Monday, July 26, 2010

Carbfest!

A few weeks ago I ventured to happy hour at BLT Steak with a few of my gal pals. That's when I discovered their popovers. O. M. G. They basically melt in your mouth and have the perfect amount of gruyere cheese sprinkled on top. I very easily could have eaten about 6 of them....if I wanted to be rolled out of there. I decided to purchase a popover pan and give this recipe a whirl.

SO, in order to be in carb heaven you will need:

Ingredients


4 c. milk, warmed

8 eggs

4 c. flour

1 ½ heaping tbsp. salt

2 ¼ c. grated Gruyere
 
and PS- I don't know what kinda popover pan their using but it says it serves 6. My second batch is in the oven and I have enough batter for 2 more batches. Hello, 2 dozen popovers!
 
 
1. Place the popover pan in the oven. Heat the oven and pan to 350º.




2. Gently warm the milk over low heat and set aside. - be careful not to heat too fast or for too long, the milk will burn and then thats no fun now is it?




3. Whisk the eggs until frothy and slowly whisk in the milk (so as not to cook the eggs). Set the mixture aside.





4. Sift the flour with the salt. Slowly add this dry mixture to the egg mixture and gently combine until mostly smooth.



5. Remove the popover pan from the oven and spray with nonstick vegetable spray.



6. While the batter is still slightly warm, fill each popover cup three-fourths full. - If you have to make more than one batch, its ok if your batter gets to room temp.



7. Top each popover with approximately 2 ½ tbsps. of the grated cheese. My first batch I went easy on the cheese. Bad choice. Pile it on! And if any of you are familiar with gruyere you will understand what I mean when I say my house currently smells like feet.




I had to put a cookie sheet under my popover pan because of the way its made, not everyone needs to do that. And get ready to be messy. Because the pan is so hot from heating in the oven its hard to get a good grip on it to keep the batter from spilling.


8. Bake at 350º for 50 minutes, rotating pan half a turn after fifteen minutes, until the popovers are golden brown.


My next batch I'll bake a bit longer so they get crispier. Trial and error!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go into carbiac arrest (get it, CARBiac arrest?). Ok I'm done.

Ok I'm not done. Please be sure to check out my other blog (i know i know) http://www.dudsandrags.blogspot.com/
<3

Monday, July 5, 2010

Quick N Easy

 I decided to throw myself back into the sauna, aka my kitchen in the summer, for a little dinner tonight. All I want to eat is salads and fruits since its 100+ out these days. I went with horseradish skirt steak over a bead of mushrooms and greens. And...YUM! I even have some left over for lunch tomorrow, lucky me!

This is what you'll need:

1 lb of skirt steak
1 tbs horseradish
olive oil
2 garlic cloves
4 cups mixed greens
1/2 lb mixed mushrooms ( I did common and portobello)
1 lemon
salt & pepper to taste
1 tbs balsamic vinegar


Combine horseradish, garlic clove and a bit of EVOO in a bowl. (I added a dash of balsamic to this as well) and rub over one side of meat.


Use a grill pan or a real live grill for these, skirt steak is meant to be served medium-rare so they'll need about 10 minutes MAX on the heat.

Chop your mushrooms into chunks or slice them, whatever you fancy.
Start the sautee process about 5 minutes into your meat grilling. Mushrooms don't take too long to cook, and if you cook them too long they begin to be super chewy. When they're finish be sure to dump out the excess liquid before transferring them into the greens because they tend to lose a lot of moisture when cooking.


Take the juice of half a lemon, 1 (or a little less) tablespoon olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar and salt & pepper to season the greens and mushrooms.



When your meat is finished resting (about 5 minutes while covered with foil), slice and serve over top of greens. Simple, right? Right! And so, so good.  I'm making monkey bread tomorrow night while Ryan's working. I hope it lasts longer than 2 days this time ;)...stay tuned for that!