It's What's For Dinner

Posted by The Husband @ 5:28 PM

As most husbands are wont to do when the weather turns nice, I recently dusted off the grill from its time in storage (the biggest downside of condo living: laws against grills on porches). To kick off the true grilling season -- winter may find me tossing something onto the fire on decent days -- I started with this:

Mushroom & Horseradish Stuffed Steaks

For the steak I chose a couple of gorgeous dry-aged New York strips. The stuffing itself consists of:

• 1.5 cups sliced fresh mushrooms (regular buttons will do)
• 0.5 cup chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tblsp butter
• 2 tblsp prepared horseradish
• Salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce

Toss the 'shrooms, onion, garlic and butter into a saucepan and cook until the onions are tender. Then add in the horsey-sauce, with salt and pepper to taste. I added the Worcestershire at this point, though you could save it for more of a sauce at the end by melting a bit more butter and combining the two towards the end.

For the steaks, the usual fat-trimming comes first. Then choose a side to slit open, opening it up more than halfway. What you want is a pocket deep enough to hold stuffing, but still enough connection to hold together well for flipping. (You'll note from the picture that I ended up using toothpicks to keep the pocket closed. Just remember to remove them before eating!)

While I tend to use a lot of charcoal, we actually picked up some wood-chunks (not the kind to smoke meat with). I wasn't sure how hot these get or how they last, so I ended up having a hotter fire than I wanted, but the goal is to have about medium heat. Place directly over the heat source, flipping only once, and keeping it on each side for around 10 minutes for medium-rare, up to 14 minutes for closer to well done.

We served this with potatoes and salad. Turned out absolutely wonderfully. The meat was tender, juicy, and had a nice tang from the horseradish. Paired with a bottle of 2003 Trefethen Cabernet Sauvignon it turned out to be one of the better things to come off my grill.

Cheese and more cheese...

Posted by Kathryn @ 9:10 AM

So my good friend Toni turned me on to this recipe. It is completely delicious and rather addictive. The cream cheese gives it a cheesecake like flavor, but a texture that my husband adores. He is crazy for pound cake... I have to hide it or freeze it to make sure that it sticks around for guests.

CREAM CHEESE POUND CAKE

1 cup margarine (2 sticks)
½ cup butter softened
1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
3 cups sugar
Dash of salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. lemon extract
6 large eggs
3 cups sifted all purpose flour

Cream together margarine, butter, cream cheese and sugar. Add salt and flavorings. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add flour and mix well. Pour batter into a greased and sugared (using flour works too) 10-inch tube or bundt pan. Place pan in a COLD oven. Set temperature for 325 degrees. Bake for 1-1/2 hours or until done. Cool in pan.

I ended up putting it in two loaf pans because I threw out my bundt pan after the last three cakes stuck so badly they could not be presented to those outside of the immediate family... it worked just fine. It is better on the underbaked side than overbaked, so if you feel like you should take it out... go with it... it will be fine. The crust is absolutely heavenly... especially if you sugar the pan.. I swear Toni has been divinely inspired. I personally am not a huge lemon and cheese fan, so I may go with a different flavor in the future, but it does leave a nice bright flavor.