Panic text blast from friend with birthday meant an immediate small rescue party so she wasn’t alone. But I had calls scheduled already for this evening, so I could only stay an hour and a half. Should have been enough, but other people showed up late and later, so dinner wasn’t ordered until shortly before I had to leave. Steak frites all around — except for me.
So on my way home, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a ribeye and mushrooms (put back the frites because I really don’t need to eat a whole bag of frozen fries), got on my first call and proceeded to cook and then eat my entire dinner while on the call .
(At one point the friend on the other end said “your steak sounds amazing — which is when I realized she could hear the sizzle of it searing ).
Miso garlic mushrooms, a miso compound butter on the steak, and truffled mashed potato for the potato quotient. Half of everything left for another day
(It’s been a while since I put miso butter on steak, and it was as good as I remembered.(
I’ve been MIA for a few days - had to have the battery replaced in my 6-year-old MacBook. I don’t use my cellphone for anything other than occasional away-from-home phone calls. I was surprised at the way I used my time without my laptop. But that’s another topic.
Tonight DH cooked lamb chops for us - he has a dry rub that he makes with a small mortar and pestle and marinates them at room temp for about an hour. He uses a carbon steel skillet on our gas cooktop in a combo of olive oil and butter. I don’t like mine as rare as he does, so he puts mine on to cook first. That skillet gets smoking hot.
We also used the cooktop to pan roast whole baby Dutch potatoes with olive oil, fresh rosemary and garlic. I use a Le Creuset shallow braiser with a lid. And I had a beautiful bunch of flowering broccollini that I trimmed and put on a sheet pan with olive oil and roasted in a hot 425 oven until they were nicely charred.
Both of the humans were happy with the meal, but neither of our canines appreciated the smoke alarms. A number of years ago, we replaced a failed electric JennAir range that had a grill unit with a 5-burner gas range that’s fueled with propane. The JennAir had a downdraft exhaust - we have no exhaust for the gas range so we keep a small electric fan on the raised counter above it, and open the back door when we need ventilation.
Poor puppies. They get so upset with the piercing noise from the smoke alarms. Our youngest Aussie starts shaking when he sees that carbon steel pan come off of the pot rack because we cook steaks on it, too…and he knows what’s gonna happen. There’s no point segregating them in another room because the smoke alarms are wired for the whole house, so when one goes off they all do.
Normally sitting at the bar of a restaurant is rarely our preferred place but there are some places with the “right” ambience where it’s actually the best place for us - Chez Maman East https://www.chezmamanrestos.com/chez-maman-potrero-1 is one of these places. A small, unpretentious bistro in Potrero Hill. French influenced menu with some of the classics like duck confit, steak tartare etc. Every few months we end up at their bar (their no reservation policy can make it difficult on weekends to find a spot)
I have no idea where mine was purchased. My coop has a Facebook page, which is used in part by people giving away or selling their extra stuff. It came in a a plastic tray with a peel-off lid.
I generally don’t buy frozen pasta meals either - because dry or refrigerated pasta doesn’t take much longer to prepare - it’s just not worth it on the convenience/I’m starving scale. And I love Rao’s sauces.
Evidently the lasagna isn’t a fan favorite, even on their home site.
I tried the Rao’s lasagna once because I like some of their other products. Thought they were very chintzy with the sauce and wouldn’t get it again.
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(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
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I made beef stew 2 days ago at my daughter’s house while watching the baby during an appointment she had. It was according to Brian Lagerstrom’s method (main points are you brown the chuck in the oven, you cook down the gravy (which includes gelatin and a dark beer in the broth) with the chuck in it in the oven, uncovered for 2 hours, then add the veggies and back in the oven for a final hour). Sorry no pics (I left it to her and her husband for the final hour) but they said it was very good, except the potatoes took an extra 20 minutes to be soft enough to eat.
Last night I decided to make lamb leg stew according to the same method.
I either made a mistake during salting, or by using Lagerstrom’s method on lamb in the first place, not that he said it could be used with lamb. Instead of browning in the oven like the chuck does, the lamb pieces just lost a bunch of water and steamed, so I browned about 3/4 of them in a skillet. In the end the stew tastes very good but the meat chunks are a tad dry. The potential salting mistake is that I salted at 1% by weight about 90 minutes before they went into the oven. That works fine with chuck (have done it several times) but possibly lamb needs more time for it to penetrate.
As a side note, my yield of “stew-usable” meat (large pieces vs. pieces too small for stew meat and fat scrap) has been better with larger legs, both times now that I’ve bought 2 butterflied legs at Aldi. This time I kept track and my yield of good/not was 80% with a 3.6 lb leg vs only 66% with the 2.6 pound leg. So I’ll be sorting through for bigger ones if Aldi keeps selling these.
Last night’s dinner was leftover masoor dal with rice. I followed @Saregama 's suggestion in last months thread to temper a little cumin in ghee then add the dal. It was delicious although I forgot to get some papadum or naan to have with it.
Pan seared chili crisp salmon with sautéed gai lan and mushrooms in a spicy oyster sauce.
Forgot I didn’t have any fresh ginger and how salty oyster sauce is, next time I’ll add a touch of honey. Still tasty tho.
Very easy dinner tonight (although last night’s sketti and sawce was easier):
B/S chicken breast, baked with a bit of olive oil and s/p for 15 minutes at 350°, then some Target honey-mustard dressing poured on top and finished baking. Added a small sploosh of white wine to the pan, then a tab of cold butter for a sauce.
Leftover orzo, and newly steamed asparagus alongside.
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