Delishytown

Easy Citrusy Garlic Sesame Grilled Chicken

Happy Labor Day Weekend hard working Tumblrs of the world. 

This is delicious and delectable! I love grilled meats! Yum. This is a quick marinade. You can put the chicken in the marinade in a ziplock, put it in a cooler bag with some ice, and then grill it fresh when you get to whatever BBQ you might be going to for Labor Day. I like to cook this recipe on the up high rack of the grill, over indirect heat, because the apricot jelly might make the chicken stick to a super hot part of the grill. That being said, more juice and olive oil than jelly and you shouldn’t have too much of a problem with sticking.

In a ziplock bag, 6 or 7 crushed garlic cloves, the juice of 2 whole lemons or 1 lemon and 1 sweet orange or tangerine, a big drizzle of olive oil, a tablespoon apricot jelly or jam, salt and fresh ground pepper, a teaspoon of soy sauce, teaspoon of sesame oil. Mix thoroughly and set aside a small cup of this for final basting on your chicken. You could add extra garlic to that final baste cup for extra flavor and health.

Add chicken pieces to the bag, mix it all together and let marinate in the fridge for about 20 minutes to 1 hour. Don’t go longer with small chicken pieces like the legs or the lemon juice will start to “cook” the chicken a bit, so it gets a weird texture.

Once it’s marinated, place chicken pieces over indirect heat on a hot grill, keep turning and cooking for 10 to 15 minutes, at the ned of cooking time, baste with the reserved marinade. Cook all the way through. I like to make rice with this and grill veggies and tomatoes to go with it.

Yum!

Lemon Garlic & Herb Chicken with Lemony Carrots and Potatoes

Hi Tumblrs! Happy Friday! I hope you are all having a fine summer and enjoying the start of Fall. Summer has been going by so fast! I’m shocked that the kids are back in school already. Is that just a California thing? The days are getting shorter, and nights are getting cooler. Yay, I love it. I’m still cooking, gardening and writing as much as I can. I have about 3 to 5 vegetable gardens I’m working on, in various stages of growth, harvest, demise, replanting, re-seeding, watering, weeding, fertilizing, pest and critter control etc. Anyway, all that work makes me hungry.   

This is an easy dish to make if you have a busy schedule but still want some amazing home cooking. My husband and I always say “home food is best”. It’s true, not just because of price, going out to eat is expensive, but it’s way more cozy and relaxing at home. And you’ll always buy or grow better quality ingredients for yourself than a restaurant will, like free range organic chicken, the most flavorful olive oil, and organic vegetables. 

Here is an easy dish perfect for chilly nights when you worked your ass off all day long and just want to throw everything in the oven and watch some smellovsision. This dish is lemony, garlicky, and deliciously savory. It’s addictive. You will find yourself eating the lemon slices from the top of the dish, they come out like tangy candy.

This is easy, the whole dish cooks in one pan. Here’s how: Wash and dry cut up chicken pieces, add to a large baking or roasting pan. Wash, clean and cut 2 to 4 potatoes into large 2 inch -ish cubes. Same with 3 or 4 carrots. Peel 1 onion and slice into large wedges. Crush and mince 5 to 8 garlic cloves. Chop fresh parsley, basil, cilantro, tarragon, dill, whatever you have, or all of them. Add all of these to a large baking dish, drizzle with about 4 tbsp olive oil, kosher salt and pepper, and 1 tablespoon palm sugar or brown sugar, optional. Cut a large lemon in half, squeeze the lemon juice on, straining out the seeds. Slice another small lemon into rounds, try to remove as many seeds as possible. Toss to coat everything. Arrange the pan with the chicken pieces on top of the vegetables, and lemon slices on top of the chicken. Add another grind of fresh ground pepper and another small pinch of kosher salt. Bake at 375 for about 45 min to 1 hour until cooked through and amazing. Yum! Home cooking is the best. 

Hard Root Beer Braised Brisket

This was a delicious experiment. Traditionally, red wine is used when cooking brisket. I’ve used beer before, mostly IPA’s, when slow cooking meats, and it always comes out yummy. So, I recently bought a six pack of the “Best Root Beer Ever” hard root beer, to make fancy, alcoholy, root beer floats, (so good). We still had a bunch of cans leftover, so I decided to try the hard root beer in this recipe to see if the sarsaparilla spices would give it a mysterious savoriness. It worked great! This was pretty dang delicious.

This is easy, cooking time is about 4 hours, with 20 minutes of prep. You could easily crock pot this and have dinner ready when you get home from work or school. 

Sear salted and peppered meat in butter and a small amount of bacon grease, or vegetable oil. Let it cook until browned, browning on all sides. Meanwhile, in a saucepan, 2 tbsp olive oil, 3 big garlic cloves, chopped, 1 med chopped onion, 1 large chopped shallot, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 can hard root beer, 1 Meyer lemon, juiced, 2 tbsp ketchup, 3/4 cup hot water, 1 tsp beef base, 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, and 1 or 2  bay leaves. Stir it around and let the sugar dissolve. Place the meat in a roasting pan, pour the aromatic mixture on top of it, and scoot some underneath. Cover tightly and bake at 325 for 3 to 4 hours. (For a crock pot version it would be about 8 hours, on low, I think.)

Slice against the grain, serve on a crusty roll and garnish with fresh slaw and jalapeño slices if you like it hot. For easy fresh slaw: Shred 1/4 of a small cabbage and 2 carrots, dress with a mixture of 1 tbsp mayo, 2 tbsp plain yogurt, 1/2 cup milk, juice of 1/2 lemon, sprinkle of salt, pinch of sugar or honey, a fresh grind of pepper, 1 fresh chopped shallot, and a sprinkle of fresh or dried dill. Yum!

Tarragon, Garlic & Meyer Lemon Roast Chicken

 Happy weekend Tumblrs. I made this yummy chicken yesterday. This was sweet, tangy and amazingly delicious. This is a perfect weekend dish. You can make it for dinner today, and have leftovers for sandwiches and tacos tomorrow. That makes life easy.

Here’s how I made this: Chop tarragon, rosemary, cilantro, parsley, thyme, and 4 large garlic cloves. Mix with Meyer lemon zest, softened butter, a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and the juice from the lemon. Rub it all over chicken, add more salt and pepper. Put the lemon halves inside along with a cut up onion and herb stems. Add a little white wine or water to the bottom of the roasting pan, 3/4 cup or so. Roast at 350 for 1.5 to 2 hours until cooked to 165 degrees in thickest part of the thigh.

The herbs and citrus I used for this dish were from our back yard. The heirloom onions are growing in the front yard. The Meyer lemons are so good this year, and they’re all over our neighborhood. I love citrus season. Vegetable gardening in the winter is easy and delicious. I need to get out there and plant some more seeds while it’s still cold out. Peas, favas, and more greens and shallots are some of the things lacking in my garden just about now. But we do have massive amounts of arugula, rosemary, strawberries, lots of Meyer lemons and leeks and onions. The blueberry plants are starting to flower, I might plant a couple more of those. I also cut back my thornless blackberry and am hoping for a good harvest this spring. Our apple tree still has apples and they are delicious. 

Sunday Lamb Roast

This lamb roast was lemony, garlicky, and so delicious. I cooked this roast and took this photo a few Sunday's ago. I think I'm going to make it again tonight because we have all the ingredients except the roast. You can make the entire meal in one roasting pan. We used rosemary and lemon from our garden and lots of fresh garlic and salt & pepper to season this. It's very easy. This is the perfect kind of food for cool rainy March weekends. It reminds me of so many delicious meals we had when we went to Ireland a few years ago. Leg of lamb is naturally tender so you don't have to marinate it for a long time. Just add some seasonings and garlic and roast it. 

Heat oven to 425, this is for the first 20 minutes, you'll reduce the oven temp to 325 for most of the cooking.

Chop fresh garlic, mince rosemary. Season a lamb roast all over with lots of kosher salt and pepper. In a mixing bowl, mix together the juice of one large lemon with 3 or 4 tablespoons olive oil, garlic and rosemary. Drizzle all over with olive oil mixture and rub it in. Don't wash this bowl, you can use it to season the carrots and potatoes. Place the roast on a roasting rack in a heavy bottomed roasting pan and add a 1/4 to 1/2 cup water or wine to the bottom of the pan. Add a large sprig or two of rosemary to the top if you have it.

Roast the lamb for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven temp to 325 and continue cooking.

While the lamb is getting started in the oven, clean and cut carrots and potatoes. I like to use small potatoes and keep them whole for something like this and just trim away any eyes or dirt. And I like to cut the carrots in large pieces too. Toss the vegetables in the same olive oil / garlic / lemon bowl with a little more salt and pepper and a little more oiive oil. Add the vegetables to the roasting pan, all the way around. Continue cooking another 45 minutes to 1 hour. The total cooking time for a 3 pound roast will be about and hour and 20 minutes, depending on the temp of your oven. 

Take the temp of the lamb roast with an instant read thermometer. It should be 130 to 135 for rare/pink, 135 to 145 for medium, and higher than that for overcooked /well. Remove to a serving platter. Cover with foil and let rest for 20 minutes before slicing. Deglaze the pan with more wine or stock to make a gravy. If you want sides to go with this, it goes great with kale salad, steamed cauliflower and rye bread with butter. But it's really good just with the carrots and potatoes. Yum! Happy Sunday Tumblrs! Hope you all are doing great.

Souvlaki Skewers

This is easy and delicious! I made this for lunch today with enough leftover for dinner.  This is mostly healthy. Make as many grilled veggies to go with it as you want. Grilled zucchini is great with this. Serve with a side cucumber salad and plain yogurt, or tatziki sauce.

Marinate cubed chicken pieces in a mixture of juice of 2 lemons, 1/4 c. olive oil, salt & pepper, lots of crushed garlic, and 2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley, basil and dill.

Let the meat sit in the marinade for at least 20 minutes to 2 hours.

Heat the grill to medium high.

Cut sweet onions and bell peppers into 2 inch pieces, drizzle with olive oil and lemon, season with salt and pepper. Skewer the chicken pieces, onions and peppers onto metal skewers. Season with salt and pepper. Grill on medium hot grill until cooked through, 10 to 18 minutes depending how hot the grill is and how big the pieces of chicken are.

Serve with rice, grilled tomatoes, I grill the tomatoes separately because the only take a couple minutes to cook, toasted pita bread, hummus, cucumber sauce and lemon wedges. Yum!

Sunday Pot Roast

 This marinated, grilled, then crockpot braised pot roast was a delicious experiment. I usually brown pot roast with a little flour, seasoned with salt and pepper in bacon fat or oil. But I wanted to see how it would taste if I marinated it overnight in wine, garlic & spices, then grilled it, and then slow cooked it. It was really delicious! It had a slightly smokey, rich, wine infused flavor and was fall apart tender. Yum!

Here's how I made this: Marinate a round roast in the mustard and spice mixture in the bottom photo, along with 1/2 a bottle of red wine (not pictured). I used 2 buck chuck, Cabernet Sauvignon, and 1 tsp coriander seeds, 5 -7 cloves fresh chopped garlic, 1 chopped onion, a big splash of Worcestershire sauce, fresh ground pepper, about 1 tsp kosher salt and a few bay leaves. I let the roast sit overnight in the marinade, dried it, grilled it carefully so as not to get too much char on it. Too much char would make the gravy bitter. Then I threw it in the crock pot with carrots and celery and the rest of the marinade and some more red wine for 4-6 hours. Add potatoes for the last hour of cooking. Serve with the cooked veggies and salad or steamed veggies on the side. Serve leftovers the next day with toasted bread, spicy mustard, raw onions, horseradish, lettuce, tomatoes, and any other sandwich fixings you like. Yum!

Spaghetti Bolognese

I love Bolognese Spaghetti, It's the best. On a cold night it's the kind of food that makes you very happy. This is delicious comfort food and only takes about 1/2 hour to make.

I've been studying chefs on you tube make their version of Spaghetti Bolognese, and Mario Batali has an interesting and very authentic take on it. He uses a mixture of ground meat and cooks it slowly with the aromatics, a small amount of tomato paste which he sears in the pan, and milk. Searing the tomato in the pan before adding liquid gives it a rich sweet tomato taste that is elevated from just plain old tomato sauce from a can. I like to use the tomato paste from Italy that comes in a tube. This recipe is a combo of some of Mario B's technique and the way I've always done it. Mine has more tomato in it, and not as much pepper. And I don't cook veal. So I leave that out. Here's how to make an easy pot of delicious spaghetti for supper.

In a large heavy bottomed pot, brown ground grass fed beef in a little olive oil with minced celery, carrot and onion. Season with salt and pepper. Cook slowly until everything starts to become fragrant. Add minced garlic and 1 large bay leaf. Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of tomato paste and let it sear on the bottom of the pot for a few minutes until the color changes slightly. Add 3/4 cup red wine and a can of blended whole peeled tomatoes. Season with more salt and pepper. Let it simmer and bubble for a while until it thickens and becomes amazing.

Meanwhile heat a pot of salted water for the spaghetti. Cook according to package directions until al dente. When you drain it, reserve a little of the cooking water.

Toss the spaghetti with the sauce in a pot on the stove, adding a little bit of the water from the spaghetti pot if you need to thin it out slightly. The starchy water helps the whole thing come together. Top with Parmigiano reggiano and fresh basil leaves. Yum!

Jalapeño Souvlaki with Roasted Corn & Garbanzo Black Rice Pilaf

This was the delicious plate I made from the most recent box of Mystery ingredients sent to me by Master Chef and Plated. I love getting secret ingredients in the mail! They didn't post it on their tumblr, so I'm going to post it here. This was spicy, smokey and amazingly delicious. It was even delicious as leftovers, cold. Yum!

 The Mystery box contained green Garbanzo beans in their husks, skinless chicken breast on the bone, a can of pumpkin puree, fresh jalapeños, cocktail onions, grape tomatoes, black olives, chicken broth, baby corn on the cob and a souvenir lunch sack. All of the ingredients made perfect sense together except for the pumpkin, so I decided to ditch it. I knew exactly what I wanted, garlicky, lemony souvlaki, and pumpkin doesn't go with that flavor profile. Not to me anyway. 

Everything was drizzled prior to grilling with a lemony dressing consisting of fresh lemon juice, olive oil, ground coriander, dill, lots of crushed garlic and salt and pepper. Make sure to reserve some of the marinade to use as a dressing once everything is all cooked. This is easy, just cut everything up, marinate, thread the skewers and grill everything including the baby corn and garbanzos, which I did on a vegetable grill pan. The garbanzos on the grill are delicious.

I made two separate skewers, 1) chicken with jalapeño & onion, and 2) tomato, onion & jalapeño, because by the time the chicken cooks, the tomatoes will be falling apart into the grill. Put the meat skewers on the grill first because they take longer to cook. 

I made rice pilaf with black rice cooked in chicken stock, grilled garbanzo beans and baby corn. When I grill tomatoes I have to have rice with them, it's mandatory. Rice and grilled tomatoes are amazing together.

Enjoy your long holiday weekend everybody. Let me know if you try this, it's really good! 

J. C.'s "Dynamite Sliders"

We made these delectable sliders yesterday. Yum, they were so good! I'm working on cooking and photographing all the recipes that my Dad has sent me over the years, to give him a cookbook for his birthday. This is one of my favorite recipes that he used to make all the time when we were growing up. Home made sliders are amazingly delicious. They're so much tastier than the ones from the White Castle, but I still love White Castle. Our version is a bit healthier because we use the best ingredients we can get: grass fed beef, sweet Maui onions and organic American cheese slices. This is a simple recipe with big huge flavor. 

I tried to make them the way I remember my Dad doing it, square patty, toasted soft rolls on the griddle with cheese and a pickle. The secret to the "slider" flavor is chopped onions cooked in butter, so decadent, but easy and delicious.

Here's how to make my Dad's famous sliders:

Chop 1 sweet onion and sauté it in 1 tblsp butter with a little salt and paper until caramelized and sweet.

Combine grass fed ground beef with a little onion soup mix and freshly ground pepper. I sifted the salty soup powder because it's extremely salty. I used about 1 tsp salty soup base for 1 1/2 lbs ground beef. I did use all the onion bits though because crunchy onion bits are good. 

Flatten the meat to about 1/4 inch. I used a big sheet of parchment paper and a mini rolling pin. Place it on a cookie sheet in the freezer for a minute to firm up a little, and cut into squares. 

Heat a cast iron skillet or griddle pan to med high, cook the burgers on the first side until they get a nice sear on them, flip and add sautéed onions and cheese. Toast soft Hawaiian rolls on the griddle. Serve the mini cheeseburgers on the toasted roll with a pickle. Add ketchup and mustard if you like, and maybe serve with a big slaw salad or some fries.

Yum, Sliders! 

My Dad's Pineapple Glazed Ham

Anybody want a ham sandwich? We took this picture on Sunday afternoon, working on my Dad's cookbook. This is the cheesiest and most intense food styling I've done so far. But I have high aspirations. This ham, and the aroma that filled the house while it was baking, totally took me back to growing up in the midwest and going to holiday parties at my own house and my Nana's house. She always did criss cross cuts on the ham, with clove studs. Family parties were always pot luck, and people would get fancy, usually in the form of jello mold with fruit suspended in it, or a "salad" with tons of mini marshmallows. If you make this, and have the time to add the garnishes, it's fun to do and will make a hilariously delicious display at your next BBQ or Springtime / Easter party.

I don't usually cook such a massive hunk of meat on any old Sunday afternoon with just my husband and I eating, but the leftovers we've had so far have been delicious. This ham has a sweetly complex flavor due to glazing for 2 1/2 hours with the pineapple glaze. My Dad is really a great cook! Everything I've made for his cookbook so far has been completely delicious. I'm going to make split pea soup next, because his recipe for split pea soup has leftover ham in it. I still think I need to give some of this to the neighbors, or maybe I'll make a big sack of sandwiches and hand them out on the corner. We have way too much meat! That is what she said.

To make this you'll need 1 ham, 1 can of pineapple rings in natural juice, 1 jar of maraschino cherries, a little honey, brown sugar, and some toothpicks. Heat oven to 325. Make criss cross cuts on the ham and add cloves to the center of each diamond shape. Cover tightly with foil and bake for an hour. While it bakes, make the glaze using the juice from the pineapple can, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, a big drizzle of honey and 1 tablespoon apricot jelly. Heat to bubbling, and then on low for about 20 minutes to reduce. After an hour, remove ham from oven, uncover and glaze with a few tblsp of the glaze, cover back up and return to oven. Remove from oven & glaze every 20 minutes to half hour for the duration of cooking. At the end of cooking, remove ham from oven and decorate with pineapple rings & maraschinos, securing them with cloves and toothpicks. Bake another 20 minutes or so uncovered with more glaze to caramelize the pineapple. Serve with scalloped potatoes, spring vegetables, jelly beans, Peep salad & chocolate bunnies. Yum!!

Corned beef & Cabbage Tacos with Honey Mustard and Briny Pickled Onions

This was a fantastically delicious experiment. My husband & I both thought of this when I put taco shells on the counter while unloading groceries yesterday to make corned beef & cabbage. These corned beef tacos were so good! The corned beef & potato hash tastes amazing with the crunchy cabbage, honey mustard, sweet corn, briny pickled onions and vinegary hot sauce. Yum! If you have leftover corned beef and cabbage, please try this, It's really good!

The first thing i did was to make pickled red onions. It only takes a few minutes to make quick pickles. I use Michael Symon's basic brine recipe for all home made pickles lately. It's perfectly balanced and great for any pickled vegetables. I made pickled carrots and green beans too, since I was already making the brine for the onions. Pickled green beans are my new favorite snack. Yum. 

Here's how to make the corned beef tacos:

In a skillet, saute diced potato with diced sweet onion. Cook on all sides until they start to get color, then add 2 -3 minced garlic cloves. Add leftover cooked corned beef, diced. Season with salt, pepper, a sprinkle smoked paprika, ancho chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder and celery salt & pepper. Cook an additional minute or two until cooked through.

Make honey mustard by mixing equal amounts of honey and mustard, about 2 tablespoons of each.

Shred cabbage. Grate cheddar cheese. Thaw a small amount of organic sweet corn by rinsing it under cold water. I use the kind in bags that you get in the frozen food aisle.

Heat taco shells in a low oven for 2 or 3 minutes at about 325. Place the corned beef hash in the bottom of the shells, top with shredded veggies, grated cheddar, and pickled onion, drizzle with honey mustard and hot sauce. Serve with a side of pickled veggies. Yum! 

Easy and Delicious Corned Beef and Cabbage

We had a big earthquake here this morning that rattled us out of bed pretty early, it was so scary! I think it was the biggest quake I've experienced to date. Nobody got hurt . A few cabinet doors were rattled open, which has never happened in any earthquake I've been in so far. It lasted a long time too, it felt like a year but it was only about 15 seconds at the most. I've wanted a beer since 6 a.m. It’s not too late to get some Corned Beef cooking for St. Patricks Day dinner, because day drinking makes you really hungry. 

Place a corned beef in a large pot of water. Add 4 or 5 raw garlic cloves, 1 cut up onion, a few carrots cut in large pieces, 1 bottle of beer, a few bay leaves, the spices in the little package that come with the corned beef, & 2 tblsp brown sugar. If your corned beef didn't come with a spice pack, use a few black peppercorns, a few mustard seeds and 1 tsp coriander seeds. There’s no need to add any salt, corned beef is very salty already.

Bring up to boil, then turn it down to simmer on low for 3- 4 hours until fork tender. About 45 minutes from the end of cooking, add a few red potatoes and a couple large carrots cut up.  Red potatoes are slightly waxy and won’t crumble apart like a baking potatoes might. Once those veggies are cooked, cut a green cabbage in quarters and add that to the pot & cook for another 15 minutes or so. Serve with rye bread and all of the rest of the beer.

Stuff My Dad Cooks

My Dad's the #1 person who taught me how to cook and be obsessed about food. Whenever you go to his house for any reason, to change the U-Joints on your car, or work in his garden, the first thing you have to do is go get something to eat. He seriously loves food. This slow cooked brisket sandwich is one of my favorite things he makes for family parties and they're so delicious. 

So My Dad heard about the tumblr "Shit My Dad Says" and he told me we should do "Stuff My Dad Cooks". So he's been sending me recipes, and I'm in the process of cooking and photographing as many of them as I can, since he has a big birthday coming up. If you know my Dad, don't tell him because it's a surprise. He knows I'm photographing his recipes to make a book, but he doesn't know I'm going to get print on demand copies made to give him for his birthday.

Making my Dad's cookbook will help me to reach one of my goals which is to publish cookbooks and craft books. I'm going to learn a lot about putting a book together doing this project. Next I'll work on the Best of Delishytown Cookbook, with new and improved photos.

My husband helped me set up and get this shot yesterday, as the sun was going down. I was really happy when he made the executive decision to open a beer and add it to the shot. Mmmmm, Beer.

 To Make the brisket, season a beef brisket with salt and pepper, sear on both sides in med -hot oil. Heat oven to 300. Saute sliced onions and chopped garlic in the hot pan. Add red wine, Italian seasoning, & beef stock to midway up the side of the meat. Cover tightly and braise in the oven for 3 to 4 hours, turning once in the middle of cooking. Cut against the grain and serve on crusty rolls with cole slaw, pickles and chips. Yum!

Chimichurri Steak

Last night I went to an awesomely fun and insanely fancy and delicious Holiday party. When I walked in there were so many great friends everywhere, I felt like the luckiest woman in the world. My friends are incredibly smart and really funny and so kind. Then somebody handed me a crispy, crusty grilled cheese sandwich in a cup of red pepper and tomato cream soup. Yum! And then Ceasar salad, dressed with just the right amount of anchovy deliciousness, served in little Chinese take out containers. Oh my gosh. Then I tried the mini Kobe beef burgers on brioche. They were so umami & buttery that I couldn't believe it, so I had another one just to see if it was real. It was.

Then they started passing plates of skewers; Perfectly grilled chicken and really tender steak garnished with the most amazing Chimichurri sauce. My mind was blown by flavor. I complimented one of the chefs as she placed another plate of amazing food on the table. And then I grilled her about "what's in that Chimichurri?" She told me it had the usual parsley, garlic, lemon juice, red wine vinegar and oil, but they also added fresh minced rosemary and oregano. She said they make sure to finely mince the rosemary because it can have a woody texture. I have both of those herbs growing in my yard, along with the parsley and thyme. Must make Chimichurri!

 I woke up this morning thinking fondly of friends, meat and Chimichurri. I went to the store & bought a 10 dollar steak. I put the steak on the counter to get to room temperature and went outside to clip fresh rosemary, parsley, thyme, oregano and one Meyer lemon. Then I made this plate. It was delicious! Next time I'll marinate the steak in some of the sauce for at least an hour before I grill it. But I was so hungry that I didn't do that extra step.

Here's how to make this delicious dish:

Get the best steak you can afford, the steak in this picture is a grass fed, boneless rib eye. You could also use flank steak for this to save some money. Let it come to room temperature. Heat a cast iron grill pan to high, or heat up your outdoor grill. Season the steak with salt and pepper. Oil the grates of your grill pan with a high heat oil. I used a tiny bit of bacon fat. 

Finely mince 1/2 tsp each rosemary, thyme, oregano, parsley. Smash and mince 2 cloves garlic. Add the herbs and garlic to a small bowl. Drizzle in 1 tsp red wine vinegar, 3 tblsp olive oil, the juice of 1/2 lemon and a small amount of chopped onion or shallot, about 1 tablespoon. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside while you grill your meat.

Grill the steak on both sides, about 5 minutes or more per side, depending on how thick it is, making sure to let it get a nice sear before flipping. The trick my friend Grace taught me is that when the blood comes up between the grain of meat, it's ready to flip. I should also say that the steak should release from the grill at this point and not stick at all. If your grill is at med high, and it's sticking, then its not ready to turn. Cross hatch if you want, or not. Garnish the steak with the chimichurri and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Serve with garlic croutons, radicchio salad, and sautéed mushrooms & onions. Yum!

We lost one of our best friends 2 weeks ago yesterday. R.I.P. Jay Legget. I Love You. :)….

Smokey Carne Asada Tacos with Pomegranate Seeds

These Tacos were so delicious!  I used grass fed rib eye for this recipe. The grass fed beef is seasoned with a mixture of coriander powder, Ancho Chili powder, smoked salt, celery salt, Spanish smoked Paprika, Freshly ground black pepper, cumin, garlic powder and onion powder. I mix together a 1/4 tsp or so of each spice and then sprinkle the mixture on the sliced pieces of steak before searing in a very hot cast iron pan for about 3 to 5 minutes. Serve on warm corn tortillas. and garnish with your favorite taco garnishes. I like to garnish tacos with chopped avocado or guacamole, hot sauce, cilantro, chopped tomatoes,  pickled peppers, shredded lettuce, crumbly Mexican cheese.  I also experimented with some pomegranate seeds because we have so many pomegranates that our friends gave us from their tree. The pomegranate seeds gave the tacos an unexpected crunch and tartness. Yum!