Meal No. 976: Peanut Butter Bacon Burgers

Unusually good for a meal that is always unusually good: Friday night peanut butter bacon burgers at the Roediger House enjoyed by those smart or lucky enough to work out their plans to be here!

Mighty tempting to grab a slice or two of bacon fresh off the griddle.

Another reason to love Virginia?

Pretty close to the perfect consistency and taste for the peanut butter.

The beef cubes, ready for about 30 minutes in the freezer to firm them up.

Another great service provided by the Cuisinart.

Wow: perfectly ground this time.

The patties, gently pushed into shape and liberally salted and peppered.

Get your sizzle on.

Buttered, toasted kaiser rolls

I tried putting the bacon on the bottom this time.

The assembled mass, from top to bottom:
homemade peanut butter, provolone, fresh-ground patty, bacon,
homemade burger sauce, buttered toasted kaiser roll

Dessert made late night and post bar hopping:
Scotch Chocolate Cake
a/k/a Texas Sheet Cake

A review of key points about peanut butter bacon burgers:

• Inspired by Yo Mama's in the French Quarter of New Orleans
• First Made: Meal No. 180
• Last Made: Meal No. 905
• Homemade Peanut Butter
• Fresh-Ground Beef from boneless beef short ribs and top sirloin
• Homemade Classic Burger Sauce (recipe below)
• Labeled Finished Burger: Guide to Meal No. 234
• Some guidance, inspiration, and tips are based on Cook's Illustrated, No. 93 (July/August 2008), p. 10.

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Classic Burger Sauce

from Cook's Illustrated, July-August 2008, p. 11.

4 T mayonnaise
2 T ketchup
1 tsp sweet pickle relish
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp white vinegar
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl.

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"Scotch Chocolate Cake," [in my world, also known as Texas Sheetcake]. Credited to Susie Timmons. From "Popular: Cake Request Gets 22 Responses," by Michael Hastings, Food Editor of the Winston-Salem Journal. Published October 6, 2010.

Meal No. 975: Grilled Veal Chops

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"Grilled Veal T-Bones with Rosemary Gremolata," Cuisine at Home, Issue No. 93 (May/June 2012), p.24-25.

"Lemon-Garlic Baby Dutch Yellow Potatoes," from Melissa's/World Variety Produce, Inc. Recipe on bag of potatoes. Alternative link for recipe can be found here.

Meal No. 974: Far Eastern Chicken Legs

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"Far Eastern Chicken Legs," in Weber's Big Book of Grilling by Jamie Purviance and Sandra S. McRae. San Francisco: Chronicle Books (2001), p. 258.

"Company Mashed Potatoes," a Jones family favorite.

Meal No. 973: Rotini Carbonara

It was tax day today and I managed to wrap up my federal and three different state returns by 3 pm. I didn't feel like working hard on dinner after all that.

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"Pasta Carbonara," a recipe shared by Monie Lawrence of Raleigh, NC.

Meal No. 972: Indoor Pulled Pork Barbecue

It was another evening of binge TV series watching at the Roediger House, the sort of event where a bunch of regulars come over and partake of the upstairs big screen plasma TV and I enjoy cooking and prepping down in the kitchen. It's how things are supposed to work around here.

This evening: a return to the indoor pulled pork barbecue that is definitely one of the favorites of the house. It's been a while since I made it, perhaps because I overdid it for a few weeks or months last year and got everybody tired of it.

The simple meal had one accompaniment: blue cheese coleslaw. Good stuff, that.

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"Indoor Pulled Pork," by Bryan Roof. In Cook's Illustrated, January & February 2010 (No. 102), p. 6-7.

"Blue Cheese Coleslaw," from Ina Garten. Available online at the Food Network website.

Meal No. 971: Beef Satay with Soy-Ginger-Peanut Sauce

Geez Louise! What another excellent meal. I realize I've been doing a lot of beef lately but what's not to love about beef?

I tossed these chunks of marinated skewer-grilled beef tenderloin onto a pile of brown basmati, and that delicious dark soy-ginger-peanut sauce was about as on-target as you could get.

I also got out the lawn mower for the first time of the season. The front yard wasn't all that bad but it needed the trim. It's looking good now:

The back yard, however, was a different story. Thanks to the wall demolition and re-seeding back there, I've been letting that new grass get a real foothold. It did great, and was thick and lush and pretty tall. You can see this in these pics earlier today of Cyprus back there:

Now it's all trimmed up, but a bit rough...it was thick and somewhat damp. I kept the blade on its most elevated setting to keep from damaging this new grass.

When it was all finished, I was happy to sit a spell with this fine bottle of Pepsi:

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"Beef Satay," in Weber's Big Book of Grilling by Jamie Purviance and Sandra S. McRae. San Francisco: Chronicle Books (2001), p. 142-143.

Meal No. 970: Bourbon-Glazed Cajun Beef Tenderloin

I think this is only my second time of trying to grill a beef tenderloin, but for a table-full of fellows with big appetites, this one got some pretty good reviews. For the third night in a row, I'm grilling on the new Weber Genesis and also using Weber's grilling cookbook. So far, it has not disappointed.

I gave the Delmonico potatoes another go and they proved yet again to be a welcome addition to the starch repertoire on Roediger House menus.

Rounding out the plate was the good ol' basic Campbell's Kitchens green bean casserole. There wasn't much left and all the plates were scraped clean. I think that's an encouraging sign.

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"Bourbon-Glazed Cajun Tenderloin," in Weber's Big Book of Grilling by Jamie Purviance and Sandra S. McRae. San Francisco: Chronicle Books (2001), p. 137.

"Delmonico Potatoes," by Diane Unger, in Cook's Country, December/January 2009, p. 13.

"Campbell's Classic Green Bean Casserole," from Campbell's Kitchen. Recipe available online.

Meal No. 969: Mesquite Pork Steaks with Ancho Chili BBQ Sauce

A Friday night grilling mini-feast with super-thick porterhouse pork chops, mesquite flavored and jazzed up with an ancho chili barbecue sauce that was really awesome. A smattering of broccoli florets and a second course of sweet potatoes with cinnamon and sugar, because they weren't ready when everything else was.

This morning I made another small batch of Cap'n Crunch cookies, because: They. Are. So. Good. One or two or seven of those makes a nice dessert.

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"Mesquite Pork Steaks with Ancho Chili BBQ Sauce," in Weber's Big Book of Grilling by Jamie Purviance and Sandra S. McRae. San Francisco: Chronicle Books (2001), p. 174-175.

"Cap'n Crunch Cookies," found online at The Capitol Baker, with credit going to The Sugar Plum Blog for inspiration and the source of the adapted recipe.

Meal No. 968: Pacific Rim Grilled Chicken (on a NEW Grill!)

There's a new grill at the Roediger House, delivered last evening. After combing through the ratings in Consumer Reports and also checking out a range of comments and feedback on websites such as Amazon.com, I went with this fine Weber Genesis:

More grill than I might need, and more money than I should have spent, but I think I'm going to really enjoy it.

It finally became time to retire the workhorse basic Genesis grill (pictured below) that I'd bought from my friends Tom and Linda Dunlap back around the time I bought the Roediger House.

The first meal I made on this brand-new grill was a real hit for the small gathering of good friends here tonight: Pacific Rim chicken thighs. Moist, flavorful, tasty, tender, and good!

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"Pacific Rim Chicken Thighs," in Weber's Big Book of Grilling by Jamie Purviance and Sandra S. McRae. San Francisco: Chronicle Books (2001), p. 258.

Meal No. 967: Hamburger Supreme

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"Hamburger Supreme," from the late Mrs. John T. (Glynn) Johnson of Buies Creek, North Carolina, via Janice Jones Bodenhamer.

Meal No. 966: Japanese Fried Chicken

Based on a popular Japanese street food meal, this is chicken breasts coated in panko and pan-fried to a lusty golden color, sitting atop vinegar sushi rice and both coated by and floating on a soy-mirin-onion sauce. I ate myself into misery.

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"Japanese Fried Chicken," from Cuisine at Home, Issue 98, March/April 2013, p. 44-45.

Meal No. 965: Steak au Poivre

Once again I have reached back to one of my earliest recipes that coincided with my inaugural forays into kitchen life, from back in 2001. This recipe brings together a lot of great flavors and is not that difficult to put together. What you end up with, though, is every bit as good as what you might order at some highly regarded restaurant in the big city.

I served up the last of the Delmonico potatoes from Saturday night, but I also made a batch of Yukon gold mashed potatoes. Baby Brussels sprouts were just right for completing this meal.

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"Steak au Poivre," by Dawn Yanagihara. In Cook's Illustrated, September & October 2001, p. 8-9.

Meal No. 964: Beef Biryani

Cuisine at Home does it for me again, this time with an Indian curry-inspired dish called Beef Biryani. Not that hard to make, once all the prep is done, and quite tasty and filling.

It would have looked prettier if I'd added the recommended blanched green beans but I was sort of done where prep was concerned and didn't feel like doing that extra step.

The dish had some spice to it, that built up over the course of the meal, and so it was a good move to have a tall pitcher of mango lassis to go with it:

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"Beef Biryani," in Cuisine at Home, Issue 104, April 2014, p. 12-13.

"Magno Lassi with Coconut Milk," in Cuisine at Home, Issue 104, April 2014, p. 13.

Meal No. 963: Holiday Stuffed Pork Roast

It was a little bit of a grand feast at the Roediger House tonight. I had a moderate-sized Boston butt and a touch of ambition, and what resulted was a pork-stuffed pork roast that I was kind of proud of. I tried a second recipe that's new to me, as well, from that same recipe magazine: Delmonico potatoes. They too were quite good. I rounded out the plates with seasoned Blue Lake green beans.

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"Holiday Stuffed Pork Roast," by Meghan Erwin, in Cook's Country, December/January 2009, p. 18.

"Delmonico Potatoes," by Diane Unger, in Cook's Country, December/January 2009, p. 13.

Meal No. 962: Juicy Burgers on the Grill

Drove in tonight after a full week of teaching in Frederick County, Virginia, and there were several mouths to feed. I took an easier way out and prepped and grilled burgers. Just burgers. Didn't even have chips to go with it. But the beer was cold and good.

I even took the extra step of making a batch of Cap'n Crunch cookies for our dessert, and they turned out great.

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"Grilled Juicy Burgers," from Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks recipe magazine.

"Cap'n Crunch Cookies," found online at The Capitol Baker, with credit going to The Sugar Plum Blog for inspiration and the source of the adapted recipe.

New Orleans Pecan Pie Bread Pudding

For the big chili meal gathering last week while I enjoyed a week at home, I finally got around to trying out this recipe for New Orleans pecan pie bread pudding.

This ranks as one of the most stupendous desserts I have thus far made at the Roediger House, if you ask me. I topped it with a whiskey sauce that was out of this world. Unfortunately, I created that whiskey sauce by combining ideas from about three different online recipes, and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to re-create it!

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"New Orleans Pecan Pie Bread Pudding," from King Arthur Flour online.

NOTE: The two reviews of it that have been posted thus far on the KingArthurFlour.com website are not all that favorable, but I think I had better results because I referenced another bread pudding recipe when making it. I upped the amount of heavy cream and also let the dried bread cubes soak a while longer. I think I also used more melted butter than called for.

Meal No. 961: Breakfast Casserole

On Monday morning, before I turned my attention to clean-up and packing for the road this week, I fixed up some of that standard breakfast casserole and shared it with a couple of Roediger House regulars over coffee. We got our respective weeks started right that way.

Meal No. 960: Shrimp and Bacon Pizza

Homemade pizza on a Sunday night: shrimp and bacon with mozzarella on the bottom and feta and cheddar on top:

I liked this pizza pretty well, but I don't think it went over as well with the others at the table this past Sunday night. Their take was that I had too much shrimp on it and it overwhelmed everything else.

I did at least feel pretty good about the pizza crust, which I made from scratch. It was reassuring that I actually got it to turn out right for a change, given how my past performance has been in this regard!

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"Shrimp and Bacon Pizza," from the centerfold recipe cards in Cook's Country, April/May 2014.

"Quick Beer-Crust Pizza," from the King Arthur Flour website.