What did I cook this weekend.....

I don't need any help getting in trouble. Thanks anyways.

 

Beef roast stuffed with spinach and cheese.

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Made a sous vide version of chicken cordon bleu, worked out quite well and stuffing the breast into a bag is a lot easier then trying to seal the breast with toothpicks but I miss the breadcrumb crust.
Served with sweet potatoes spiced with chipotle, a favorite of mine! And broccoli rabe.
An HB IPA on the side. Happiness! View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1430085766.163524.jpg

 

Done

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I wish I had taken a picture first - made a 3-meat lasagne tonight, had to finish it on the grill because the oven crapped out on me. Ground beef, sausage, and pepperoni. The grill burnt a little of the bottom and the burnt cheese & the burnt pepperoni was the best part of the dish.

 

I'm not cooking fish. Only time I may be able to cook till next weekend at the earliest. I'm doing my variation on an Anne Burrell chicken braise recipe. Roasted jalapenos and tomatillos on the grill. Browned the chicken on a really hot grill. Now cooking onions and garlic in the pot.
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Keep the pics comin'! I want to see how that ends up!

 

Grilled chicken back in the pot with the onions, garlic, pre-roasted tomatillos and jalapeños, and some chicken stock.
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If I was going to cook a fish, it might well be a swordfish though!

 

Drank plenty of beer but didn't post so it probably didn't happen but I'm beered out.
Pomegranate mead for a night cap, came out really good! View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1430096541.933995.jpg

 

This is how it turned out. I served it with basmati rice, and a sour cream with lime zest and juice in it. It was awesome and something I will do again and again!
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Got a tortilla press after seeing Yooper using hers. It was fine. I used Corn Flour (Mesaca Masa Harina) and made some tortillas. They were pretty good by themselves. I fried a few tortilla chips and I found the thick tortillas made subpar chips. The outer edges were thin while the centers were thick, so the chips were inconsistent. Still tasted good, but I've had better chips buying corn tortillas from the store to fry up.

The press was a cheap, aluminum thing I found on Amazon for $12. I will have to play with it some more to find out how I like the tortillas best. They are not very large, so I press pretty good to spread the mixture out more, and then the edges get thin, but the center doesn't.

I'm not sure I prefer corn tortillas to flour tortillas for some things. I made fajitas and the corn tortilla didn't taste right and they broke along the bottom when I bent them. I can see using these for tacos if I could figure out a good way to fry them up with a bent shape.

Now to see if I can press flour tortillas with this or if there is another way to make them, like rolling them out.

 

I love corn tortillas over flour. Not many options at the store though. For my palate, the corn is so much better.

For that reason alone I'm gonna look into these tortilla presses. Wife's gonna kill me, though, if I add one more gadget to the kitchen collection.

 

Made beef kabobs for dinner last night and had some leftover. Decided an omelette was the perfect way to eat them for lunch.
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FWIW it's $12 and Amazon prime 2-day shipping.

It seems to be the standard fold-over and press design. Totally worth the money.

Flavor-wise they were ok, but I didn't like the breaking at the bottom when folding. I don't know how to prevent that. I still prefer the taste of the flour ones anyway.

Maybe because it's aluminum it flexes a bit much and causes the pressing side to be thinner. Maybe a cast iron model will not do that. Cast Iron is hard and brittle and should flex a lot less.

I'm craving some enchiliadas right now. It's lunch time, and I brought fajita stuff to work.

 

We roasted up a small turkey we had lying in the freezer. Homemade stuffing with brown rice cooked in the turkey juices on the side with stuffing & gravy. My wife bought a pack of those pop-up timers at some point & had to use one on this turkey. That thing came out really juicy. When we were frying corn tortillas, they were the canned ones.

 

Canned tortillas? Never heard of that. I need to get out more.

Now I'm hungry too.

 

I have a cast iron tortilla press and it works well, but it's still a pain in the butt and slow. If you can get decent ones from the store, it's not worth the trouble to make them. I got mine from a local Mexican store...or maybe the Food Lion that has a little Mexican section...anyway, it was $25 or less. We have a fairly large Mexican population in my area. I still prefer flour tortillas, but the soft corn ones are good. We have some very authentic places here that have pretty cheap tacos...cabeza, tripa, and al pastore are my favorites.

 

I looked at recipes online and my problem may be that I used an oil spray on the griddle when I cooked them. I was sure the recipe I used said to lightly coat the hot griddle, but nothing I see now says to do that.

I'm eager to try again and to also make some flour tortillas. Those have simple recipes too, just a bit more work to roll them out.

 

Home made flour tortillas are hard to beat. If I may,
1) I've never regretted using more fat than the recipe calls for, and
2) Roll as thin as you possibly can (then probably roll some more)

Stick to that and it should be easy to keep them from breaking at the fold.

 

I love homespun flour tortillas.I just can't seem to like the corn tortillas as much as I try.I'm not even sure why they're a thing after wheat was introduced to Uhmerica.Just my opinion I could be wrong.

 

+1 on @CheeseyGoodness amount of fat (and/or moisture) in the dough probably the biggest issue. And fat on the griddle may have caused it to crisp.

 

Wish I would have taken a picture. We got some really nice fatty marbled bone-in pork chops, and I brined and grilled them. SWMBO got one of those spiralizer gadgets and cut a green zucchini and a bright yellow squash into these cool looking swirly ribbons and sautéed them with olive oil. They made for a nice-looking plate.

 

I feel your pain. I still don't have a tortilla press and have wanted one for years!

 

Anyone on here do sous vide with a crockpot and a temperature controller?
I've got a nothing special cut of beef marinating with a splash of soy sauce and some rosemary I hope to do tonight. It's probably about 3/4 of an inch thick, so it'll probably need to go for 3 hours at 140F. Does that sound about right?

 

You could check here. I tend to sous vide giant beef slabs and let them go much longer.

http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html

 

Thanks!
I just briefly skimmed the beef section tables but it looks like my temp and time were both too high. No harm in doing an extra hour around 133F though.
I'll try to remember to take pics

 

Baked a couple salmon fillets last night and added this pesto. Fantastic! First time baking salmon or using this pesto and I have to say I was impressed with how easy and delicious the pesto was. I was eating it by the spoon full after I made it haha. This will be something I use a lot in the future and experiment with. Dont hesitate to add more/fresh garlic to this.

http://www.food.com/recipe/salmon-with-cilantro-pesto-348983

 

Cheesy - I have a DorkFoods controller that I use for sous vide, love the thing. I use it with whichever vessel is the right size for what I'm cooking - which would be, my small 2 quart crockpot, or my 8 quart roaster oven, or my 22 quart roaster oven.

What I've learned is there is a happy medium between "not long enough" and "too long" but it's a long margin of error, so I usually err on the side going towards "too long" - it depends on the cut though. 140* would be on the high side if it's a steak, I usually do mine at about 125* so I have some room to give it a really good sear and still not overcook it.

Also, I don't like to put much salt in with the stuff if it's gonna sous vide too long, it tends to make the meat mushy otherwise. Just my experience!

 

You can always add salt to food after its done. Its hard to take salt away.

 

Yep. That's what I do. Salt, then slap on the grill to sear (or under the broiler, or stovetop cast iron grill pan, if the weather isn't good) and eat!

Of course, a soy marinade would be a slightly different story, but I'd probably go towards the shorter sous vide time in that case.

 

Chef Steps has some good sous vide information and some other cool stuff if you never checked it out, probably too late for today.

http://www.chefsteps.com/

 

Definitely would not go 140.Would do 125 or 130 for sure.

 

Thanks for the replies, they definitely helped.

The cut of beef was labeled as "London Broil" so I'm not actually sure what it was. It was closer to 1 inch thick than 3/4.

I had it marinading in a few splashes of soy sauce and some fresh rosemary for about 8 hours before it hit the bath. I had it at around 125F for approximately 2 hours (took me longer than it should have to get my controller set to the heat setting )

It hit a hot grill for 1:30 on each side, then about 45 seconds on each side again. That was all she wrote.

I could definitely tell it was a cheaper cut of meat but it was way better sous vide than it would have been otherwise. I'm guessing if I gave it more time in the bath it would have been more tender but I just ran out of time. Hoping to get time to try some chicken breasts tonight

 

I cut the turkey off the bones that was left over in the fridge. Chopped into small bite-size pieces. Then minced a couple stalks of celery by cutting the stalks into 3-4 sections, then cutting those in four strips, then chop. Likewise with one medium sweet onion. Then added about half a jar of cheap mayo, sriracha & plain yellow mustard. Seasoned with sea salt, black pepper, parsley, onion & garlic powder. Served on toasted bread with lettuce & tomato. It's got a nice lil kick to it & seasoning really adds to it.

 

*DROOL*

Oh man... now I am hungry...

 

Cheesy, that London broil was a top round. In some parts of the country, they call flank steak the same thing. I love the top round, it's so flavorful, but really benefits from the sous vide. That cut, I'd probably have left in there a minimum of 4 hours, maybe 6. But it's personal preference anyway! It looks like it was delicious and cooked to perfection!

 

Wow Cheesy that looks good .I love me some london broil and that looks as good as any I've done.Would probably go a little longer next time if you can ,but you done good.

 

I've yet to try doing beef in the bath, defiantly does wonders to chicken, especially breasts.
Did I mention the looks delicious?

 

Yeah Cheesy, what the hell! Let that meat hot tub longer next time dammit!