The SLY Foodie

I know this is at least a couple holidays late, but I just saw this while looking through my "Food" photo folder. This is the traditional (at least ours) Memorial Day Steak Marsala. Actually, we make this the night before Memorial Day.

Pictured above is a pan roasted New York strip steak that's cooked first and then set aside. In the same pan, we added a pat of butter, then the mushrooms. After the mushrooms are cooked, we deglazed the pan by adding approximately ½ cup of marsala wine and ½ cup beef stock. Let it reduce by half, and then add up to ¼ cup of heavy cream. Season the sauce to taste.

Angel hair pasta and roasted asparagus were the accompaniments to the steak. The pasta was cooked according to the box directions, and the asparagus was roasted with finely minced garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper in a 450­° oven.

And voila! A simple, delicious meal to be had by 6.2 hungry people.

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A joint effort between the hubbs and myself, although I must admit that he did most of the work, we made Longilog for dinner the other night. Longsilog is a Filipino dish comprised of longanisa (Filipino sausage), eggs and sinangag, also known as garlic fried rice. It's typically served for breakfast, so essentially, we had breakfast for dinner. This is easily one of my favorite Filipino dishes.

The longanisa was purchased at our local 99 Ranch Market, although it is also readily available at your local Filipino grocery. Hubbs cooked the white rice, then fried it with butter and lots of finely minced garlic. He also cooked the longanisa. My only contribution to this task was to fry the eggs, sunny side up, and simply seasoned with kosher salt and pepper. The result is shown below.

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Rummaging through my pantry and fridge, I came across several items that had impending expiration dates, so I had to use them as soon as possible. So I figured I would make a vegetarian pasta dish, only because I forgot there was some cooked chicken strips from Costco in the freezer.

Here are the ingredients:
* Small elbow macaroni, a little over half a pound
* 1 cup of plain Greek yogurt
* 1½ cups of heavy cream
* 1 package of baby spinach
* 1 package of white button mushrooms
* 1 small block of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
* ½ stick of unsalted butter

I cooked the pasta according to directions, then set it aside. In a skillet, melt butter and add about 1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil, then sauté mushrooms. Once the mushrooms are cooked, add the spinach to wilt, then add the heavy cream and Greek yogurt. Let the sauce simmer, and add as much salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese to taste. I also added some garlic powder for an extra flavor boost. Add cooked pasta to sauce and reheat through, then serve. I topped with more Parmesan and some freshly cracked black pepper.

I liked that the yogurt cut through the sweetness of the cream, and added a tangy dimension to the sauce. The nutty flavor of the Parmesan was also delightful in this dish. Not bad for something I just made up, but I think I needed chicken. I did add some chicken, and it was great. Here's the close-up:

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We recently hosted a Top Chef potluck challenge where the rules were simple: recreate a recipe seen on any season of Top Chef or Top Chef Masters. There were six of us, which meant that we all got to enjoy a six-course meal. Obviously, we all had to make some type of modification to each recipe due to lack of fresh ingredients and white plates, but each dish was stellar, considering that we're not restaurant chefs. Here are the results:

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Every once in a while, I'll have a craving for bread pudding, and my all-time favorite recipe is the Barefoot Contessa's Croissant Bread Pudding. It's easy to make, and always comes out perfect. I always omit the raisins because I don't like them.

The only modifications I made to this batch were adding a couple more croissants and used dried cranberries instead of raisins. This batch was also particularly special because my little boy helped me whisk the custard together, and he also sprinkled the craisins into the dish. Below is the result.

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We had my husband's family over for dinner tonight, and so I made pot roast, served with smashed potatoes and green beans sauteed with shallots. For dessert, I tried my hand at a flourless chocolate cake. Did I also mention the macaroni and cheese side dish? Overall, it was a successful endeavor.

For the main attraction, the pot roast, I bought several pounds of chuck roast from the local butcher (I love that I have a local butcher to go to). After seasoning each side then searing it in my dutch oven, I added onion, celery and carrots to cook for several minutes. Then deglaze the pot with either some red wine or beef stock. Add the meat back to the pot, place in a 350F oven, and cook for 3½ hours. The result? Meat that is so tender it falls apart using a spoon. I took the meat out to let it rest, then used an immersion blender to make a quick gravy out of the cooking liquid and veggies.

For the green beans, they were blanched, then sauteed with butter and shallots. Season to taste, and I used it around the roast, sort of like a bed for the meat.

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A trip to Foodie's Paradise, also known as Whole Foods Market, inspired me to make this dish for dinner. They had fresh sea scallops that just came in today, so I jumped at that opportunity and purchased a pound of scallops, as well as eight ounces of lump crab meat.

Here is the list of ingredients, but I don't know the exact amounts used, because when I make a recipe from scratch, I never write anything down:

Capellini pasta (any type of pasta will do)
Fresh scallops (about a pound, sea scallops are better than bay scallops)
Fresh shrimp (also about a pound)
Lump crab meat (jumbo crab meat might be better, but definitely more expensive)
Asparagus, roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper, then cut
Shiitake mushrooms (I used about four and sliced them thin)
White button mushrooms (about one package, cleaned and ready to use are the best kind)
Leek, sliced (make sure to rinse well)
Garlic (about 5-6 cloves)
Heavy cream
Chicken stock
Salt and pepper

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For my husband's last birthday, I decided to go all out and bake a cake from scratch, something I've never done before. I used the go-to Hershey's recipe. Here are the results:




The cake came out quite nice. It was moist and chocolatey, a very solid recipe. However, I think next time, I would use chocolate ganache as the icing instead of the regular chocolate buttercream. Definitely have a cold glass of milk handy.

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