Step 1: Get up early and take a nice two-mile walk to Union Meat Company at Eastern Market before work. Buy these dry-aged, grass-fed, prime ribeyes:*
Walk to work and try to concentrate while they sit in the refrigerator, taunting you with their beefy goodness. Carry them home, guarding them zealously against potential marauders.
Category Archives: Main dishes
Ode to Macaroni and Cheese
In the last elimination challenge before the finals in the first season of Top Chef, a panel of judges including some of the most accomplished and discerning chefs in the country chose Dave’s truffle & cognac cream macaroni & cheese, filet of beef, and collard greens & radicchio as the winning dish. The filet and greens were criticized for being “afterthoughts” to the macaroni & cheese, which itself was the favorite dish of all the judges. Why did macaroni and cheese capture the imagination of experienced chefs and critics of high-end cuisine? Continue reading
Black Bean Sauce over Pasta
I like to cook. Really, I do. It’s just that I don’t seem to actually do it very often during the week. I come home late from work and don’t feel like making anything more complicated than a hotdog or peanut-butter sandwich. And when I do come home ready to cook, I often have nothing to cook, because I haven’t gone to the grocery store. I was looking through the cupboard trying to find something other than pasta and tomato sauce to eat when I noticed a can of black beans. I like refried beans, and thought a smoother, more liquidy version would be good as a pasta sauce. Then I ordered a pizza.
But I eventually came back to the idea, and here’s the result. It’s low fat, yet tasty and satisfying. With the beans and whole wheat pasta, it’s a good source of fiber and complete protein. Everything except the yogurt can keep for months, so it’s forgiving of my grocery shopping lapses. Continue reading
Cioppino ala Rob
An Italian seafood stew – works easily as main dish or as starter course in smaller servings. Continue reading
Citrus Marinated Steak on Sweet Potato with Spicy Tomato Relish and Sour Cream
I saw this very briefly on a tv cooking show and went off to find the recipe. Of course, it wasn’t available online unless you paid $35 for a 6 month subscription (yeah RIGHT!) so I made it up as I went along.
The seemingly disparate flavours combine amazingly well, and the sour cream seems to pull it all together at the end.
Of course, it could be made non dairy by leaving out the sour cream (and optional butter)and I think it would still work. If you were to do this I would cut down the heat in the relish, as the cream acts to tone this down at the end.
This is not as much work as it seems – while you need to prepare some stuff ahead of time (the marinade, the relish) it’s a perfect recipe if you’re going to home for an afternoon doing other things anyway. Also, the relish will keep in the fridge for at least a week, so you can always make extra and serve with other dishes.
These quantities serve 2. Continue reading
Lamb Patties
A spicy Mediterranean lamb dish. Goes well with tzadziki. Continue reading
Tikka Masala
An Indian dish — now thoroughly Americanized in our version — made with cubed chicken marinated in spiced yogurt and covered in a yogurt-tomato sauce. Best served over jasmine rice or naan. (But if you can do good naan, you don’t need our recipe for tikka masala, I’m sure.) Continue reading
Tangy Beef Marinade
A tasty simmering sauce for beef. Continue reading
Bernards Stir Fry
A tasty stir fry. Continue reading
Shrimp Creole
You can spice this up by adding cayenne pepper or crushed red peppers. Continue reading