A Week with Curtis Stone - Wednesday

Whew!  Today was a pretty typical day for me.  Crazy day at work and thanks to Construction Season in Minnesota, the exit I need to get home is closed (35E to 52S for those of you who know the area) until lord knows when while a new interchange is built.  So I have to figure out a new way home.  I tried just going down 35E all the way to 100 then over but it was bumper-to-bumper yesterday and you have to crawl through that portion of the highway that is 45 MPH.  What is up with that?!

So today I decided to get off and go through downtown St. Paul, hop on Robert Street, then get on 52 at Plato.  I don't know if that was better or not.  Maybe if I hadn't hit every red light through downtown?


Once home, tonight's list of tasks was to get two cakes crumb coated.  These weren't just plain old cakes either.  One is a pink castle cake that will look something like this when it's done and the other is a two-tiered cake that will eventually be, what I hope is, a very cool Cinco De Mayo cake!

 

I also had to make English muffins and bread.  We were out of both and I have to have one or the other with my breakfast.  It's a rule.

So I got the cakes in the oven, started the dough for the English muffins and started making butter cream frosting.  Once the baking was cooling it was time to portion out the English muffins and get them on their second rise.

I took a quick peek at tonight's recipe, Grilled Tri-tip with Green Bean and Red Onion Salad, and the "routing out the meal suggestion" of Corn with Sage Brown Butter.  Neither sounded too hard, which was good.  I think I got the shallots and garlic chopped for the entree at some point in there too! 


Then I started the caraway rye dough.  Just about then Dave got home so it was time to light the grill.  Like last night, this recipe said 10 minutes for prep and 15 minutes for cooking.  I don't think it took me 10 minutes to prep.  There wasn't much to it, mince some shallot and garlic and whisk it with an aged balsamic (I like the 18-year from Olive Grove!) then add some good olive oil and the vinaigrette is done.  



Coat the meat with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and throw it on the grill.





The veggies, beans and onions, were equally easy, toss with oil, salt and pepper and throw them on the grill.  Dave opted for the grill pan over just using the grate.  I would have liked to have had the onions done in slices on the grill but I didn't mention that to Dave so he broke them all up.  The result is they didn't get as caramelized as I would have liked.  Next time!

While they were cooking I got some butter browning on the stove.  There isn't much better than browned butter.  It might even make cilantro taste good.  Maybe.  Add some sage and it's even better, then toss in some corn and you have a side.


To serve, toss the veggies with the vinaigrette and serve with the corn and tri-tip.


So how was it?  I'll be honest, I really enjoyed last night's pork chops better than the tri-tip.  I thought this was ok, the Korean beef marinade was better I thought.  But, Dave really liked it.  He's much more of a steak person than I am, maybe that was it.  I did however really like the corn (how could you not?) and the green beans.  I think the onions would have been better with just a bit more caramelization.

And I must admit an oops.  I was supposed to add a little goat cheese to the veggies and I forgot.  I can't believe it.  I love goat cheese!

The English muffins are done.


The rye bread, seen her almost ready, just went in the oven.


The cakes are crumb coated and ready for decoration tomorrow.  

And my dogs would really like me to get out of the office and go spend some time with them now.  Well, at least one of them anyway.  The other is occupying herself with a bone.


Tomorrow's dinner?  Grilled Ginger-Sesame Chicken Salad!
 

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