T-bone steak, jacket potato

Maintaining paleo creds. Cow meat from an ordinary cow that was probably fattened up in a feed lot, which if anything should go to show you what a steady diet of grain does. This steak is delicious. I'm a little surprised right now to realize how quickly steaks cook. I used to cook steak all the time and for some reason I'm remembering it taking longer. I must be trapped in a time-warp where everything seems to go faster. I'm going to have to remember that when the weather cools and I start using the Big Green Egg, surreptitiously, it's illegal downtown on apartment balconies. Wouldn't do to get myself evicted. I intend to become the ninja griller. Schwing-schwing. "Hey, where's that alluring aroma coming from?"

I go straight for the tenderloin side of the bone first and save the New York side for last just like my daddy taught me. When picking them out, seek large tenderloin sides. When sorting through a stack of steaks, you'll notice the tenderloin side start to rival the size of the New York side, at the largest ratio of tenderloin to N.Y. the cuts magically become Porterhouse. Each side of beef goes from thin tenderloin to broad tenderloin and it's up to the butcher to determine where T-bone steaks leave off and Porterhouses begin. It's subjective.

One difference you'll notice right off between grass-fed beef and grain-fattened beef is that the fat on the grass-fed cuts is a tallow color and the fat on the grain-fed cuts is nearly pure white. Tallow good, pure white not so good. (to purists, it's actually bad, but I'm no purist) Then there's marbling, and finally taste. But at this moment I don't care about any of that.

The potato took one hour in a convection oven at 400℉. The skin is nice and crispy, just how I like it. I ate the top separately. Sour cream mixed with non-descript curry powder and cayenne. I left the butter and sour cream off because the potato was piled up so high.  Here's a hint about these jacket potatoes: when scooping, don't get so close to the skin because you need a potato wall to hold it up. That is, do not scoop the inside thoroughly up tight against the skin. Once scooped, anything can be mixed in. You can turn it into proper mashed potatoes if you like. Bacon. Scallions. Cheese. Whatever. It's all good. I left this one chunky because today I'm pretending to be a cowboy and we cowboys are rough and unrefined.

Oregano this time because the other day on impulse I bought a bag of Mexican oregano.

Mexican oregano is stronger than regular oregano. So called because it's from Oregon. A guy goes, "where's this from?" and another guy goes, "Oregon," and the first guy goes, "Oh." Thus Oregano. Okay, not really. It's a Greek thing. In Greek, ore = mountain, gano = joy. Which translates into either sexy teim on the mountain or mountain joy, take your pick.

Bison steak with mushrooms and onion

Maybe this doesn't look like much to you, but it sho'nuf iz. Bison rib eye steak. First brought to room temperature then seared for a minute on each side in a rocket-hot cast-iron pan much larger than needed for one little steak. The pan smokes up the place before anything is even put in it because I never scrub it thoroughly.

This bison steak is so wonderful it makes me want to transport back through time and be an indian so I can have it every night.

The liquid on the plate is sake that I poured over the mushrooms and onions to finish, not liquid exuded from the steak.

Scrambled eggs with chile

Eggs cooked so gently they didn't even know they were being heated. In the smallest non-stick pan available, drizzled liberally with olive oil, the solid curd was pushed toward the center then lifted so that the liquid egg poured all around. North, south, east, west, again, again, again. Then flipped to solidify the final liquid portion.

The Maytags long ago sold their interest in household appliances. Later  their Holstein herd was dispersed too but before that transpired they were already in the practice of buying milk from local Iowan farmers, and not just any milk will do.

You know, some European areas have laws about this sort of thing. Regarding the Parmigiano Reggiano of which I am so fond, it's prohibited by law to introduce milk from grain-fed cows.

In all cases, batches produced from milk obtained at different times of the year all possess different characteristics. As you can imagine, Spring milk is the most desirable. And of course as with all food there is the effect of terroir.  It's not a function of snobbery to develop an appreciation of these things.

Oh, who am I kidding? It is too.

Traditionally Roquefort is made from sheep's milk. The Maytags, namely Fred, collaborated with Iowa State's Dairy Science Department where a recipe for Roquefort from cow's milk was being developed.

This cheese, by itself, is simply outstanding. I'm impressed with its soft creaminess. It's almost like ice cream except much warmer and a LOT stronger. Careful, it's quite addictive.

Notice the little speck of errant blue cheese on the orange closeup?

The chile is the pork roast with bean combination and rice from earlier. There are several containers in the freezer. It too is outstanding, although it wouldn't win any competitions, even with its load of chile varieties  it's still very kid-friendly.

The salad underneath all that was not dressed. The egg and chile substituted for dressing.

Oh! I almost forgot, MINT.  I used to hate mint. Now I love it. So that goes to show ya ... something about ... something.

Fried eggs and tomato

Featuring the most delicious-est sun dried tomato crackers in the whole world, that by all rights should be famous but for some inexplicable reason aren't, but which will soon sweep the world probably in my own lifetime. I betcha. I double-dog betcha.

Eggs seasoned with sage.



That's right. Sage. I opened a spice cabinet and reached for the cayenne and there sat the tin of sage right in the way, as if it had moved overnight on its own.

I was suddenly compelled by the power of sage.  Sage, wisest of all herbs and the most compelling.

The older brother of a ninth-grade High School friend snapped one morning, "What is that?" He was pointing to the faint traces of black pepper that I had dotted my fried eggs. I answered meekly, "Pepper."  He goes, "YOU CALL THAT PEPPER? YOU CAN'T EVEN TASTE THAT! GO ON THEN, PUT ON SOME REAL PEPPER SOZE YOU CAN TASTE IT."  Presented  with reasoning cogent as all that I was left to ponder his astute observation. I was indeed just going through the motions, the ritual of applying a few black specks to a background of white cooked albumen purely for aesthetic  reason and with no consideration or appreciation at all for actual taste. I was imitating the actions of  my  father, nothing else. You know, for a giant roving sphincter this guy made a very good point. I've been dumping pepper ever since.

So, extreme pepper and sage.

The bacon was fried in a pan larger than what I prefer for eggs. Therefore, bacon oil transferred to a smaller pan and augmented with olive oil.

There is a useful technique for pouring oil from a pan that doesn't drip over the sides and keeps the outside of the plan clear of errant grease drips. The trick is to tilt the pan to pour, then while holding the pouring pan over the receiving pan, keep right on rotating a full rotation as if really pouring then flipping the pan completely over 100% so that the last drips fall to the inside of the pan and not the outside as  it's usually prone to do, staining the pan with grease or burning and smoking on the outside once reheated. Tricky, eh?

Like this:

Sun-dried tomato crackers

These are so good I can't stand it. My best batch so far. Not my idea, and not from a book or the internet or TV. These are Acacia's idea, a beautiful and vivacious cheerful woman, not the tree. I can't wait to spring these on her tomorrow.

I do not understand why these are not famous, why they are not marketed nationally. Maybe it's the expense of sun-dried tomatoes. If that's the reason, then it's a shame, because the world really could use the awareness of the splendor of these simple crackers. These were dinner tonight. They barely had a chance to make it to a platter from the oven because my gaping maw was between.

I did not use a processor this time. Just a bowl and my fingers.

* One bag of sun-dried tomatoes. They were sticky so I coated them with flour.

* Two cups of A/P flour into a bowl. The whole bag of sun-dried tomatoes coated at once. Diced beyond recognition. It's a terrible thing to do to a bag of sun-dried tomatoes but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and destroy a perfectly fine product.

* 1/2 cups whole wheat flour.

* 2 level teaspoons baking powder. I wanted the crackers to be light as possible without being gross with baking powder.

* nine fierce grinds of black pepper. A lot of pepper. More than you'd think reasonable.

* 1/2 cup olive oil. This is a lot of olive oil comparatively. Mixed in by hand. The flour became fully oil-saturated and a little bit clumpy. I considered adding more flour but resisted the notion.

* Water to suit you. Create the kind of dough you wish to roll. I started with 1/2 cup, but remarkably, it was still too dry. Even with all that oil. I added another 1/4 cup, and then another 1/4 cup, so finally, 1 full cup of water. I wanted a wet dough that would roll easily. That was my preference.

To counter all that water, I decided to bake at a slightly lower heat for slightly longer period and see how that worked out. It worked out fine.

* roll out onto a Silpat or onto parchment paper pre-measured to fit your baking tray. This is easier if the dough is on the wet side. Trim the edges for professional presentation, or leave them rough for a rustic care-free childish effect. Salt the surface of the rolled dough to suit your preference for salt intensity. If you forget the salt then everything is ruined and you can just forget about the whole thing. 

No seriously, dough is totally BLAH-ACH without salt. Score the salted dough sheet for ease of post-baking cracker-separation, dock each cracker to prevent puffing. That's the part I keep forgetting, so half my crackers come out puffy. I don't mind the puffery. But that does explain why all commercial crackers have little holes in them. They're preventing cracker-puffery too.

* 380℉ for 13 minutes. Your mileage may vary. This produced three trays plus a little extra. Incidentally, that extra was rolled out last, of course, and inserted into the oven a few minutes after the third tray. It was placed on the upper oven shelf and finished before the third tray, which had to bake longer because the final tray was blocking its air circulation. So that goes to show ya, something about something. Physics or something. Probably. Whadayacallit, conduction, or something.