I gave all of it to my friend, so there isn’t any left over here at my house! Guess I’ll just have to make it again. I scaled down the recipe to use 4 egg yolks and 1 whole egg, FYI.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. Perfection.

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