Italian Marinated Steak with White Wine and Garlic Butter Cream Sauce

A favorite here at home is a good, hearty, steak and potato meal. This is no exception. Very easy to cook and a quick 30 minute fix. The marination process is very easy. 2 steaks in a plastic bag with italian salad dressing. Put the steaks on a hot skillet and begin cooking on medium high heat. I happen to like my steak medium rare to medium so add time if you need to. Cook steaks about 4 minutes on each side and remove. In the same pan, add a stick of butter, and melt until slightly brown. Add 1/4 cup of a dry white wine and stop the browning process of the butter. Add about 2 tbsp of minced garlic into mixture and a dash of soy sauce for saltiness. Mix until garlic starts to turn brown and remove from heat. Wait one minute and add 1/2 cup of heavy cream into pan and mix while the sauce is cooling down. Let stand for 2-3 minutes before pouring over steaks. Sauce should be a light beige color. I served this one with home cut oven fries with rosemary and garlic salt. A great beer for this recipe is a good crisp lager (Yeungling, Peroni, or Labatt Blue are some good ones to get).

The Succotash Salsa Sausage Burger

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Hey everyone. I happen to surprise myself sometimes when I'm given some really strange ingredients. I have to credit my wife on this one though. She came up with the thought of mixing southern cuisine with meican ideals. What came out of it was a pretty spicy burger. Its ground pork with just about the whole arsenal of spices and herbs I could throw at it, then topped with a succotash salsa. The flavor was way intense and extremely spicy, but if that is something you like,you will love these things. Here are the ingredients that you will need.

1 lb ground pork
Italian seasoning
Garlic powder
Black pepper
Red pepper flake
onion salt
celery salt
Chili powder
Ground cumin
Kosher salt
Creole seasoning
1 can of succotash
1 can of rotel tomatoes with green chillis

Put pork in a mixing bowl with a mix of all the spices that are listed above, mix with hands, and form into 4 burgers. Place in a preheated oiled skillet and begin browning. While the sausage you just made is cooking your going to mix the can of succotash and rotel tomatoes together on medium heat and make the southern inspired succotash salsa. Once first side of patties are done flip and place on some slices of monterrey jack cheese. After the salsa cooks for about 5 minutes, remove salsa from heat. Place burgers on buns and top with the salsa. Very simple to cook and takes very little time. We had a bag of tortilla chips that we topped with some of the salsa. A really cold Dos Equis is great to wash this one down. Southern and mexican flavors combined with some good beer equals a pretty good meal. And get some extra napkins ready because these burgers have a pretty good kick and your nose and eyes will run. Enjoy!!

The Steak House Turkey Burger

Here is another addition to my recipe wonderment that I'm slowly trying to build. I'm going to call the Steak House Turkey Burger. It is sweet, smoky, and all together tasty. You have lots of choices to do with what you put onto them but I will leave it as I fixed them and you can experiment to do them up the way you like them.

1.3 lbs of Ground Turkey 85/15 Ratio (makes 4 burgers)
Heinz 57 with Worcestershire Sauce
1 packet of Taco Seasoning
Italian Seasoning
Bread Crumbs
Garlic Powder
Paprika
Black Pepper
Minced Garlic
Sliced Mushrooms
Worcestershire Sauce
Steak Sauce
Pepper Jack Cheese
4 Hamburger Rolls

This is a very easy recipe to accomplish and takes actually more prep time than cook time. Just make sure that you cook them through all the way as it is poultry. It will make you very sick if you don't cook them through. Heat up a skillet and drizzle in some Extra Virgin Olive Oil. While that heats you are going to put the meat into a mixing bowl and mix in about 3 tbsp of the Heinz 57 with Worcestershire, taco seasoning, black pepper, Italian Seasoning and a half cup of bread crumbs to tie together. Mix together with hands, form 4 burgers, and you're going to make a spice mixture of garlic powder, black pepper, and paprika. Sprinkle this onto all of the patties and place spiced side down in oiled skillet on medium heat. Heat these on one side and spice the uncooked side while in the pan. Cook on 1st side for 7-8 minutes and flip them to the other side. Cook on second side for 4-5 minutes and put cheese on them. When cheese is slightly melted, remove from heat and let rest. Add 1/4 stick of butter in pan and toss in 1 small package of sliced mushrooms and brown them up. Once slightly browned put in 3 dashes of Worcestershire Sauce, and coat them down. Add 1 tbsp of Garlic into pan and let the garlic brown slightly (should take about a minute). Place a spoonful of mushrooms and garlic on each burger and you just need to build the burger. Place burger on bottom of bun and drizzle on the steak sauce and you are done. This is a great burger to compliment the want on a lighter meal. Turkey doesn't nearly linger on you like red meat so it is much easier to eat and not feel like a glutton for eating it. They go great with potato anything and veggies are easy to link to the flavors. Try pairing this one with an amber lager or other smoky beer to go with these. A good wine would be a Cotes du Rhone or not so dry red. Thanks for reading and enjoy.

BBQ Bacon Cheeseburgers

Here is an idea I got from working at a place that was my income for a long time. Rafferty's gave me a lot of ideas that I took and ran with. Some for the better and some flopped but I can make some mean fried mushrooms and I can make one hell of a bbq bacon burger. Another thing that I learned from many attempts at trying to recreate the magic of this burger and putting a hit spin on it, I realized that there was no way that I could do this right unless I used rendered fat. Yes the sound of the Theramin starts ringing in your ear and you feel ominous in some way. I said rendered fat. The thing that you always thought was taboo and evil and in some ways it is. Using rendered fat and grease will send your taste buds into euphoria and put you on cloud nine. The secret behind the flavor of this burger is use of bacon grease on the onions. As for the burger there is nothing really crazy about it other than the seasoning in and on the meat. I'll list the things you'll need but other than using a hot grill and a frying pan for the onions, there really are no tricks to the building of it.

2 lb of 80/20 ground chuck
1 medium size sweet yellow onion.
8 slices of bacon
BBQ Sauce
Dijon Mustard
Worcestershire Sauce
Italian Bread Crumbs
1 Large Egg
4 slices of Smoked Cheddar Cheese
Hot Sauce
Salt
Black Pepper
Celery Salt
Garlic Powder
White Pepper
Italian Seasoning
White Pepper
Creole Seasoning

Put Meat in a bowl with a 1/2 cup of Worcestershire Sauce, 3 tbsp of Dijon Mustard, 4 dashes of hot sauce, 1/2 cup of bread crumbs, and 1 large egg. Mix this together with your hands. If you don't like getting messy you can wear gloves. When you mix everything together, you're going to make 4 rather large 1/2 pound burgers. Place burgers on a plate and your going to mix the other spices left above into a small baggie. 2 tbsp of italian seasoning and creole seasoning and tsp portions of everything else. Mix seasoning vigorously in baggie and cover burgers in plate with 1/2 of spice mixture. Place burgers on the grill seasoning side down for 7-8 minutes and cover other side of meat with the other half of seasoning rub mix while the other side cooks. Flip the meat and cook for another 5 minutes the burgers are going to basically be done. Remove from the heat for a little bit and the burgers will continue to cook as the juices in the meat will settle back and back into the burgers. Do not squeeze the burgers at all, and I mean ever before eating. Don't press them on the grill and do not ever squeeze them. You also only ever want to flip them once. Now for the other thing. Frying the bacon and onion. You want to fry up the bacon until crispy and remove it and throw in the sliced onion into the rendered grease. Don't think about it, just do it. Fry the onions until they become slightly transparent and are pliable. Place the burgers on a cookie sheet, put 2 slices of bacon on each, split the onions between them, put 1 tbsp of bbq sauce on each burger and then put on the slice of cheese. Place in oven on broil long enough to melt the cheese and then remove. Toast 4 egg buns or sesame rolls and put a little bit of bbq sauce on them as well and place the burgers on the buns. What you have is a work of pure art. These things will make a sane person want to smack someone in the face. They are just that good.

Oven Smoked Pork Butt in a Cheerwine infused BBQ Sauce

Ok...First of all, don't be alarmed by the sound of this because you all know what sweet and sour sauce tastes like. It is sweet and sour sauce with a spicy kick. Now that you feel a little at ease about this then lets talk about some food. I watch The Food Network religiously and something that I've seen a lot of is smoking meat in an oven. Yes smoking meat indoors is possible and it works great. Living life in an apartment again has gotten me back to using some really weird tactics to cooking stuff that I love. I can't just go out onto the porch anymore and smoke meat like I used to. So I got a cheap pan from the dollar store, put some wet wood chips in there, and placed the pan one level down from the butt in the oven. Rather simple and it worked out very well. I got the idea of using Cheerwine from the advent of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts coming out with their Cheerwine cream filled doughnuts. I said to myself, self, I'm gonna make some bbq sauce with some Cheerwine in it. So I used my normal base except for using a little spicier mustard and red wine vinegar instead of the apple cider vinegar. First I'll tell you how to make the sauce then I'll describe the smoking technique. Here are the things you need.

Ketchup
Dijon Mustard
Worcestershire Sauce
Red Wine Vinegar
Cheerwine
White Sugar
Kosher Salt
White Pepper
Garlic Powder
Cayenne Pepper

1 3lb Boston Butt Pork Roast
Cracked Black Pepper
Italian Seasoning
Creole Seasoning
3 cups of wood chips (I like Mesquite but Hickory is always good to use)
6 cups of water
1 cheap dollar store aluminum roasting or lasagna pan.

First you're going to set your roast in to smoke in the oven. First things first. In the pan you're going to put your 3 cups of wood chips into the pan and soak in the 6 cups of water for about 20 minutes. While the chips are soaking go ahead and rub the meat with the combo of Italian Seasoning, fresh cracked black pepper, and creole seasoning. Set the racks of the oven so that the top rack can fit the roast in the middle of the oven and the bottom rack will be on the bottom so that the chips can sit about 6 inches below the roast. Preheat to 325 degrees. Drain the water after the chips have soaked put into the oven and then put the roast over the pan so that the fat may drip onto the meat.You'll want to put the fat side up so that the fat can drip down through the meat and keep it moist while smoking and the direct smoke can begin forming a bark on the outside of the pork butt. Smoke the roast in the oven for 2 hours and then reduce the heat to 275 for 2 hours.

Now it is time for the sauce. If you are using soda you will use very little sugar as the soda is a sugary substance. Start by putting a small saucepan over medium low heat and adding in about 2 cups of ketchup, 1/2 cup of Dijon mustard, and 1/4 cup each of Worcestershire sauce, and red wine vinegar. Start wisking and bringing the heat up gradually. Go ahead and add a cup of Cheerwine or other cherry soda and continue wisking. Add teaspoons at a time of sugar to thicken slightly as this sauce is going to be a sort of mopping sauce. Very good with flavor but sticky enough to stick to meat. Once the mixture is simmering and you can see some bubbling add the spices (kosher salt, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and white pepper). Mix in the spices and let simmer for another 30 minutes or so and you will turn off the heat and set the sauce aside.

Once meat is done you will want to take the roast out with two forks and place in a dish or pan. Let it set and continue to cook during rest for about 10-15 minutes and then you want to start tearing the meat apart. It will fall apart and fall off of the blade of the bone in the meat and be like regular pulled pork. Pour the sauce over the meat and mix and toss all of the roast in the sauce. Serve with some of your favorite sides. I had baked potatoes and my spicy baked beans with mine which the beans are on the blog. Hope you enjoy it if you try it out.