Day 31: Steak Fajitas

Not much to look at I'm afraid, but steak fajitas were on the family menu for day 31.  The meal wasn't very complex so I'm going to keep things simple.  I sauteed some steak strips, sweated down some onions and peppers, and added the leftover mango mixture from the night before.

The steak strips were simply seasoned with some salt, pepper, a bit of chipotle pepper powder and some ground cumin.  It went into a frying pan with some plain canola oil (mexican is one of the few styles where I default to canola instead of olive oil).  The beef went in for about 3-4 minutes which is all it took for it to cook through.  The onions and peppers were equally simple, some salt, some cumin a low heat until it turned translucent.  At this point I tossed in a bit of lime juice and booze (tequila to be precise).  The result was precisely what I wanted and I was quite pleased.

It made for a simple, easy, tasty dish that everyone could enjoy, especially with a bit of cheese and the leftover mango mix.  The onions and peppers were probably the most complex component, and only because they required slicing and temperature control, they also had the most left over and featured in the next day's breakfast, which turned out quite well (and is coming up shortly).

Day 30: Shrimp with Mango Chutney

Well, 30 days down and I didn't even manage to post it on the right date... oh well I'll have plenty of opportunities for that in the coming months.  Day 30 came together pretty quickly and at the last minute (busy days lead to quick dinners).  I took the last of the frozen shrimp out of the freezer and set it aside to thaw under a slow trickle of water.  While it thawed I set about making a poaching liquid and a mango chutney.  For whatever reason poached shrimp with mango just appealed to me that night, so I decided to make it happen.

The poaching liquid was pretty straight forward, about a cup of white wine (chardonnay to be precise), some ground all-spice, some lime juice, bay leaves, some salt and italian herbs.  I filled out a small pot with water to get it to the level required to cover the shrimp.  I set that up to start heating fully while I made the chutney.

The chutney was really simple but delicious by the time I finished with it.  I took apart a mango (which is a whole lot harder than Alton Brown makes it look...) and set the cubes into a bowl awaiting other ingredients.  I chopped up some red onions, cubed a tomato, and chopped up a poblano pepper shortly afterward, and tossed everything in with the mango.  The juice of a one lime (freshly squeezed) went over the mixture along with some garlic powder, cumin and a little bit of salt.  The bowl of chutney got set aside looking a little like this while I got the shrimp ready to go.

The poached shrimp was pretty easy since the shrimp was already cleaned.  I waited for the poaching liquid to come up to a boil, then killed the heat and tossed in the shrimp.  Shrimp, as I have run into time and time again, is really easy to overcook.  Thankfully, this time I managed to avoid that particular pitfall.  The shrimp only sat in the poaching liquid about two minutes before I pulled them out, and the liquid had stopped boiling just as I put them in.  The texture was wonderful, nicely succulent and the perfect touch of flavors from the poaching liquid.  I was really pleased with my success and the flavor. 

You'll notice I haven't said much about the rice, mostly because it was leftover rice from Chinese takeout the night before.  Nothing special, but it worked great as a base for my meal.  We've moved on to Iron Chef America on the "tube" so we'll see if I can get fully caught up before the battle ends.

Day 29: COOKIES! (of the Butterscotch Variety)

Ok, gonna add a few more in here and finally try to catch up properly while catching up on Next Food Network Star.  So, day 29 I found myself with a cookie craving and a bag of butterscotch chips.  So, unlike the last cookie approach, I decided to go for that flavor, and a softer gooier cookie instead of the crisper cookie I went for last time.

Every chip based cookie has the same baseline, whether its a soft, thick chocolate chip, a thin crisp macadamia nut, or a butterscotch cookie that's in between.  The famous Tollhouse recipe based on sugar, butter, milk, flour and eggs is the starting point, but you can adjust it in order to get the texture you want for your cookie.  In my case I went for more brown sugar, less milk and one whole egg, with one egg yolk.  The result was a softer thinner cookie that ran all over the cookie sheet, but was a perfect texture.

On the other hand, as I'm sure you noticed in the photo at the top, there is a downside to gooie deliciousness running everywhere on the cookie sheet.  Namely they all spread out together into one giant super cookie.  I'm fairly sure the main reason was that I scooped out portions that were too large, and needed to do two batches instead of trying to cram them all onto one sheet.  Oh well they still tasted great and it let me choose my own cookie size each time I tore part of the giant uber cookie off to munch on it.  Next we head back to dinner.

Today's recipe:
Stolen part and parcel from allrecipes.com

Day 28: Mini Caserole

My patented (ok not really) "I have too much tomato sauce, and I'm hungry now" mini casserole.  It is incredibly simple, and makes for a great college meal, although it is a bit slower than I might like.  Basically, it is exactly the same as a full size casserole, just miniaturized.

I started with the sauce that I created a couple days ago (at the time) and a pot of boiling water.  The sauce came out of the fridge to start warming up a bit (not required, but whatever) along with a little bit of ground beef.  Normally I'd go with a single Italian sausage with the skin removed, but I just went with what I had this time.  I dropped about a bowl's worth of elbow macaroni into the salted water and while it cooked I browned the meat.  After the meat finished browning I poured the sauce I had remaining (about a cup, maybe a cup and a half) over the top of the meat and mixed it into a very simple chunky meat sauce.

With the sauce ready and the pasta pulled out it was construction time.  I grabbed my handy mini-casserole dishes (they actually aren't hard to find, and are well worth it for anyone who will be cooking for 1 regularly) and put down a small layer of olive oil, just to help limit sticking on the bottom.  The pasta goes in on top of that, and the sauce goes over the whole thing.  My sauce was thick enough that it needed a fair bit of mixing in order to get an even coat, so I did.  Finally, no casserole is complete without cheese.  Honestly, anything you have will work fine, I prefer an Italian blend (mozzarella, provolone, and some parm) but this time I went with a Mexican blend that we had on hand.  Mostly its cheddar with a few others (like Monterrey Jack) mixed in, and I sprinkled a bit of Parmesan on top for good measure.

With everything assembled, it was time for the toaster oven.  Yup, because these are so small I just turn the toaster oven on to 350-400 and wait for the cheese to fully melt, and the mix to start to bubble and steam a little bit.  After it does that, its ready, just pull it out, give it a few minutes to cool off and dig in for a very simple, tasty, dinner for one.

The recipe:
Elbow Macaroni, about 1.5 cups
Tomato sauce from day 24
ground meat, any mixture you prefer
Cheese to taste.

Day 27: Crepes with Strawberries

Ok, I've been away from this for entirely too long.  I've been keeping up with the cooking part, but the good old real life has kept me from updating properly.  So here goes a whole bunch real quick back to back.

First up, Crepes.  I've never actually tried making them before so I decided it was time to give them a proper shot.  First and foremost, it turns out that crepes need at least an hour or two to set after you mix them up, otherwise you get a giant mess of bubbles instead of an actual batter that you can pour out.  Second, if you wait longer than 3-4 hours (say 8) you have to briefly re-mix with a spoon or something similar as the batter separates a bit.

What goes into the batter is exceedingly simple, flour, butter, salt, sugar (for sweet crepes), milk, eggs, and a bit of booze if you want (I went with rum, but any sweet liquor will work).  Basically you pour the whole mess in a blender (yes a blender, trust me) and give it a whirl.  The only complicated part is that you have to make sure you melt the butter before putting it in, otherwise it doesn't mix right.

Once the batter is mixed, it goes in the fridge for a while to settle out and reduce the bubblage and you go do something else.  After it has settled, you grab a non-stick frying pan, lube it up with some butter, wait for it to be heated and then pour in your first crepe.  Give it about a minute to brown around the edge, then flip it, wait another minute or so before taking it out and giving it to the dog (or cat, or kid who doesn't care).  Yes, that is what I meant to say, I will bet good money that your first crepe will break, not be browned, curl on you or some other disfigurement.  Well, that's what I discovered anyway.  With your first one done, adjust the heat as needed to either speed up or slow down the browning process and try again, odds are it'll be better, but if you screw up again, no worries the dog\cat\kid is probably still hungry.  Just work your way through the batch and enjoy.  Personally, I went for some fresh strawberries on top, but you can go with pretty much whatever you want (and in fact, I probably will in the future).

And with that, Crepes down, only 4 more entries to go in order to catch up.  See you shortly.

My recipe:
I used Alton Brown's Crepe recipe with the "sweet" modification as seen here.

Day 26: Tomato and Mozzarella Crustini

The pesto returns!  Today's dish was something really simple that I threw together for a pot luck that I went to.  A really easy tomato and mozzarella crustini.  The first thing I did was whip up another batch of pesto to go on top, and it was probably the most complicated component of the dish.  With that complete I sliced up a tomato and some nice thin slices of fresh mozzarella. 

The last component is some toasted bread.  I did this by putting a bunch of slices in the oven on 350 for about 4 minutes.  Just as they started to crisp up I took them out, tossed on the tomato slice, the pesto and the slice of mozzarella.  After that, you eat them.  Simple as that.  Anyway, hopefully the next few days will be a good deal more regular and I'll have fewer things that come up and keep me from doing anything.

Day 25: BST (Bacon, Spinach and Tomato)

My apologies for the delay, MLG and playing with fire (yes I mean that literally) kinda ate my weekend so these are a bit behind.  Day 25 was a pretty simple if really tasty version of the classic BLT.  Personally, I've never really liked them, but I figured I'd try making a slightly healthier version.

This was incredibly straightforward, so I'm just going to set it out for you.  I started by cooking up two pieces of bacon in a small non-stick saute pan.  I cut each piece in half so it would fit more easily and easier control (I'll get to that in a second).  While it cooked I toasted a sandwhich roll that I had dug out some of the extra bread (to reduce the bread to stuff ratio).  Once the toasting was complete I toss on some spinach and a slice of tomato while waiting for the all important bacon to be ready.

One note on the bacon, and this applies to pretty much any application where you cook bacon in a pan.  You have to hold it down as it starts to cook in order to keep it flat.  A lot of people do this by buying a big chunk of metal and putting it on the bacon, I'm lazy and follow the Alton Brown school of thought with regard to kitchen tools.  Instead I just use a pair of tongs to hold the bacon down in place for a couple of seconds, after which it will keep itself in place.  Once the bacon is done, it goes on top and the sandwich goes in your belly.