Inflation has pushed the price of meat pretty high this summer, and rising gas and grain prices will likely push them higher before they finally plateau. If you’re looking to buy different, cheaper cuts, I highly recommend asking your butcher to separate some beef shoulder tenders for you. They taste like NY strip, cut like fillet mignon, and cost a quarter of the price.
I’ve been experimenting with ribs for the past few months. I’ve been trying to recreate the ribs they serve at Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous in Memphis, and I think I’ve pretty much nailed it.
I’ve never been a big fan of grilled chicken, especially at restaurants. You end up paying too much money for an extra thick, chewy chicken breast that tastes like water with a thin coating of whatever sauce you thought would make this version of charred bird would taste better than the last. To break that sordid cycle, I always do one of three things to chicken breasts; I stuff them, halve them, or pound them flat. The flavor of grilled chicken is on the outside, so I either add flavor to the middle, decrease the thickness and/or increase the surface area. This time, I used small, tender chicken breasts and flattened them before grilling.
Over the years, I’ve tried countless marinades, rubs and cooking styles to bring out the best flavor in pork chops. I’ve finally settled on the best recipe, which oddly enough is one of the easiest. When done this way, they come out sweet and tender. Most importantly, they taste like juicy pork chops, not like salty fruit juice.
The wife and I have been making this side dish for a while now and it’s become one of our favorites. It slowly evolved from our grilled ratatouille recipe into it’s own dish.
We’ve served it to many people and everyone always asks for the recipe, so here it is.
To conclude our Labor Day staycation, my wife decided to try out some recipes form the latest issue of Gourmet:
We made a chili-crusted pork tenderloin with roasted tomatillo salsa, a side dish of bulgur with herbs, and some provolone popovers.
This weekend, my wife and I dropped by the local Farmer’s Market to kill some time before the post office opened. I bought some ground beef and pork sausage, as well as the requisite peppers to make chili on Saturday. My wife noticed that they had some raw milk, so we bought a gallon and decided to make some more mozzarella. On Sunday, I used my kit and made a softer, fresher-tasting cheese than last time:
We had some chicken on hand, so we decided to try to merge Insalata Caprese salad with grilled chicken salad.
For Valentine's Day this year, my wife and I cooked live lobsters. I wanted them to do battle for the privilege of being cooked last, kind of like my own personal Thunderdome, but the lobsters, sluggish from their fridge-induced coma, just flexed a little.
