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Howdy KKers! Here it is Tuesday evening and I found a package of NY Strips on sale at Sam's Club today. They followed me home! They were so dadgummed cute! Here is a pic of the NY Strip in its natural state ... Here is the NY Strip After the first turn ... Here is the Money Shot complete with Pete the Salt Pig Supervising ... A Money Shot with just a bit tighter view ... And finally, the aftermath ... These were MONSTER strips ... and I had to wave the white napkin. Oh well, lunch tomorrow will be droolicious! Thanks for looking!

Howdy KKers! Well, I was sitting around thinking about Wednesday evening's dinner and thought that I haven't used my Anova Sous Vide in q few weeks. Time to get the hot water to meet the NY Strips. The first thing I did was season the NY Strips with S&P, garlic, rosemary and thyme. Then it was time to seal them in a bag using the Food Saver vacuum packer. Here's a closer view hopefully showing the spices on the meat. Prior to seasoning the NY Strips, I got the Sous Vide controller set up and warming the water to 125F. My Sous Vide is set to keep the water at 125F for 4 hours. Here is a picture of the NY Strips cooking away in the water at 125F. Tonight's sides are brussels sprouts seasoned with a kiss of garlic with a lite cheese sauce and sweet potatoes, Here they are in the belly of TheBeast. It's worth noting at this point that sweet potatoes are really a dense food. They need MUCH more time to cook at temp than brussels sprouts. Make certain you take that into account whenever you cook sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes do not bake at the same rate as regular white potatoes. Sweets are really more dense and take quite a bit longer. Our cooking temp this evening is 400F. As you can see my temp control skills are slipping. I just hate it when I do that! LOL!! Next comes the cheese sauce. it's nothing more than a blonde roux (just cook the raw dough taste out of the flour), spices, 1 cup of COLD milk, and a couple of cups of sharp cheddar. No big deal. A roux is a basic sauce and dead simple to make and then it serves as the basis for so many sauces. Dead simple ... that's what I like! Here is a plated shot of the final product when everything came together. I like my cheese sauce spicier than does SWMBOI, so I did the cayenne and black pepper workup on mine. We topped the Strips with a nice goat cheese with basil crumbles and the sweet potatoes just got kissed with butter, salt, and pepper. Couldn't be simpler and couldn't be tastier! In fact, it was so tasty, I almost forgot to show the inside of the steak was cooked to a perfect medium rare. Sorry I don't have a shot of the steaks searing in TheBeast. As the NY Strips were already at 125F, it was throw the steaks on TheBeast, wait a few seconds, turn, wait a few more, flip, and repeat. The Strips came out at a perfect 135F. Here's a picture of the steak cut open. I hope you can see the color of a perfectly done medium rare. Were it not for SWMBOI, this shot wouldn't have happened. This steak was so delicious, I literally forgot about taking pics! Sous Vide makes cooking steaks so easy. Just set the temp of the water bath just just below where you want to final temp to be (medium rare is 130-135F). The longer you cook at temp, the more tender the cut of meat will generally be. You also want to save the juices in the Sous Vide bag as they are simply wonderful poured over the steak. So this was a quick and simple cook. Steak were just to our liking and couldn't have been better! Thanks for looking in.

Well, yesterday was supposed to be the day that I spun some meat. However, technical difficulties prevented spinning meat until further notice. Rather than sulk, I decided to make yesterday evening's consolation prize worth truly enjoying. My motto has always been when life gives you lemons, grab a bottle of vodka and make some LeninAde! Tonight's menu consists of NY Strips, Baby Dutch Golden Potatoes, and Fresh Asparagus! SWMBOI and I had bacon and scrambled eggs with sautéed peppers and onion done on the griddle yesterday morning in the belly of TheBeast. So we had bacon grease left over; yes, we collect bacon grease and use it for cooking! Pork fat rules! Thank you Emeril! So I grab the griddle and I use the bacon fat to coat the potatoes. I love rubbing up potatoes with bacon grease. It's one of the small things that takes me back to my youth learn how to cook in my Mother's kitchen. Here are the small baby golds rubbed up, salted, peppered, dusted with granulated garlic, rosemary and thyme, and sprinkled with some parmesan cheese. They are ready for the belly of TheBeast. Next comes the asparagus. It too gets rubbed with s slight coating of bacon grease, salt and pepper. It's in a tray and ready to sit next to the potatoes. TheBeast hit about 375F and it's time for the potatoes to hit the heat. I've got half the heat deflector in the belly of TheBeast; that's just right for roasting potatoes and cooking some asparagus. And dadgummit, I don't have a single pic of the potatoes roasting in TheBeast! The potatoes take about an hour at 375F packed as they are. Here are the NY Strips seasoned with S&P, granulated garlic, and some chipotle pepper. Here is the asparagus on the indirect side and the NY Strips on the direct side. Temp on the direct side for this quick sear was 550F. Here is the end result of the cook before we jumped in with knife and fork. My dear friend, Pete the Salt Pig looks on approvingly as not pigs were involved in dinner tonight! The steaks were seared to a wonderfully delicious medium rare. And here is the end result about 30 minutes later! While I'm disappointed I didn't get to spin some meat yesterday for that evening's dinner, but this was a really nice consolation prize that was quick, easy, and very tasty. I'll spin that meat soon, but as long as I can entertain SWMBOI with a meal this good, I'm doing okay! Thanks for looking in!