Hmmm…we used to (every so often) get these pre-made at Trader Joe’s. They don’t seem to have them anymore which is just fine — they are very easy to make yourself! Give it a try! Plus, nothing says “I love you” like red meat and a bottle of wine! Grrrr!!!

Besides, this was jwa’s request for Valentine’s dinner!

Flank Steak Pinwheels with Boursin, Spinach and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Based on a recipe from Eating Well magazine
2/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil)
2 cups boiling water
1 pound flank steak, trimmed of fat
1 clove garlic, minced
3 oz herbed cheese spread, such as Boursin
1 cup baby spinach leaves
2 tbsp olive oil
kosher salt & freshly ground pepper
15 or so button mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup Cabernet Sauvignon wine (plus the rest of the bottle for drinkin’!)

Place sun-dried tomatoes in a bowl; pour boiling water over them and let steep until softened, about 10 minutes. Drain and chop. Meanwhile, place steak between 2 large pieces of plastic wrap. Pound each side of the steak thoroughly with the pointed side of a meat mallet until the steak is an even 1/4-inch thickness. Salt and pepper it good.

Align steak so the the grain is running horizontally. Rub garlic all over one side of the steak. Spread cheese lengthwise in a 3-inch-wide strip down the middle of the steak.

Top with the sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. Starting at one edge of a long side, roll the steak up tightly, tucking in the filling as you go.

Carefully rub a bit more salt and pepper all over the outside of the steak roll. Turn the roll so the overlapping edge is on top. Use 4 pieces of kitchen twine and secure steak roll in four places. Slice between the twine to make 4 pinwheels. Trim the edge pieces if necessary to keep it all nice looking. .

Oil your skillet and cook the the pinwheels 5-7 minutes per side for medium-rare. After you flip them, add the mushrooms to the pan and let them start to golden up.

Use a spatula when turning them to prevent too much filling from falling out. Let the pinwheels rest for 5 minutes before serving. Remove the twine from each piece.

While the beef is resting, continue to cook the mushrooms in the tasty, tasty beef drippings. Mmm….beef drippings. Saute for about 3-4 more minutes and at the end pour in the wine and let it reduce about a minute or two. Serve the steaks with the mushrooms. Now, if this doesn’t get you some love, I don’t know what will…

Oh, and besides being delicious, deglazing the mushrooms with some wine should get up any cheese that is stuck to your pan. Awesome!

Resolution #1 — post more.
So, here we go. This was our stay at home, New Year’s Eve meal. Yep, instead of going out, we opted to stay in and eat a lot of beef. Mmmmm… I’ve wanted to make beef wellingtons for quite a while and finally, the time was right. Oh, was it right. Deliciously right.

In the original recipe, this was paired with a Madeira, beef demi-glace sauce but I just opted to use some tawny port that I already had and some beef broth. In a pinch, I would think you could also just use a cabernet in the sauce as well. Also, I heeded the advice of those on Epicurious who came before me and instead of pre-baking the beef (seriously?), I just seared it first in a pan. That was great advice and worked quite well.

The best thing about this recipe, though, is it’s make-ahead-ability. We came home from the store on Dec 30th and put the wellingtons together and kept them in the fridge until New Year’s Eve night. Tackling it that way, I’d think this would even be a great main course for a big dinner party. If you’re into sharing your beef wellingtons like that…

Beef Wellingtons with Gorgonzola & Mushrooms
Adapted from Gourmet magazine
2 center-cut beef tenderloins or filet mignons to the fancy-pants (about 6-8 ounces each)
1 tbsp canola oil
4 large mushrooms (about 1/4 pound total)
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp finely chopped shallot
1 tbsp tawny port
1 clove minced garlic
1 large egg
1 puff pastry sheet (from a 17 1/4-ounce package frozen puff pastry), thawed
2 tbsp Gorgonzola cheese

Heat the tablespoon of oil in a heavy skillet and get it really hot. Salt and pepper each piece of meat and sear the steaks about 60-90 seconds on each side (salt and pepper the other side before turning over). Remove from the pan and let cool down a bit.

Thinly slice the mushrooms for the beef wellington and in a heavy skillet cook in butter with shallot, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste over moderate heat, stirring, until mushrooms are lightly browned. Add the port and stir until it has mostly evaporated. Transfer mushroom mixture to a bowl to cool completely. In a small bowl lightly beat egg to make an egg wash.

On a lightly floured surface roll out puff pastry sheet into a square. Cut in half and roll out a bit more as needed to make it big enough to fit each tenderloin.

Put a nice layer of mushroom mixture and about 1 tablespoon Gorgonzola in center of each square. Top mushroom mixture with a piece of beef, pressing it down gently, and wrap 2 opposite corners of puff pastry over the beef, overlapping them. Seal seam with egg wash or just dip your finger in a little water and seal that way.

Wrap remaining 2 corners of pastry over the beef and seal in same manner. Seal any gaps with egg wash and press pastry around the beefy goodness to enclose completely. Chances are, this will not work out exactly as described. There will be some wrapping and then perhaps a pause for a few sketches, calculations or whatnot and more wrapping and eventually, you will end up with a nicely enclosed beef wellington. Hang in there, it’ll happen.

Use any leftover pastry scraps and cookie cutter (or just mad knife skillz) to decorate the top. jwa made a giant eyeball on his.

Wrap up the beef wellingtons for chilling. I set them on a plate that I had lightly floured and covered with plastic wrap. Chill at least one hour and up to one day. Like I mentioned in the intro, we did these the day before and that worked really well.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees with your baking sheet in the oven. When you are ready to bake the wellingtons, arrange them, seam side down, on the hot baking sheet. Brush top and sides of each beef Wellington with some egg wash (you can save your leftover egg wash from the day before) and bake 20 minutes, or until pastry is golden. Twenty minutes should yield beef that is medium rare. You will have to adjust this time based on your doneness preference and the size of your wellington. If in doubt, medium rare is 145 degrees, just give it a quick check with the meat thermometer.

For sauce
5 mushrooms (button or crimini)
1 shallot, diced
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1/3 cup Madeira (you can also use plain red wine here or a port)
1 tbsp fresh thyme leave

To make the sauce (and this is doable the day before too), heat a pan with a little oil. If you are super smart, you can make the sauce in the same pan that you seared the beef in. Alas, I did not think of this at the time. I am sad.

Anyway, saute the shallot and mushrooms until soft and add the wine of your choice to deglaze the pan. Next add the broth and reduce by about half, 15-20 minutes. Stir in the thyme; salt and pepper as needed. Refrigerate (if you are making this ahead of time) and reheat with the beef as needed.

Other Optional Condiment
1 tbsp horseradish
1 cup Greek yogurt (regular yogurt will work too — the Greek kind is just extra creamy)

Mix and serve on the side. The sauce was very tasty but I think the horseradish-yogurt was my favorite. What else did we have on the side? Well, scalloped potatoes and braised Brussels sprouts. Then we retired to the couch and rang in the New Year with some season one Buffy.

This month’s Weekend Cookbook Challenge is hosted by Mel’s Diner with the aptly chosen, Celebration Dishes as the theme. For this, I chose my newest cookbook, Nigella Express and made a lamb stew from it.

She calls it a tagine, but since I didn’t cook it in an actual tagine and I’m not familiar enough with Moroccan cooking to judge it’s accurateness, I’m certainly not going to call it a tagine. So, uh, no one get their knickers in a twist.

Anywho….I used a mix of olives here, mainly because that’s what I had — nicoise, kalamata and a handful of plain black, pitted olives. But, I’m thinking oil cured might be super tasty here. I also just made my own caramelized onions, rather than hunting down a jar of them (as the recipe calls for). I have never even seen jarred caramelized onions…maybe that’s a British thing? Another thing I changed is that I added carrots. I just felt the need for more vegetables with the big meatiness of the stew.

Let’s celebrate!

Lamb Stew with Olives and Caramelized Onions
Adapted from a recipe by Nigella Lawson
2 1/4 pounds diced leg of lamb
1 head garlic, separated into cloves
12 ounces pitted black olives in brine, 5 ounces drained weight to give 1 1/4 cups
1 white or yellow onion, diced roughly
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp olive oil
sprinkle of salt
3 tbsp capers
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground ginger
1 bottle red wine (I meant to use a merlot but I grabbed a cab by mistake — worked just fine!)
1 1/2 cups chopped carrots — about 1-2 inch pieces

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Preheat a pan over medium heat — preferably a big Dutch oven that you can layer the whole recipe into for its trip into the oven. Add the olive oil and then onions and honey. Give a small sprinkle of salt. Cook until light brown and caramelized, about 20 minutes. Turn the heat down if need be to keep from burning.

Add the garlic, olives and lamb. Brown the lamb just for a few minutes, maybe 5 total, stirring a bit to get color on as many pieces as possible.

Next, add the wine, the capers, and the ginger and cumin. Increase the heat to high, give it a good stir and bring to a boil.

Put a lid on it and stick it in the oven for two hours total. After the first hour add the carrots and continue to cook until the lamb is super tender.

We had this with some couscous that I cooked with chicken broth, about a handful of shelled pistachios and a handful of golden raisins. What were we celebrating? Ah, a cold December evening!

Thanks again to Mel’s Diner for hosting WCC this month!

Today is mostly pictures. Okay, there is also a really good peach-tomato gazpacho recipe from Gourmet magazine. On the fourth, as mentioned yesterday, we grilled, ate and hung out in the backyard enjoying the cool breeze. It was a very nice time.

Getting the grill going

jwa tends to the burgers

The end result — cheeseburgers (Tillamook cheddar) and some last minute vegetable rosemary skewers — we have a huge rosemary bush out front that is very handy in situations like this…

jwa assembles his burger empire

Enough with the burgers, let’s get to the gazpacho!

Peach & Tomato Gazpacho
1 1/2 lb tomatoes, chopped (4 cups)
1 lb peaches, pitted and chopped (2 cups)
1/4 cup crushed ice
1 medium shallot, peeled & chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp white-wine vinegar
1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Purée two thirds of tomatoes and half of peaches with ice, shallot, 1 tablespoon oil, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 2 teaspoons tarragon, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a blender until very smooth, about 1 minute.

If desired, force through a medium-mesh sieve into a large glass measure, discarding solids. If you like a chunkier gazpacho or you are lazy, you can skip this step.

Toss together remaining tomatoes and peaches with remaining tablespoon oil, remaining 1/2 tablespoon vinegar, remaining teaspoon tarragon, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a bowl. Serve soup in bowls topped with the tomato peach salsa. When I made this, I did not make the salsa but used everything in the gazpacho. If you too chose this route, it works fine!

The end result is a little sweet and has a really nice tarragon flavor. It’ll be cold because of the ice but you can also chill it further in the refrigerator. Now let’s return to the red meat. Grrrr.

My single, lonely hamburger

Vegetable skewer

The mighty IPA…

We are off to Astoria this weekend to meet with the caterer (hooray!) and to meet with an officiant (hooray, too!).

When I was growing up, we had pot roast pretty often. My grandmother would make it at least once a month and wow, did I hate it. Now, times then were different and she was cooking for a husband who refused to eat both garlic and onion (blasphemy!!!) but still, it was pretty bad. I really never thought I would ever want to make a pot roat of my very own.

That’s why I was shocked when, after watching Dave Lieberman do a pot roast this Summer, I mentally filed the recipe away for future use. Because, damn — it looked and sounded so good. Moist and falling apart, soaking up all the flavor of red wine, honey, garlic and thyme. What’s not to love about that?

Along with some horseradish cream and some braised brussels sprouts, the meal was a little piece of heaven on a plate. Who’d of thunk it?

Red Wine Pot Roast with Honey and Thyme
1 bottom round roast, about 3-4 pounds
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 small onions, medium diced
12-14 button mushrooms, quartered
1 head garlic (about 10 to 12 cloves), lightly smashed
1 pound carrots (about 4 medium), cut roughly into 1 1/2-inch pieces
2 cups low-sodium chicken, beef, or vegetable broth
2 cups medium-bodied red wine
2 1/2 tablespoons honey
5 to 6 sprigs fresh thyme
2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 1/2 to 2-inch cubes (or use a combination of russet and sweet potatoes — that’s what I did)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Season roast with salt and pepper. Heat oil in large oven-safe pot or Dutch oven over high heat for a couple minutes. Add the meat and brown well on all sides, about 10 minutes total. Remove and set aside on a plate. Lower heat to medium and saute onions, mushrooms, garlic, and carrots for about 5 minutes.

Add the broth, wine, honey, and thyme. Stir to combine and then add the roast back to the pot.

Cover pot and transfer to oven. Bake for 2 hours, turning the meat over twice.

Add the potatoes to the pot and bake, uncovered, for another 30 to 45 minutes longer until both the potatoes and the meat are fork-tender.

Let the roast rest for a few minutes in the pot and then serve.

Horseradish Cream
1 cup sour cream
2-3 tsp horseradish
A handful of chives, snipped into tiny chive pieces

Combine horseradish and chives with sour cream. Add more horseradish if desired. Serve with beef. That is all.