What You Should Have Eaten #22

Sliced Herb and Garlic Tagliata
over Shaved Portobello, Celery, and Parmigiano-Reggiano Salad

This is a big undertaking for me. First, it’s the first time that I’ll be cooking steaks on my grill. I’m nervous and excited. Second, I’m throwing in some sweet potato fries. Why not? Third, the cocktail I’m having is something that I created.

I went the obvious route with the drink. The advocaat I’m trying to get rid of is egg based, so why not French Toast? Plus, with the ingredients and the fact that it’s a mixed drink, it’s also a play on words.

It’s a simple drink: advocaat and cognac with a dash of nutmeg and cinnamon. Ooh, it looks like I’ve sorely underestimated my cognac supply. I could punch it up with a little brandy, but I think I’m just going to make it a shot.

When I travel, I like to get a new shot glass from wherever I’m visiting. It’s given me a small but interesting collection.

I didn’t plan on the shot being layered, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. Looks kind of neat. And as a shot, it tasted pretty good. After last week’s debacle, I don’t think I can deal with an entire drink that’s mostly advocaat. It’s just too thick.

This is the first time I’ve actually chopped fresh garlic rather than using my jar of minced. Meh, too much work. I’m sure the minced would have worked just fine.

I didn't have much luck with the charcoal on my first few grilling attempts. I don't want to use lighter fluid, so I used rolled up newspaper pages as recommended by the little Weber booklet that came with the grill. Then I picked up this package of  Strike-A-Fire. It's like a giant, slow-burning match, and it's wonderful for getting the charcoal started.

I’m using baby portabello mushroom caps because they were a LOT cheaper.

I thought the steaks turned out wonderfully. Nicely done with a bit of pink in the middle. It was good by itself, but also nice with the salad.

I was most impressed with the sweet potato fries. I only used the recipe linked at the top for a basic guideline. I sliced up two sweet potatoes into somewhat thin fries. I tossed them in a bowl with some olive oil, then spread them on some aluminum foil on a cookie sheet. I then generously sprinkled some Seasonall all over them. Baked at 420 degrees for 45 minutes with a quick flip halfway through, and they ended up being delicious. Two out of the three kids liked them.

My sister wasn’t too keen on the idea of chocolate chip snickerdoodles, but she ended up having a few. She also named them. Since I used regular and white chocolate chips, we’re now calling them moo-doodles. I love it. 

What You Should Have Eaten #21

Frutti di Mare and Linguine

First off, let’s talk about the drink. But to do that, we’ve got to go back a bit.

I’ve got a book, The Bartender’s Guide by Peter Bohrmann, and I’m attempting to make every drink in it. To do that, though, I sometimes have to buy some more exotic or odd ingredients. Last week I decided to mark off one of those ingredients and bought a bottle of advocaat. The description I had for it was a cream brandy. Turns out it’s egg based. And yellow. And REALLY creamy. Turns out it also has a shelf life of six months once it’s opened, and it needs to be refrigerated.

I made a drink last week with it that wasn’t bad. Then I went through the rest of the book and found only one other drink that requires advocaat. It also requires sweet white vermouth, which I can’t find. If it’s white, it’s dry.

So I went on the Internet, where I got tonight’s drink, The Bleeding Heart. Advocaat and cherry brandy. I’m not really looking forward to it, but I don’t want to just toss the bottle. So we’ll see how it goes.

This does not look appealing, and it looks NOTHING like what’s pictured on the website. I’m going to take a sip, see how I like it, then probably down it and cleanse the palate with a North Coast Old Stock Ale.

Okay, it actually doesn’t taste THAT bad, but it’s so damn thick. I’m still going with my original plan. Holy crap that North Coast is strong. Oh, almost 12% abv. That makes sense. It’s good, though. I have yet to find a North Coast that I don’t like. Their Le Merle is probably the best American-made Belgian style that I’ve had.

I actually bought anchovies. I never thought I would, but I thought, what the hell. Can’t say I don’t like ‘em if I don’t try ‘em, right? At least that’s what I tell my kids (who, by the way, are having grilled cheese sandwiches, broccoli and orange wedges ‘cause they won’t even try this). I did, however, only go with a tin of six instead of the eight to 10 that are recommended.

I ended up messing up on the shrimp size, but that’s okay. These are more bite size, and I’m sure it’ll all work out when I remove the tails. This is also the first time I’ve ever bought or cooked with mussels. I didn’t realize that they’d be alive when I bought them. They had to stay in the fridge over night; I hope that doesn’t hurt them or affect the cooking process.

As a bit of an aside, one thing that’s allowing me to get these food posts back up and running is my new computer. I used to have an old Dell Inspiron that was hooked up in the kitchen. That’s where it stayed because the battery was busted and the laptop had to remain plugged in to work. I ended up winning this Samsung Netbook from Marlboro in December and got it last month. It’s awesome. The size isn’t even an issue, and I can easily move it from its resting place in my bedroom to the kitchen when I cook.

This is one of the more pungent dishes I’ve cooked. Right away I’ve got four tablespoons of minced garlic and a tin of anchovies. Strong. Wow. Let’s change pungent to something else. The anchovies, garlic, red pepper and olive oil smell WONDERFUL!

I’m assuming the mussels get added in complete? Shell and all? Well, that worked. They all opened. Didn’t have to toss any.

Apparently with the time that’s passed between me doing these food updates, I’ve forgotten that I need to take more pictures. Sorry about that. I’ll try and do better next week.

Y’know, I’ll tell you when a meal doesn’t turn out well, and I’ll let you know if it was my fault, the ingredients’ fault (if possible), or just the recipe’s fault. This, however, was just plain awesome. I had recently become burned out on generic pasta and sauce after fixing it as an easy, weekly meal for me and the kids. But this, this was great. The various shellfish added a wonderful taste to the sauce, something I haven’t had in a long time. Heck, the kids even ended up having some of the linguine and sauce (minus the shellfish) and said it was good. I’m really looking forward to having this for lunch this week.