Counting my carbs (for the day anyway)

It's full-on bathing suit season and what have I done to get trim? Ummm, yeah. Pretty much nothing save for a few sporadic power walks through the neighborhood and some scant yoga classes up the street. All of a sudden I've hit mid-summer and feel the need to shed a few pounds. Reason for this? Oh you know... I went to the beach a couple weekends ago and a bathing suit that once fit splendidly felt like I was wearing tight pink (polka-dotted) rubber bands.

So, with the knowledge that I must put my swim suit back on in the very near future, I decided to be a carb hater for the week. For Monday night dinner, I grilled a New York Strip on my indoor grill and served it with cauliflower mash and broiled tomatoes. In total, this meal probably didn't take me too much more than about 20 minutes to prep and cook.

Ingredients used:

1 medium strip steak
garlic powder
kosher salt
pepper
olive oil (I used extra virgin b/c that's what I had)
1 medium head of cauliflower
1/4 cup sharp cheddar cheese (I used Vermont Cracker Barrel)
1/4 sour cream (give or take)
2 - 3 pats of butter
splash of milk
2 cloves chopped garlic
fresh chives (usually found in small packages with other fresh herbs in the produce section)
1 vine ripened tomato

First: Cheesy Cauliflower Mash

1. Bring a medium-sized pot of water to a boil.

2. While the water is heating up, cut up your head of cauliflower into small pieces. Do this whatever way is easiest for you -- we're not trying to leave these as pretty little florets - they will later be pulverized in a food processor or mashed with a masher -- so, just take a sharp knife and cut off the green part at the base of the cauliflower and then cut out the florets (each little tree). I cut the stems of each floret nearly off and for the bigger florets, I halved them.

2. When your water is boiling, drop in a teaspoon or so of salt and add your cauliflower to the pot. Boil until tender - I did this for 6 minutes.

3. Drain your cauliflower. In a food processor or large bowl, add your cauliflower, garlic, sour cream, cheddar cheese, milk. Blend or mash. (I have a small little food processor, so I did this in a couple batches.)

4. Add salt and pepper to taste. Transfer back to a pot and keep on low to keep warm.

5. Top with fresh chopped chives before serving.

Notes: Basically, I doctored up this cauliflower much like I would a potato and was quite pleased with the result. Only thing I would say is, take it easy on the milk. My mash turned out a teensie bit runnier than I would have liked and that's probably because I added too much milk. When in doubt, add small amounts of things at a time, mix and taste until the mash reaches the consistency and texture you want.

Second: Indoor Grilled Steak

1. Preheat a grill pan or electric indoor grill to medium-high heat. This shouldn't really take longer than a few minutes. If you don't have either item, a large frying pan should do -- you just won't have the nice grill marks. (If we weren't experiencing an unbearable heat wave this week, I would have pulled out my charcoal grill outside!)

2. Season your Strip. This is a must. While you could use a fancy grill seasoning mix, my three "go to" ingredients for steak (and pretty much anything I grill) are: garlic powder, kosher salt, and pepper. I would also recommend brushing a little olive oil on each side of your steak to keep from sticking. After you brush (or drizzle) on the oil, gently add your seasoning to each side of the steak. Don't go nuts on spices, but use enough so that the top of the steak looks well "sprinkled."

3. Place your steak on the grill (pan). Go five to six minutes per side to end up with a medium-done steak. If you're looking for medium-well to well-done, I'm not sure we can ever be friends, but if you insist, I'd say grill 7 to 8 minutes per side. Go 3 to 4 minutes per side for a rarer steak.

4. Remove steak from grill and allow to rest -- about five minutes or so.

Notes: Hmmm, I touched on seasoning thing, so the only other thing I would say is, steak should only be flipped once! The more it gets handled, the tougher it becomes. Second, don't cut into your meat until you've given it a chance to rest. Your steak will keep cooking during that time and if you cut into it prematurely, all the nice juices that make your steak moist and delish will just run out all over your plate!

Third: Broiled Tomatoes

1. Remove your broil pan from the oven and preheat the oven at the broil setting. If your broiler is in the main oven, make sure your rack is placed close to the top of the oven.

2. Coat top of broil pan with a sheet of aluminum wrap. (Cuts down on the mess afterwards.)

3. Rinse and dry one tomato. Using a small serrated knife, cut off the top of your tomato (discard) and then cut the remainder into slices (maybe a 1/4 of an inch thick?).

4. Place tomatoes on the broiling pan and drizzle a little bit of olive oil on each one. Season with salt and pepper. (I also added a little garlic powder to mine, but you don't have to. You could also sprinkle some grated Parmesan cheese over the top if you had it.)

5. Set pan under the broiler for 3 to 4 minutes or until the tomatoes look softened and the skin around the edges has crinkled up a bit. (If you've added Parmesan to the top, you'll know it's done when the cheese has browned slightly and starts to bubble.)

6. Remove and serve immediately.

Okay, so the pic isn't glamorous, but everything was darn tasty!

Shrimp, take two.

Yesterday, I decided I would try again on a shrimp dish for one. Thankfully this one turned out quite good. The following is a slight adaptation of a recipe I found on the Food Network (it won't be the last one you see here) of Nigella Lawson's "Shrimp with Garlic and Chili Pepper." The only thing I changed was the use of a fresh red chili. I substituted dried red pepper flakes since the grocery store was out of red chilies. I'm pretty sure it turned out just as good.

Spicy Garlic Shrimp for One

Cook time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 fresh red chili, minced OR 1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper flakes
2 - 3 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 pound unshelled medium shrimp
1/2 cup white wine
Salt to taste
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves

1. Pour olive oil into a wide, heavy-bottomed frying pan. Then add the chili flakes and garlic and, over moderate to low heat, fry for two minutes, stirring all the time.

2. Turn heat to high, add the shrimp, and fry for another two minutes or until they turn pink and are just cooked.

3. Pour in the white wine and let it bubble up about one more minute or so.

4. Season with salt, then turn into your bowl (hell, you can eat this right of the pan if you want to), and sprinkle with fresh parsley. Eat with a few hunks of baguette -- half the enjoyment of a dish like this is dipping your bread in the sauce!


Suggested accompaniments for this dish:
French Baguette
Fresh ear of corn
Mixed greens salad with goat cheese, pine nuts and tomatoes with Paul Newman's Basalmic Vinaigrette

NOTES: Points of interest, that may or may not be useful... (probably more so to those that don't cook much, and less so to those that do.)

Parsley. I've heard several chefs/cooks attest to the fact that Italian flat leaf parsley is better than curly leaf. While I am inclined to agree with this, if curly leaf is what you have in the fridge, use what you got. The difference in taste is minor and in a dish like this, we're mainly going for the fresh green color to brighten things up.

Wine. I used an inexpensive Sauvignon Blanc (RH Phillips on sale for $9.99). As Ina Garten from Barefoot Contessa would say, don't cook with any wine you wouldn't mind drinking. I'm not particularly picky in this category -- my budget won't allow for it at this point in my life! Any dry white wine will do.

Garlic. If dealing with a fresh head of garlic is not something you're accustomed to, pick up a small jar of pre-chopped garlic. These can usually be found somewhere in the produce section of your grocery store. If my memory serves me right, 1/2 teaspoon = 1 fresh clove of garlic. Buying the jar is obviously more expensive than buying a head (say like $3 vs. $1), but it does save a little prep time.

Shrimp. I like to buy the "easy peel" shrimp if they are available. This means the guy behind the fish counter has already taken care of de-veining the little buggers (shells are still on, which is what you want). That said, I've eaten plenty of shrimp in my day that was not de-veined and have been just fine, so go with whatever is available.

Salt. When I cook, I like to use kosher salt because it has a little more flavor, but again, use what you have on hand.

What did this meal cost me?
1/2 pound shrimp: $4.87
wine: $9.99
baguette: $.99
corn: $.25
tomatoes (bought two): $2.83
goat cheese: $3.99
spring mixed greens: $2.50
Total: $25.42

(Items I didn't need to purchase: garlic, olive oil, pine nuts)

Obviously, any time you add alcohol to the mix, it's going to up your grocery bill, but if you don't drink the bottle down in one evening, you'll be able to enjoy a glass here or there for the rest of the week. Same goes for salad ingredients.

Fire drills and shrimp recipes gone bust...

Okay, so Monday night I got all geared up to cook for myself in an effort to have material for my very first blog post on The Lonely Chef. I decided I'd go with a tried and true recipe that I love for Barbecued Shrimp from Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen cookbook, and ventured to my neighborhood Whole Foods.

Half way through my ingredient gathering, the fire alarm went off in the grocery store. Now, I'm pretty sure most people in the store were thinking what is this a joke?, but it turned out to be a real deal fire drill and everyone had to evacuate. Annoyed, I left my cart by the bananas in the produce section and walked outside to stand with the other 300-or-so, irritated shoppers in the hot parking lot. Two fire trucks and 15 minutes later, we were let back in to continue with our shopping...

Long story short, I should have taken this disconcerting event as a bad omen and gone home without my groceries, waited a day and tried again, but no. I went home with my groceries and nearly charred my shrimp -- something I have NEVER done with this recipe! (Sigh.) In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the reason the shrimp turned out a little crispy is because I halved the recipe since I was just cooking for me. Here's where the lesson comes in: Cutting a recipe in half does not necessarily yield the best result. Then again, half of getting good as a cook is experimenting until you find what works. That's sort of what this blog is about. Sort of. All this to say, next time, even if I reduce the amount of shrimp in this recipe, I will keep the liquid the same and all should be good.