Remembering Dan Wheldon

 Ribs with grilled sweet potato fries and broccoli salad

Derek made his nonpareil ribs today and I experimented (again) with sweet potato fries.  This time I tried them on a cookie sheet on the grill, and I tried two different methods: one with a kind of glaze I found on Food.com and the other with my go-to recipe of peanut oil and a combination of salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, cayenne and dried thyme leaves.  The ones with the glaze looked good and Derek liked the flavor, but even after twice as much time, they weren’t cooked all the way through, and they certainly weren’t crispy.  The broccoli salad was redolent with garlic and lemon zest, though, just the way I like it.  It’s really pretty, too.  The ribs were so good I could have cried: moist and tender, but not too tender, and with a crunchy salty sweet crust that just could not be better.

Grilled sweet potato fries

We’re watching the Indy 500 on television; it was just too hot to actually go to the track.  I already know who won, but Derek doesn’t, so I’m not saying anything yet.  This post goes out to Dan Wheldon’s widow and their kids.  God bless you.

Grilled Pot Roast a la Frugal Gourmet

We had lunch today at a little slice of NOLA heaven called B’s Poboys in Fountain Square that Derek recently discovered.  It’s a much nicer place than the equivalent in New Orleans is likely to be, with photos of The French Quarter and voodoo dolls decorating the walls, but they actually get their French bread from Leidenheimer’s, which is one of the oldest French bread bakeries in my hometown.  I had a BBQ shrimp poboy, which was fabulous, although unlike any I’ve ever had back home; it was grilled shrimp with actual barbecue sauce.  I had it dressed with lettuce and pickles, just like I would at Guy’s on Magazine St.  Derek had a fried oyster poboy, of course, after discovering that they have Gulf oysters flown in, too.  Their red beans and rice with andouille were real New Orleans style, too.  I couldn’t be happier unless I was twins!  For one thing, it’s very close to home, across the street from the Fountain Square Brewery, in a funky neighborhood of Indianapolis and close to where I work downtown.  I bought a T-shirt and can’t wait to take my Indianapolis friends there to introduce them to an authentic poboy.

Barbecued potatoes, squash and zucchini

Tonight I’m making The Frugal Gourmet’s Graduate School Pot Roast with barbecued potatoes, zucchini and yellow squash, and a salad made with Butter Crunch lettuce right out of our garden.  Here’s the recipe from The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American:

Update:  Well, folks, I wasn’t paying attention and I really overcooked the roast, so no pictures of that this time.  There were some salvageable bits that were actually very tasty, so I’m going to try this again sometime.  Maybe I’ll prep it and let Derek cook it!

Graduate School Pot Roast

1 3-lb chuck or pot roast; 1-inch thick
1 T Water
1 T Powdered meat tenderizer
2 T Light soy sauce
2 T Kitchen Bouquet
1 t Coleman s Dry English Mustard
Freshly ground black pepper
1 lg Yellow onion; sliced thin
Wood chips or sawdust (optional)

“Using a metal pot fork, poke holes in the meat. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of water and then one half of the meat tenderizer. Rub it into the meat and then turn the meat over and repeat the process. Let the meat stand for 1/2 hour. Use a salt-free tenderizer such as Adolf”s Salt Free and please understand that there is nothing strange about the contents of this product. It consists of an extract called papain. It is made from the papaya fruit and it is not harmful in any way. After the meat has sat for 1/2 hour, mix the soy, Kitchen Bouquet, mustard, and black pepper together and rub this mixture into the meat on both sides. Grill the meat over a low to medium charcoal fire. Turn over the meat after about 45 minutes. Place the sliced onion over the meat and grill about another 45 minutes. Be careful not to dry out the meat or burn it. If you wish a smoky flavor, sprinkle water-soaked wood chips or sawdust on the fire during the cooking. The result will be a tender and flavorful roast that will be a bit crunchy on the outside and pink and lovely on the inside. This meat is perfect with Barbecued Potatoes” (see recipes below).

The Frugal Gourmet Barbecued Potatoes

4 unpeeled potatoes, washed
3/4 c. vinaigrette dressing
salt and pepper
Bake potatoes in their skins about 30 min. at 450 deg.  While still hot, cut the potatoes lengthwise in half and each half into quarters.  Place in glass baking dish and cover with the dressing.  Let stand 1 hour turning once.  Remove from the dressing and place on the grill.  Salt and pepper to taste and grill the pieces until golden, about 10 min.

Vinaigrette Dressing

1/2 t. oregano
1/2 t. rosemary
1/4 t. Coleman's dry mustard
1/2 t. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
1 c. olive oil
1/3 c. white wine vinegar
2 T. water
2 t. fresh lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 t. Worcestershire sauce

Happy Memorial Day, peeps!

Butter Crunch





Barn in Field Acrylic

Well, so much for my new year’s “intention” to write more.  I have no excuse, but I will say that I didn’t want to post with text only, and I hadn’t figured out how to download and save photos on the computer I’m currently using (which I don’t like, by the way).  I finally had a chunk of time and just sat down and figured it out.   Derek accidentally knocked my laptop on the floor when he fell asleep on the sofa, and sent it to an untimely death.  I was very lucky, though, that he was able to retrieve and save almost everything on the hard drive, including all of my food blog photos.  When I get a little cash set aside, I think it’s time to buy a new computer.  In the meantime, I’ve been taking some painting classes, starting with Wine and Canvas, which is a fabulous idea, by the way.  I started playing with watercolors when I lived in Mexico 25 + years ago, but I think my medium is oil, so I coughed up the cash to take an eight-week oil painting class. That’s wiped me out for a little while, especially after just getting back from New Orleans for Jazz Fest, where we spent a small fortune eating!  Big Surprise there, huh?

Anyway, I have a little time at work this morning while waiting for the last minute rush of psychiatric and detox admissions before the long weekend, so I thought I’d say hello.  We’ve had an extraordinarily mild winter here in Indianapolis; in fact, it would not be completely inaccurate to say winter this year has been a long spring.  I’m afraid we may pay for that with a super hot summer, but I’m not going to dwell on that yet.  We’ve been enjoying fresh herbs for months now, and our tomato plants are happily in the ground.  Derek picked our first lettuce from the garden this week and it was so gorgeous and delicious I could have wept.  We tried some Butter Crunch for the first time this year, and I think it may be my new favorite lettuce.  It has the creamy buttery taste of a Boston, with just a little of the crunch of a Romaine, and it’s spectacularly pretty.  In a week or so, we should be picking baby arugula and mixed baby lettuces.  I can’t wait!

This weekend I’m going to make The Frugal Gourmet’s recipe for Graduate School Pot Roast on the grill with grilled vegetables.  Pictures to come!