sore hands, cold beef

Dear Kristin,

Yes - you are absolutely right. I've been very remiss in posting to our blog and I sincerely apologize. What have I been doing that prevents me from posting? Ah nothing, really, just:

shifting/weeding our collection of 45,000 journals
looking for a new house
getting our house ready to put on the market (cleaning down to the tooth-brush level!)
trying to get in at least a couple of runs every week
and, yes - watching funny dog videos on You Tube

So have pity on your poor mom - either that, or get a plane ticket & come up here to help me shift & weed 45,000 volumes! Between shifting & cleaning, I'm definitely beginning to feel my age. You would think that my back and arms would suffer the most, which they did at first. What really hurts now though, are my hands. I come home at night with the sorest, most battered hands you can imagine. I'm having trouble opening the cap on my Geritol, I can't grasp the remote control for the tv, and pretty soon I'm going to have to ask dad to start cutting up my meat for me at dinner!

One thing that does ease my pain is applying cold compresses to my hands. That is why this recipe is actually therapeutic - it requires that you slice a piece of steak while it is partially frozen - so there you go - what a great segue from pain to cooking, don't you think?

So, not only is this recipe therapeutic for sore hands, but it's super quick, so that you can get dinner on the table in no time. Just add a side of rice and maybe some spring rolls and you are good to go, (Or in my case, good to park yourself in front of the tv & watch reruns of Poirot!)

quick beef & broccoli (loosely based on a recipe found in Cooking Light October, 2012)

1/2 c. lower sodium soy sauce
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 Tbsp. hoisin sauce
12 oz. boneless sirloin steak, thinly sliced*
4 tsp. canola oil
3 c. broccoli florets
1 red onion, sliced
4 large carrots, sliced diagonally about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick
1 c. water
1 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. dark sesame oil

Combine soy sauce, cornstarch, and hoisin in a medium bowl. Add beef and toss, making sure all beef is coated in sauce.

Heat a large non-stick skillet over high heat. Add oil to pan. Remove beef from marinade. Reserve the marinade. Add beef to heated oil in pan. Stir fry about 2 minutes or until browned. (Do no over crowd the pan - brown beef in two batches if necessary). Remove beef from pan and keep warm.

Add broccoli, onion, carrots and water to pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 4 minutes or until broccoli is crisp-tender. Add reserved marinade to pan and bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute or until sauce begins to thicken. Add beef back into the pan and continue to cook for about 2 minutes more, or until mixture is heated through and sauce has thickened.

* Partially freezing the steak before slicing will allow you to slice the meat more thinly, and will enhance tenderness.

breakfast bourbon

Dear Mom,

Well, hang on, I must first address any possible readers we have out there:

Dear Readers,

Never fear my mother is safe, she has been absolutely fine in fact, and I certainly will not sit here an apologize for her! 

OH SNAP!

Dear Mom,

Well I miss your posts, I don't know how other people feel out there, but I'm let down.  I know you've been busy (busy watching YouTube videos of funny dogs!), but come on...  Have you not been eating?  Did you get involved with the librarian mafia again and they broke your fingers?  They're silent but deadly you know...  Alright, enough with the chastising, I have a recipe to share! 

Actually I have two recipes, because its been so long!!!

The hubs and I just got back from a little mini vacation to Louisville, Kentucky.  Yes, that's right, Louisville.  Believe it or not its a fun little town with lots of good food and good booze.  There are pretty city parks, cute neighborhoods, great restaurants and pubs, friendly folk, and bourbon.  Bourbon, bourbon, bourbon.  I'm not a big bourbon fan, but the hubs likes it quite a bit.  And while we were down there we did a couple distillery tours (basically think a boozier winery tour).  I tried a few and it is still far from my drink of choice, but one great little restaurant we found made an awesome bourbon cocktail.

The restaurant is called Rye.  Its a great place with a nice interior and some really quality stuff coming out of the kitchen.  We tried a bunch of small plates, they change up the menu seasonally so one of the stand outs was a sauteed asparagus kimchi-type dish that had that addicting salty, sweet, umami, spicy combo that kept us going back for more.  To quench the heat I tried one of the cocktails that sounded refreshing after the warm spring day that we were there.  And it had bourbon in it, which even though as said I'm not a natural born bourbon lover, I figured, when in Rome...

What I liked so much about the cocktail is it was basically like you gave a mimosa a kick in the pants, hence the name "manosa" (not what the restaurant called it, but what I'm calling it).  It was grapefruit juice, orange bitters, prosecco, and bourbon.  The bourbon adds a complex slightly smokey, vanilla, spicey flavor that helps tame the sweet/sour/tart of the prosecco and grapefruit.  So, to go with the amped up mimosa, I'm also going to give you all my recipe for chocolate chip pancakes.  I found this recipe for pancakes a while ago, and its been my go to as of late.  All of the baking powder that goes into it makes them super fluffy and able to hold up to any additives such as chocolate chips or fruit if your feeling like being healthy.  They also have very little sugar in them, so you can focus on the more yummy complex sugars of the maple syrup or chocolate chips.  I've never tried making them normal sized, I always go for the silver dollar size, that way you can always easily pop them into the toaster to warm the leftovers up.

manosa

1 oz. bourbon
2 oz. grapefruit juice
3 dashes orange bitters
the juice from one slice of orange
ice cubes
3-4 oz. chilled prosecco
orange peel, for garnish
1 mint leaf, for garnish

In a standard shaker, add bourbon, grapefruit juice, orange bitters, the juice of the orange slice, and ice.  Shake until ice cold and frothy.  Pour into a collins glass.  Top with prosecco, 1 ice cube, orange peel and mint.

chocolate chip pancakes

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3-1/2 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. sugar
1-1/4 cups milk
1 egg
3 tbsp. butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup chocolate chips
canola or veggie oil

In a large bowl whisk all dry ingredients (flour through sugar).  In a measuring cup stir together milk, egg and butter.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the milk mixture.  Stir together until smooth.  Fold in chocolate chips.

Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium high heat.  Add the oil and when the skillet is piping hot,  pour 1/4 cup measurements of the batter onto the skillet.  Cook 1-2 minutes per side, until golden.