Saturday, September 17, 2011

New Cooking for Real Saturday!! Seeing Red

Hey there!! Happy Saturday! Is it wishful thinking that you are even up this early on a Saturday? I could be really organized and type this up at another time, but sometimes I like to wake up and write something fresh on the day I post it. I can count on 1 hand the times I've pre-written a blog post and then put it up when it worked for me. So anyway ... I'm up! Looks like it's gonna be a nice day in Brooklyn and I hope you start it off where you are by joining me for another episode of Cooking for Real.

This week I call it "Seeing Red". I've mentioned here before that it's really one of the neat things that comes along with having the show, I get to plan menus and even have fun with the titles. It's a very small part, naming the shows, but I get so much joy from it. Obviously the color red play a big part today...

Ok, here's the menu:
Radish Salad - When I started Cooking for Real a few years back, this was the only ingredient I really didn't favor. I mean, I would eat it, but I didn't look for it on the menu. It shamed me lol. I thought, how can I love food and have this thing in my way? So, I kept buying them and finding ways I liked them, radishes that is. I love them for crunch and texture in a soft taco and that got me thinking one day about making a radish salsa kinda, enter ... my Radish Salad. The pic is above. Tastes good today, even better tomorrow when the colors start to bleed!!

Ok, then to stay with the red theme, I marinate some red meat in red wine and red pomegranate juice then let cipollini onions soak up some of the red too in a recipe I call Red Wine and Pomegranate Hangar Steak with Cipollini Onions. I thought about this after a trip to Boston (my memory is bad, the city was actually Providence, RI and the spot was called Al Forno) for an event with a co-worker. His parents took us out for dinner and I had a steak with a charred molasses, red wine flavor. It was super charred lol and I loved it. Thing is, my steak here isn't charred because it's indoors, but feel free to char away, with discretion :-)
And cut it right! It's easy. Just look at the meat, see which way the muscles run and then across, perpendicular, against the grain or flow of the muscles. This helps it tear easier when you chew. Sounds so barbaric, huh? I know ... I love meat. Sorry to the vegans. I really am. There's nothing better than a steak sometimes. When I did this master cleanse diet a few years back, it took me months to get my steak craving back. It scared me! lol. Ok, here's a quick dessert you can whip together ... and I do mean "whip"...
It's my Strawberry Fool! It's so simple and I love the way if feels when you take a big scoop that's way too big for the capacity of your mouth. It's so smooth from the whip and sweet and tangy from the strawberries. It's also so simple I can't believe I haven't planned to share this recipe sooner. Sometimes things are so simple it's hard to even call them a recipe and that's how I feel about this. I mean, some berries, some honey, some heavy cream and a few other typical kitchen ingredients and there's some dessert on the table. Love it!! Hope you do too!!!

Cooking for Real!! Season 10 @ 1o!!! Today on Food Network and Monday at 3pm as well!!!

Tell a friend. It's natural to tell people when you don't like something, but if you do like something, it's sometimes hard to share ... share my recipes and share a smile with me!

1 comment:

Connie Moreno said...

Thanks to Sonic tweeting about your appearance at their conference, I found your blog. I've been a fan of your show for several years now. I love the way you cook - for real! I'll be following your blog now. Oh, and THANKS for the recipes!