Archive for October, 2009

Bobby Flay’s Meatloaf

October 26, 2009
My Dicing Skills on Point

My Dicing Skills on Point

So I’m becoming a big fan of Bobby Flay’s recipes.  The dude is kind of a chief on TV, but the mofo’s recipes have been a hit every time I’ve cooked them.  The latest winner was his Roasted Vegetable Meatloaf with Balsamic Glaze.  Yes, the title does make it sound kind of disgusting.

The cooking began with a true test of my dicing skills, and, setting modesty aside, they were on point.  (Guy Fieri lingo rules!)  But beyond the dicing, it didn’t require much skill as this recipe was made for a stand mixer.  This was my second time using the stand mixer, and it did not disappoint.  It took two pounds of meat, a boatload of diced vegetables, a cup of breadcrumbs and ketchup, a few eggs, and some other stuff and mixed it in about 20 seconds.  From there I threw it into a baking sheet, cooked it for an hour, and then inhaled it.

Eggplant Parmesan

October 20, 2009

Tonight I busted out my new cast iron pan and did the first deep frying of my life.  The recipe was Alton Brown’s eggplant parm from his book “I’m Just Here for the Food“.  Here’s how it went down:

- Cutting the eggplant.  Check.

- Heating the oil.  Holy shit that’s a lot of oil!

- Setting up my dredging station.  Fun.

- Setting up drying rack.  This is a lot of work.

- Dredging.  Even with wet and dry left and right hands, I still get hulk hands.

- Frying.  McDonald’s?

- Frying.  Wow, this takes a long time to get through all of the eggplant.

- Arranging in the pyrex.  Damn, this is a shitload of cheese and oil.

- Baking.  At least I remembered to turn on the oven.

- Eating.  Delicious and rich.

Here’s what I would have changed: Now admittedly, Alton does say to get a “medium to large eggplant”, but I thought I had a pretty perfect “medium to large eggplant.”  The proportions, however, were way off!  I had way too much flour and egg and not nearly enough breadcrumbs and parmesan.  I also did not have enough cheese or tomato sauce.  Now if I had just not had enough of everything I would have assumed I purchased a “large to extra large eggplant”, but the fact that I had too much flour and egg led me to believe Alton was simply off.  Or I’m a terrible fryer.  It was my first time after all.


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