Recipe: Cocktail Sauce

I've been thinking for quite a while that I ought to use our blog to keep track of recipes that turn out especially well. That way, if I ever want to make something when I'm anywhere with internet access, there's no hassle.

With that in mind, I decided to writeup the cocktail sauce recipe we tried out tonight. We've always especially liked the cocktail sauce at the Maddox Ranch House in Perry, UT, but haven't found any store-bought sauces that even came close. We did find a stronger version of Heinz' cocktail sauce that was ok, but I still wanted to try making my own

I started with this recipe from allrecipes.com and simply changed a couple of ingredients to, sadly, less-fresh versions to use what I had on hand.

• 1 T. horseradish (Recommendation: Beaver Extra-Hot Prepared Horseradish)
• 1 t. brown sugar
• 1/2 t. lemon juice
  
• 1/4 c. ketchup (Recommendation: Hunt's)

Whisk all ingredients together and chill before serving.

Finally, some truth in advertising!

By flicker user rochelle, et. al. via Serious Eats

Donut

Yesterday we decided to get some donuts for breakfast. I was having a mad craving for an old fashioned, glazed donut. We let Tyler pick out a donut of his choice. He picked out one with chocolate frosting with red and blue stripes on it. Well, little did we know how messy it would be. He got blue frosting everywhere. On his head, in his hair, and all over his hands. It was pretty cute and Tyler loved it. Good thing I had a craving for a donut.

Yummy!!

I like frosting.

I don't like getting my face wiped off though.

Happy again.

Holy Geeky Candy Awesomeness, Batman!

For those of you who don't recognize what this is supposed to be, I'm not sure you're quite geeky enough to appreciate it. On the other hand, the candy detail is pretty awesome in its own right. Check out the full article here, but beware, the author uses some naughty words and such.

Food: Fillet Mignon

I've been wanting to make something a little nicer for a while now and I came across just the thing last night when Angie and I were grocery shopping - a whole beef tenderloin (the cut of meat from which fillet mignon comes) for about $6/lb. We went all out today, cooking for Dan & Tammy. We started out with a green salad with crab (imitation, sadly), followed by fillet, roasted potatoes, and steamed carrots and broccoli. Dessert was strawberry shortcake.

Salad toppings.

Dan leaned in to be in the picture with Ty,
so Ty thought he ought to lean in too.

Excitedly waiting to eat.

Waiting again.

The main course - sorry about the orange on orange.

And for those not squeamish about fresh meat, we have some pictures...

Those who have a weak stomach might want to look away...

Don't say I didn't warn you!

...

...

...

This is what about 3 lb. of beef tenderloin looks like, cleaned
up and cut into several steaks and a couple of roasts.

Look at that great marbling!

Cory's Spot: Recipe: Swiss Zopf (Braided Bread)

While on my mission in Germany I grew tired of the cheap, boring standbys most missionaries survived on – the equivalents of mac and cheese and ramen noodles – so I learned to cook a few things. In one of my areas there was a Swiss Elder who taught me how to make a Swiss braided bread (called Zopf, German for “braid”). I made if fairly frequently while on my mission and a couple of times right after I got home, but it’s been a few years.

My overdone first attempt

The other day I decided to give it a try, again, but my recipe was a single tiny piece of scratch paper with nothing but the ingredients on it, and they were listed with metric measurements. Luckily a member family gave me a food scale for Christmas one year, so I could figure out the dry ingredients, and our Pyrex liquid measuring cup has metric measurements indicated. I looked up similar recipes online to figure out how hot and how long to bake the bread, and I was off. My first loaf didn’t turn out too great – it baked too long, but I tried again today and it was quite good – I remember now why I used to make it so often. I also took the time to figure out standard equivalents today, so here goes.

Swiss Zopf
• 1 packet dry yeast (2 ¼ t.)
• 3 ¼ c. AP flour (500 g by weight)
• 4 T. butter or margarine, softened (60 g by weight)
• 1 t. salt
• 2 t. sugar
• 2 ¼ c. milk (300 mL metric)

Mix together yeast, flour, salt & sugar. Mix in butter until it is evenly distributed – I find the best way to do this is to simply get in there with my hands and “mush” it into the flour mixture. Heat the milk to just under 130º F (1 minute on full power in my microwave is about perfect) and stir into flour mixture until dough comes together. Turn out onto floured workbench and knead for about 5 minutes or until dough takes on a smooth, elastic texture.

Allow to rise for 30-45 min., or until doubled in size. Place back on floured workbench and divide into two equal pieces. Rolling the first piece of dough between your hands, make a long, snakelike piece of dough that’s about ¾ in. thick and about 3 ft. long. Repeat with the second piece of dough.

Lay one piece of dough out horizontally on the workbench and lay the other vertically so that you have a equilateral cross. Cross the two sides of the horizontal piece over, wrapping that piece around the vertical piece. Next cross the two sides of the vertical piece over. Continue to end of dough, tucking ends under for a nice, finished look.

Here’s the best picture I could find of the braiding process. If anybody is really interested, I can try to get some better pictures of how I do it. It’s also possible to simply divide the dough into three even pieces and do a standard 3-stranded braid, which may be easier to figure out on your own.

Picture: about.ch via swissroots.org

Place your Zopf on a sheet pan in a cold oven and turn to 400 º F. The dough will rise a bit as the oven heats up. Bake for about 35 min, or until GBD. Pull from oven and brush top with butter. Traditionally, you would brush with a beaten egg yolk toward the end of baking, but I prefer the softer crust and the flavor the butter provides.

Cory's Spot: $0.50 Steak!

For those of you who haven't watched Alton Brown's Good Eats on Food Network, you need to give it a try. Beware, though, AB is a geek at heart, and you'll know it the first time you see one of his teaching aides.

In any case, on a recent rerun of Good Eats, AB took plain old bottom round and a Jaccard meat tenderizer and made his own cube steak for Salisbury Steak and Chicken-Fried Steak and such. I decided I wanted to give this a try, so I bought a nice bottom round roast, cut it into 1/2" slices, Jaccarded the heck out of the slices, and froze it all for future use.

Well...I froze all but one piece. That one piece got seasoned with Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper and drizzled with Worchesterchesterchestershire Sauce and left to marinate for 30 min. or so. While that was getting happy, I preheated my new cast-iron grill pan, and then I introduced the steak and the grill to one another. A few minutes and a flip, a turn, and a flip later (to get the groovy cross-hatch grill marks), my steak was done.

It was just a snack, so I had it on its own - no veggies or tubers to get in the way. Ok...I did pour some A1, but that ended up going to waste - the steak was a bit chewy (What do you expect from $1.48/lb. beef? The Jaccard can only do so much!), but nice and juicy, with a warm pink center and a nice sear on the outside. It didn't need any extra sauce.

Now I know this isn't a recipe, per sé, but it is a mighty tasty way to make use of a very cheap cut of beef. Oh, and cast iron...I won't get started on cast iron right now, but suffice it to say, I haven't used the old stainless steel pots and pans any more then necessary for quite a while now!

Thanks to Travis and Melanie for getting me to give the new Diet Berries and Cream Dr. Pepper a try and to David for the idea of using the mini Santoku as a steak knife.

Cory's Spot: Recipe: Cuban Sandwiches

I've fallen out of the habit of posting recipes when I try a new one, which is turning out to be a problem since I don’t otherwise keep track of most of them and I’m starting to forget some of the good ones I’ve tried over the last while. Hopefully these posts will be of use to somebody else, but at least I won’t have to keep a hardcopy of my recipes.

Ingredients:

• 1 loaf French bread
• 1/3 lb. thin-sliced (shaved) ham (Virginia and Black Forest hams are quite tasty)
  
• 4 slices Swiss cheese (that’s Emmenthaler for those who want to get specific)
• Dill pickles (sandwich slices if you have them, hamburger chips will do in a pinch)
• Miracle Whip (or mayonnaise if you must)
• Dijon mustard (honey-mustard is fine, too)
• Butter or margarine

Assembly:

• Cut French bread loaf into fourths and then slice each of those pieces in half, leaving one edge connected.
• Spread one inside side with mustard and the other with Miracle Whip.
• Add ham, cheese, and pickles.
• Close and spread butter on the outside top and bottom.

Cooking:

• Preheat sandwich press (panini grill, George Foreman grill, or waffle iron will work in a pinch).
• Place sandwich in press, close, and apply pressure (you want to squish the sandwich flat).
• Cook for about 10 min. or until crispy and golden brown on the outside (I find it's helpful to put something heavy, such as a couple of cast-iron skillets, on top of the press during cooking so I don't have to hold it the whole time).

I like these sandwiches with potato wedges, but salad and chips work as well.

Cory's Spot: Recipe: Crispy Potato Wedges

Editor's Note: There's really no graceful way to return from such a lengthy hiatus, so I'm simply going to continue on as if there were no break.

The other day I was craving French fries, but was too lazy to go out and get some, so I thought I'd try making my mom's cheesy potato logs. I couldn't find her recipe among those she's given me, though, and I couldn't get ahold of her, so I decided to turn to Google for help. Turns out there are lots of different recipes involving potato wedges and Parmesan cheese available online, so I printed a couple out and decided to improvise. When it came time to actually throw everything together, one recipe looked best, so I ended up following it almost exactly.

Here it is:

Crispy Potato Wedges

¼ c. olive oil
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
½ tsp. each dried basil, thyme, and oregano
¼ tsp. paprika

4-6 med. potatoes

¼-½ c. grated Parmesan cheese

• Combine olive oil and seasonings in a bowl. Scrub unpeeled potatoes well. Cut each potato in half lengthwise, then in thirds.
• Coat each slice in the seasoned oil. Spread in a single layer on a greased baking sheet.
• Bake at 450° for 15 minutes. Sprinkle with the cheese. Bake 15 minutes longer.

Since then, I haven't used the recipe at all and just throw in what looks to be a goodly amount of the same ingredients (with the occasional addition of garlic powder), but this is a good starting point. As always, I prefer to use fresh-ground pepper. Although I’ve found that it’s usually best to use actual grated Parmesan instead of the powdery stuff, the powdery stuff works best here. Go figure. I’ve also found it works best to make sure each piece of potato gets the seasonings on it and then to tap it on the edge of the mixing bowl to get rid of excess oil. There’s also no need to use a greased baking sheet – the oil provides plenty of grease! Finally, I like to blot the potatoes off on paper towels before serving with ketchup. Believe it or not, I’m also something of a ketchup snob – Hunt’s is the best, in case you were wondering.

Cory's Spot: Recipe: Garlic Lime Shrimp

Over time, I'm sure a certain degree of predictability will creep into my posts, but for now, I'm guessing this particular post will come as a surprise to almost all of my readers. You see, today my wife and I enjoyed a delicious seafood and pasta meal for lunch that we had thrown together ourselves in a matter of minutes, and I'm going to tell you all about it. I wish I had the money to be regularly visiting fancy restaurants and posting reviews, but most meals that get a mention here will be either of the fast food or of the home grown varieties. And, yes, I may just be blogging about fast food.

In any case, this particular meal is officially called "Garlic Lime Shrimp." I say officially since that's the name given it by the magazine I originally found the recipe in. The first time we made it, we had to go shopping beforehand, since we didn't have a lot of the ingredients on hand. On the up side, the tiny bottle of cayenne pepper we bought will probably last us for years, so I guess you could call it a worthwhile investment.

Without further ado, the recipe, as I originally found it:

Garlic Lime Shrimp

1 lb uncooked large shrimp (peeled & deveined)
5 garlic cloves, minced
½ t. salt
¼-½ t. cayenne pepper
½ c. butter
3 T. lime juice
1 T. minced fresh parsley
hot cooked pasta

In a large skillet, sauté the shrimp, garlic, salt, and cayenne in butter until shrimp turn pink – about 5 min. Stir in lime juice and parsley. Serve over pasta.

Makes four servings.

Being well removed from any sort of seashore where one could reasonably come by really fresh, good shrimp, we settled for frozen shrimp from Wally-World. It's a little more expensive to buy it pre-peeled and deveined, but it's worth it. As for the garlic, you could of course use garlic powder or such, but it's worth spending a bit up front for a garlic press and then buying fresh garlic – I'm not a huge garlic fan, but when I use it, the taste is much better from the fresh stuff. Ditto for the parsley. I have to admit that we've only ever used the little squeezable limes instead of the real thing, but I'm sure the same would be true there. The major change we've made it getting rid of the butter and using some olive oil instead. I like the taste better, and I believe the health gurus would argue for benefits in their field as well. I suspect I use far less than ½ cup of olive oil, but I've never really measured. One downside to using just enough oil to sauté the shrimp, garlic, etc. is that it ends up being a bit dry on the pasta – that's easy enough to overcome by adding a bit more lime juice, which makes for a better flavor anyway.

I always forget to start the pasta before the shrimp, so I end up having to simmer the shrimp for a bit while waiting for the pasta to be done, but a little advance preparation would easily enough avoid that particular delay.

Depending upon how much cayenne you've used, you'll probably find yourself wanting something cool and crisp to complement the pasta dish. Again, working with a poor college couple's budget and time constraints and not really knowing any better, we usually go for the pre-mixed, bagged variety with something other than just plain iceberg lettuce instead of buying different varieties of lettuce super fresh or growing them ourselves. Crisp it up beforehand in water, then keep it from staying too wet in the fridge and it can actually be quite tasty. The secret ingredient for this particular salad is the dressing: Briannas Homestyle Blush Wine Vinaigrette Dressing. It's a sweet dressing and I prefer to add fruits to garnish my salad when I use this dressing instead of croutons and such, but to each his own.

Well, I'm even surprised that I've gone on this long about pasta and salad, but it's my ability to ramble when I put my mind to it that originally got me thinking about starting a blog, so it makes sense.

Try it and enjoy…and let me know what you think!