Sunday, October 28, 2007

Cuzzi"M" is cooking again

I've returned to the stove and I'm ready to rock and roll!
It's been a terrible week here in So Cal(southern California) and life is slowly returning to normal for some of us. For others, it will be taking a very long time for them to recover. The Orange County fire started last Sunday( by an arsonist...anyone interested in discussing my "NEED to SIZZLE" philosophy for this sub-human nutjob or nutjobs)10 miles from us. Fortunately for us and our neighbors it burned in the other direction and left massive destruction and tragedy. You could not leave the house without a mask or wet bandanna over your face until Saturday afternoon. You had to keep all doors and windows closed to keep out the smoke and the layers of ash that covered every surface, but we dare not complain compared to what others are having to endure....but I digress. It was too hot to cook with all the doors closed,
and no one dare use a BBQ grill.
By Friday night, PB&J and Tuna Nicoise was getting old,so I made dinner...
Fresh (wild) Atlantic salmon with a pecan and brown sugar glaze accompanied by fresh wax beans and a pretty good whole grains mixture from the Trader Joe's(heretofore known as The Traders). A dear friend of ours(alev shalom) originally gave me this recipe, but I can't find it ,so I make it from memory...and believe me that's risky.
However, no one ever complained of having too much brown sugar, pecans and/or butter. I broil the skinned salmon fillet on either side after drizzling lemon and fresh ground pepper. When the 2nd side, or top, is almost finished, I sprinkle brown sugar over it just until the broiler melts it. In the meantime, I have pecans,more brown sugar and melted butter in a saute pan hot and bubbly and pour it over the salmon as soon as I plate it. Chuck will only eat salmon this way.This evening we had a lovely Honey Moon Voigner. This wine has great balance and pairs so well with fish.I don't want to tell you where to buy it or how much it costs because that info could put Specialty Imports out of business....and that might mean "poor ole'John" would have to move in with" poor ole' Chuck"!Desserts are pretty limited when we don't have company but it is October and we haven't had any pumpkin pie....my recipe is pretty standard except to say that I use sweetened condensed milk and not evaporated.

On Saturday, I made a delicious flank steak...once I get caught up with this blogging-thing and get in the groove, I would like to discuss flank steak and London broil...I marinate the flank steak in whatever I have around but that always includes
olive oil,soy sauce and get ready for this coffee. I had this recipe years and years ago from the New York Times called Beauf ala Mode and that marinade included coffee...now I never marinate a piece of beef without it. My new trick for quickly marinating meat is to use the spray salad dressings on the meat. Yesterday, I used the red wine and vinegar and let that soak in before putting the flank steak in a baggie to marinate for 2 hours. We had a lovely blue cheese salad and the rest the grain mixture to go with it. A nice 2 buck chuck merlot finished it off. Say what you want, it's a decent merlot and who cares if we only drink part of the bottle and toss the rest.
Stay tuned there's bound to be a Chateau d'Yquem or Petrus meal coming up soon!

2 comments:

Nancy DeCherney said...

I was very concerned about you, thought a trip north for the two of you and pupdog was indicated. Glad to hear you came though mostly unscathed, and you can add comments to Constance's request for recipes that don't include stoves or heat.

The salmon sounds delightfully yummy, there is a salmon bake place here that uses honey mustard butter as its glaze. Somehow reminds me of the debate about kugel: dinner or dessert? Good either way, just keep eating!

Cuzzin"M" said...

Thanks for your concern and invitation! Sorry to have gone off on a "dennis miller"-esque rant! I promise to stick to the subject from now on and not further embarrass my real cousin!