Flank Steak Pinwheels

So I know I've been talking a lot about grilling this summer and how exciting it is, but I haven't posted anything grilled yet. I know, I know. But, the thing is, there's really not all that much to post when I bought some chicken and some marinade at the store and put them in a bag for the day and then grilled them for dinner. It's just not blog-worthy. However, I had one recipe that I was particularly excited to make and I finally did and now I finally have the motivation to post it. Woohoo!

So, these flank steak pinwheels showed up in my inbox a while ago. Well, the recipe for them did, and it wasn't quite what I wanted to make but it gave me ideas. OKAY completely off topic, I'm trying to write this post while watching an NCIS marathon on USA (I'm not entirely sure USA plays anything else) and it's distracting because I'm addicted--as Abby says in the commercials (and, presumably, one of the episodes), "It's more addictive than pistachios. Well, have you ever just eaten one pistachio?" And since I love pistachios I understand her point AND she's right. Completely addictive.

Anyway, it's time for a recipe. Hooray!

RECIPE: Flank Steak Pinwheels

Adapted from Delish

Ingredients:

-One 1-lb (or a little more) flank steak

-3 cloves garlic

-3 tbsp herbed cheese (Boursin)

-1 cup baby spinach

-1 red onion (you'll only use a few thin slices)

-2-3 roasted red peppers

-Salt and pepper

Other stuff you'll need:

-8 bamboo skewers

-Meat tenderizer with a pointy side

Instructions:

1. Place the flank steak between two pieces of plastic wrap and pound it with the pointy side of a meat tenderizer until it's evenly 1/4 inch thick. (We kinda failed at this, the kitchen was rattling loudly and it was taking forever so we got to about a 1/2 inch thickness but really should have kept going.) If the pointy mallet rips holes in the plastic wrap, add more layers of plastic wrap around it.

2. Once the meat is evenly 1/4 inch thick, mince the garlic and spread it over one side of the meat.

3. Down the middle of the steak, spread a wide layer of the cheese (about 3 inches thick). On top of the cheese, cover the steak with roasted pepper. Sprinkle a few slices of red onion over the red pepper, and cover with spinach.

4. Roll the steak tightly, pushing in the filling that tries to fall out. Once it's rolled, push the skewers through it at even intervals, holding it together.

5. Slice between the skewers so you have 8 pinwheels. (We only managed to get seven because I didn't measure perfectly, but it's okay because we weren't feeding a lot of people.)

6. Okay, so when I rolled it and then put the skewers through there was too much filling and not enough steak (because it wasn't thin enough) so it ended up just forming a shell around the fillings instead of a pinwheel, and I had to take each skewered not-pinwheel, pull the skewer out, roll it again, and re-skewer it. This worked fine, but I wouldn't want to do it again, hence the "yes actually try to get it to a quarter inch" because then I wouldn't have had to. BUT if you don't manage to get it rolled up right, you can re-roll them individually.

7. Grill on high heat 3-4 minutes per side for medium-rare. Allow to cool about 5 minutes before serving.

Step 2: Okay, so I used a lot of garlic. This is not out of the ordinary for me. It was DELICIOUS.

Step 3: The rich herby flavor of the cheese perfectly complemented the steak and added a richness to the pinwheels, and spreading the leftover cheese on crackers was AMAZING. I think that's what it's meant for. So good.

Also step 3: I didn't take a picture after adding the spinach because it looked like a pile of spinach. But this is what it looked like before the spinach, and I think it had a perfect amount of everything. SO good.

Rolled up on the grill. It was quite difficult to keep all the fillings inside. The skewers will blacken a bit--one of mine even started to burn at the end like a stick on incense. That's okay; they'll still hold your pinwheels together!

A pile of pinwheels! Two pieces per person, perhaps with a side of black bean salad, and you've got an excellent meal!

So, these are the perfect grilled food to prepare for a summer dinner party, except that they take a lot of work and the ingredients are rather expensive--but it'd be wonderful for a party of four. Have another couple over, or a few friends, and show off your magic grilling skills! Even if you screw it up a little, you'll end up with an excellent meal. Serve something light for dessert--these rich, savory pinwheels will leave you quite full.

Well, I'm back to my ridiculous NCIS addiction. Tomorrow I'm making three pies for my little cousin's high school graduation party--I guess she's not so little anymore, huh? What are your plans for the weekend? Doing something fun with Dad? (Oooh, these would be a great Father's Day treat!)

Have a great weekend!

*I'm tagging this as gluten free but I don't know if Boursin is gluten free. But I'm sure that if it's not there's some other spreadable cheese you could use. I mean, you could probably use brie! So you might have to play with the recipe.

"You have a pasty at Mabel's for me, you hear?"

For those of you who aren't on Twitter, for the first time, I think I can sincerely say that you're missing out. There's a new phenomenon called "One Book One Twitter" (or #1b1t) where, during the summer, everyone on Twitter has the option to participate in a twitter-wide book club. It's not exclusive, there's a schedule but you can read at your own pace if you want to, and this year--the FIRST year--one of my all-time favorite books was selected: American Gods by Neil Gaiman. The coolest part of this is that Gaiman uses twitter himself, so occasionally he does an hour of "Ask Neil" and he'll answer anyone's questions, which is AWESOME. If you're not familiar with Gaiman's work and don't mind a little fantasy, surrealism and existentialism in your literature, check out his books--he is a master of the English language. His books pull you in and immerse you in a surreal adventure, pressing you to question the world around you and the validity of pretty much everything. At least, that's how I feel.

I just finished reading this morning, but according to the schedule, this week everyone's on chapters 9-11, in which the main character discovers a delicious meal at a local diner-type restaurant called Mabel's.

"Breakfast for me," said Shadow. "What's good?"
"Everything's good," said Mabel. "I make it But this is the farthest south and east of the yoopie you can get pasites, and they are particularly good. Warm and filling too. My specialty."
Shadow had no idea what a pasty was, but he said that would be fine, and in a few moments Mabel returned with a plate with what looked like a folded-over pie on it. The lower half was wrapped in a paper napkin. Shadow picked it up with the napkin and bit into it: it was warm and filled with meat, potatoes, carrots, onions. "First pasty I've ever had," he said. "It's real good."
-American Gods, p. 266-267 in my edition (chapter 10)

Now, in honor of One Book One Twitter, and because I've read American Gods a million times and always wanted to try these out, I of course searched for a recipe and made them and they are, just as Gaiman says, "a savory delight wrapped in a hot pastry." Ideally, for this recipe, you have minced beef. I didn't have minced beef, nor did I have the patience to mince my own beef, so I used ground beef instead--but if you can get your hands on some good minced beef, then do.

RECIPE: Pasties
Adapted from Recipezaar
Ingredients:
-1 lb minced (or ground) beef
-1 tbsp olive oil
-2 white onions
-3 cloves garlic
-1 15-oz can whole tomatoes
-1 tbsp tomato paste
-1/2 lb carrots
-1 tbsp soy sauce
-1/2 pint beef stock (from bullion cubes)
-1 lb white potato
-a splash of milk
-2 tbsp butter
-a dollop of Worcestershire sauce (I didn't really measure out my additions, so add stuff until it tastes good!)
-Herbs and seasonings (I used marjoram, tarragon, basil, oregano, a little bit of italian seasoning, cinnamon, cumin and cocoa--yeah, it's a lot, but it was tasty. Use your discretion here.)
-pie crust or puff pastry*
-1 egg

Instructions:
0: Cut everything up ('everything' being defined as potatoes, onions, and carrots).
1. Using the potatoes, milk, and butter, make some mashed potatoes. Don't whip them--leave plenty of chunks of potato. Alternatively, you could just boil the potatoes and cut them up into very small pieces--I think this would be the more authentic way to do it.
2. In a very large frying pan or wok, heat the oil and sauté the onion until it softens. Move the onion into a bowl.
3. Add the beef to the frying pan with a little more oil if necessary. Stir constantly as it browns to ensure that all the clumps are broken up (not sure if this is a problem with minced beef but ground beef, especially the leaner varieties, is very sticky).
4. Once the beef is fully cooked, add the canned tomatoes (break them up as you stir them), carrots, soy sauce, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce and some herbs. (You'll be adding more herbs to taste as it cooks, so don't overdo it here.)
5. Add the beef stock and allow to simmer for a few minutes, then add the onions and potatoes. Stir thoroughly and simmer until it's not really liquid anymore (about 20 minutes?) and you'll be able to scoop it out and it will stay in a lump instead of spreading into a big mess. You want it to have the consistency of slightly watery mashed potatoes. As it's simmering, taste it occasionally and add more seasoning as desired.
6. NOW IS TIME TO PREHEAT THE OVEN! Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F, 220 C. Then prepare the pie crusts: I traced a small plate (7-8 inches) in each rolled-out crust with a knife so that I had 7-8 inch discs of crust to fill.
7. Lay a crust circle on a cookie sheet. Scoop about a cup of the beef mixture (or as much as it seems will fit into the crust when you fold it over, though I overshot a few times and had difficulty folding the crust over) onto one side of the pie crust, then fold the other side over and press all around it to seal it. Continue doing this with each crust circle. (You'll probably fit 2-3 on a cookie sheet.)
8. In a small bowl, beat the egg. Using a pastry brush, brush the beaten egg over each of the pasties. Put them in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden and shiny.
9. When you remove them from the oven, allow them to cool a bit before eating them--the inside will scald your mouth if you bite into it immediately. After about 10 minutes, they'll still be nice and hot but more edible and you can enjoy your creation!

Step 4.5: after the beef stock is added, before the potatoes and onions.

Once everything was added and simmered down completely. (Actually, this is what we had leftover after filling the crusts--I'd forgotten to photograph it first! But the picture is still accurate.)

Right out of the oven--they looked so pretty! I was quite happy with myself, despite the holes.

Despite the fact that Shadow eats his with his hands, I thought a fork would be more appropriate--I was worried about them falling apart and making a huge mess if I picked them up. Plus, this way I could blow on each forkful to cool it a little more.

Yet again, Mike made a "special" one for himself. He covered it in cinnamon sugar before I put them in the oven. It stuck to the pan more than the others (probably because of the burnt sugar) and therefore fell apart more, but he said it was delicious nonetheless. (Then again, Mike does weird things with food. He just ate a bowl of cereal with coffee grounds on top. So I don't necessarily trust his judgement.)

I doubled this recipe so I'd have plenty to freeze (and because my brother was home and his friends might be around) and ended up with 10 pasties and some leftover filling (also in the freezer, so I can whip up some pie crust and make more). The amount you end up with will depend on the size of your pies and how full you want them.

I expected these to be super filling and heavy--one of those "okay maybe I shouldn't have eaten that whole thing" foods. Surprisingly, they were the perfect amount of food: we were all full, but not completely stuffed. And, if you think about it, each one only has a little bit of meat, a tiny bit of mashed potato, some carrots, etc--it's a pretty well-rounded food! I can't wait to play with this concept a bit more and always have some delicious meal-in-a-pie-crust frozen for emergencies (or nights that I just don't feel like cooking).


*I used my normal pie crust recipe and it came out wonderfully, but it is a post in and of itself--I'll have my pie crust up here soon, keep an eye out for it! **EDIT: Pie crust recipe is up and linked to!**

SAUCE ADVENTURE!

Remember way back when I wrote about my pasta adventure? You probably don't, since that was only my second post and I have a lot more followers now! Welcome to those of you I don't know, it's so great to know people are reading my blog! Anyway, at some point in that post I mentioned that maybe eventually Mike would let me document/blog about his sauce recipe, and today is that day! (Well, documented a while ago, finally had the time to resize all the pictures and post today.) I apologize in advance for the picture-heavy post: this sauce takes five hours to cook and has a lot of steps! It's a family recipe passed down from his great grandmother, who moved here from Italy, so he likes to think it's pretty authentic but we don't know for sure. (I'm pretty sure my Italian professor told us that spaghetti and meatballs is an American thing.)

Okay! Since this is so picture-heavy, I'm going to try to ease off the irrelevant writing and stick to the recipe. It's sort of complicated, so bear with me.

RECIPE: Five Hour, Multi-Meat Pasta Sauce

Ingredients:

-2-3 medium white or yellow onions

-1 whole bulb of garlic

-A tablespoon or two of extra virgin olive oil

-1 6oz can tomato paste

-1 8oz can tomato sauce

-1 29oz can tomato puree (We highly recommend using Contadina for all of these.)

-1 package sweet Italian sausage (5 or 6 sausages, not one of those giant packages) (You could use hot Italian sausage if you wanted to. We wouldn't be upset. Mike just isn't a fan of spicy. You could also use one of those herb-y or garlic-y sausages. Seriously. It's up to you.)

-1 lb lean ground beef or buffalo (surprisingly buffalo is available in most grocery stores and doesn't really cost all that much!)

-1 cup Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs (we haven't gotten quite ambitious enough to make our own yet, but if you want to, by all means go for it--just add some Italian seasoning!)

-1 cup finely grated Romano cheese (Parmesan would work just as well; we use Romano because Mike prefers it)

-1 egg

-Copious amounts of Basil, Italian seasoning, and Rosemary

-Frozen leftover pieces of steak and/or pork chops and/or chicken (make sure it's all boneless)

Special Equipment

-8-quart stockpot (6 would work, but you'd have to let everything simmer down for a few hours before adding the meat so it doesn't overflow, and having all the meat in the whole time makes it more awesome)

-A roasting pan with a wire rack that allows grease to drip under the meatballs instead of letting them absorb it (I mean, you could probably use a cookie sheet if you wanted, but this is healthier and they cook more evenly)

-A tiny rubber spatula that will fit into the tomato paste can

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (don't forget to do this first because forming the meatballs doesn't take very long).

2. In a large bowl, combine the ground beef/buffalo, breadcrumbs, grated cheese and egg. Mix thoroughly. Divide and form into about 12 balls, or whatever amount of balls you think makes a good size. We like this size.

3. Spray the roasting pan (with wire rack in it) with cooking spray (Pam makes an olive oil spray that I prefer over most others) and place the meatballs on top of the wire rack, evenly spaced. Put the meatballs in the oven and bake for 1 hour.

4. Peel and chop the onions and garlic (yes, the whole bulb) and put them in the stockpot with a few tablespoons of olive oil. Turn the heat on medium-high and sauté until the onions become clear and soft.

5. Ideally at this point the meatballs have been in the oven for about half an hour.

6. Add the tomato paste, sauce and puree. Make sure to get all the tomato-y goodness out of the cans! (This is why you have the tiny rubber spatula.) Fill the tomato puree can (the largest one) with water and pour it into the stockpot. Repeat two more times so you have three cans of water in there.

7. Grab your seasonings. Sprinkle enough basil on top of the sauce to cover the entire surface, then stir it in. Repeat with italian seasoning, then cover only half the top with rosemary. (This was the first time we'd used rosemary, so we didn't want to add too much, especially considering it's a fairly strong herb. Mike couldn't really taste the amount that we put in, I could detect a hint--next time we'll probably coat completely like with the other spices.)

8. Stirring frequently, bring the mixture to a soft boil, then reduce heat so that it reaches a low simmer. Put the lid on the pot slightly ajar.

9. Put the sausages in a medium frying pan and put enough water in with them such that the sausages are about 2/3 submerged. Stab them all over with a knife. TRUST ME. (See picture for explanation.) Put on medium heat. Flipping the sausages occasionally, allow the water to boil off completely, then increase the heat and brown the sausages on both sides. Turn off the heat.

10. When the sauce has been simmering for half an hour, add the sausages, meatballs (which, ideally, have just come out of the oven) and any frozen leftover meats that you have (we had two small steaks and two pork chops). TIP: If you enjoy making sauce, make and save leftovers. If you're cooking for two, make three steaks/pork chops/chicken breasts, toss them in plastic bags, and toss those in the freezer. Label them if you think you'll be confused. They are excellent in the sauce and that way, if you want them, you don't have to cook them while you're also doing everything else--they're ready to just drop in.

11. Stir. Let the sauce continue to simmer, stirring at least every half hour. When you're not stirring it, keep the lid ajar.

12. When the sauce has been simmering for about two and a half hours, get the herbs out again. Sprinkle the basil and Italian seasoning over the top just as you did before (so that it covers the surface), and the rosemary again to cover half of it (and next time we make sauce, we'll know whether we should completely cover with rosemary both times, but for now I'd say stick with half). Stir, cover (ajar) and resume stirring every half hour. (If you're making fresh pasta or gnocchi, this is a good time to start it!)

13. When the sauce has been simmering for five hours, it should be reduced to the perfect consistency (if you like a really thick sauce, though, you might want to simmer it a little more). Taste the sauce--it's probably pretty acidic. If it is, add a tablespoon or two of butter (I think we used two) to reduce the acidity (so you don't end up with awful heartburn after eating the sauce because that would be bad). Once the butter is melted and stirred in, the sauce is ready to eat!

Step 2! This seems to be a good size for the meatballs. And also this is what I mean about the roasting pan.

Step 4: It looks like so much garlic, but we couldn't really taste it--next time we'll probably add two (possibly three) bulbs, and throw it in halfway through the simmering with the second round of spices, instead of at the beginning. That might give it a stronger garlic-y taste. (This was the first time we'd added garlic, though--we're learning!)

Also step 4: the onions and garlic (and olive oil) ready to start. Yay!

Step 6: after adding all the cans of tomato, but before adding the water. It can be hard to incorporate the tomato paste well!

Step 7: Now you've added the water and the seasoning and your entire house should start to smell REALLY GOOD.

Step 9: I was so skeptical when Mike first showed me how to do this and he boiled the sausages, but it gets a lot of the unnecessary fat out of them--just make sure to prick them in a bunch of places with a knife. Otherwise they develop large pockets of grease and you stab them and they sort of explode and you're covered in hot grease. NOT COOL.

Also step 9: When they look roughly like this, they're done and ready to go in the sauce.

Step 10(ish): meatballs right out of the oven. If you can tell me why the meatballs are nice and round and pretty when they go into the oven and come out all deformed like this, you'll win a prize. (Not a good prize. Probably just gratitude and the knowledge that I'm slightly less confused. But I'm calling it a prize. Maybe that guy who does the show about food and science on the food network should answer this for me.)

Also step 10: Mike drops a little frozen steak into the sauce.

Step 13: yay butter!

This time, we had the sauce with freshly made whole wheat pasta. I always hated whole wheat pasta when I was a kid because the texture was too grainy, but when you make it yourself it comes out way better. That could, however, be due to the fact that I used half whole wheat flour and half pasta flour. To replicate this pasta (which was delicious and will probably be how I make pasta from now on), combine two cups whole wheat flour and two cups of pasta flour. Make a mound with a dip in the middle like a volcano and put four eggs into the hole. Stir the eggs, slowly incorporating more and more flour. When you're out of egg and need to get the rest of the flour in, add a little bit of water at a time. An important thing to keep in mind is that the whole wheat for some reason becomes a stickier dough, so when you're rolling it out later you'll want to keep flouring the surfaces with the pasta flour.

Once it's all rolled out and cut, hang the noodles on something and let them dry a little. My dad uses a ski pole; we used a hockey stick. Whatever you use, just make sure it's clean! This amount of pasta gives you lots of leftovers--to keep them, nest them in ziploc bags and toss them in the freezer. (If you don't have a pasta maker and want uniform noodles, flour the rolled-out pasta sheets well and them roll them up. Then, with a sharp knife, cut at the width you want your noodles! This way they're a uniform width the whole way through without you having to be really obsessive about cutting straight lines.)

Boil the pasta for a few minutes (fresh pasta cooks so fast!) and toss it with some sauce to coat. Then let everyone add more sauce to their liking and pick the pieces of meat they want out of the pot. (I keep wanting to call it a bucket because it's so huge.) Sprinkle with cheese, mix everything up, cut the meat into bite-size pieces, whatever you want--just enjoy your meal, you've been working on it all day!

UPDATE: When I first posted this I'd totally forgotten where I read the tip about rolling up the pasta sheets, but I googled it and found it! If you're making pasta without a machine, whether it's whole wheat or not, go here for some more great tips and an overall lovely blog. :)

Thank you so much, Mike, for letting me share your awesome family recipe here!

I can stuff things!

I am absolutely amazed at how easy it is to make a stuffed pepper.

I don't know exactly why, but for some reason I always thought of stuffed foods as very difficult. Granted, this is probably because I don't like the idea of cleaning out the insides of things so that there's room to stuff things in, but Mike did that part for me so I didn't have to worry about it. I found the recipe on Recipezaar, which, I swear, is the only recipe website anyone ever needs. I generally stick to recipes that have been rated highly by a lot of people--those ones were almost guaranteed to be good--but in this case, I decided to trust my instincts when looking over the ingredients of a new recipe that hadn't been rated yet. I'm glad I did.

The first step in this was to fry rice. I don't usually fry rice, I am happy with my rice being white, but in this case it was fried with onions which probably changed the flavor a bit (of course, I wouldn't know, because everything ended up in the same pepper in the end.)

Half cup of rice and two small yellow onions in the frying pan. (I wish I'd had my onion goggles with me; these things BURNED.) This was eventually added to a mixture of a half pound of ground beef and altogether too much seasoning. (Well, the recipe called for too much. I like lots of seasoning, and I had to cut the amounts in half in order to not explode--two tablespoons of chili powder would have been a leetle much for my tastes.) It called for a tablespoon (well, two tablespoons) of black pepper, and I know that it's pretty much impossible to measure from a pepper grinder, so I used a mortar and pestle to grind it up by hand, which was really fun and would probably be a good way to work off steam after a stressful day.

This was thrown in with all the other spices, and I think I got pretty accurate in going for a tablespoon. There was also a can of diced tomatoes involved.

That's everything together--isn't it pretty? I was so worried at this point about it being overspiced--it had five (really large) cloves of garlic, which of course wouldn't be a problem, but that was in addition to a tablespoon of chili powder, a tablespoon of paprika, and two tablespoons each of oregano and basil (and the pepper, of course). This whole mess went into the peppers, layered with cheese:

The peppers were HUGE. At first I thought we wouldn't have enough stuffing, but once I started stuffing them I thought I'd have too much--instead, it worked out perfectly and filled them all without overflowing. They got covered up and went into the oven for a while.

And that's when they came out!

I think this was the least cheesy of all of them; the one I had as leftovers the next day had a visible line of cheese in the middle. They were absolutely delicious, and surprisingly healthy--each pepper is under 400 calories, pretty filling, and well-rounded enough to be a complete meal. I expected them to be heavy, in the way that some foods hit your stomach and feel like you just ate a block of cheese or something, but this was nice and light. It was still plenty to fill both of us up, though, and I know I'd have an awfully hard time eating two of them.

I think my favorite thing about this recipe is that it's pretty much based in one of my essential food groups--peppers, tomatoes and onions. This is my vegetable trifecta that I revert to whenever I have no idea what to make, and you can give it any sort of flair you want with seasonings. Nothing doesn't go well with this group.

The recipe can be found here, and I highly recommend making some yourself, but use your discretion when it comes to the spices--mine came out great with about half the amount, and they were still bordering on overseasoned. I'll definitely be toying with this recipe (and other things I can stuff) in the future--it's really easy, and even though it's not a quick recipe, the time that you actually spend working on it is pretty minimal for such a great meal.

Featured Recipe: American Chop Suey brought to a new level

American Chop Suey conjures visions of...well, I don't think I ever had it outside a school cafeteria until recently, so it was never something to get excited about. At most, it was a decently satisfying, non-disgusting meal you could get with the two-fifty your parents gave you in the morning (or however much lunch cost back then). I never expected that it would become something I could look forward to, even crave...until now.

A while back, my mom brought home a big container of American Chop Suey from a bakery down the street (I call it a bakery, but really it is just a Delicious Food Place, as they have all sorts of things you can buy and eat). A month or so later, she went back there, hoping for more of their delicious chop suey, but they didn't have any that day. She instead returned with a pound of ground beef from the butcher and told me of her craving. I began searching for recipes that were more than ground beef, macaroni and tomato sauce, and was eventually brought to my favorite recipe site, Recipezaar. I went through the recipes, attempting to assess how tasty they would be by looking through the ingredients. Finally, I came across a recipe for the ages: Denise's American Chop Suey.

It's delicious. It's absolutely amazing. It takes some effort (lots of vegetable-chopping), but it yields well to experimentation (I have added both cinnamon and balsamic vinegar and it came out perfectly both times [I haven't added them together yet, mind you]). It is especially delicious with some well-buttered rye toast on the side and plenty of parmesan or romano cheese.

Seriously, go make this. You won't regret it. And you'll be SO full afterwards.