iPhone Centric Cuisine

So I was ready to count my fortune by creating an app for my iPhone that allowed me to take a picture of some meal and automatically post it to my blog. Great idea. Unfortunately many others had similar thoughts, that's how I have been posting my pictures to this blog. Being the consummate engineer, I am a lazy sun of gun and look for the absolute easiest way to get the most value. No big camera budget here. Just point and click with the phone and email it to a special email, and bang it appears here.

This recipe is on the cooking horizon. Steak and coffee sound like a great combo.

Note to self

No particular recipe here, just some tips to remind myself something that worked.

In the past week we experienced perhaps the best marinade for steak Kabobs. The steak was an old frozen slice of tenderloin from at least last summer. We don't peak in the freezer much and I suspect that helps keeps the meat from drying out or whatever freezer burn is. Anyway once the meat was thawed, it was sliced into 1 inch cubes and then left to marinade for about an hour in Marzetti's Italian salad dressing and Montreal steak seasoning. Skewer with your favorite vegies, and go burn them for 20 minutes on the grill. Oddly enough Marzetti's is owned by the same people who own Sister Shubert's rolls. Both fine products.

I've done pulled pork a number of ways, and now my favorite recipe.

Place one pork shoulder in a turkey basting pan. Cover with brown sugar and salt. Pour one beer, and one real coke (no diet). Put pan on indirect heat on the grill for 8 hrs, or in oven very low. The low and slow method brings out the best. Make sure you capture some of the drippings to spread over the pulled pork.

30 minute meals

With the possible exception of a bowl of grape nuts, not many meals take longer to eat, than to prepare. I truly am in favor of slow food, and look for meals that take longer to savour than to prepare.  This is one of my favorites, no special sauces.

On your mark get set GO!

Remove skirt steak from packaging and liberally season with salt and pepper.

Turn on grill to hot or grilling pan on stove.

Place a sweet potato in the microwave on high for 5 minutes.

Slice a head of Romaine lettuce in half (longitudinally), season top with salt/pepper, garlic salt...olive oil, whatever

When the microwave dings, take potato out (it will be hot)

Put steak and romaine on grill.

Slice Potato into think slices (1 inch), put in a saute pan with some butter, on medium heat.

Flip steaks, and romaine and potatoes...

Serve when done.

Stop! pour a glass of wine and savour all the flavors for a few minutes longer than it took to cook.

Vidalia Onion Pie (9, 9, 9)

3 cups thinly sliced Vidalia onions (about 3)

3 tablespoons butter

9 inch pie shell

.5 cup milk

1.5 cups sour cream

1 teaspoon cajun seasoning (0r herbs of your choice)

2 eggs beaten

3 tablespoons flour

4 slices crisply cooked and crumbled

I am sure any large sweet onion will do.  My father thought Vidalia Onions were a marketing gimmick. This is a fantastic dish that serves and looks sort of like a quiche, but much better.

Cook pie shell according to direction (hint it really helps to spray pie pan first).

Saute onions in butter until lightly brown. It really makes a big difference if you cook these slowly, like 30 to 45 minutes. I think this extracts more of the natural sweetness of the onion, as compared to cooking them quickly under higher heat. So low and slow is the phrase for the day when cooking the onions. Combine the milk, eggs, sour cream, and flour. Spoon onions into pie shell, pour the combined liquids over the onions. Garnish with bacon. Cook for 30 minutes  at 325. The last few minutes switch to the broiler to brown the top. Cut in small slices to accompany dish.

You can substitute lactose free milk and soy sour cream for the traditional ingredients w/o any lack of flavor or texture.

Negroni (9, ?, 8)

What can I say. Its summer and time to enjoy an odd cocktail. For a complete and better written history of this drink go here. Either you like them or not.  I like the bitterness thus a 9 on the taste scale, I am not sure how to judge an over the rocks cocktail on texture, so I leave that blank, and as far as presentation, its like a sunset over the water on a summer evening.

Beef Brisket (4, 3, 5)

Not all trips to the kitchen result in better than average dishes. Given there are a large but finite number of recipes in the world, removing one as being graded below average is just doing my part in culinary research. Bad results are just as important as good results. Henceforth I will grade each dish in 3 categories. Taste, Texture, and Presentations. Each category has a score between 0 and 9. (0 being poor and 9 being superb).

The general recipe is as follows

Marinade beef brisket in your favorite rubs and oils overnight

Grill 5 min per side

Cook in oven for 2.5 hrs at 275.

Slice and serve on buns with your favorite condiment (mine was a reduction of bbq sauce and beer)

A bit recipe research tells me 2.5 hrs is too short, I extended my second attempt to 5 hrs, but with even more dismal results.  The original recipe which I followed exactly can be found here.