punkerdoo

Fairly uneventful Friday around here I am afraid.  The Picture Man did receive  it’s order of 4,000 PolyBags, but within the mundane box of office supplies lie a gift so special, so wonderful it required special bright orange labels declaring “Hardware Enclosed”.  This gift was given to us, the humble servants of ThePicture Man by none other than our shipping supply vendor, ULine.  The gift? Why it’s Hall & Oates Home for Christmas CD.  Although I did notice they very purposefully did not refer to themselves as Hall & Oates on the cover, but rather Daryl Hall and John Oates. That would be completely different, wouldn’t it?

Lunch today was Grown-up Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Oven Frites.  The sandwiches were ham & brie, topped with roasted red peppers & dijon mustard pressed between two halves of a mini-ciabatta. We can count on Earth Fare always having these mini-ciabatta loaves.  They make great pressed-grilled sandwiches.  I loved the concept of the grown-up grilled cheese.  (To be honest, it doesn’t have to be the grown up version. I simply love grilled cheese sandwiches.)  My pan was too hot and I made them darker than I would have liked.  Also, for the next go, I want to try a stronger cheese.  The brie got lost.  The original recipe suggestion was Teleme first and then brie.  I have never had Teleme, so that could have made all the difference.

During lunch, we watched an ancient episode of Good Eats.  Alton’s mixing of food preparation and ultimate geek-a-tude, never ceases to entertain and inspire.  In this episode Alton explored steaks. First visiting a cattleman, who is raising grass-fed cows in Colorado and then an accomplished butcher who explained beef primals.  Alton then tutored us in the proper way to cook a rib-eye in a cast iron skillet.  Anyway, all of this made us agree that we should try his method tonight.  Darren is already accomplished at preparing steaks on the grill, but whenever we find ourselves without charcoal, wood or nice weather it would be nice to be able to prepare a proper steak indoors.  Darren purchased a cowboy-cut rib-eye from Earth Fare and we gave his method a try.  The steak turned out great, although our cooking times were a bit shorter than in the show. Electric Stove, bone-in cowboy-cut, smaller steak, etc.

I also made “Really Crisp Roasted Potatoes” from the most recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated (the subscription, a gift from my mother-in-law) This recipe is so good that I will probably will make this my go-to roasted potato recipe. The idea is to parboil the potatoes then rough them up by tossing them with oil & salt.  This scratches the surface, thus increasing the surface area that can become crispy.  Now that I am typing this Cook’s Illustrated has its own version of geek-a-tude happening.  Guess that’s the type of cooking I enjoy most.

P.S. My dog worries