Posts Tagged ‘beef’

The High Holidays are soon upon us, when Jews around the world will welcome the New Year 5773. If you’re cooking dinner for Rosh Hashanah or whipping up something to break the fast on Yom Kippur, I’ve got a few ideas to share.

Rosh Hashanah Barefoot Contessa Matzo Balls: Want to know my three secrets for light, tender, tasty matzo balls? Check out this recipe and dazzle your guests with delightful matzo balls that are easy to make and will please a crowd.

Barefoot Contessa Brisket: I’m not a brisket fan, but if you are, I hear this recipe gets rave reviews. It’s got a flavorful tomato juice-based sauce, and the brisket cooks with…

Category: Recipes

Big football weekend = big pot of delicious chili!

A few cold Sundays ago, knowing it would be an afternoon spent watching football in front of the fire, I had a hankering for chili. It had been in the back of my head since we had seen the chili cookoff episode of Top Chef earlier in the month, and knowing that chili is a process rather than a “yikes, it’s 5:30 on a Thursday…what should I whip up?” kind of dinner, I decided the time had come. I searched for a meat-and-beans version that I could cook all afternoon, and the recipe I chose was from Bobby Flay: Beef & Black Bean Chili with Toasted Cumin…

Category: Recipes

When a Swedish Meatball recipe says it serves “4 Vikings or 8-10 regular people,” I know I’ve found a recipe for my crew. Despite the fact that they each devour an entire box of chicken nuggets as an after school snack, my guys are all once again ravenous by dinnertime. And since there’s no telling just how many Swedish Meatballs my bottomless pits would put away, I boldly doubled the recipe. That’s a lot of Vikings!

Swedish Meatballs bring me back to days of groovy plaid bell bottoms, a smokin’-hot Dorothy Hamill ‘do and oversized eyeglasses with stylish side pieces that started at the bottom of the glass frame and made two 90-degree turns to reach my ear….

Category: Recipes

In honor of this week’s monumentally exhilirating announcement by Union Square Hospitality Group that Shake Shack will open its “first true roadside Shack” right here in Westport, CT-just a mere mile from my abode-I had to wax poetic about one of the dishes that’s been in my backlog for a few weeks now: the fake Shack Burger.

Full disclosure: the Reisers are completely obsessed with Shake Shack. The burgers have just the right juice/grease combination, the rolls are smushy and delish, the lettuce and tomatoes are fresh and pristine, the fries are crinkly and always hot, the custards rock, and the root beer is creamy, cold, and not overly sweet. Happiness is BenRei…

Category: Recipes

The moment David laid his eyes on this recipe in the new issue of Food & Wine, he became a ticking time bomb, set to detonate if he did not make these tacos within 24 hours. And so, the following night, these babies were indeed on the dinner table.

Our awesome butcher, Anthony, upgraded Dave to a prime flat-iron steak, which he marinated diligently in a scrumptiously fragrant concoction. Zack mixed up the fresh pico de gallo and blended up the avocado salsa, a velvety-smooth, though fairly bland sauce. I sliced up over 3-1/2 pounds of the expertly grilled steak ““ very thinly ““ and let everyone have at it, assembling their…

Category: Recipes

Oy. Brisket. The Jewish grandmother’s filet mignon. Use whatever recipe you find stupendously scrumptious, but let’s just say gray meat ain’t my thang.

I grew up a good Jewish girl, mindlessly and obediently eating my grandmother’s brisket at Passover seders and other family dinners when it was the only choice, but far preferring chicken when there were two offerings. People would smack their lips and rave about the deliciousness of Nana’s preparation, but for me it was like French kissing a can of silly string. Doesn’t matter if you cook it in award-winning barbeque sauce, tomatoes and onions, ketchup and onion soup mix, or frankly, hot fudge — there are plenty of other things I’d rather put in…

Category: Recipes

It won’t be terribly surprising that every time I or one of my sous chefs was pronouncing the name of this dish, we channeled Meryl Streep’s uncanny portrayal of Julia Child. And I sheepishly admit it’s fairly impossible not to hear Julia’s resonant voice guiding you through every step of this magnificent classic recipe!

This was our first foray into “Childhood” ““ that is, the gastronomic stratosphere to which Julia Child brought us. Though I was inspired to do this cooking blog by the movie Julie & Julia last summer, I have intentionally resisted the clichè of cooking from the tome that put the brilliant Julia indelibly on the culinary landscape and the dreadful Julie on the silver…

Category: Recipes

(Wait – “real” meatballs? As opposed to, what, mock meatballs made from Ritz Crackers?)

There’s only one problem with these meatballs. No matter how many I make, I never have leftovers for the freezer.

Feeding my crew is a somewhat daunting task. The more time consuming a dish is, the more the five of them always like it. And the more they like it, the more they eat. And the more they eat, the less chance for me to have extra so I can save work on a lazy day and pull something dazzling out of the freezer.

I try. I really do. This time I started with five pounds of ground meat. That’s two-and-a-half times…

Category: Recipes

While typically I rule the kitchen and Dave is the Grillmaster, the one thing Dave really rocks on the stove is béarnaise sauce. He has long used a recipe from a beat-up, falling apart Betty Crocker cookbook from the year one, and it is just the most delectable sauce ever to be made. Butter, egg yolks, tarragon, shallots, vinegar…sighhhhh. My sister claims she’d be happy with just a dish of it and a spoon. And a Lipitor chaser.

Sometimes, though, let’s just say Dave has “worked too hard during the day” to take the time to finely mince the shallots, and he ends up cutting them into large dice instead. Which means they don’t soften completely. Which…

Category: Recipes

I must admit I wasn’t exactly looking forward to making this recipe, chiefly because of the time-consuming frying process…times two for my ravenous crew. And although I like onion rings just fine, thankyouverymuch, I’ve never had one that would compel me to willingly stand over the stove and tend a pan of hot oil for half an hour.

That is, until now. Meet the Cornmeal Onion Ring.

Jake had been clamoring to make this dish for a couple of weeks now, and I finally gave in to that cute, pleading face. Together we cut the onions and soaked the rings in buttermilk for an hour. And then it must’ve been my lucky day, because David reluctantly…

Category: Recipes