Blue Cheese Steak...

Here in Wisconsin, the weather is FINALLY turning more Spring like.  That means most people are going to start thinking about getting their grill on!  I'm not one to let a little snow in the winter deter me from grilling out though.  I love to fire up the grill monster and taste that charbroil.  Here's a little something for my grilling machines out there that love meat and potatoes.

I went to the grocery store and saw some amazing looking ribeye steaks in the case.  I had to get a couple!  I came home and preheated the grill while I prepared the ingredients.  As Ann Burrell always says, you have to get your mise en place ready!  That's French for "putting in place".  You want everything ready to go so you're not overcooking one thing while prepping the next ingredient.

Sprinkle kosher salt and pepper on both sides of the steaks.  Let then sit out in the kitchen so they come up to room temperature.  Meanwhile get some bacon slices ready.  Dice up a large yellow onion (preferably a Vidalia onion if in season).  Slice two or three baking potatoes into circles.  I chose to have a salad on the side instead of steaming up some vegetables.  Yes, I can be healthy on occasion!  Well, it was a small salad. Anyway, back to the MEAT!

A staple in my mom's kitchen was "fried potatoes".  Render some bacon to get that delicious bacon fat.  Take the bacon out and put it on some paper towels.  Next, saute some onions and mushrooms in that pork fat until they're tender.  Put the sliced potatoes in the pan and stir so they're covered in the bacon grease.  Season everything with salt and pepper.  Put a lid on it and move on to the grill!  Come back every few minutes though so you can stir the potatoes.

The steaks should be nice and tempered now, and the grill should be preheated nicely!  Put the steaks on and close the lid.  You'll want to turn them 90° after 5 minutes to get those perfect grill marks on them.  After another 5 minutes, flip the steaks over.  Turn them another 90° after 5 minutes to get grill marks on this side too.  This whole process will depend on how done you like your meat.  I'm one of the weird ones that can't have the meat still "moo" at me when I cut into it.  I prefer a warm pink center (no blood leaking out).

Once the meat is done to your liking, pull it off to a tray and let it rest.  This is the most important part when cooking ANY meat.  You have to let it rest.  If you don't the meat will be as dry as can be.  Think about this, when you cook meat and cut right into it, how much juice flows out and onto that place?  That's the BEST part!  When you let the meat rest, that juice is absorbed back into the meat to make it juicy!  Which do you prefer, dry meat or moist meat?

Now that your meat has rested, the potatoes should be done too.  Let's plate it up!  I love blue cheese, and if you haven't had some on top of a steak, you're missing out!  It gives a little "bite" to the meal.  Don't make that face!  Try it, you might like it.  I also saved some of the sauteed onions/mushrooms to put on top of the steak too.

Doesn't that look amazing!?  Cut into that perfectly rested steak and enjoy the juiciest piece of meat you've tasted in a long time.



Until next time...ya'll come back now, ya hear?


Zach

One Pan Dinner...

We all have those days when we come home exhausted from work and just feel like sitting down to do NOTHING!  We sit there and ask ourselves "What's for dinner?" because we don't wanna get off the couch.  Here's an easy recipe that cooks in ONE PAN!  It won't dirty up that many dishes, and it doesn't use that many ingredients either.

I'm going for about four servings here, but you can add or remove to serve your family.  I used four boneless/skinless chicken breasts, one head of broccoli and about three baking potatoes.  Cut the broccoli off the stems, and dice the potatoes up.  Arrange the three items in a 9x13 baking pan like I did below.

Now to season the meal.  I used salt and pepper and a little bit of garlic powder.  Next, you sprinkle an entire packet of Italian dressing mix all over.  You can get that in the aisle with the salad dressings.  It's usually next to the Hidden Valley Ranch mix packets.  Top shelf of the aisle maybe?

That's it!  Cover the entire pan tightly in tin foil and pop it in the oven.  Set it to around 400°F for about an hour.  You want to make sure the potatoes are fork tender, and that the chicken is cooked through completely (food thermometer is a good tool to have).

This is delicious!  Everything is cooked just perfectly.  The chicken is so moist.  Adding the Italian dressing mix gives it an awesome flavor too.  I would think you could substitute the Italian mix for the ranch mix or any other packet of seasoning.  Mix it up!  Recipes are merely guidelines for the kitchen.  If you don't experiment, you're not having fun!!


Until next time...Ya'll come back now, ya hear?


Zach

Hard Candy...

The last time we met, I mentioned that my sweet tooth had taken over my kitchen lately.  After my cake pops, I attempted to make some hard sugar candy.  The recipe is very simple: sugar, corn syrup, and water.  The recipe may be simple, but there is some danger involved when melting sugar.  The danger comes in when you cook the sugar to 300 degrees!  The moment this molten lava starts to cool, it also starts to harden.  Imagine that hardening and sticking to your skin!  OUCH!  I've been careful so far (knock on wood).

Like I said last time, Hobby Lobby has an awesome selection of sugar candy supplies.  There are also a bunch of websites out that have recipes and tips on making candy.  I haven't tried to make those chocolate "suckers" yet.  I've just stuck with the pure sugar candy!

I love the little drams of super strength flavors that you can buy.  They provide a lot of punch for a batch of candy pieces.  I've also tried experimenting with extracts that you can pick up in any spice aisle of a grocery store.  Extracts require a little more experimentation to get the ratio right so the candy actually tastes the way you want.  The super oils as I call them come in a dram which is equal to 1 teaspoon.  That amount works for 2 cups of sugar to 2/3 cups of water and 1/2 cup of corn syrup.  I've had to use upwards of 3 tablespoons of extract to get a good flavor in the candy.

My first go 'round was making Watermelon Sea Glass.  I love anything with watermelon flavor in it.  Sea glass refers to old bottles that were dumped in the ocean, and washed up on the beach over the years.  The bottles break up in ocean, and the waves smooth the edges out.  Growing up on the beach, it's really neat to find all sorts of different colors that wash ashore.

You have to watch the sugar mixture carefully as it boils.  Once it reaches 250 degrees, you drop in whatever coloring you want the finished product to look like.  The temperature can rise extremely fast from 250 to 300, so you have to pay close attention.  Some people say to pull the pot off the stove and let the bubbles die down before adding the flavoring to it.  I've tried that the last couple of times, but the last couple of molds I pour seem to have little, if any, actual flavor in them.  The first couple of molds I pour are really good though.  I like to pour my flavor oils in a few seconds after I remove it from the burner.  I think that allows the bubbles to distribute the flavor move evenly.

Now you have to work FAST!  As soon as the mixture starts to cool, it starts to harden up.  You don't want a big blob in your pot do you?  Make sure your molds are greased up with PAM so the hard candy pops right out.  For the sea glass, I greased up a cookie sheet and just poured the entire pot into the cookie sheet to cool.

Depending on how thick the candy is will determine how long it takes to fully cool and harden.  Once its ready, take a meat mallet (or wrap the end of a hammer in foil) and smack the candy in a few different places to break it apart.

That's it!  Pop a piece in your mouth and enjoy!  Super simple right?  Now try experimenting with different flavors and extracts.  They even make a "tart & sour" liquid to put in with the flavor oil to make sour candy.  I haven't quite perfected that yet, but I'm working on it!  I've also got some "gummy" candy ideas in the works too.

I store this particular type in Tupperware or glass containers since the edges seem to cut the ziplock bags.  You'll end up having little bits of candy everywhere!  Keep them in a cool, dry place and enjoy!  Feel free to share some with friends (if you want)!


Until next time...Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?


Zach

Sweet Tooth Takeover...

So, I’ve been on a on a “sweet” kick lately.  I’ve been trying my hand at all sorts of different confections.  I’ve made some cake pops that were super simple and delicious!  The last few days I’ve been making hard sugar candy.  Again, these are super easy.  I’ve found Hobby Lobby to have the best selection of candy making supplies.  Michael’s has a lot of chocolate candy making supplies, but nothing for hard candies.  Well, they do have a candy thermometer, but that’s about it!

Let’s talk about the cake pops first.  I’ve seen those in grocery stores, bakeries, and restaurants.  They always look amazing with their decorations.  The first thing you think is that has to be a lot of work.  Guess what?  It’s not!  You make a cake, mix in icing, mold each cake ball, and dip it in melted chocolate.  You can get fancier with how you decorate the outsides, but that’s up to you.

My first attempt at it was Funfettit Cake Pops.  The secret to these is that you mix in the can of icing while the cake is still warm so it’ll melt and help hold the ball together.  It helps to freeze the cake pops too before you dip them in chocolate so they don’t break apart in the chocolate.

All you do is pick out a cake mix that you like, and an icing that goes well with that flavor cake.  You bake the cake as instructed on the back of the box.  That means you’ll probably need some eggs, oil, and water.  After the cake comes out of the oven, don’t let it cool down.  Dump the cake into a mixing bowl and pour the entire can of icing into the bowl.  Mix it all together, and use a medium scooper to make as many balls as you can.  Put them on some wax paper to rest while you finish all the balls.  Stick a “sucker” stick into the top of each ball and then stick the sheet pan in the freezer to harden the balls up.  The icing that melted in the cake will help hold everything together.

I ended up melting some white and milk chocolate baking squares that I had left in the pantry from another culinary adventure to dip each cake pop in.  These squares cost a little more, but I used what I had on hand.  The white chocolate was a whole lot easier to work with.  I was able to cover more pops because it didn’t go on as heavy as the milk chocolate squares did.  As soon as I covered the pop in chocolate, I sprinkled some edible sugar on the outside as decorations.

Store these in the fridge so the chocolate hardens back up.  The outside will be crisp and provide a nice “crunch” when you bite into the pop.  The inside remains moist and delicious thanks to the icing that you melted into the cake.

Until next time...Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?

Zach

First Post...

Welcome to Mama Brown’s Southern Porch: A Southern Man and His Fryin Pan.  This blog came about as a suggestion from Facebook after all the pictures I post of the foods I cook.  I figured why not turn those pictures into stories.  I grew up in a southern kitchen watching my mom cook everything from scratch.  That’s where I got my love of cooking from.  That love also involves a dream of owning my own restaurant.  I figure you should do what you love.  The title of the blog is in honor of my mother and her inspiration for cooking that she gave me.  Not everything I do is from a frying pan, but most of it will be.

 

I’ll warn you now that I’m not a professional writer in any way.  I hated having to write school papers.  I plan on writing conversationally as thoughts come to me.  I promise to do my best to catch any obvious errors!

 

 

Until next time...Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?

 

 

Zach