Beef Tenderloin w/ Espagnole Sauce

Wow... I've been M.I.A. for quite some time!  It's been even busier around here, and it's hard to even wrap my head around what I've gotten myself into!

The restaurant is going quite well.  I was on the pantry line (salads & desserts, a few cold and hot appetizers) for a bit of time, and last week I started training at the grill station.  I'm having tons of fun, and learning a hell of a lot!  Which is the whole point of all of this!

Did everyone (who celebrated) have a good Thanksgiving?!  I know we did.  My whole family went down to Andy's family's Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and it went quite well.  I'm glad that our families could get together on a day like that and get along so well.

Anyway, I know everyone still might have turkey on the brain, but in honor of me training on the grill station, I thought a nice, juicy steak felt like just the thing to post.  Hopefully I'll be back sooner next time, instead of going on a three week hiatus, but who knows what the next week of life has in store for me!

Ingredients:

2 6-8 oz. cuts of beef tenderloin
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut medium dice
spinach, optional
Espagnole sauce, recipe here
salt and pepper, to taste
Olive oil, for rubbing and drizzling

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Rub each steak with about a tablespoon of olive oil.  Season your steaks with salt and pepper, on both sides.

Place the sweet potatoes on a baking sheet.  Drizzle with about 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Toss well and spread into one even layer.  Bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown, stirring occasionally.

Heat a large skillet under medium high heat.  Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and heat until shimmering. 

Add steaks and cook until desired doneness (I think a medium rare is perfect, about 6-8 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of your cut).  Let rest on a cutting board for about 5 minutes.

Warm up Espagnole Sauce, if needed.

To plate, place a good amount of sweet potatoes on the center of the plate.  Top with steak and drizzle Espagnole sauce over top.  Serve with a side salad of spinach and some fresh bread.

This brings "meat & potatoes" to a whole new level.  It was a simple enough dinner to be ready in no time, but also one that is sure to impress dinner guests, as well!

And on a side note, a reader had asked in the comment section of the Espagnole Sauce recipe about a proper way to make a Demi Glace. 

By definition, a demi glace is half brown sauce (Espagnole), half brown stock (beef stock), reduced by half.  Easy enough right?  So for 1 cup of demi glace, use 1/2 cup of Espagnole Sauce, 1/2 cup of beef stock... bring to a boil, then let reduce until the whole mixture is 1/2 cup, or until desires consistency.

Hope to see you guys sooner than later!  And thanks for sticking around with me =)

Sweet Potato Blondies

Happy Friday guys!  Boy am I glad!  Because after my 8-hour work shift tonight, I'll be on vacation for the next 9 days - and it's much needed!

It's another "stay"-cation, but I won't be working, so it'll be a stress relief, that's for sure.

In other good news, I signed up to do my first half-marathon at the end of October.  I'm setting my main goal to just finishing (with minimal/no walking), so I'm pretty sure I can do it.  Meaning, I'll probably be starting my training next week too.  I figure, if I can get into the hang of this running business early, I can amp myself up for later on.  Make sense?

Anyway, I figured since it was Friday, I might as well leave you all with a sweet treat.  As well as a sweet poll!  My Great American Bake Sale is next Saturday, so I need some inspiration for what to make - so pick a treat and I'll make sure to sell it!





Ingredients:
Adapted from a Food Network recipe

3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 & 1/8 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanila
3/4 cup sweet potato puree
1/4 cup chocolate chips
10-12 large marshmallows, optional

Preheat oven to 375 F and grease a small (around 8x10 or so) baking dish with flour and butter.

In a medium bowl, combine brown sugar and butter.  Beat until smooth.

In another medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.

In bowl with sugar and butter, beat in eggs (one at a time) and vanilla.

Slowly add in flour mixture until a thick batter forms.  Fold in sweet potato puree and chocolate chips.

Pour batter into baking dish and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  If you wanted to kick it up a notch, like I did, you could top the batter with marshmallows about halfway through the baking time to get them all toasty.  After all, marshmallows and sweet potatoes were just meant for eachother!

Hope you guys have a great weekend!  Ours will be filled with sushi, Father's Day, and relaxing!  Oh... and a HAIRCUT!

Sweet Potato Donuts w/ Cinnamon Marshmallow Cream

Well, you guys sure do like Chocolate Cake don't you?!  I hear you people, and I have no idea why I didn't just make it into a post, but the recipe I used for the chocolate cake is from the blog Foodess - recipe titled "Moist Chocolate Cake".  And it ain't no lie!  I pretty much followed that one to a tee (I made it into a rectangle cake, instead of a circular one), so it's no-fail.  I was a little worried, because you add the hot coffee at the end and it made the batter look like a big mud puddle (but I think that's what makes this cake so moist, so don't fret!).  I also used this Buttercream Frosting recipe from Wilton.com, and the only change I made was to only use 2 cups of powdered sugar instead of 4 (I just have trouble using that much sugar sometimes) and it made just enough frosting to frost the whole cake.

Anyway, to today's recipe (which won the poll from a couple weeks ago) is Sweet Potato Donuts.  Seriously, these are a must try.  And to have it with the cinnamon marshmallow cream just puts them over the top!  A-d-d-i-c-t-i-n-g.

Don't forget to vote for the new poll (which I'll try not to be too late on, again) down below!

I bet you can't have just one!

Ingredients:
Adapted from Food & Wine's recipe

Donuts:


1 large sweet potato
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon instant dry yeast
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 & 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
pinch of nutmeg
1 tablespoon bourbon (c'mon, I live in Kentucky, had to replace the rum with this, hehe)
1 egg
2 egg yolks
3 & 1/4 to 5 cups flour, plus more for rolling out dough

Cinnamon Marshmallow Cream:

1 & 1/2 cups marshmallows
1 tablespoon heavy whipping cream, plus more if desired
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Prick your sweet potato all over with a fork and cook in the microwave for 10 minutes, or until softened.  Let cool to room temperature and carefully peel.

Place sweet potato in a high rimmed bowl and puree with an immersion blender (or an actual blender - but I was going for getting less contraptions dirty) until smooth.  I had about 1 & 1/2 cups of puree.

In a small skillet, brown butter under medium high heat until nutty in flavor, about 5-6 minutes.

Scrape butter and any solids into a medium sized bowl and let cool.

Using the same skillet used for butter, add milk and heat until it is just warm (about 105 F).  Pour milk into a large bowl and add yeast.  Let sit for about 5 minutes.  Slowly mix in white sugar, dark brown sugar, salt, vanilla seeds, nutmeg, and bourbon.  Stir in sweet potato puree, browned butter & solids, egg, and egg yolks.  Beat mixture until combined.  Add the flour and beat at a medium speed (I used a wooden spoon for this - nothing like an old-fashioned workout) until pliable dough forms.  I think I added about 1 to 1 & 1/2 more cups of flour to get the desired dough consistency for mine (but I think this all depends on how big your actual sweet potato is, and how much puree you end up with).  Knead dough for a few minutes and place in a greased bowl.  Cover and let rise for about 1 hour.

Punch down the dough and let sit for about 5 minutes.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to about 1/2 inch thickness.  Use a floured rim of a glass (or round cookie cutters) and cut out as many rounds as you can.  Use a smaller round cookie cutter (or in my case, the bourbon cap) to cut out the centers of the donuts for donut holes.  Nothing goes to waste here!  Roll out dough one or two more times to cut out as many donuts as possible.  I think I ended up with a little over 2 dozen.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and transfer cut out dough to each sheet.  Cover baking sheets with plastic wrap and let rise for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400 F and place oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven.  Bake the donut holes for about 10 minutes, and the donuts for 20 minutes, or until risen and golden.  You can have the holes and donuts on the same sheet, just remember to remove the donut holes first.  Let donuts cool to room temperature before dipping in cream.

To make the marshmallow cream, heat a small saucepan under medium low to medium heat.  Add marshmallows, heavy cream, and cinnamon.  Stir slowly until marshmallows have melted.  You can add more cream if you want a thinner sauce.

Dip the donuts in cream and let any excess drip off (into your mouth, if you wish).

The original recipe had a cinnamon sugar topping, which is all well and fine, but seriously, the marshmallow cream here is where it's at.  There's a restaurant here in Louisville, the Village Anchor, that serves sweet potato fries with this cream (I was lucky enough to obtain this VERY simple recipe from our waiter last time we were there), and I just thought it would be perfect for these donuts!  I could really just drink that cream by itself, it's that good.

I love that these donuts were baked, instead of fried, too.  It makes them actually somewhat healthy, right?  They were absolutely delicious, unique, and perfect with a cup of coffee!

And don't forget to vote for next time's dessert in this week's poll!  I'm in a chocolate mood - and when I'm in a chocolate mood, Andy is very very happy.

Sweet Potato Cakes

It is freeeeeeeezing outside.  It's feeling like double jacket weather.  I'm sure I'm just over-reacting.  It's really only 33 degrees outside, so we're above freezing so far.  But dude... I don't like this cold weather!

I've been working on my positive attitude, lately, and you know what... sometimes stressful situations do work out better when you've thought positively from the get go.  I've been trying to let myself not get frustrated at work with my fellow co-workers.  I'm only on day 2 of this positive attitude campaign, but you know... I think I may stick to it.

Of course... you guys don't see the negative Peggy.  The Peggy that comes to blog here, she's happy.  She's not stressed, and she's usually eating while she types.  So maybe I can merge these two Peggys and find a "happy medium" in between?  Maybe?  We'll see.

Anyway, now that I've randomly ranted... today's recipe is absolutely delicious.  Morning, noon, or night - these things are perfect.  We had them as a side for our Pork Tenderloin that we had a couple nights ago and they were delicious!


Ingredients:

Adapted from How Sweet It Is's recipe

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper, to taste
2 strips bacon, chopped

Place the sweet potatoes in a large pot of boiling water and cook until tender, about 25-30 minutes minutes.  Drain and return potatoes to pot. 

Add butter and cream to potatoes and mash with a potato masher.  I like some texture to my mashed potatoes, so that's why I didn't use my immersion blender (but if you like a smoother mash, by all means, go right ahead!  Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Let mixture cool slightly and place in fridge to cool, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a large skillet under medium high heat and add bacon.  Cook until fat is rendered and bacon is crispy.  Remove bacon with slotted spoon and mix into sweet potato mixture along with cayenne pepper, leaving the bacon grease in skillet.

Form mashed sweet potatoes into patties and sprinkle flour onto both sides.  Fry patties in the bacon grease and cook for about 3-4 minutes per side, or until golden brown.  Serve hot and fresh as a side, or eat them as is!

These were pretty awesome.  Definitely addicting, if you ask me!  We've had an abundance of sweet potatoes and this was just a slight change-up from the norm.  Enjoy guys!

Bratwurst "Stirfry"

 

It's Friday!  Once again, I've got to work until 10:30, so no going out.  Bummer, but I guess in a way, it saves us a little bit of money.  Especially after the expensive vacation we just endured.  Don't really have much planned for the weekend either.  I'm just working a couple hours in the morning tomorrow and the rest of the weekend will be spent studying for a Molecular Biology exam that I have on Tuesday!  Sunday, of course, is football day, and might possibly have a few friends over for some dinner (we owe them for watching out dogs, so what better way to thank them than by feeding them?!)

  

I had some leftover bratwursts from the Currywurst recipe and couldn't just let them go to waste.  I saw this side dish on Guilty Kitchen's blog and decided to use up a few veggies we had lying around!

Bratwurst Stir Fry

Adapted from Guilty Kitchen's Sweet Potato, Kale, & Sausage

1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 clove garlic
2 sweet potatoes, left unpeeled and diced
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
3 bratwursts, sliced into rounds
8 oz kale, chopped

1 yellow squash, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped
sea salt to taste
fresh cracked pepper to taste

Heat a large dutch oven under medium high heat and add oil.  Add onions and sauté for 5 minutes, or until starting to soften.
 

Add in sweet potatoes, garlic, squash, green pepper, and thyme. Sauté for another 5 minutes, or until garlic softens.

Mix mustard and water and add to sweet potatoes. Stir, cover, lower heat to medium low and cook for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. 

Add in sliced bratwursts and cook for 10 more minutes, or until bratwurst are almost done.

Stir in kale, season with salt and pepper and cook for about 5 more minutes.  Serve immediately!

I know it's kind of misleading saying that this is a "stir-fry," but I guess to me, a stir fry is more of a culmination of a bunch of ingredients into one dish, rather than something just pan fried quickly.  This was definitely a great use of some of our leftover squash and green peppers.  There were major layers of flavor in this dish and would definitely be a great side, but even better main course!

Enjoy the weekend guys and I'll be back Monday!

NOT Your Momma's Lasagna

The last post about lasagna I had was "Momma's Lasagna"... very straight forward, all the normal things you'd want in and think would be in a lasagna. Well... this is somewhat different. It's got your elemental lasagna ingredients, but with an addition of a few things, which is my opinion, make it one of the best lasagnas I've ever had.

Ingredients:

1 lb. lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 slices thick cut bacon, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced
28 oz. can crushed San Marzano tomatoes, with juice
2 sweet potatoes, sliced
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 cup beef stock
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1-2 cups shredded parmesan cheese
1 box lasagna noodles
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a dutch oven, heat olive oil under medium high heat and add bacon. Stir in cinnamon and cook until bacon is crispy and golden, about 3-5 minutes.

Add in onion, garlic, carrots, rosemary, sage, thyme, and oregano. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until vegetables are starting to soften.

Stir in ground beef and cook until browned, about another 5 minutes or so.

Mix in mushrooms, tomatoes, beef stock, and red wine vinegar. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and bake in oven for at least 1 hour. This allows the flavors to have enough time to meld with eachother.

While you're waiting, take your sweet potato slices and season with salt, pepper, and chili powder. Spread evenly on a baking sheet and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until potatoes are tender and slightly browned. Set aside to cool.

Also, prepare your lasagna noodles according to package directions, adding some olive oil to the water so the noodles do not stick. Drain noodles and set aside on parchment paper.

About 10 minutes or so before the sauce is done baking, you can start on your "bechamel" of sorts. Heat 3/4 cup of heavy whipping cream in a small saucepan. Mix the remaining 1/4 cup cold whipping cream with the cornstarch until it is dissolved. When the cream in the saucepan has come to a boil, low heat slightly and stir in cold cream. The mixture should start to thicken and then you'll want to add in about 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese. Keep adding cheese until you get your desired consistency. I added about 1 full cup and was satisfied. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Take your sauce out of the oven and mix well. Everything should smell pretty fantastic right now.

Preheat your oven to 400F.

In a large baking dish, spoon a little bit of the sauce on the bottom of the pan so the noodles don't stick. Then add a layer of noodles. Ladle a good bit of sauce on top of the noodles. Add a layer of sweet potatoes (they don't have to be touching eachother, just sporatically). Top with about 1/2 ladle full of the cream sauce and a handful of mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Continue layering like this until you've run out of noodles. I think I had 3 different layers (only enough sweet potatoes for the bottom 2 layers though). Spoon on the remaining sauce and remainder of cream sauce and top with mozzarella and parmesan.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until top is nice and golden. Serve piping hot and enjoy!

I've never had a lasagna that included sweet potatoes or making my own sauce from scratch. It really was the perfect definition for "comfort food." I even brought it into work the next day and everyone that tried it liked it!

So well, today is Friday, and we leave for Savannah, Georgia on Sunday morning, so I'm not sure if I'll be posting any next week or not, but if not, enjoy the week... because I know I'll be enjoying a MUCH needed vacation away from everything! Enjoy!

Korean Flank Steaks

Many of you know of the wonderful dish Korean BBQ right? Well, my first experience of it was this past summer. I was at a friend of mine's BBQ and another couple that was there, brought some Korean BBQ over. Being the Asian cuisine lover that I am, I was intrigued. The aroma itself was enough to sell me on the dish. Sam, the griller, is a pharmacist for Kroger and happened to be good friends with the butcher. He said that he would get the guy to cut the ribs across the bone instead of along side the bone. It made the pieces of meat thin and grilled fast. He said he marinated it in soy sauce, ginger, and garlic... the holy trinity of most Asian cuisine in my opinion. So since then, I've always wanted to try to make my own, and this weekend, I had a couple friends over and had to give it a try.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons chardonnay, or other white wine
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
2 & 1/2 lb. flank steak, sliced across the grain
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

The marination is pretty much where most of the "cooking" or work is done in this dish. Combine all ingredients (except for steak, cornstarch, and vegetable oil) in a somewhat deep glass dish (like a casserole dish would be perfect). Make sure sugar dissolves and ingredients are well combined. Add in steak strips and coat well. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Ideally, you would want to grill these, but since it was bloody cold outside, I opted to cook these over the stove top. Once again, ideally, if you were doing this inside, a grill pan would be best, but I don't have a grill pan, so I just used my skillet.

Heat skillet (or whatever else you want to use) under medium high heat and add vegetable oil. In batches of about 4 or 5, brown both sides of the steak, about 30 seconds to a minute for a nice medium-rare to medium.

Continue with remaining flank pieces and tent the cooked steak with foil to keep hot.

If you want to make a quick "gravy", if you will, using the leftover marinade, just add it to the same skillet used for steak and scrape up brown bits. Heat until bubbling and then bring to a simmer. Combine 1 teaspoon cornstarch with 1 tablespoon water and mix until dissolved. Add mixture to "gravy". Increase heat and allow mixture to thicken while constantly stirring. Pour gravy on top of steaks! I served this alongside some simple roasted sweet potatoes!


This was definitely a great take on meat and potatoes. The sweet potatoes brought out the sweetness of the marinade, while still maintaining the savoriness of the steak. This is really not close to the Korean BBQ I talked about before hand, but more of a "distant cousin". I know that they were both really frickin' delicious though! Enjoy!

Twice Baked Loaded Sweet Potatoes

I'm telling you, these past couple of weeks, with flu season and all, have made for some quite hellish days at work. I'm so stressed out from the pharmacy that after coming home from a late shift, I don't want to spend hours preparing a great meal. I can settle for a quick, mediocre one. And this was just the case the other night with these potatoes I found over at Mango & Tomato...

Ingredients:

2 large sweet potatoes
2 medium sized chorizo pork sausages
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
6-8 fresh mozzarella balls
salt and pepper to taste

This is pretty much a no brainer recipe: just cook potatoes, fry filling, and bam, but I'll go into the details just in case...

Preheat oven to 475 degrees and bake potatoes for about 30-45 minutes, depending on the size of your potatoes. Mine were pretty hefty, so it took all of about 45 minutes to get them good and done.

While you're waiting for the potatoes, remove the chorizo from it's casing and fry in a skillet until browned. Then add your garbanzo beans and mix well. The chorizo gives the filling a pretty decent heat, but I found that I had to add a little bit of salt and pepper just to add a little more flavor.


When potatoes are finished, allow them to cool for about 10-15 minutes. Make a slit in the middle of each one and carefully remove the filling and add it to the sausage/garbanzo mixture.

Shred some fresh mozzarella into the mixture, as much as you'd like, and mix well. Then add the mixture into the potato skins. Top with bits of mozzarella (I did this in layers by putting some cheese on the bottom of the potato skins, then add some filling, then more cheese in the middle, and more filling, and then top with cheese, but I like mucho cheesy things so you don't have to do this). Bake the potatoes for about 5 minutes, until cheese is nice and melted and dig in!


This didn't take considerably long to make, especially since I made Andy start baking the potatoes a little before I left work so they would be done by the time I got home! Smart eh? Overall, it was okay... would have been great as a side dish of loaded mashed sweet potatoes, but it was quick, easy, and relieved a little bit of my stress so I can't complain! Enjoy!