Archive for October, 2008
Mike looked so pathetic yesterday watching me braise short ribs for our sandwich show this morning (quote: “what lucky bastard is getting to eat that?”), that I had to keep one rib behind so that we could try it for ourselves. (No, this was not an entirely selfless act. I was dying to try it myself and knew there would not be a scrap left over in the newsroom this morning. Release the hounds, as they say.)
You may recall this recipe from Oprah this past spring; during one episode Gayle drove across the country to have one, and declared it well worth it. I would concur; fortunately there’s no need for a cross-country drive. This is what I always imagine a Philly cheesesteak would taste like, but in my experience never does; not that I am learned in the ways of the cheesesteak, or have frequented Philly cheesesteak joints in my lifetime. I’m sure the closest I’ve come is something along the line of a beef dip at Moxies.
Besides the fact that you have to braise the short ribs in order to make this, it’s dead easy. Brown the ribs, put them in a baking dish over some veg and add a cup or so of wine and/or stock, cover and cook for 4 hours or until you can coax it apart with a fork. Then add it to a grilled cheese sandwich, preferably made on sourdough or grainy bread with fontina, Gouda, Edam or provolone.
How to Win Friends and Influence People:
Grilled Cheese with Pulled Braised Short Ribs
adapted from Small Bites, Big Nights by Govind Armstrong
canola oil, for cooking
2 lb. beef short ribs
salt & pepper
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 carrot, chopped
1 small rib celery, chopped
4-6 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cup red wine
beef or chicken stock (or more wine)
sourdough bread
fontina or Gouda cheese, grated or thinly sliced
pickled onions (optional)
soft butter
Preheat oven to 300F.
Heat a drizzle of oil in a skillet or pot set over medium-high heat and brown the ribs on all sides; set aside. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook for a few minutes, until starting to soften. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. If the skillet can be covered and go in the oven, return the ribs to it and pour the wine overtop, otherwise transfer the vegetables to a baking dish and lay the ribs on top, then pour the wine into the pan to get up any browned bits and then pour over the ribs and vegetables. If it needs it, add enough stock or wine to come halfway up the meat. Cover and put in the oven for 4 hours, flipping the ribs once in awhile.
Take them out of the oven and let them cool in their liquid, pull the ribs out onto a plate and shred the meat with two forks, discarding any pieces of fat you come across. Make sandwiches on buttered sourdough (buttered side out!) with pulled meat and cheese (the original recipe calls for a bit of pickled onion as well), and cook in a skillet (as you would any grilled cheese sandwich), turning as necessary until the cheese melts and the bread is golden and crispy. Serve immediately.
(You can watch a video of Govind making it here.)
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October 21 2008 | beef and sandwiches | 14 Comments »
I’ve been wanting to make meatloaf for a really really long time. I’ve had ground beef (and pork, even) in my freezer for eons – before summer, even. I just haven’t made it. But when it was decided I’d do a column on sandwiches tomorrow morning as a tie-in to a story on the sandwich generation, I had to make one in order to generate leftovers for meatloaf sandwiches. As everyone knows, that’s the best sandwich there is. (Except perhaps for the famous as-seen-on-Oprah grilled cheese with pulled short ribs… the jury will be out tomorrow.) So that decided dinner. And although I didn’t really have the time or gumption to accessorize it with side dishes, I also couldn’t make meatloaf without mashed potatoes and peas. Nothing else can take its place. So when it occurred to me that I could make both in the time it was taking me to ponder what else could go with it, I quartered a few Yukon gold potatoes and put them in a pot of water. When they (and the meatloaf) were done, I drained and mashed them roughly with some buttermilk and boiled some peas. And W ate some of both – it was a Monday Miracle.
(I ate mine while getting dressed to go pick up N and A for Movies that Matter – N hopped in the back seat with a plate of Shake n’ Bake, and as we pulled up in front of A’s house we caught her eating samosas over the sink. I love seeing what other people do for dinner. And the car smelled like Shake n’ Bake all the way downtown.)
Meatloaf
canola or olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 1/2 – 2 lb. ground beef, bison or a combination of beef or bison and pork
1 cup bread crumbs or 1/2 cup crushed crackers or quick oats
1/2 cup tomato sauce or ketchup
1 large egg
1-2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
salt & pepper
Glaze (optional)
1/4 cup ketchup, tomato sauce or chili sauce
1 Tbsp. packed brown sugar
1 Tbsp. (15 mL) grainy mustard
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil (if you want to do your loaf freehand – otherwise you can use a 9×5″ loaf pan.
Heat a drizzle of oil in a medium skillet set over medium heat and sauté the onion and garlic for about 5 minutes, until soft. In a large bowl, combine the meat, sautéed onion and garlic, bread crumbs, tomato sauce, egg, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. Mix everything together with your hands until it’s well-blended; just don’t work it too hard or it could get tough. Shape the meat mixture into a loaf shape that’s roughly 9×5″ on the baking sheet or press it into a 9×5″ loaf pan.
To make the glaze, stir together the ketchup, sugar and mustard in a small dish. Brush the loaf with half the glaze and bake for 30 minutes. Brush with the remaining glaze and bake for another 30-45 minutes. (If you have a meat thermometer, the internal temperature should read 160°F.) Let the meatloaf rest for about 15 minutes before you cut it.
Serves 6-8.
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October 20 2008 | beef | 17 Comments »
It’s a miracle that we didn’t have finger food for dinner tonight, considering I have spent most of today editing/revising Grazing for a spring re-release. Why on a Sunday? Because I said I’d have it all done last Wednesday. I was born without time management skills; it’s one of my more significant defects. (Which is why now, at almost 10 on a Sunday night, I’m settling in for what promises to be an all-nighter in front of the computer.)
How I made the dinner decision: I tested a daal dip with lentils and curry the other day and had about a cup of leftover mooshy lentils. Also: too many peppers and tomatoes I bought while they were cheap, a bag of spinach in the fridge, and half a can of coconut milk left over from said dip. Coconut milk is shockingly high in fat, particularly the saturated kind, and so when I use it I use the light variety – otherwise you could use evaporated milk and a capful of coconut extract for the same effect.
Easy Veg Curry
The measurements here are really so loosey-goosey – I used a small Yukon gold potato, an onion, a half a pepper, some garlic, a tomato and a half, about a cup of lentils and a few handfuls of spinach. Just use common sense and start the sturdier veg (ie potatoes) earlier than the softer ones (ie zucchini and spinach).
a drizzle of canola oil
1 onion, peeled and thinly sliced or chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger (bottled is OK, unlike bottled garlic)
1-2 tsp. curry paste
1 red, orange or yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 14 oz. (398 mL) can diced tomatoes, drained, or a chopped fresh tomato or two
1-2 cups zucchini, green beans, potato, cauliflower or eggplant, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup canned or cooked lentils
1/2-1 14 oz. (398 mL) can coconut milk
spoonful of mango or peach chutney (optional)
1 small tart apple, chopped (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
A couple handfuls of fresh spinach, chopped
Chopped peanuts, salted or unsalted, to sprinkle on top (optional)
In a large skillet set over medium-high heat, sauté the onion in oil for 2-3 minutes, until soft. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for another minute. Add any veg that take longer to cook (ie potatoes and cauliflower) along with the curry paste and cook for a few more minutes.
Add the pepper and any other veggies you’ve chosen. Sauté them for a few minutes, just until the vegetables start to release their juices and soften.
Add the tomatoes and cook until most of the moisture has cooked off, then add the coconut milk and chutney and bring the mixture to a simmer. Add the apple and cook for about 5 minutes. You could always add some shrimp or leftover chicken or turkey) right about here too.
Season with salt and pepper and stir in the spinach; cook for a minute, just until it wilts. Serve immediately over rice with chopped peanuts sprinkled on top.
Serves 4-6, depending on what you add.
October 19 2008 | one dish and vegetarian | 12 Comments »
Mike had just put a frozen Dr. Oetker spinach pizza in the oven (W devours these as if they weren’t even covered with green stuff) when the phone rang; it was A asking if I wanted to come see Feist in a friend’s private box. Hmm.. work or Feist in a private box? I was there in 20 minutes.
There was quite a spread, but mostly I got sucked into the cheese platter and popcorn – love that Saddledome stuff, and there was a vat of it. Leftovers, just so you know, make the best caramel corn; you get all that buttery saltiness under the caramel. (Try adding a tablespoon of cocoa to the caramel mixture for chocolate caramel corn. Maybe for Halloween?)
So I suppose that counted as dinner, while M and W ate the aforementioned pizza. We had been grazing all afternoon; I skipped out of my other event at noon today to attend the best Jungle Party of the season – a third birthday where the snacks included egg salad sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off, ants on a log, spiders made out of blocks of marble cheese and chow mein noodles, and a DQ ice cream cake decorated with an elaborate safari scene from Madagascar.
(Thanks for the invite A&R!)
October 18 2008 | leftovers | 4 Comments »
Stick a fork in me, I’m done. I might be overdone, in fact; I think I’m getting tough and bitter.
Is that even funny? I can’t tell… it’s after midnight and I just got home from teaching a cooking class in Red Deer – a class based on this blog, actually. We (I) made spaghetti carbonara with caramelized onions, blueberry bison meatballs, roasted veg with couscous and feta, lemon-Parmesan risotto with spinach and shrimp, pulled pork in the slow cooker, and sunken chocolate Black Forest cupcakes. For 26. Far too much of everything. All courtesy of the past 290 days. I’m bagged. And I have to get up in less than 6 hours to make 4 banana breads, spackle the bags under my eyes and get to an all-day event by 8.
This morning I made four pumpkin loaves using this recipe (I would have used a 14 oz can of pumpkin, but instead made two batches using half of a 28 oz can for each) and they seem to have turned out very well – of course they should really be classified as cakes, considering their sugar-flour ratio (3 cups of each!) – but at least they were made with canola oil.
I think M and W had a spinach pizza for dinner. Before I left I ate a big bowl of the steel-cut oats and barley I made for CBC on Tuesday and no one ate (fine – more for me). Barley cooks in the same time that steel-cut oats require, so I soaked them in a pot of water overnight and then turned the heat on in the morning for about 15 minutes; at the end I decided to add a shake of SunnyBoy (wheat, rye and flax) too, just to thicken it up and be insteresting. The result was a wonderfully chewy, grainy cereal that makes a perfect dinner drizzled with maple syrup and sprinkled with toasted almonds and sesame seeds. Then I cooked through the dinner hours and had a few forkfuls of pork, a couple broken cupcakes and the last of the cherry pie filling and whipped cream before climbing back into the car. (I have a secret love for cherry pie filling ever since the Hostess Fruit Pie ads in the backs of Archie Comics – they were only available in the states and I wanted them so bad.)
October 17 2008 | breakfast and grains | 32 Comments »
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