We were out of cream cheese yesterday morning, so I had to get creative. There was most of a wheel of brie left in the fridge and some fresh pears, so I tossed both into the Magic Bullet and liquified it. It was pretty soupy, and I half-thought I’d gone to far on the liquefaction… but it turned out great. I just spooned a hefty amount of brie/pear concoction onto each half of a bagel, then tossed it into the toaster oven. The cheese mixture thickened as it melted, making it adhere to the bagel pretty well. The end result was a really tasty, under-5-minute breakfast.
Yesterday, I went with Diana and her family to the champagne brunch at Cliff House in San Francisco. The brunch is about half the price of the one at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, but it would be generous to say the food was half as good or half as plentiful. The selections were fairly limited—other than a few salads (there was a butternut squash salad with walnuts and pomegranite seeds that was actually delicious), the fare consisted mostly of “normal” brunchy breakfast stuff: eggs benedict, bagels & lox, bacon, etc. Their one “lunch” item was some sort of steak, but it was pretty chewy.
In the end, you’re paying for the view (which was spectacular). Even the “champagne” bit of the champagen brunch was unimpressive. I was the only one at our table of 5 who drank (they had sparkling cider), but it was just a regular bottle of Brut. To me, champagne brunch means mimosas. They had fresh juice, but I didn’t like the fact that I had to play bartender at my own table to get a mimosa.
After the UGA game went off, I felt like grilling. While picking up some ground beef at the grocery store for burgers, I happened to walk by the seafood case and see that mussels were only $4.99/lb. I’ve never tried cooking mussels, and wasn’t even sure you could grill them—though I did vaguely remember seeing Bobby Flay grill some once.
Back at home, I did burgers first. I folded some crumbled feta into the burgers and grilled them up. After they were nice and juicy (and cooked), I pulled the burgers off and swapped in the mussels. I topped my burger with fresh tomatoes, romaine lettuce, and bell pepper slices—perfection! I’ve never tried putting the feta IN the burger before (though I’ve topped with other kinds of goat cheese many times), and it worked to great results.
By the time I was done eating my burger, the mussels had opened. I squeezed a big lemon into a bowl, tossed in a wad of butter, sprinkled in some garlic salt, and tossed with a few sprigs of fresh diced parsley—then nuked it all until it was well melted and mixed. I transferred the mussels from my grill bowl (with holes in it) to a regular bowl and poured the lemon-butter concoction over it. Yum!
My girlfriend loved both offerings, so they might have to become regulars.
I’ve been thinking about how to use the Big Green Egg more like an oven lately, and something I do every now and again is cook chicken wings in the oven. So last night, I tossed them on the egg instead. I filled up a ceramic casserole dish with the wings, doused them with a bit of salt, pepper, and garlic, and then put them in at around 350. Other than draining them a few times (juicy!) and dropping a few hickory chips on the coals, that’s about it.
When the wings looked nice and done, I dumped them from the casserole dish directly onto the grill, charred them a little for flavor, and then devoured them. They were some of the tastiest wings I’ve ever made (hot sauce or not hot sauce).
We got a new roommate last week, and he’s a big pizza fan. When I got home last night, he’d already prepared some bbq chicken chunks and was rolling out some dough. Rather than cook it in the oven, I showed him how to fire up the big green egg—tossing in some hickory chips for good measure. The pizza was great (red onions, bbq sauce instead of tomato sauce, cheese, and bbq chicken chunks), but the pizza stone didn’t make it. Right after the first pizza came off, the whole thing cracked in half.
We did a couple of them in the oven, and the rest we put onto some cedar planks I had lying around (for grilling fish). The cedar didn’t transmit heat like the ceramic stone would’ve, so the results were mixed—we had to toss them in the oven for a few minutes to get the crust nice and hard. The smoke flavor was excellent, though, so as soon as I find a pizza stone that can withstand the heat a little better we’re back in business. It doesn’t hurt that the pizza place down the street sells “ready-to-bake” pizzas for lazy evenings.
I saw something on the Food Network awhile back that piqued my interest: using a fondue pot over a campfire to melt chocolate. Because, though marshmallows melt easily, the chocolate never really goes all gooey for s’mores. Brilliant! I didn’t pay attention to the actual recipe, but the concept was enough.
We went to Crater Lake over the weekend, and instead of stocking up on chocolate bars i picked up a couple of bags of chocolate chips. I had a bottle of Kahlua lying around, so that went into the cooler, too (we’ve used rum before for fondue proper, but kahlua seemed like a good fit). Besides our main campfire, I also have a Grilliput which I usually take along. We set this up next to the fire, tossed the liqueur and chocolate chips on, and went to town.
Step 1: Melt marshmallow to desired gooeyness.
Step 2: Dip said marshmallow in chocolatey goodness.
Step 3: Put graham crackers around each side and squeeze.
Step 4: Remove stick and consume smore.
Step 5: Repeat.
I went home yesterday and made what I like to call “grown up food.” I steamed som broccoli & carrots, sauteed some spinach, roasted some potatoes on the big green egg, and grilled up some filet mignon. What occasion? It was Monday, and I wanted steak.
As my parents used to do when I was in high school, I bought an entire filet from Costco and sliced it up for freezing with my handy dandy cutco knives. At ~$9.00/lb, it’s really not outrageously expensive (especially when ground beef goes for $5.00/lb at the non-Costco grocery store).
I went to Subway for lunch today, as I often do, only to find that the “limited” promotion for the $5 footlongs that’s been going on for the last couple of months has ended. They’ve now got a $5 everyday “value menu” with a smaller selection of subs, and my usual sandwich—the Subway Melt—didn’t make the cut. The spicy italian is on there, as is the chicken breast (I could just add bacon for $1 and make it a $6 footlong), but no Melt.
Rather than be upset that my lunch bill will go up by $2 or so, I’m actually sort of relieved. I really like ordering their specialty subs every now and then, but I noticed I’d been refraining from getting them in the last few months. The “premium” subs are good, but the value proposition they offered ($7 or $8 for a footlong) compared to $5 for my usual sandwich just made them less appealing. Now that they’re only $0.50-$1.00 more than my “usual” sandwich, it feels like much less of a splurge—meaning I foresee eating a lot more of them.
We had some organic tomatoes from the farm this week, and they were awesome. To go with them, we got some prosciutto, some fresh mozerella, and a loaf of bread. Just for kicks, we sauteed up some spinach, too. Bread + cheese + prosciutto + spinach = mini pizzas. Yum.
I love ribs, but for some reason I only ever cook them for special occasions. Last time I was at Costco, I decided to break that pattern. I guess you could argue that they’re a little expensive for a “normal” meal, but at $25 for three racks of the things, it’s not so different from the $25 I routinely pay for all-you-can-eat sushi. Only this is all-you-can-eat ribs. No brainer.
Diana was out with a college friend, so there was no need to go mild. I sauced those suckers up, and then proceeded to devour as many ribs as I could while watching pro wrestling and guzzling Dos Equis with my roommate—a true “man night.”
