April 23, 2021

Happy Friday. I made it through Thursday at work unscathed however, the car fire on my way home extended my stress level for an extra thirty minutes. S what did I do first thing when I got home? Yes, I opened a beer, turned on some music and started cooking. I did this all just before Jennifer walked through the door chatting on her phone to our wonderful friend Nancy. Now I know most people would read that very sarcastically but the truth is Nancy is indeed a very sweet woman. The kind of friend who bakes Hamentashen for Purim and leaves them on your doorstep. This while being in stuck in isolation because of COVID-19. Now if you don’t know what Hamentashen is don’t be surprised, neither did I at first. In the simplest of terms it a yummy cookie eaten during Purim. I will get us the recipe… Shhhh.

So last night was Pan Seared Sirloin. I began by marinating it and putting two potatoes in the oven to bake. As I waited and cooked the other dishes, the steak soaked up the flavors of the teriyaki. I kept busy by slicing up three onions and frying them up in the pan, as I was going to make the steak. It dawned on me that I had mushrooms I had forgotten to make this weekend when our friends came over.  I cooked the onions separate from the mushrooms (Jennifer is not a big fan of mushrooms), but I imagine that if you were to cook the mushrooms and the onions together there would be a fantastic amalgamation of flavor. Here is the recipe for Peppers, Mushrooms and Onions. Although Jennifer does not eat them she makes a great stuffed mushroom on Thanksgiving. Go figure?

As the mushrooms cooked and I tossed them in a bit of butter. I trimmed the ends off some fresh string beans. These too were also left uncooked form the weekend. We might as well have a vegetable tonight, right? They went right into a small pot I had with boiling water, in a process called blanching.

Time to cook the steak! I dried it off, because as we all know a wet steak won’t turn brown even when added to a hot pan with oil. It steams on the juices then. It does not look as pretty when does. I never thought I would ever be calling a steak pretty. Hmmm, maybe appetizing word be a better word here.

I seared the steak on both sides and placed it under the broiler on the oven to finched. It came out medium rare. I gave Jennifer the end cut as she like her meat a little bit more well done.

When the steak reached a temperature of 135 degrees, I moved it from the pan to a plate. I let it rest a bit on a plate before I sliced it up. I served it with some of the teriyaki marinated I used to deglaze the pan with alongside the potato with butter, string beans, onions and mushrooms. Jennifer did like the string beans although I have to admit they needed to cook one more minute. They tasted a little too “green” to me.

Another successful meal behind me and one day closer to cooking things from my recipe book. I have to be honest I’m not quite sure how I’m going to handle that yet. It’s just a lot of recipes and they are just organized in a large five hundred page word document alphabetically. My second book is more of a cookbook but I only just started writing that (only two recipes in). Somehow, I have to find a way to combine the tow of them here and present them to you all.

That’s the real challenge isn’t it? It will be the daily showing of a brand new cookbook as its written in 365 days. Can it be done by an amateur like myself?

© Russ Ahrens and The Magic of a Perfect Pairing,2021

I woke up at my usual 5:30am and the first thing I made coffee was coffee. Yes, I make coffee. I have tried those “pods” and have not found one that I like. They remind me of an old sci-fi movie. “The pods are coming! The pods are coming!” I digress. It’s early and I have not had my coffee yet. We will have to cover the making of “Real” coffee later on this year in a breakfast blog.

Last night was a chicken entre’. Fried chicken cutlets to be more specific. I started by getting home and opening a bottle of beer.  Jennifer came home shortly after that. I put on some music while she watched TV.  I began with the chicken. It came from Trader Joes grocery store, which I love but this particular chicken is frozen by them and is individual culets in a zip top bag. I find this very convenient after working all day. This meant however thawing out the chicken carefully in the microwave. If you’re not careful how you thaw it out you get microwaved chicken and there is nothing worse than microwaved chicken. Well I suppose there is but I can’t think of it right now.

While the chicken was defrosting, I preheated the oven. After the chicken was defrosted if any of the edges get a little cooked, I trim them off and throw it away. Next, I beat two eggs in a shallow bowl and get out the flavored breadcrumbs. I trim off the little bit of fat that might remain on the cutlets and filet them in half or even thirds so they are thin. If I had more energy I would have even pounded them thinner with a meat mallet but it was Wednesday so that meant easy and quick.  

I dredged the chicken in the egg and then the breadcrumbs making sure to cover them completely so no wet egg was showing. Then as the vegetable oil was heating up in my favorite large All-Clad pan, the chicken rested. Helping to adhere its soon to be crunchy goodness to the chicken.

I fried them over medium high heat or medium heat. It’s critical that you don’t fry at too high a temp or you will burn the bread crumbs BEFORE the chicken has a chance to cook. Once they are a deep golden brown I move them onto a baking dish on paper towels and place them in the oven. This keeps them warm and they can finish cooking all the way through slowly.

While the chicken was in the oven, I was a good husband this time and made not one but two vegetables. The first was a large green squash or Zucchini. That I cut up into coins about a quarter inch wide. Make sure you cut things evenly. We will discuss that more much later on too I am sure. I cooked these in a second pan with a bit of the hot oil from the chicken. I seasoned them with garlic power, onion powder, salt and black pepper. Hey! Don’t judge, it’s a weekday day and I’m cooking! The second vegetable was baby spinach that Jennifer just did not not want in her salads anymore so I was cooking it in butter and added a clove of roasted garlic to it that I had left over from the weekend.

Jen said it all turned out yummy, particularly the vegetables. I was just happy she liked it. Neither of us like our vegetable cooked to within an inch of their life so after having my second beer with dinner and watching Jeopardy it was a good night.

© Russ Ahrens and The Magic of a Perfect Pairing, 2021

April 21, 2021

                I have been asked to write a second article; as if the first one wasn’t torturous enough. Now you want to come back for more? So, here it goes, but instead of randomly writing posts, I have decided to write every day. Since I eat every day and do most of my own cooking, I figured I could write about that. Who wants to read about that? But my dear reader, what is in it for you? My answer: FREE recipes from the cookbook I have been writing for 20 years now. Yes, FREE. I will post the recipes from my cookbook that I cook every night at the end of the post. This way at the end of one year, you should have every recipe in my cookbook and for FREE.

                I will start this wonderful or crazy adventure May 1, 2021. Only because I love spring and it’s my favorite time of year for starting new projects. Let us see just how long this one lasts. For now (the rest of April) I will see just how difficult it will be to write a blog post every day.

                Last night I was lazy, tired and not much in the mood for cooking. Crazy I know! I came up with the brilliant idea to make pasta (not fresh but from a box – let’s not get crazy!), although my wife Jennifer was not thrilled with the idea of having pasta again.  It’s quick, (unless you don’t have home spaghetti sauce already on hand, which is did) and it’s easy and it’s filling. Unfortunately, I have been rather lazy lately and my waistline shows it from all the pasta we have been eating. Hopefully this project will help me to eat better!

                I started by heating up the last three meatballs in the sauce in a small pot over med-low heat and put on a large pot of water that I added a teaspoon of salt too on to boil. I would love to say then I when in a watch the hallmark Channel but alas there were no sappy rom-coms while I waited. I have a fear of the sauce burning so instead I opened a beer, stirred the sauce with meatballs occasionally and waiting patiently for the water to boil.

                Once the water boiled I added the pasta (from the box) and set the timer so that pasta would come out al dente’. Just five before the pasta was done I turned down the sauce to low and placed the meatballs (one and half each on our plates. Then I added some butter, half-and-half and grated parmesan cheese. Sorry I was out of heavy cream. Sue me. I put the pasta on the plate. Poured a good amount of the sauce over the top and served it up.

                Did I make a salad? No, I made that for Jennifer for lunch already. Did I make a vegetable? No, I was just too lazy. See I should eat better. I’m a bad, bad home cook for not making a vegetable. Betty Crocker would be very upset with me. Okay I’ll do better tomorrow Betty.

                Its’ time to go to my real job.

© Russ Ahrens and The Magic of a Perfect Pairing, 2021