Food Porn

This is heaven. The pinnacle. Nirvana. The best of foods. And yet... due to the illicit saturated fat content... somehow dirty and forbidden. I love being a nutrition rebel. A food pirate.

Baked chicken, simply basted in it's own fat, sprinkled with sea salt, cracked pepper, and paprika. Not just any chicken, though... a truly pastured chicken. A chicken that actually ran around outside. Not just "free-range" which means essentially nothing. Nope, I saw this chicken's pecking grounds. Collected a fresh egg from one of it's cousins. This was a wonderfully-healthy, bug-eating, sunshine-soaking, clucking-at-the-nearby-cows chicken. And it was delicious.

Then there are the mashed potatoes... locally-grown red taters, with the skin on, mashed with grass-fed cow butter and a bit of chicken stock. The collards are cooked, as all collards should be, with onions that were softened in bacon fat, then simmered in chicken stock until tender. Top with a bit of garlic Tabasco and vinegar... unbelievably delicious, nutrient-dense, good-for-you real food.

Life is good.

Iron Chef Grill!

It was finally time for my husband, the Grill Geek, to join the ranks of the Iron Chefs. Cooks of culinary genius, specially-selected for their skills... or something like that. Yeah, he wanted in on the fun. I admit to delaying his debut because I was positively stumped as to what sort of Secret Ingredient I should get. But, finally, I put it on the weekly menu, I was forced into it. I had to think of something!

I got smart. I did a little research. I decided on my top three ideas and headed off the store.

Nada.

And shopping with a caffeinated, balloon-wielding three-year-old means mama don't go to Other Stores. That level of shopping is reserved for People Without Children. That's why I generally send the Grill Geek out for the shopping... the kids don't demand to go along with him.

Anyway, so I was stuck in a disappointing meat section (because of course the first Secret Ingredient will be meat!) and finally settled on the cliche of grilling... skirt steak. Ho-hum.

Well, that was the last time any "ho-hum" touched that meat.

I actually moaned with pleasure during dinner.

Several times.

Luckily the children didn't notice. They had wolfed down their boring ol' hot dogs and run off.

The Rules of Iron Chef Grill:
- 1 hour of active cooking time (like Iron Chef Mom, this first episode allowed 90, next he'll get 80, and so on.) This means there's time for marinating and unattended smoking.
- must provide something for the kids, but it needn't be the Secret Ingredient
- must be fairly original recipes (although I realize meat + fire has been done before)
- at least the main course plus 1 side dish must be entirely grilled

Now for pic goodness:

Chopping half a red bell pepper, for the Fajita Salad. He also chopped an onion, and threw that in a foil packet with the bell pepper. The poblano half went directly on the grill. Mmmm...

Once it was charry and delicious, it was diced, and tossed onto fresh Texan baby greens.




Now this... I can't tell you marvelously delicious a butter-rubbed, bacon-wrapped grilled potato is.

But I made noises.

I mean... the salty, crispy bacon and potato skin... I could happily eat one every day forever.

Hard to blog with visions of bacon-potatoes dancing through my head.

He sliced the skirt steak into almost-bite-size pieces (my one complaint...) and tossed it on the salad. The dressing, which also provided the marinade, was put on the grill to melt and meld and steal some smoky goodness.

The dressing/marinade:

½ cup olive oil, couple spoons bacon fat
¼ cup tamari
2 spoons chopped garlic
1/4 c. Worcestershire sauce
1/8 c. soy sauce
2 decent globs dijon
juice of 1 ½ limes
a little salt
1/8 teaspoon spicy paprika
teaspoon cumin

Om a-nom, nom, nom.

And then... dessert! Grilled Bananas In Orange Sauce.

2 Bananas
½ Orange, juiced
½ cup orange curaco/ Grand Marnier
1 tbsp butter
sugar
ground cinnamon

Cut bananas lengthwise. lightly stir all other ingredients together. Grill bananas for a couple minutes per side, chop into inch-long chunks, then place into mix. Let Pyrex cook up on grill for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve.

Gettin' Cheffy

That's home food, hopefully fitting for my husband's birthday Eve. The Grill Master/Uber Geek had a rough year. From start to finish his 3_ th year of existence was shitty. We're doing everything we can, at every possible New Year demarcation, to ensure the next one is better. So, the eve of his new year was this lovely roast chicken, potatoes, and collards. But not quite that simple. I've really been feeling creative and daring lately, so I kicked it up a notch. (Not really meaning to quote the great Emeril, as his way of cooking is MUCH too futzy for me.)

I also learned something important tonight... why it can be dangerous to branch off on one's own in the kitchen. See... I got this idea for a balsamic glaze on the chicken. But, I didn't get it until after I'd already started melting the butter. I don't know if butter is usually part of a glaze... like I said, I was enthusiastically making things up. Well, now, those of you who aren't lost in the throes of butter might be able to tell me WHY that didn't work. The idea behind the balsamic glaze thing is, after all, to reduce the vinegar to a ruby syrup. That means evaporating out the water. But if there's half a stick of butter in the pan, it creates an oily seal over the top of the vinegar.
Which then gets broken when you stir... so what looked like an innocent, placid pool is indeed a seething volcano, set to erupt the moment your spoon/whisk breaks the surface.
Yikes.

So anyway... I managed to keep stirring it often enough to let some of the whole evaporation thing occur. Still not really glazy, but I basted the chicken with it.

The potatoes were done in what I've heard is sort of the French style. Under the roasting chicken. So they get all sizzly-crispy-fried-yummy. I tossed them in a balsamic dressing first, and threw in some frozen pearl onions. They were heavenly.