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.

Meal No. 959: BLT [Bacon Only]

Had some bacon to fry up this past Sunday so I made a BLT the way I like it best: bacon, Duke's mayo, and whatever bread I've got on-hand.

Sunday morning was the next-to-last day of this strangely winter-y month of March. As I returned home from taking Cyprus for a downtown walk, I noticed that the light sprinkle was accompanied by a few snowflakes. I used the camera on my phone to snag a shot of the flakes on my jacket:

It's almost April.

Meal No. 958: Herb-Roasted Salmon

Saturday night at the Roediger House: herb-roasted salmon, red quinoa, and broccoli florets. I added a chilled rosemary dijon cream sauce, which made the salmon that much better.

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Based on "Herb-Roasted Salmon Fillets," by Luanne Asta of New York, NY. In Taste of Home, December 2013, p. 28.

Guidance for the Chilled Rosemary Dijon Cream Sauce was found in the recipe for "Poached Salmon," in The Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook, compiled and edited by Julie Fisher Gunter. Birmingham, AL: Oxmoor House (1999), p. 216.

Meal No. 957: Grilled Ribeye Steak

The rain didn't materialized by dinner time last night so it turned into a great Friday night for grilling. I just sort of made up this cream sauce, featuring shallots and port wine. Nice fat sweet potatoes with too much butter and not enough cinnamon sugar rounded it out, along with some Abita Christmas Ale (which is almost all gone now).

Meal No. 956: Chicken with Coronation Sauce

I continue to be a day behind on posting blog entries, so here's a shot of last night's meal: chicken with coronation sauce. Whoa: it was good.

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"Coronation Sauce for Chicken," from 400 Sauces, by Catherine Atkinson, Christine France, and Maggie Mayhew. Hermes House (2006, 2008), p. 155.

Meal No. 955: Deviled Beef Short Ribs

The Wednesday night meal at the Roediger House:

Absolutely amazing. And you can take that to the bank.

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"Deviled Beef Short Ribs," by Jeremy Sauer. In Cook's Country, April/May 2014, p. 12-13.

Meal No. 954: Bourbon Glazed Pork Chops

The Tuesday evening meal at the Roediger House: bourbon-glazed center-cut pork chops, with baby lima beans and creamy stone-ground grits. Served on University of Virginia china, featuring the Rotunda.

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"Bourbon Glazed Pork Chops and Fried Eggs," by Sydney Oland of Somerville, MA. Found online at seriouseats.com. [Posted January 18, 2014.]

Creamy Grits, from Luquire Family Stone Ground Grits, milled in Greenwood, SC.

Meal No. 953: Simple Beef Chili with Kidney Beans

This past Monday night was a large dinner party on what was forecast to be a fairly cold and wintry day. So I decided to make a big pot of chili, which seemed to be the right call.

I also made some of Granny Wilson's honey wheat cornbread, using the recipe that my friend Linda Dunlap shared with me some years ago.

Oh my. It was all mighty good.

While folks were waiting for dinner time to roll around, I brought out some cave-aged sharp white cheddar cheese, which also seemed to go over quite well.

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"Simple Beef Chili with Kidney Beans," from Cook's Illustrated, Number Sixty-One [March-April 2003], p. 10-11.

Meal No. 952: Filet Mignon in Port Mushroom Sauce

Last night I returned to a recipe that I had probably not tried since 2001. It was fantastic, although the rareness of the steaks proved a bit unappetizing to a couple of the guests.

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Recipe based on: "Filet Mignons in Shiitake Madeira Sauce," in The Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook, compiled and edited by Julie Fisher Gunter. Birmingham, AL: Oxmoor House (1999), p. 237.

Meal No. 951: Brioche French Toast

Thanks to the close proximity of Camino Bakery, and the added bonus of their two-for-one bread special on Sundays, I found it easy to make another batch of French toast for Sunday morning.

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"French Toast," from King Arthur Flour online.

Meal No. 950: Barbecued Chicken

This is my second attempt at making grilled barbecue chicken, with a simple homemade spice rub and a homemade barbecue sauce. My previous version was a real hit, which was Meal No. 769.

This was one of those nights where I was horrible about making the clock work to my advantage. So the crew of four that was anticipating supper did not get it until after 10 o'clock. It slowed me down a bit to try making this meal on the kamado grill, instead of the gas grill. I didn't get the homemade barbecue sauce started early enough. But when it was all said and done, I felt like I dished up a pretty decent meal for everybody.

Kamado Meal No. 25

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From Bon Appétit, July 2013:

• "The Definitive Guide to Grilling Crisp, Juicy Chicken," by Meryl Rothstein, p. 64ff.
• "Barbecued Chicken," by Alison Roman, p. 70.
• "4-3-2-1 Rub," by Alison Roman, p. 68.

Meal No. 949: Patty Melts on Sourdough

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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.

Meal No. 948: Multi-Grain Pancakes

A quick lunch this past Monday before climbing into the Toyota Tundra for the winter-weather-burdened drive up to Frederick County, Virginia...

Chocolate Bread Pudding

For Amy's great birthday dinner bash last Friday, I tried out a new dessert, inspired in part by her fondness for bread pudding. This here version was chocolate, made with delicious fresh-baked challah bread that came from Camino Bakery, just up the street from the house. (I got two loaves Friday afternoon, and used the other one for Sunday morning's Cap'n Crunch-crusted French toast.)

It's topped with a chocolate sauce and I brought out some more of the EuroYogurt I'd made last week. It was too tangy for the sweet bread pudding but we all managed just fine.

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"Chocolate Bread Pudding," by Kelley Baker. In Cook's Country, December/January 2009, p. 27.

St. Patrick's Day Winter Storm

How many times are we going to have to lament that Old Man Winter is not yet done with us?!

Monday was St. Patrick's Day, and for us Southerners, that doesn't exactly have the ring of sleet and ice and snow. Especially after the phenomenally gorgeous day we all enjoyed this past Saturday (which was the "observed" St. Patty's Day for thems what drinks downtown!).

We got a decent icing:

And then we got a bit of a sleet accumulation:

While Winston-Salem was getting all this, my driving destination for Monday (Winchester, VA) was getting 5-8 inches. You'll notice my truck parked at the end of the driveway above...that's because I drove it this trip because I want to be prepared for whatever kind of weather I'd encounter. Fortunately, the roads were all just about clear! I only had to use my 4WD to get out of my on-street parking space Monday night after supping at the always-delicious Thai Winchester.