• greg
  • cooks
    • cook blog
  • drinks
  • ferments
  • grows
  • runs
  • aws

greg cooks

nourishing the body

  • appetizer
  • beverage
  • bread
  • breakfast
  • dessert
  • dining
  • dinner
  • ethnic
    • asian
    • Cajun
    • Chinese
    • Greek
    • Indian
    • Italian
    • Japanese
    • Korean
    • Spanish
    • Szechuan
    • Thai
    • Vietnam
  • lunch
  • meat
    • beef
    • chicken
    • fish
  • vegetarian
  • pasta
  • Pizza

DS Cooks Grilled T-Bone Steaks

April 17, 2009 by greg 5 Comments

My son is 11 and I’m very happy that he has enjoyed his FACS class at school. FACS (Family and Consumer Science) is modern vernacular for what I used to know as Home Economics. Anyway, in his class he has been learning about food and nutrition and they were assigned to make dinner for their families and report back about it. Well, I’m delighted to see that DS is picking up some of my love for grilling. We planned out a meal consisting of grilled T-bone steak (medium rare), grilled sweet potato, grilled potato wedges, grilled onions and grilled asparagus. He made a terrific meal (with only a little bit of help).

He learned the wonderful joys of cutting onions!

In addition to the grilled foods mentioned above DS wanted to make a special appetizer. I think it was quite creative, myself.

The veggies came out GREAT.

And the steaks! Yummy.

I think I’ll let him cook more often.

Filed Under: beef Tagged With: DS cooks, grilling, steak, T-bone

Not your typical Pot Roast

March 31, 2009 by greg 4 Comments

Here I sit in Fargo, North Dakota. We’ve been all over the news lately for our record flooding. We are winning the battle against the water. The river is coming down. Unfortunately, so is about two feet of new snow. Yes, once again, we are socked in with a blizzard. Sometimes I think I want to just go to sleep and wake up in 2010. But the high water and blizzard just make us work harder up here in Fargo. As much as I yearn for spring (and I saw my tulips coming up a week ago) I am slapped by mother nature again reminding me that she still thinks it’s winter.

Since I can’t get out and the sandbagging has ceased (for now) I made a slow cooked pot roast. But this isn’t your typical pot roast. I loaded this one up with strong Asian flavors and served it with rice. It all started with this grass-fed rump roast from a local farmer.

I love to slow cook meats in my Turkish clay pot. I really appreciate my dear friend who gave this pot to me. It has been used a lot.

I made a sauce from strongly flavored Asian ingredients. Of course I didn’t measure anything but let me try to approximate it for you. Into a blender I put in 6 garlic cloves, about an inch of fresh ginger, a tbsp of hoisin sauce, 3 tbsp of red miso paste, 2 tbsp of fermented black bean sauce, 1 tbsp srirach hot sauce, 1 tbsp of nuoc mam fish sauce, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp mirin and 2 tbsp of sugar, give or take.

This was all blended up into a thick marinade.

The meat was drowned in the sauce and it was rubbed into every crack and crevice of the roast.

Into my pot I put a large cut up onion and 6 large carrots, cut into large chunks. I plopped the roast onto the vegetables and poured any remaining sauce on top. This was covered and placed in a 250 F oven for about six hours to slowly cook. After the first three hours I basted the roast with the pot juices every hour or so. As you can see from my first picture I served it with the carrots on rice with a side of asparagus.

At least someone is enjoying the snow.

Filed Under: asian, beef Tagged With: oven, pot roast

Capitol Eats

March 18, 2009 by greg Leave a Comment

Today I spent on Capitol Hill. Yes, I’m in Washington, DC this week. Hence the slowdown in my cooking posts. My wonderful Congressman Pomeroy’s office arranged for special tours of the Capitol and the spectacularly beautiful Library of Congress for us. It was a great day. The photo shown below was taken from Pomeroy’s office window in the Longforth House Office Building. But I digress. This is a blog about food and cooking. For lunch we made our way underground to the maze of tunnels between the office buildings and the Capitol to the cafeteria where the nation’s leaders often take a break to dine. I had a really good (and cheap) Asian Beef Wrap. It was chock full of thinly sliced meat, napa cabbage slaw, mangos, roasted red peppers and a ginger dressing. It really hit the spot. Oh, it’s a gorgeous sunny and warm day today in DC!

Filed Under: beef Tagged With: Washington DC, wrap

Ancho chili chili

February 16, 2009 by greg 4 Comments
I like chili. I like any kind of chili. I like the Texas chili that is just chilis and beef. I like New Mexico green chilis with pork. I like the midwestern hamburger, beans and tomato soup like substance that we call chili here. Everyone has their favorite. I don’t have one. I make it different every time depending on what I am feeling on that day.
So, here I was on a cold day last week looking in my cupboards for some dinner inspiration when I spied a bag of dried ancho chilis. I thought, why not make a midwestern/Texas/whatever chili fusion with ancho?
So, I started with about 10 chilis that were seeded and crumbled up.

I poured some boiling water onto the chilis and left them to soak for a while. For a bit more heat I also added a couple tablespoons of Korean red pepper flakes along with the anchos.

When everything was well hydrated I added about 5 cloves of garlic, salt, pepper and a chopped onion and whirred it up in my blender to make a smooth paste. I added some lemon juice and more water until it was the right sauce like consistency. My blender was almost full to the top.
To season the dish even more I toasted some spices. Here is my favorite mix of cumin seeds, corriander and a few cardamom pods. These were ground up in a coffee grinder.
For the beef I used a round roast and cubed it up into about 3/4 inch cubes.
To make my chili, I started by searing the beef in a hot pan with some salt and pepper for a few minutes, just until it started to get brown on the bottom of the pan. Next went in the ground spices. I then added the chili sauce to the pan and covered it. This was simmered for about three hours until the beef was drop dead tender. To finish the chili I added chopped carrots and a can of kidney beans and cooked it until the carrots were tender.
My chili was served over white steamed rice with a side of 5-minute artisan wheat bread. The ancho flavor was wonderful.
Filed Under: beef Tagged With: ancho chili, chili

Shabu Shabu at home

February 16, 2009 by greg 8 Comments

It has been almost a year since I’ve made shabu shabu at home. Although I did report about a wonderful shabu shabu dinner I had in Japan in December. I actually made this meal a few weeks ago but am just getting around to blogging about it now. Please forgive me for being so late with my offering.

Shabu shabu is traditionally made with beef that is sliced paper thin. The name comes from the sound the beef makes as you swish it back and forth with your chopsticks in a pot of boiling broth. This is a wonderful family meal where everyone gets to share in cooking the meal at the table. My sirloin is not as marbled with fat as is usual for shabu shabu. I have some lean grass fed local beef that is still flavorful but also much healthier for you. Since the beef is only barely cooked, the texture still comes out tender even without the fat.
Shabu shabu also requires that you cook vegetables in the broth after you eat the beef. Here are bean sprouts, enoki mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, carrots, baby bok choy and napa cabbage ready to be cooked.
The table is all set with my nabe pot on the burner.

Before we sat down to eat the shabu shabu I fried up some frozen gyoza and served them with a spicy chili vinegar sauce.

The pot is heating up.
I have been soaking this kombu in the pot of water for a few hours to flavor the broth. This was removed once the pot came up to boiling.
I served two dipping sauces for my shabu shabu tonight. The first has soy, vinegar, green onions and grated daikon radish.
The second sauce is made from sesame paste, soy and vinegar.
We’ve eaten the meat and now it’s time for the veggies.

After you have had your fill of meat and vegetables, the broth that has been flavored even more intensely by all the food being cooked in it is used to prepare noodles. These udon noodles were made from scratch and cut just before cooking.
The udon is cooking nicely.
Yum! Comfort food all the way. Perfect on a cold winter’s evening.
Filed Under: beef, Japanese Tagged With: shabu shabu, udon
Next Page »

archives

  • July 2011 (1)
  • May 2011 (2)
  • April 2011 (1)
  • February 2011 (1)
  • September 2010 (1)
  • August 2010 (1)
  • July 2010 (2)
  • June 2010 (2)
  • May 2010 (1)
  • March 2010 (1)
  • January 2010 (8)
  • December 2009 (2)
  • November 2009 (1)
  • August 2009 (1)
  • July 2009 (3)
  • June 2009 (2)
  • April 2009 (3)
  • March 2009 (20)
  • February 2009 (14)
  • January 2009 (4)
  • December 2008 (17)
  • November 2008 (4)
  • October 2008 (2)
  • September 2008 (5)
  • August 2008 (2)
  • July 2008 (6)
  • June 2008 (7)
  • May 2008 (11)
  • April 2008 (7)
  • March 2008 (6)
  • February 2008 (12)
  • January 2008 (16)
  • December 2007 (10)
  • November 2007 (8)

Return to top of page

Copyright © 2025 ·Delicious Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in