Stovetop Boeuf Bourguignon A Deux

I can't think of a meal that I remember preparing for the first time except Beef Bourguignon.  Amy and I had decided to spend some time cooking together in preparation for her leaving home to attend UConn, and we had decided to take on the signature recipe of Julia Child, Beef Bourguignon, most likely because it would allow us to use goofy impersonations of her voice while preparing the meal.

It took several weeks before we put our plan into action.  While grocery shopping at Ralph's, I came upon some lean, bright red stew beef on sale, and I called Amy to ask for the ingredients for Julia Child's recipe as I walked toward the produce area. 



Amy before graduating from high school in '09

When I was Amy's age, mobile phones were corded devices inside chauffeur-driven Rolls Royces owned exclusively by millionaires, and even then, having only seen them in movies, I doubted their real existence.  By 2009, iPhones had been around for two years, so I actually could have looked a recipe up on line myself if I had one, but I had an "old fashioned" cell phone that I only used in the most primitive way...to make phone calls...so I phoned Amy instead.
As she read the ingredients like onions, garlic, mushrooms, carrots and tomato paste, I put them in my shopping cart.  For some reason, Amy decided that a different recipe would be better for us to than Julia's, but the ingredients were essentially the same.

When I returned home, we started the projected three hour task that expanded to four hours of making Beef Bourguignon.  When Julie arrived home, she wondered what stank up the house, but we knew we had created a masterpiece.  From braising the beef to cooking down the chopped onions in olive oil into liquid form to peeling and cutting the carrots into rustic chunks to sampling Merlot from a goblet before pouring most of the bottle into the pot to crushing the garlic clove with the side of a carving knife to sauteeing the mushrooms in butter, it was a labor of love and joyful mess-making. 

When we tasted it, we confirmed we had truly created a masterpiece, though I don't believe anyone else actually confirmed that, despite the fact that we had prepared enough for Jay to sample the leftovers the next day when he stopped in for a visit.

With Amy and without her, I have made that dish several times since then, making various substitutions, including replacing the stew meet with chuck roast that I'd found on sale at Target on more than one occasion (making it more of an American pot roast dish than French gourmet fare).

I didn't plan to make Beef Bourguignon last week, but when drivers on Sepulveda wouldn't let me change lanes to get to the Hermosa Beach Ralph's where I planned to buy sale priced T-bone steaks I'd seen in their ad, I changed plans and turned left into Von's, where neither boneless, skinless chicken breasts nor steaks seemed to be good choices that day. There among the expensive or graying beef was lean, bright red stew meat very much like that which I bought a few summers ago. 

Even on our first effort at fine French cuisine, Amy and I had not put the Dutch oven into the stove to bake the Beef Bourguignon but rather cooked it all on the stovetop.  When Julie and I moved to Redondo Beach as empty nesters, the heavy, burnt-orange Dutch oven which had received heavy use and abuse for over 30 years was a casualty of downsizing, so the option of sticking my Teflon pot with insulated handles that may or may not be suitable for baking was no longer an option, if I wanted it to be.  Truth be told, I like fixing it all on the stovetop where I can see what's happening.

The evolved Boeuf Bourguignon A Deux recipe tastes better than the original to both Julie and me, and it certainly is much easier to perpare, though for best results it could probably simmer an extra hour beyond the two hours I used recently.

Coat the bottom of a pot in olive oil and heat on the stovetop set to medium, being sure to turn the vent fan on from the outset.

While it is still in the styrofoam tray, sprinkle the stew meat liberally with garlic salt, pepper and onion flakes, and then carfully pour the beef into the hot oil so that the seasoned side is down.  Yeah, that probably made some oil splatter on the stove, so wipe it up quickly with a paper towel.  You're going to need to clean the stove with spray cleaner when you finish cooking, but not yet.

Season the other side of the beef the same way and then use a cooking spoon to distribute the beef around the bottom of the pot.

Braise the beef for about six minutes on each side, then add a can (about 14 1/2 ounces) of beef broth.

Bring it to a boil, and then cover and reduce heat to simmer for an hour or two.

On a cutting board, cut baby carrots into smaller pieces, although you could actually just add baby carots whole instead.  If you want to have that extra aerobic workout and get a warm feeling from peeling carrots, which really doesn't take much time and is easy to clean up, you can peel one or two regular carrots and chop them into rustic sized chunks, but Julie prefers cut baby carrots, so that is how I make them these days.  After an hour or two, when the liquid should be considerably cooked down, you can add the carrots along with a third of a bottle of red wine, which in this case was cheap Pinot Noir, which I of course tasted from a goblet with a toast to French chefs everywhere.

Now you've already noticed that we eliminated cooking down the onions, and I also don't add small onions as recommended by Julia, so instead I cut a zucchini squash into half disks and add those for texture.  Do this after the carrots have cooked in for about ten minutes.



Cousin Bonnie, Wes, Mom and Uncle Bob in Santa Ana.

The mention of the zucchini makes me recall a stupid mistake I made as a teenager that upset Mom.  I had gone to John's Market to pick up fruit and vegetables, as I often did on Saturdays on my way home from going to the Orange Swap Meet with my Uncle Bob, who had recommended that store originally.  Mom had specifically asked me to buy zucchini that day, but I saw that cucumbers looked almost exactly like zucchini and were on sale for about a third the price, so I substituted cucumbers.  A quick phone call could have avoided this error, but these were primitive times before pocket cell phones when I would have had to find a pay phone, plus it would have cost me a dime at least.

Of course, Mom's Weight Watchers recipe did not call for cucumbers, and cucumbers can't substitute for zucchini in cooking, which is something that is obvious to me now.  At the time, I defended my decision as perfectly rational, which for some reason upset Mom.  It reminds me of discussions I now have with my own son (and yes, he is the one who would be saying cucumbers should be just as good as zucchinni because of blah blah blah).  It's one of those guilty pains I still carry around.

Then again, substituting does work in recipes, if you do it in a less idiotic way.  Rather than using a partial can of tomato paste, I just cut up a fresh Roma tomato into small pieces and cook that in with the zucchini. 

After another ten minutes or so, wash four large mushrooms and slice them on the cutting board.  Add those to the pot and simmer for another fifteen minutes or so.

Voilà!  Stovetop Boeuf Bourgignon A Deux!  French cuisine combined with American efficiency. I'm stayin'!

French Toast

This morning, I felt like having pancakes for breakfast, but it is hard to make an edible pancake that is low carb, so I decided to go with French Toast.

Eiffel Tower

Basically, French Toast is nutritionally like scrambled eggs and toast, plus cinnamon and sugar. Most people use some kind of fake maple or fruit syrup that is high in sugar. While genuine maple syrup is more natural, it is, like honey, in Atkins low-carb terms essentially the same as the sugary syrups. Sugar free syrup isn't as tasty as real maple syrup, but it tastes about the same as the ones made with sugar to me.

For Q-CC French Toast, start by cracking open a couple of eggs and putting them in a Teflon-coated frying pan as if you are making scrambled eggs.  Add a splash of milk and, without adding heat, scramble it all together. 

Take three pieces of Sara Lee Delightful Bread and put them into the scrambled eggs. After they've soaked for a few seconds, flip them over with the spatula and try to soak up the rest of the eggs.  Depending on the exact size of the eggs (or type of bread) you used, this should be about the right ratio of eggs to bread.  If not, make a note for next time about how to change the recipe for your ingredients.  In any case, if one piece of bread doesn't get quite saturated on both sides, don't worry about it.  It's still edible.

Sprinkle a lot of cinnamon and a gentle dusting of Splenda on one side, then flip the French toast over to repeat the process.  Wash the spatula to get the raw eggs off.

French Chateau

At this point, turn the range top on medium.  Note that because we have been preparing the French toast in the frying pan, we aren't cooking it in butter, which means it will be lower in fat and calories but also will lack that buttery flavor, so I suppose you could coat the French Toast with butter spray, but to me it tastes fine without it.  Then again, there is also sugar-free syrup with butter flavor as a less messy alternative solution for butter-lovers.

Because the pan isn't pre-heated, it will take a bit longer to cook the first side, so allow about two minutes, then flip it over.  You want any egg coating to be thoroughly cooked.  If it looks pretty done, then cook the other side for about a minute.  If not, when you've cooked the other side, flip it back over for a few seconds.  While you want the egg to be done, you don't want the French toast to be burnt.  I don't use a timer, but I can tell when it is ready.  So can you.  This doesn't require a degree in culinary arts or chemistry.

Plate the French toast.  I usually take one bite to test it, and if it seems done.  If it isn't quite done (actually, I've never had this occurence), then you can put the french toast back in the frying pan for a few seconds to finish cooking.  When it's done, add syrup or

Mom at age 77

When I was a little boy, my favorite pancake topping was Mom's homemade hot syrup.  I don't know how she made it, but I think it was basically sugar and maybe something like vanilla, or perhaps it involved Karo Light Syrup, which I know we always had in our pantry for cooking sweets like pecan pie. In any case, it is too high in sugar to attempt duplicating, but it deserves an honorable mention as something I always enjoyed.  I suppose you could probably heat any syrup, if you don't mind cleaning an extra sauce pan.
Perhaps you have this dilemma: you only have two pieces of bread or only want two pieces of French toast.  Well, make it the same way, but only use two pieces of bread.  The extra eggs will cook sort of like an omelette, and you can either eat them or throw them out.  One egg?  Deal with it by using only one or two pieces of bread.

Clean-up, of course, involves only washing the frying pan, which is extremely easy if you didn't use butter. along with the spatula, plate and fork.  The whole process from preparation to eating to cleaning up takes less time that ordering at most fast food restaurants during the morning rush, and you know exactly how healthy you've made it.

Q-CC Pulled Caribbean Jerk Chicken Sliders

Human Chain in Dunn's River, Jamaica

The first time I really thought about the Caribbean was in college, when a friend of mine put on a Bob Marley album.  The reggae trend was about to catch fire in the music scene, with artists like Elton John and Led Zeppelin heading to Jamaica to catch a bit of the fever in their songs, capturing the kicked back feel to the region rather than the politics of the lyrics.  Popular music continues to feel its influence.

St. John's Trunk Bay

The Caribbean is more than reggae.  It's also soft sand beaches and turquoise waters teeming with beautiful tropical fish and coral.  Overriding it all is that laid back feel that the rock stars recognized, but there's also some delicious food.

Fresh caught seafood at some improbable shack on an almost deserted beach like Smuggler's Cove is always great, but it's the barbecue scene at places like Iggie's at Bolongo Bay in St. Thomas that really capture the spice-rich tastes of the Caribbean.

As I have pointed out previously (and did I really need to point out the obvious?), I am not about re-creating the perfect dish as much as getting something essentially comparable on the plate with a lot less mess and in a way that makes it easy enough to actually be an alternative to eating fast food on a daily basis.

Gourmet cooks like my sister can undoubtedly make something that would win hands down in a taste test, but this is pretty good, simple to fix and easy to clean.

Amy and Wes overlooking Magen's Bay, St. Thomas

Boil two boneless, skinlesss chicken breasts over medium heat in a pot with enough water to cover the chickens for about 45 minutes to an hour. 

Carefully remove one breast at a time and put it in a bowl large enough that you don't splatter all over the counter.  Slice the chicken with the grain and then do your best to shred the smaller pieces.  After the first one is done, repeat the process on top of the other shredded chicken.  You should end up with a big bowl of shredded chicken breast. 

If you want to make soup as a side dish, you can throw some fresh cut or frozen vegetables into the water along with some salt, pepper and whatever seasonings you want to make soup, adding noodles or rice for a heartier, starchier dish.  As a reminder, linked here is how you can make soup and noodles (although hopefully you won't screw up the noodles like I did, if you go that route rather than simple packaged pasta).  Since this is a Caribbean meal, you would want to add some hot sauce and other spices like curry, garlic and cumin to make it irie right, mon.

Carpe Diem in St. Maarten

However, I just poured most of the water down the sink, because I only wanted to use one pot, and soup wasn't on the menu for Julie and me.  Earlier in the day, I had walked past Dickie's Open Pit Barbecue and decided I would like pulled pork for dinner but without paying $8.95 for a sandwich and a couple of starchy sides.  I had already bought chicken, so I substituted chicken for pork, which is how we got to the point where I left you with a bowl of shredded chicken.

Put the chicken back into the pot, which should have about a cup to two of water still in it.  If you are using the pot for your soup, then put the shredded chicken in a smaller sauce pan.  The large pot is really too big anyway for the amount of pulled chicken we're making, but why mess up a second pan if you don't have to?

Now Darlene or Emeril would undoubtedly have carefully measured spices and secret ingredients, but I have found Lawry's Caribbean Jerk Marinade is pretty jerkin' tasty for my purposes.  Stir in about a half cup  of marinade (you know how sweet you like your chicken) and then just let it simmer to cook down for a half hour to an hour, stirring occasionally to be sure it isn't burning.

To serve this pulled Caribbean jerk chicken, ideally you have King's Hawaiian Rolls, Francisco French Dinner Rolls, Sourdough Kaiser Rolls or some equivalently delicious dougheyness. Remember that the Caribbean combines the best flavors from all over the world, so any bread works, but for guests, make sure it isn't just flimsy sliced bread.

Wes and Julie at Margaritaville in Ocho Rios, Jamaica

At this point, however, I must make a confession.  I didn't actually make this exact dish.  First, you undoubtedly realize that our low carb approach means that Julie and I ate our pulled chicken on Sara Lee Delightful Bread, which tastes fine but lacks the structural integrity to support the wet, heavy load of pulled chicken, making it somewhat messy.  In addition, Julie doesn't like Caribbean jerk sauce, because she finds it too spicy, so I made the chicken with barbecue sauce instead.  Either way, it's delicious and easy to clean up after dinner. 

Turkey Taco Lasagmelette

Not a Famous French Food Critic

If you're like me, you frequently find yourself with assorted leftovers in the refrigerator.

A few days ago, I made ground turkey burritos for dinner.  Just as for Chicken Enchiladas, I used beef taco seasoning mix (in this case, Ortega, which tends to cook a little wetter and works better for turkey). I'm sure you can follow the instructions on the packet, although note that while ground turkey generally comes in 20 ounce packages, a package of taco seasoning that calls for a pound of ground beef works out fine. In fact, most taco seasonings seem to have a little too much seasoning for a pound of meat anyway. 

 The Biggest Loser endorses extra lean ground turkey, but for the usual price difference, 93% fat-free ground turkey is a much better value. It tends to cost less than 93% lean ground beef, and the taco seasoning makes the taste difference negligible. Ground turkey also seems to clean easier than beef.

Anyway, if you have some tortillas and grated cheese, you can figure out how to make burritos, adding refried beans if you want a more festive if flatulant fiesta, so I didn't bother to tell you how to fix that meal. 



4 Girls who are not Alexis: Paige, Sephanie, Amy and Rachel

In the frig, I also had a partial jar of Old World Style Ragu as well as sliced mushrooms, a half tomato, eggs and grated cheese, so I decided to make a variation of my world famous Lasgmelette, which world renowned food critic Alexis Alfano called "genius." Actually, I don't know if she used that exact word, and she's not a world famous food critic (in fact, I believe she was 13 years old at the time), but she did think the concept made sense as a low carb alternative to lasagna. The fact that she's an Italian whose mother presumably makes great Italian dishes validates her stamp of approval as well as any Michelin Star. 

As always, you can substitute other ingredients, like different veggies, bacon or ham, or you can leave it with just eggs, cheese and Ragu.  In fact, you can leave out the Ragu to magically transform this into a French dish, le omelette du fromage, but here's how you can re-create what I did a couple of times this week (yes, it was so good that I repeated the exact same recipe):



Laszlo, Gina and Elmo, but no Alfano.

Put two tablespoons of grated cheese and two eggs in a Teflon-coated frying pan, scrambling them together with a spatula as the pan heats over the burner set on medium. Quickly wash the spatula to use later to fold the lasagmelette.

After the eggs get a little firm, artfully add some turkey taco meat, mushrooms and sliced tomatoes.  You want a little in each bite.  You can cut the tomatoes over the top of the eggs rather than in a separate dish, but be careful not to cut yourself.

By the time you've finished adding the tomatoes, the eggs should be pretty firm.  Put Ragu on one half, and then put some grated cheese on the other half.

Jered and Jay simulating Michelin Star selection process.

Cook it about a half minute to a minute.  You should see the cheese starting to melt, and the outer edge of the Ragu may be bubbling.  Carefully fold the side with the cheese over the Ragu half. 

If the outside of the omelette is a nice golden brown, it's good to plate.  In fact, no matter what it looks like, most likely it is good to plate, as long as it folds.  If it is a little burned, it's not going to get any less cooked in the frying pan, but it is probably still edible.  Just make a mental note to either set the burner lower or not cook it as long the next time.

If it wasn't cooked long enough and fell apart as you tried to fold it over, then you may instead be making a form of the Greek dish moussaka by default.  Just scramble it all together until it looks done and plate it. 

One way or another, you will soon be enjoying some kind of French/Mexican/Italian and potentially Greek deliciousness for breakfast.

Pork Chops

Darlene and Wesley

When I was a little boy, I loved my mom's fried pork chops.  She would use a big old cast iron skillet that was bubbling with Crisco and drop in that meat with a handle.  The bone made eating a pork chop made it as fun to eat as a fried chicken leg.  Served with mashed potatoes and gravy, along with some sweet peas, and it was always a great meal.

Pork chops still make delicious meal, but I now buy them boneless and use a Teflon coated pan.  While that's okay, doing without the mashed potatoes is painful but necessary.  The other day my blood tests came back showing that my cholesterol and blood sugar levels are in acceptable ranges despite the fact that five years ago I stopped taking the Statins prescribed in the 1990s.  By cutting way back on my starches and sugars (Atkins-style), along with continuing an active lifestyle, I no longer have to take those pills that made my muscles ache a little.

The same recipe I use for pork chops can be used for cubed beef steak, but Smart & Final had 1-pound packages of beautiful Farmer John's thin-cut pork chops when I went shopping for something other than chicken for dinner a couple of days ago.

I prefer thin-cut pork chops, which usually cost more, but many chefs prefer thicker cuts.  As my sister used to say, "Wes likes the burned," and the thinner they are, the more done they get inside.

Coat the bottom of your frying pan with Pam Olive Oil Spray and put the pan on the range over medium heat, being sure the exhaust fan is blowing to avoid tripping your smoke detector.

Open the package of pork chops and liberally sprinkle with pepper and seasoned salt. 

Put the pork chops in the frying pan, seasoned side down, and then season the other side in the same manner.  About a pound of pork chops fills my frying pan (7 small, boneless chops total).

Throw away the packaging and wash your hands with anti-biotic soap. 

Set a timer for 7 minutes.

Take a broccoli crown and harvest the florets, washing them before putting them in a microwave-safe cooking bowl.  Julie prefers no stems, but of course with my level of cheapness, I include them on some pieces for me to eat.  Add a pat of butter and a tablespoon of water, cover with Cut-Rite Wax Paper and then set aside to heat later.

Go check your e-mail or do 25 pushups, or both.  When the timer goes off, turn over the pork chops and re-set the timer for another 7 minutes.  If the pork chops look too burned for your taste, you can cook them for less, but make sure they get totally done.  I'm convinced a lot of Jewish people are prohibited from eating pork to this day because Israelites in Abraham's time ate raw or undercooked pork and got sick.

When the timer goes off again, turn off the heat and put the pork chops on a plate. 

Put the broccoli in the microwave for two or three minutes.

Pour a cup of milk into the frying pan.  Add a dash of salt and pepper (I tend to like a lot of pepper, but Julie doesn't like much) along with a tablespoon or so of flour.  Turn the heat back on medium and stir the ingredients into a smooth mixture.  I like to add sliced mushrooms, which makes for a loverlier presentation while at the same time adding a few nutrients.

Serve the pork chops smothered in mushroom gravy with broccoli on the side for a healthy meal.

My daughter Amy, who used to help me cook pork chops when she lived at home, doesn't particularly like gravy, so for her we make a sweet, spicy relish.  Rather than doing some kind of carmelizing of berries and peppers in a mess-making ego-trip, we simply take Smucker's Simply Fruit jam and add a few drops of Tabasco Sauce.  If you don't want it spicy, you can simply use Simply Fruit.

Clean-up, once again, is a breeze.  For some reason, when you make gravy, it results in a much easier to wash frying pan after frying pork chops or chicken fried steak.

Bon appetit.  And, by the way, if you prefer to have a bone in your pork chop, or if that happens to be the way you find them at the butcher's counter, then bone appetit (I know, I know).

Leftovers Turning Japanese: Beef With Broccoli

I prefer cooking everything fresh, but frequently I find myself with leftovers in the refrigerator.

Such was the case after enjoying London Broil.  We had about a pound of beef that we didn't finish, so I cut it into small pieces and put it in Tupperware to use another day. 

Rather than my original plan to make barbecued beef sandwiches with the leftovers, I decided to make Beef With Broccoli, which turned out delicious and can be easily duplicated by you.

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a wok, and when it is hot enough to sizzle when you throw in a sample piece of beef, add one pound of diced leftover beef, spreading it around to brown it all.  Shake in some onion flakes.  By the way, you can use fresh beef, but you'll of course need to cook it longer.  If you are using pre-cooked London Broil as I was, you can add veggies as quickly as I could cut them.

Cut a half cup of carrots into small pieces and add those to the beef.

Cut a cup of florets from a broccoli crown.  Use two cups of broccoli, if you don't have many other vegetables.  Stir in the broccoli.

I also had zucchini, so I sliced that up into half disks a quarter inch thick, and stirred that in too.

Season liberally with seasoned salt and pepper

To be perfectly honest, that probably is plenty of vegetables for this dish, unless you prefer fresh onions cut into strands (as I said, Julie doesn't like the smell of fresh onions), but I basically like to use whatever vegetables I have on hand. You'll recognize the usual suspects.

Cut a small bunch of asparagus into three inch lengths and stir in the stem portions.

Cut a stalk of celery into small pieces and add those.

Slice four large mushrooms and stir those in.

Add 2 tablespoons of Lawry's Terriyaki Marinade. Stir it all together for a minute or so.

Finally, add the asparagus tops. These are rather delicate, so you always add them last and stir them in gently.

At this point, you can cover and simmer for a few minutes if the veggies haven't had time to cook thoroughly. Often, I cover it and turn off the heat, because I tend to cook in anticipation of eating later.

Note that while the London Broil was made with Mesquite Marinade, it worked perfectly well with this teriyaki flavored dish.  I have found this to be true for even something like Santa Maria flavored tri-tip, which would seem to be totally contrary in flavor.  If anything, it all works together to enhance the overall dish.

Clean-up is again a breeze.  Just wash the wok with soap and water.

London Broil

Cheerio!

What say we pop across the pond to see what's cooking in jolly old England with a London Broil?

Nice that it may be to visit the Queen's realm, that won't be necessary, or even wise. 

London Broil, you see, is actually a North American dish, and the name most likely was coined to make a cheaper cut of beef seem a bit classier.  Oh you yanks!

Enough to put the old noggin on the toboggan, what?

Whilst not being marbled with fat may indeed make it less desirable to most Beefeaters, including those not wearing funny hats, this lean meat, when cooked properly, can be quite tasty.

Whereas the London tag may mislead a few chaps, the clue of how to cook London Broil couldn't be more clear: broil it!

In the morning, pick a nice flat cut of London Broil (sometimes called flank steak), ideally about 1 1/2 inches thick and maybe 2 pounds in weight, at your favorite butcher shop or grocery store.  It will most likely appear quite lean, except for a knot of fat that will be essentially inedible.  I only buy this cut of beef when it is on sale, since that occurs regularly.

Open the package and poke the beef repeatedly with a fork without removing it from the styrofoam tray.  Did I tell you to buy it and take it home?  Yes, you should buy it and take it home, or someone may believe you to be a bit off your chump.  I say, that should be plain as a pikestaff for anyone who's not daft as a brush, so let's get on with it, what?

Subsequent to poking it with a fork to the point where it resembles a cribbage board after imbibing six pints at the pub, and mind you this bit should all be happening 3 to 6 hours before broiling the London Broil, pour on your favorite marinade.  Julia Childs would undoubtedly tell you how to make a marinade from scratch with her annoying, faux-British voice, like some Monty Python sketch gone awry, but I say life is too short to reinvent the wheel.  Yesterday, I used Lawry's Mesquite Marinade, but Lea & Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce or some kind of terriyaki marinade will do nicely in a pinch.  Spread it around, possibly even poking the meat a few more times.  Season liberally with salt and pepper.

Now, lest you intend to do a Devon Loch, turn the London Broil over and repeat the process of poking, pouring and seasoning the other side.

Cover it with Saran Wrap and refrigerate it until you're about ready for dinner.

If a nod's as good as a wink, you can proceed to go about your business for the day like Richard Branson when he's not ballooning.

About a half hour before the dinner bell, put the top rack in your oven about 5 inches from the top.  I have a convection oven, on which I push a button called "Convection Broil" and the temperature automatically sets to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.  If you don''t have a convection oven, perhaps you have a button called "Broil."  I wouldn't recommend above 500 degrees if you live in an apartment, as it can get as smoky as London during a Gerry raid in WWII, if you over do it.

On a metal cookie sheet, make a rimmed cooking dish slightly larger than the London Broil out of triple thick aluminum foil.  With a bit of James Bond's luck, the tray will stop the juices from escaping and messing up the old cookie sheet (remember, always QC-C!).  Pour the meat from the marinating tray into the foil dish.  The marinating tray should have been the styrofoam one that you bought the meat in, so discard it posthaste.

Broil the beef for 7 minutes, which should make it generally brown with some black highlights on top.  Carefully take the tray out of the oven, turn the meat over, and broil the other side for 7 minutes.

If you overcook London Broil, it will be too tough, so remove it from the heat, cover it with foil, and let it rest for at least 7 minutes.

Move the beef over to a serving plate.  Cut out the knot of fat and discard it, saying in your best British accent, "You disgust me."  Now, all you have left is the lean beef.  Cut against the grain as thinly as you can. The London Broil should appear medium rare, meaning very pink but not bloody.  This is how most people like to eat it for maximum flavor and tenderness, but if you're like me, you like it a little more done.  Put about 1/3 pound of slices on your plate, cover it with wax paper and microwave it for 45 seconds.  This makes it just right for me.

Simple steamed broccoli, made by trimming off the stems and cooking the florets in a bowl with a tablespoon of water and a tablespoon of butter, is a delicious side dish that compliments the beef.

After dinner, throw away the aluminum foil cooking dish.  Put the other dishes in your dishwasher. 

I know you can do it.  Tally-ho!
 

Weiners and Sauerkraut

As hard as it may be for my children to believe, I grew up in a world where microwave ovens were uncommon.  Whereas leftovers today can be zapped a minute or two for a hot meal, when I was a kid, fast food was a frozen Mexican TV dinner in a foil tray that took about 45 minutes to heat up in the oven. 

After Thanksgiving, Mom and I would use leftovers to make 2 or 3 TV dinners in aluminum foil-topped pie pans and freeze them to enjoy later, each time re-heating them in the gas oven for close to an hour.  Even re-heating food from the refrigerator required heating up the oven or re-cooking it in a pan on the stove top.  Not so yesterday when I re-heated a plate of the delicious turkey and dressing Julie made fresh on Easter Sunday.  In the microwave, a minute and a half made the turkey and stuffing temperature suitable for Goldilocks.

Mr. Moose

Similarly, hot dogs take 45 seconds or less to nuke.  When my son Jay was a little guy, a hot dog was one of his favorite foods, whether in a bun or cut into small pieces as "dunky dogs" to be dipped in ketchup.  With a microwave, it couldn't get much easier to fix a meal.  Just add a glass of moosey juice (combination of fruit juice and 7 Up), and Jay was able to eat while watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers from the kitchen counter in Oceanside.

When I was a little boy, it was a different story.  Hot dogs meant my Mom had to boil water in a pan for about ten or fifteen minutes.  And if you've ever tried them, you'll probably agree that boiled hot dogs aren't as good as microwaved weiners.  However, when Mom added some sweetened sauerkraut to that boiling water and hot dogs, that was a real treat.

The recipe is easy, and while it takes longer than microwaving weiners, it is worth the time and trouble.

Put a can (14 1/2 ounces or so) of sauerkraut into a medium pan.  Add about three cups of water (I've been leary about not having enough water since my noodles fiasco), and then a package of whatever brand and type of hot dogs you like.  Today, I used Bar-S, which my dad's friend Horserace Charlie, a butcher, used to serve at his barbecues (and at $1.88 the package only cost a few cents more than the super cheap-o brand).  The secret ingredient in this recipe is: 1/4 cup of Splenda Granulated. Actually, the way Mom made it, which did taste better, was with brown sugar instead of zero calorie fake sugar, but I try to avoid real sugar, as you may have noticed.  With all the ingredients mixed together, just bring them to a boil on the stove top and cook them in some combination of boiling or simmering, uncovered or covered, for about 30 minutes.  I don't want you to be too stressed about getting this exactly right, as it seems to taste good regardless. 

When I was a kid, I used to like to soak pieces of bread on my plate with sauerkraut and the sweetened juice to eat with a fork even if the hot dogs were all gone, a rare case of me as a kid going out of my way to eat a vegetable. 

Now if you have a more sophisticated palate, or if you just happened to catch a good sale, then using bratwurst, knockwurst or a sausage of your choice, definitely adds an extra dimension of flavor and texture, but you probably should cook them an extra fifteen minutes at least.  Children often prefer plain old hot dogs, and there are usually some weiners on sale somewhere. By the way, the Bar-S weiners were delicious today. 

Clean-up is extremely easy.  Just soap and water.  Put the leftovers in Tupperware and you can microwave a snack or meal later.

By the way, sauerkraut seems to be very healthy.  As my dad used to say, it will clean you right out.