Lots of Compliment Spicy Baked Beans

I made these to feed a bunch of hungry guys, and they were extremely well-received. I didn’t measure things when I made them, so this is just as close an approximation as I can come up with.

Salt Pork, cut into lardons

Bacon Fat

VanCamps Pork and Beans, drained of “tomato sauce” but not rinsed.

Chipotle Sauce

La Preferida “Nachos” Peppers, diced

Onion Powder

Show-Me Barbecue Sauce

Brown Sugar

Maple Syrup

Apple Cider Vinegar

Kosher Salt

Fresh Ground Black Pepper

Cook salt pork with bacon fat in heavy cast iron skillet over medium heat until rendered.

In a well-greased vessel, combine all ingredients.

Bake at 350 for several hours.

 

“3-Alarm” Ribeye Steaks & 1-Skillet Mexican Casserole

I couldn’t decide what I was in the mood for. Or, more truthfully, I couldn’t decide between two recipes, so I decided to make both. Why not?

We had ribeye steaks from The Root Cellar in the freezer that needed to be used soon, and I was craving something like a Mexican casserole I had as a child at my Aunt Ginny’s pool party. It is cool and rainy here today, so the grill was not an option for the steaks.

Software: So I put the ribeyes out to thaw and made sure I had the other ingredients I needed for the casserole. Luckily, I keep tons of Penzey’s spices on hand. If you haven’t tried their stuff, you absolutely should. They have stores (which are dangerous to visit!) and online ordering. I mostly do the mail-order.

Hardware: For these recipes, I was going to need 2 cast iron skillets, and both used a 500 degree F oven. I used a standard cast iron skillet for the casserole and my deep “chicken fryer” cast iron skillet for the steaks, as it has higher sides. Also recommended: a splatter screen. And a fan, and open windows/doors. The steak process generates a lot of smoke.

Special Consideration: Both recipes are quick-cooking, so getting ingredients together ahead of time (for the casserole) is recommended.

How it Went Down: I rarely follow recipes 100% completely to the letter, but in this case, I mostly did.

For the pan-seared ribeye, I decided to marinate the thawed steak in a mixture of small pinch of salt, some granulated garlic, fresh ground black pepper (all to taste) and about 2 T of red wine, 2 T of Worcestershire sauce, and 1 T of balsamic vinegar and 1 T of olive oil.

Once I got that in the zip-top bag and mixed together, I threw in the thawed ribeyes (mine were about 3/4″ thick.

Then I went about making the Mexican casserole (I had found the recipe online and decided it fit the bill of what I was craving). The casserole on its own would make a great vegetarian meal. I didn’t have fresh cilantro, so I added dried instead. I also added some granulated garlic because I generally put garlic in almost everything.

For the rice, I used Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice (whole grain brown), since it takes 90 seconds to cook in the microwave and is healthy and inexpensive. I left out the red bell pepper as that is verboten in my house, but I subbed some roasted red peppers that I had in the fridge and added a few hot an sweet jalapeno slices, also from a jar. I also subbed sharp cheddar for the Monterey jack, since it’s what I had ready to use. And I opted for jarred salsa rather than enchilada sauce.

I basically prepared the skillet casserole and put both the casserole and the steak skillet into the 500-degree oven. Then I moved the finished casserole to the “hot box” (aka the microwave that was not turned on).

I heated the deep skillet as AB’s recipe calls for, and removed the steaks from the marinade, and then did the 30 second & 30 second searing (using the splatter screen), and 1.5 minutes per side in the oven due to the thinner steaks.

The smoke detectors went off 3 times during the steak cooking, so I had to run and open doors and windows and send the dogs outside for a while.

I moved the steaks to the hot box to rest, and the casserole back to the now-off-but-still-hot-oven.

I trimmed the steaks and sliced on a bias and served. It was good stuff. The dogs loved the trimmings after dinner, too (of course).

Debrief: All the substitutions and the method worked fine. Although I don’t like stressing out the dogs, I’d do the exact same thing again! The steaks were all consumed and we have some leftover casserole to take for lunches at work.

Now that I have a blog, I’ll have to try to remember to take photos. And don’t worry, when I adapt a recipe more than I did these two, I’ll re-write the recipe as part of my blog post.

 

Why a Blog?

I often share “culinary experiments” (usually on Facebook) as I enjoy cooking, teaching myself new techniques, trying new recipes, etc. in a low-pressure environment. What usually drives this activity is my own love of eating good foods!

Rules: The only rules in my kitchen are, it will be edible, if not wonderful, and dinnertime is when it’s ready.

Ingredients: I rarely cook with ingredients I don’t love to eat, so you won’t find many recipes involving hard boiled eggs, horseradish, and so on, you may be disappointed. We subscribe to a weekly “barnyard box” from a local farm to table grocery called The Root Cellar. We get locally raised meats, milk, eggs, and cheeses, and these often drive what I’m cooking.

I try to avoid using things from the middle aisles of the grocery store, but in all honesty, I do use boxed and canned things and frozen things at least part of the time, since I can’t live in the kitchen full-time.

I vacillate from cooking for flavor (fat/calories/salt rules be damned) and cooking for health (keeping the cardiologist happy by using whole grains, lots of vegetables, etc.). Most of the time, I’m somewhere in the middle.

Inspiration: I am a big fan of Alton Brown and America’s Test Kitchen/Cook’s Illustrated/Cook’s Country, and a lot of my recipes will use these as inspiration. Other times I invent things on my own, and still other times I mine my collection of cookbooks and online recipes for sources of ideas.

Photography: I’m not very into photography, so if you must see photos of food, then you might look elsewhere, but I may post some photos from time to time.

Organization/Planning: I tend do plan a menu for dinners up to a month in advance, filling in the gaps between our social calendar commitments. I maintain an inventory of what’s in my freezers at all times (our local meats come frozen). And I maintain the menu plan called “Dinners on Deck” and a shopping list using a program called Evernote. I’ll probably talk about how/why I do this on this blog as part of the “whatnot” category.

Saving Successful Experiments: I do save recipes/notes about experiments that are successful. Sometimes I put them in MacGourmet, if I’m feeling particularly organized and energetic. Other times I save links to the inspiration recipes in my menu plan in Evernote, and other times I’ll save the recipe from online via Evernote as a separate note.

So without rambling further, that’s what you’ll likely find on this blog.