And now for something completely different — breakfast for dinner! “Strata” typically refers to a layered brunch casserole made with day-old bread, eggs, cheese and milk, put together hours in advance and resulting in a final dish that resembles a savory bread pudding. We’ve never made strata before and thought it sounded pretty complicated, especially for a weeknight dinner. But we found a recipe from one of our old favorite cookbooks, “The Best 30-Minute Recipe” that simplifies the process without sacrificing any of the flavor or the delicate-yet-hearty structure. The ingredients are simple — bacon, onion, eggs, milk, cheese and bread — and can vary depending on what kind of strata you want to make, which is another reason to love this recipe. Once you have the technique for building and cooking a successful strata, you can modify the flavors and ingredients to suit your preferences and pantry. For example, you could use sausage instead of bacon. Or use leftover steak and add green chiles for a migas-style strata. Leave out the meat altogether and add mushrooms and spinach for a hearty vegetarian strata. There are tons of possibilities for this versatile meal, not just in terms of ingredients, but also timing — served as breakfast, lunch or dinner, it’s a tasty, filling and satisfying dish that is easy to make, easy on the eyes and pleasing to the palate.
Category: Red Meat
Braised Short Ribs
Rather than brave what many consider to be “amateur night” in terms of responsible drinking on New Year’s Eve, Dan and I prefer to stay in, cook a nice meal and watch an old classic movie. There is comfort in our little New Year’s Eve ritual, in that it has become our annual tradition and it involves our shared loves of good food and movies. Every year we look forward to planning the menu (we try to cook something new and maybe a bit more extravagant than our usual cooking) and selecting the movie (which can be difficult, as classic movies aren’t really our thing, aside from this one night each year.) Our choices aren’t always successful — beef wellington several years ago was a colossal failure (way too much effort for a mediocre – at best – result), but we always enjoy the process and our evening together. This year was no exception, and we succeeded with our food and movie choices as well. We found the short ribs recipe in the cookbook “Restaurant Favorites at Home” and were surprised by how easy it was to make with simple ingredients and several hours of braising time. We chose the movie “To Have and Have Not” because it stars the legendary onscreen (and off!) couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and because it is based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway. The fork-tender ribs literally fell off the bone when we dished them out of the rich (but not too rich!), flavorful sauce. The movie was quite entertaining, with a nice mix of charm, humor, romance and intrigue. We love our New Year’s Eve tradition, especially as a reminder that a good meal and quiet evening together can be cause for celebration any time of the year.
San Diego Carne Asada Burritos
Meh. That about sums up both the burritos and the Steelers’ performance against the San Diego Chargers in this week’s Steeler Opponent-City Challenge. Neither one was a winner, bringing the current S.O.C.C. record to: Steelers 7-6; Foodie Lawyer 11-2. And that is all we will say about the game (other than we are happy to see that Big Ben is back.) As for the food, we chose carne asada burritos, based on our research showing that displaced San Diego-ites struggle to find authentic versions of this favorite in other cities. (Fish tacos are also really popular in SoCal, but we already have a bitchin’ good recipe for those.) The recipe needs some tweaking — we felt that each of the components (beef, guacamole and pico de gallo) with a good amount of lime juice as an ingredient, resulted in too much lime overall and somewhat of a one-note final dish (similar to the Steelers’ one-note offense as of late.) We liked the technique of cutting the beef into small pieces prior to cooking it, in order to get more sear on all sides of each piece. But each burrito element needed less lime juice, in order to allow the other flavors to shine independently, while still working together to create a “there’s a lot goin’ on there” finished dish. (Much like the Steelers need Big Ben’s arm and throwing expertise to combine with some receivers’ sticky fingers to win against Dallas next week.)
Baltimore Pit Beef Sandwiches
If revenge is a dish best served cold, then redemption must be best served warm, on a kaiser roll with onions and “tiger sauce.” The Steelers played the Baltimore Ravens a couple of weeks ago and unfortunately did not win, but the crab cakes we made for the Steeler Opponent-City Challenge were winners to us. Although Maryland is most known for its crab, we couldn’t let the Steeler/Ravens rivalry continue into a second game this season without trying another Baltimore food specialty — the “pit beef” sandwich. Pit beef is Baltimore’s version of barbeque, but without any sauce or rub typical of Texas or southern BBQ. Pit beef is delicious in its simplicity — top round seasoned with salt & pepper, then grilled over charcoal using a technique that makes the beef rare in the middle and seared on the outside, sliced thin and served on a bun with white onion and a sauce made with mayo, horseradish, sour cream, lemon juice and garlic. This week’s S.O.C.C. was win-win — we loved the pit beef, and the Steelers redeemed themselves by SWI-zing out a win against the Ravens with a field goal by their kicker Shaun Suisham (pronounced “swi-zem”) — which brings the current S.O.C.C. record to: Steelers 7-5, Foodie Lawyer 11-1.
Polish Boy Sandwiches
The Steelers took on the Cleveland Browns this week. And by “took on,” I mean that they handed the game to the Browns in the form of a very generous 8 turnovers (including a fumble at the very last second of the game, for good measure.) Needless to say, the Steelers lost and it wasn’t pretty. So let’s just move on to the food, shall we? Cleveland isn’t exactly the first place we think of as a fine-dining mecca, but it has been garnering more respect from food critics in recent years (all the while proudly maintaining its notoriety as a blue-collar, burgers and dogs kind of town.) Cleveland native Chef Michael Symon is credited with helping to revitalize the dining scene in the city and has 3 restaurants there. He is possibly Cleveland’s most famous celebrity chef, so it seemed even more fitting that the recipe we chose for the Steeler Opponent-City Challenge this week is Chef Symon’s recipe for the “Polish Boy” sandwich. We didn’t find much information about the origin of the Polish Boy, but this kielbasa sandwich, topped with cole slaw and french fries, is definitely a Cleveland favorite, sold at BBQ joints and by street vendors all over the city. Chef Symon likes them so much that he featured the Polish Boy on an episode of “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” (“Between Bread” edition), and he put the sandwich on the menu at his Bar Symon restaurant in the Pittsburgh airport. We’re fans of the Polish Boy as well (what’s not to like about a sandwich incorporating both grilled sausage and homemade french fries?!), which brings the current S.O.C.C. record to Steelers: 6-5, Foodie Laywer 10-1.
Cincinnati Chili
When we saw the Steelers’ schedule and found out that they played the Cincinnati Bengals, we knew we would be making Cincinnati Chili for the Steeler Opponent-City Challenge. Cincinnati is famous for its chili — so much so that during the pre-game hoopla, they played a clip of this peculiar chili being spooned over spaghetti and hot dogs, we suspect from one of the most famous Cincinnati chili restaurants, Skyline Chili. Cincinnati chili is different than any other chili we’ve ever had, from the flavor (a mix of sweet, warm cinnamon, and spicy) to the way it is served, over spaghetti. We affectionately refer to this chili as “peculiar” without intending any offense — we liked the chili a lot, but initially had our doubts when we saw that the recipe we adapted called for boiling the ground beef and combining a pretty unusual mix of ingredients (e.g., cocoa powder and Worcestershire??) We had similar initial concerns about the football game (and Mike Wallace’s seeming inability to catch a pass), but both the chili and the Steelers ultimately turned out to be winners, bringing the current S.O.C.C. record to: Steelers 3-3, Foodie Lawyer 5-1.
Sangria Soy Tri-Tip
This week the Steelers took on the Oakland Raiders. Oakland doesn’t really have a particular food for which it is known (at least not that we could find), but since it is located in Northern California, we decided to look to that region for a cuisine to cook in this week’s Steeler Opponent-City Challenge (S.O.C.C.) When we think Northern California, we think about our trip to Napa, where we discovered the world’s greatest tri-tip sandwich (among other amazing food.) We’ve grilled tri-tip before (the classic Santa Maria style), but wanted to try a new recipe this time. Not so coincidentally, I found this recipe after searching the Internets for Oakland Raider tailgate food. We adapted the marinade by using red wine and orange slices for sangria-esque flavor instead of sangria, and we reduced the quantities since we were using about 2 pounds of tri-tip to feed 2 people, rather than 18 pounds of meat for 54 servings as contemplated in the original (tailgate) recipe. Aside from doing the math to reduce the marinade ingredients, the second most difficult aspect of this recipe is having to wait to eat it. We marinated the tri-tip for about 18 hours (it doesn’t need to marinate that long, but at least for a few hours), and it was hard to be patient after smelling the marinade ingredients mixed together: red wine, soy sauce, jalapeno, shallot, garlic, ginger and orange slices. These components combine well to impart complex flavors to the beef — a nicely pungent heat from the jalapeno, shallot and garlic; some saltiness from the soy; richness from the wine; and bright freshness from the ginger and orange. The marinade would be just as good with other cuts of beef too (top sirloin, london broil or flank steak maybe) if you can’t find tri-tip, which can be costly and/or difficult to find outside Northern California. The key is the delicious marinade. Much like the key to the Raiders’ win this week was the field goal in the final seconds of the game (sad face.)
Grilled Bison Steaks w/ Cabernet Sauce
If you’ve spent any time at all around this little blog, you probably know that Dan is a die-hard, life-long fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Football season is his favorite time of year, and after growing up in Central Pennsylvania and graduating from the University of Pittsburgh Law School, he bleeds black and yellow. Sadly, he married an apathetic-at-best football “fan” who has been known to refer to football season as “shopping season.” In my defense, I do wear Steeler garb on Game Days (as long as it’s cute) and I “watch” the games (while multi-tasking with magazines and/or blogging and/or online shopping and/or doing my nails) to support the Team. In an effort to get me at all more interested in football, we decided to try something new this year: The Steeler Opponent-City Challenge. For as many weeks as we can manage, we’re going to cook something from the city or region playing against the Steelers that week. To begin the season, the Steelers played the Denver Broncos. The first Denver-indigenous food that came to mind (after granola) was bison. We decided to try bison steaks, fancied up with a red wine sauce, just in case we didn’t like the bison as much as we like beef steaks. Turns out that the grilled bison was really good on its own, but the sauce was also decadently delicious and would taste great with beef steaks or other proteins as well. Win-win. (Unlike the outcome of the Steeler game against the Broncos, unfortunately.)
Crispy Beef Tacos
Living in Texas, we appreciate a really good beef taco. Until recently, however, we didn’t bother trying to make them at home, believing that the home-cooked version couldn’t possibly be as good as the tacos we get at our favorite Tex-Mex joints. Turns out we were quite mistaken. We found a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated that is even better than what we had previously considered the best tacos around. Although these tacos require more ingredients and steps than the home version made with the store-bought flavor packet, the beefy end result is well worth the (minimal) extra effort.
Update: We’ve made these tacos with ground turkey (93% lean) instead of beef, and honestly cannot tell the difference. So if you’re craving beef tacos, but trying to eat less red meat, this is the recipe for you.
Skillet Fajitas
Sometimes you feel like a meal with grilled meat flavor, but don’t feel like grilling. Or you’re all set to grill, only discover that the propane tank for your gas grill is empty (or maybe that’s just us?) Perhaps you don’t have the time it would take to heat up the charcoal for a charcoal grill. Whatever the reason, this recipe is a quick and easy way to come close to that cooked-over-open-flame taste, with no grilling required. Befitting its speedy preparation, the recipe comes from the Cook’s Illustrated book “The Quick Recipe” and uses just a few simple ingredients: skirt (or flank) steak, salt & pepper, cumin, lime juice, vegetable oil, red bell pepper and onion, with tortillas and garnishes of your choice for serving the finished fajitas.