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Monthly Archives: April 2013

Let the grilling season begin, plus other assorted thoughts on a spring day.

21 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by stloueats in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

chimichurri, grilling, morel mushrooms, ribeye steaks, ribeyes, spring, St. Louis

I am really afraid this is going to be one of those years where we really don’t have a spring.  I just get a feeling it’s going to be cool right up to the last day of school (A month from today, not that anyone is counting…22 actual school days left…154 hours of instructional time…) then BOOM!  Summer will hit with full force 95 degree heat, and we will commence with three months of midwestern misery.  However, this has been a lovely weekend, if a bit on the cool side, and for the first time this year, I fired up the old Weber Performer Grill and made some fantastic ribeye steaks that I purchased at Costco yesterday.  

I made this purchase in hopes that we would have friends over today, but sadly things fell through with both families we invited.  On the bright side, I now have additional steaks for future guests.  Also, I now am fully confident I can make some amazing steaks for that time. 

I am somewhat intimidated by thick-cut meat, whether it is pork, chicken, or steaks.  There is always the challenge of doneness vs. dryness.  I certainly understand the need to cook pork and chicken to the point where micro-badguys meat their doom, yet I also HATE cooking any meat to the point where they resemble the briquettes they were cooked by.  

At the same time, I also hate the look of horror on my guest’s face when a piece of meat is not cooked to their liking.  I tend to like things on the rarer side, while my mom likes things partially mummified.  My wife is a little picky about doneness as well, and I always feel like a total failure when things need to be put back on the grill (or worse, the microwave!)

Anyway, tonight I grilled three VERY thick ribeyes from Costco.  After about 7 minutes of direct heat right over the coals, I moved them around the edges of the coals and put the cover on the grill for another eight minutes of cooking.  Took them off the grill, let them rest covered for another seven minutes, and then we dug in to some of the best steaks I’ve ever made.  They were perfectly medium to medium-rare throughout, with a nice brown crust on the outside.  The lovely wife and I paired it with both chimichurri sauce (which is becoming a real house favorite) and Malbec wine…very Argentinian.  

People often mistake me for a gaucho.

The lovely wife took some fantastic pictures of our delightful dinner, and you may commence mouth watering now.

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As an aside, the lovely family and I did some hiking this weekend, and I looked for some morel mushrooms without any success.  Today I went out again looking without any success.  So, if any of you are amateur or professional mycologists (people who study mushrooms and other fungi) and would have any tips for me, or where I should be looking in the St. Louis area, let me know!

All in all, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, and a great week ahead.

 

Gelateria Del Leone

15 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by stloueats in Reviews

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

billy goat chips, caprese salad, focaccia, gelateria, gelateria del leone, Gelato, italian sandwich, missouri botanical garden, pesto, south grand, St. Louis

The lovely family plus the fun-filled sister’s family went to the Missouri Botanical Garden today.  It was a warm sunny day, and we were able to fully appreciate the Japanese Cherry Blossoms “snowing” on the kiddos, a plethora of daffodils, and an abundance of tulips.  MoBot is fantastic at any time of year, but during the spring, you really wish you could visit it every day.

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We left at closing time, and upon the lovely wife’s recommendation, we headed over to South Grand and Gelateria Del Leone.  She had recently met clients and taken their picture there, and thought I’d love it.

The lovely wife knows me so well.

First, a few words on gelato.  I first had gelato as a 19 year old during a visit to Rome back in 1997.  I was young and on a very limited budget.  I’m pretty sure I hadn’t had anything to eat that day and I ordered a gelato from a back-street gelateria.  I’m not sure if I knew the taste of alcohol back then the way I do today, but let me tell you, there was a hefty dose of rum in my chocolate gelato I ordered that day.  Happily buzzed, I savored the creamy, rich texture of that Italian treat while being exposed to art, history, Italian Communist Farmer’s Political marches, and home-cooked Italian food made by an Indian-Italian, on what was possibly one of the most bizarre days of my life.  After that, gelato sort of disappeared from my life for quite some time.

Today however, gelato is fighting for its spot in our frozen dairy loving hearts.*  I’ve seen gelato popping up in local supermarkets and in other locations around town.

*I think there will come a point where we as the human race will be confined to our Hoverounds, amiably joysticking our way from Dairy Queen, to Culver’s Frozen Custard, to Fro Yo, to a local Gelateria.  Seriously, our love of frozen dairy treats knows no limits.

Of the frozen dairy treats however, gelato is the healthiest choice (relatively speaking, of course).  Gelato generally has less cream and more milk in the recipe.  How is it so rich, dense, and creamy then you ask?  Well, gelato is churned at a very slow speed, and very little air gets whipped into the mixture. Therefore you get the dense creamy texture that gelato is known for.

Anyway, back to Gelateria Del Leone.  We actually went there for dinner, and the gelato was truly an added bonus on an excellent meal.  I ordered the Italiano Panini while the kiddos got the Pesto Grilled Cheese sandwich.  There was no kids meal options available, so if you’re going there with the kiddos be prepared to spend a little more than usual, but the sandwiches were served with Billy Goat Chips (which are an AWESOME St. Louis product) and a drink.  The lovely wife ordered a Caprese salad and bruschetta for everyone to share.  The bruschetta was fantastic, with a fresh mix of tomatoes, shallots, and basil on crispy toasted bread.  It was definitely lighter and brighter than most bruschetta I’ve had.

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The sandwiches came after a short wait, and were fantastic.  The Italian came with prosciutto, salami, pepperoni, shallots, provolone, pesto mayo.  First off, the focaccia bread is house made and was a perfect blend of crunchy and soft.  The sandwich had a reasonable amount of meat and cheese, not neither overwhelming the flavor of the other.  I appreciated how reasonable the portion size actually was.  Sometimes Italian sandwiches tend to be meat heavy, leading to a cured meat coma…not so here.  It was satisfying yet not overwhelming in size.

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The kids’ sandwiches were a real highlight however.  First off, I do hate lying to my son, but sometimes you need to make compromises to get them to eat food.

The delightful son is particular about his cheese.  Basically it must be yellow, or yellowish.  You can get Muenster cheese by him, but that’s as far as he’ll go on the whiteness scale.  Except pizza.  He’ll eat pizza.

Furthermore, he’s not wild about pesto…but he has loved the chimichurri sauce I’ve made recently for steak dishes.  Chimichurri is a vivid green.

He was a bit shocked when his grilled cheese sandwich came with white cheese with green topping.  So I proceeded to tell him it was pizza cheese with chimichurri sauce on top.  Although not convinced, he gave it a go and ate half his sandwich, knowing that he needed to save room for gelato.  That was okay by me, as it allowed me to eat the other half of his sandwich (I saved half of my Italian for today’s lunch).  The cheese, pesto, and focaccia was a heavenly combination.  Once again, each ingredient was balanced, and it was one of the finest grilled cheese sandwiches I’ve sampled.

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The lovely wife’s Caprese salad looked delightful and although not in season, the tomatoes looked fresh and tempting.

Finally we come to the gelato.  While all the selections looked incredibly tempting, I sampled some Mayan chocolate (infused with cayenne pepper), but settled on the Dulce de Leche and Chocolate and Salted Caramel.  And there we sat, savoring a spring day with our tiny gelato shovels (I totally love gelato spoons, it’s like you’re an enormous construction worker), scooping out bite size morsels of frozen dairy goodness on a perfect spring day.

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There were other touches about Gelateria Del Leone I enjoyed as well.  Real glass cups for water, and to go boxes made from recycled paper.  I liked the vibe of quality and sustainability.  The staff were all super friendly, and although we didn’t partake they have a wide selection of tea and coffee.

All in all, Gelateria Del Leone provided our family with a memorable meal to cap the perfect St. Louis spring day.  We all agreed that we would come back the next time we visited the Botanical Gardens.  If you find yourself near South Grand, treat yourself to a fine sandwich and tasty dairy treat.

Gelateria Del Leone on Urbanspoon

Holy Crap! I Just Made Banana Bread

11 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by stloueats in favorite foods, recipes

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

banana, banana bread, experiment, food blogs, no recipe

Who ever said that baking was hard or required precision?

LIES!

So, overall it’s been a pretty rough last couple of months.  My father-in-law has been diagnosed with brain cancer, and between several trips to MIchigan, the end of the basketball season and my second job as an unpaid board member for my local Lutheran High School, in which I have helped conduct a search for a new Head of School* who will make far more money than I ever will, I have had little time for blogging.

*By the way, Head of School is the new educational buzzword for Executive Director, which was the 1990s word for Superintendent, which was the old word for Headmaster, which pretty much meant Head of School.  Educational buzzwords are hilarious in how quickly they catch on and then fade away.  GLEs, ELOs, ESL, ELL, MAP, Common Core, STEM, and a wide variety of others have filled our vocabulary in the last 13 years, and yet, we don’t seem to get that good teachers + committed students and their families=success.

So after a very frustrating day, I decided to try to be creative with what we had on hand here at home tonight.  I was only making Costco cheese and spinach ravioli with green beans for dinner tonight, and had only about an hour until we had a work night up at school.  Earlier today, I taught my lower graders that fruits provide a home for seeds, and we examined the fruits and seeds of strawberries, apples, and bananas (the fruits we had in the house).  The bananas were on their downward spiral, and I decided I’d try something I’d never done…banana fritters.
After a breif consultation of the Great Internet Cookbook I decided to go rogue and wing it.  I took three mushy bananas, a generous pour out of an almost empty bag of granulated sugar, a couple of spoonfuls of brown sugar, and a half cup of flour and prepared to mix it all together.
At this point my brain kicked in and I realized that I’d need something else to make this appealing.  It was then that I thought of Elvis.  He enjoyed peanut butter and banana sandwiches.  If it’s good enough for the King, it’s good enough for me.  Two scoops of peanut butter coming up!
I decided to take a picture of this, just in case my plan worked out.
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Finally, I figured I should add some liquid to bring it all together, so I added an egg.  Then I beat the heck out of those bananas with a fork (The only utensil I used in this entire process).
Soon after beating, I realized a fritter is pretty much code word for disappointing donut.  Also, I’d have to work like a dog to get it done.  I’d have to heat oil, fry up little balls and put them on paper towels…burning myself with grease splatter as an added bonus.  With my timeframe and an actual dinner to get on the table, with you know, vegetables, that wasn’t going to happen.  I also noticed that my batter was pretty runny.
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So, I called an audible and googled banana bread.  Apparently baking soda is important…as is salt.  Done and done.
Finally, I added a bit of cinnamon.  I figured all these dessert breads have cinnamon in them.
The other thing that got me thinking banana bread was the St. Louis Food Bloggers Forum.  I went to this event last summer and that was what got me into blogging in the first place.  Back on that hot August day at Vin de Set, they gave us a prize bag.  Included in the bag were two Wilton mini bread pans.  To be honest, I never thought I’d use these things, but here they were today waiting for my banana fritter turned banana bread.  I greased those two little pans and put them in the oven.  When I left for the work night tonight at 6 they weren’t quite finished.  But upon my arrival home this evening at 9:15 I was informed that I had created a pretty nifty banana bread.
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It was very good, and I plan on sharing it with my (non-nut allergy) kiddos at school tomorrow.
Will I make this again?  Probably not.  However, it shows that experimenting and trying something new in the kitchen is never a bad idea.  At worst, I had used some bananas, sugar, and flour.  Instead, I created the finest banana bread ever crafted in this home.  So, if you’ve got squishy bananas, flour, sugars, an egg, and some peanut butter, you’ve got bread waiting for you.
So dear neglected readers, what are some experiments that have worked out well for you?  Let me know.

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