Memorial Day Whiskey Glaze

This glaze works great with beef and turkey, or any meat really, and will compliment any Memorial Day BBQ spread.

 

INGREDIENTS

• 2 shallots, minced
• 1 large vidalia onion, minced
• 1.5 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced 
• 1/4 cup Olive oil
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2.5 Valencia oranges
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup Jameson Irish Whiskey (or any whiskey of your choosing)
• Caster sugar (Optional)
• 1 tbsp Grand Marnier (Optional)

 

DIRECTIONS

1. Place minced shallots, onions and garlic in 1/4 cup olive oil, salt, pepper and 1/2 cup water on a skillet, and cook on high heat heat until the vegetables are brown and well caramelized, about 25 minutes.  Stir frequently.
2. Add brown sugar to the onion mixture.
   1. When the sugar melts, mix into the onions. 
   2. Taste, and add more brown sugar if a sweetness isn't detected
3. Remove mixture from heat and allow to cool.
   1. Add the juice from 2 1/2 oranges
   2. Place in blender, and puree until there are no chunks.
4. Add whiskey and Grand Marnier.
   1. Taste to ensure that the whiskey flavor is present.  If not to your liking, add more.
   2. Add a tablespoon of caster sugar if mixture doesn't have enough sweetness, and repeat.  Caster sugar is another name for super fine sugar, and will dissolve more quickly than regular granulated sugar.
5. Enjoy warm or cold.  The glaze will last for 3 -4 days in the fridge.

Steak Fajitas

Finally, we found something my younger son will eat at a Mexican restaurant. Okay, so, he doesn't eat the whole fajita - no tortilla or sour cream or salsa or guacamole or peppers or onions or anything - just the steak. But, it let's us go out as a family to somewhere other than the Chicken Nugget Emporium. 

It also prompted me to try out Stake Fajitas at home. It always seemed like it would be pretty straight forward and, in the end, it was. 

Pot Roast

OK - so I have never made Pot Roast before, and always wanted to.  When I got a new enamel cast iron dutch oven (cuisinart - on sale TJMaxx), I decided to give it a try.  Any covered pot will work - metal, cast iron, or glass.  I bought my roast at my local butcher, and it was already trimmed of fat, and tied.   If you buy it at supermarket, trim off excess fat with a sharp knife, and tie the roast together with twine - 2 pieces of twine, in order to keep the cooking more even. This is yet another easy one-pot dish...although I did make mashed potatoes and string beans separately.   

- 1 boneless rump roast or chuck roast - approx 3 ~ 3 1/2 lbs

- olive oil

- salt/pepper

- 1 large yellow onion (sliced), 1 package baby bell mushrooms (sliced), 2 large carrots (cut up), 4 cloves of garlic (whole)

- water

Take the roast out of fridge 1 hour beforehand.  Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees.  Heat up 3 tbsp olive oil in dutch oven on the stove top.  Get this HOT!   Sprinkle the roast with (kosher) salt and pepper.   Sear the roast in the pot, getting all sides a nice brown color - approx 4 to 5 minutes per side....including the ends, if it is shaped like a log.   Remove roast from pot and set aside.   Add all the vegetables to the pot, and let them caramelize - approx 10 ~ 15 minutes.   Then, add the roast back to the pot, on top of the veggies. Fill pot with water, about halfway up the roast.  Cover and put in oven for 3 hours.   

Once done, carefully (meat is very tender and will fall apart) remove the roast and let rest on plate, tent a piece of alum foil over it.   With slotted spoon, remove veggies and set aside.  The makings for gravy are left - heat over burner....add a little bit (1 tbsp) of flour and whisk together, to thicken it up....and add more stock (or even a little bit of red wine) if there is not enough gravy for everyone.  Feel free to add any other spices/herbs that you like - for example - more cracked pepper and thyme.   Put everything together on a big plate for the table - the roast, veggies, gravy, and serve.  

 

Meatballs with Soy-Mirin Glaze

My kids aren't the best eaters.

Well, let me clarify. The Big One is happy to try most things and has a broader palette (which mostly doesn't include vegetables), but the Little One has a diet whose entries you could count on one hand.

Wedged between the hot dogs and the chicken fingers are little meatballs that my wife get's from a local deli. He wants nothing to do with my Real Italian Meatballs, which is a point of contention and the reason I'll be taking him out of my will unless he changes his ways, but I figured I could at least try to replicate the golf-ball-sized spheres of beef he drools over whenever my wife returns from town. I tried once without much success, then a co-worker gave me a recipe, which I've based these on.

I'm pretty sure those deli meatballs use some kinds of canned beef gravy and I'm absolutely sure these are much better. As it turns out, the Little One thinks so, too.

Veal Scallopini Recipe

There was a time in my career when my career didn't take up nearly as much time as it does now.

In those days, the booming internet economy allowed me to work from home as an independent contractor, which in turn gave me all sorts of freedoms with my schedule. I would shop daily for the food I wanted to cook that night - bread from the bakery, meat from the butcher, and produce from the green grocer. It was nice.

Those days also allowed me to develop a Columbo addiction. AMC used to show 1-2 episodes a day, and I would plan my work-load around the TV schedule. For those of you who are fans, you may recall one episode where the murderer is a restuarant owner. At the end, when the jig is up (as it always is), Columbo reveals his logic - and thus the culprit's downfall - as he prepares a veal scallopini dish for him. He alternates between explaining the recipe and the clues he uncovered, while the murderer marvels at both his detective and culinary work.

Those were the days.

So I don't quite remember how Columbo prepared that veal, and I'm not much of a slueth, but here's my take on Veal Scallopini.

Meatballs Recipe

It took me a long time to get my meatballs to come out tasting anywhere close to those my mom made when we were kids - and still does today. It's not that she held back on the recipe, but perhaps I was just trying to find my own way.

I use a mix of pork, veal, and beef while my mom uses all beef. And I've added fresh herbs and replaced the seasoned bread crumbs with plain. I have, however, stuck with the store-brought bread crumbs. I refuse to head down that "old-world" path of soaking Italian bread in milk and then squishing it into the meat mixture. My mother's recipe for meatballs, and HER mother's recipe for meatballs used store brought breadcrumbs. It was good enough for them, and it's good enough for me.

Marinated Flank Steak Recipe

The best flank steak I ever had was prepared by a co-worker some years ago and featured a Korean-style marinade for which he refused to divulge the full list of ingredients. I've never fully tried to replicate it for fear of complete failure, but I still love marinated flank steak. This one is done in an Asian style soy-based marinade, seared over direct heat, then finished off the heat.

Burger Suggestions

I've been thinking about creative burger recipes for a while now and have some ideas on how to move beyond the traditional patty. That said, I'd love to hear about some of your favorite burger recipes and any that I try I promise to post here and give full credit. They can be simple, or adventurous (like this one), I'm up for anything new.

So don't be shy - post something in the comments below or send me an email (admin AT humblerecipes DOT com). Quick, I'm getting hungry.

Chili Recipe

There are certain dishes I obsess over for a period of time, experimenting with recipe variations until I hit upon something I like. Chili was one of those obsessions for me, and it lasted longer than most. Seventeen years, to be exact.

In the end, the winning concoction came down to omitting what I've been assuming to be the foundation of the recipe. To achieve Chili-Nirvana, I've removed all tomatoes from my recipe.

NO TOMATOES. That's right, you heard me. None. I'm pretty sure this qualifies it, to some extent, as a texas-style chili, which relies on pepper pulp for the base. Either way, I'm quite happy with the results.