July 5th Grilling

A belated happy Fourth of July to everyone. Things have been quiet around here, which is another word for busy as all Hell. A trip down to Florida last week produced some good eats, but sadly I did not have the camera with me so I couldn't take any pictures. If you find yourself near Sarasota, I heartily recommend the Rod and Reel out on Longboat Key. I had a chipotle-glaxed grouper that they'd pulled out of the water a few minutes before that was fantastic. Made me want to chuck it all and move down there to start a restaurant.

Today we decided to do some grilling, and had some simple steaks with roasted vegetables. Nothing complicated here, so I won't go nuts posting recipes. The steaks were marinated in a little worchestershire sauce along with salt and pepper. The mushrooms had a little butter and basil, and the squash had a little salt and pepper.

The veggies were wrapped in foil and grilled for about 20 minutes before I did the steaks. Nothing complicated there - cook until barely cookes all the way through. We like out meat bloody as hell.

We opened a recommendation from Gnarly Vines that went great - Stephen Vincent Crimson 2005. It's a Rhone-style blend of cab and syrah that's well suited to steak. It's not a wine I'd recommend for drinking on its own, but it's a good table wine that goes well with red meat.

Hope everyone had a safe and happy fourth. I know I'd like to see a bit less of the bottle rockets and roman cadles being lit on the street, sometimes pointed above groups of people, but hey, it's Brooklyn.

Mother's Day Cookies

Yeah, I know I haven't had much to say lately. I've been too busy for either cooking or eating out, so I've been relegated to posting about local happenings that I'm too busy to attend anyway.

I took a break this afternoon to take part in that most manly of Sunday activities: baking cookies. I had wanted to make a batch of pignoli cookies from a recipe my father provided, but once I started thinking about it, I realized that what I really wanted was chocolate chip.

I use a slight variation of the basic Toll House recipe for my cookies. The only real difference is that I swap out half the baking soda for baking powder and melt the butter prior to adding it to the sugar and vanilla. I also make sure to chill the dough before baking it so that it spreads more slowly in the oven. Oh, and I used Ghirardelli chocolate chips because they looked good and the package was shiny and I like shiny things.

CHF Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 c sugar
3/4 c brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 c (two sticks) butter, melted
Most of 1 bag of Ghirardelli chocolate chips. I use about 2/3rds of the bag and munch on the rest because I'm greedy and piggish.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In a stand mixer (or mixing bowl), combine sugar and vanilla. Begin mixing at the lowest speed and slowly pour in the melted butter. Mix until creamy. Slowly add in the flour mixture, alowing it to combine as it mixes. Once the dough is completely combined, add in the chocolate chips and mix until combined evenly. Chill the dough in the fridge for about half an hour.

Using a tablespoon, ball the dough onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

That's it. Quick, easy, and awesome.

Happy Mother's Day!

Easter Dinner

I spent the weekend in Michigan with my dad and stepmom, and there was quite a bit of great eating and drinking. I'll have another post or two up later, but I present for now our Easter dinner, which was a spectacular prime rib.

To start, we had some arancini - fried risotto balls with cheese filling and marinara sauce along with some champagne. Life's tough, I know. We also enoyed a Nero D'avola from Sicily that I schlepped from NY along with a Thomas Hyland Cab.

For the main course we had a perfectly prepared prime rib that was large enough to basically kill us. Preparation was nothing more than a little seasoning and roasting it in the oven. It was acocmpanied by asparagus roasted with balsamic vinegar and fingerling potatoes.

We wanted a big red to accompany dinner, so we drank a bottle of the biggest Italian, a Barolo.

Also pictured is this salt which my father is very proud of. I admit, it's good salt.