Irish Week: Shepherd's Pie

Doing all this cooking this week for St. Patrick's has left me with quite a bit of leftovers in my fridge, but being the good single girl that I am, I planned ahead for that. What do you do with leftover stew and colcannon? Make shepherd's pie, of course!

Leftover Guinness Beef Stew

Leftover colcannon

Splash of milk

1 1/2 cups shredded Irish cheddar

1. Preheat the oven to 450F.

2. Warm up the colcannon in the microwave for about 2 minutes. Stir it and add some milk to make it less dry. Then stir in 1 cup of the cheddar.

3. Pour the stew into an appropriately sized baking dish. My 9x9 dish was perfect, and it using it saved me from doing dishes because I removed the colcannon from it and poured the stew right in.

4. Spoon the colcannon over the top of the stew, spreading to the edges. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup cheddar over the top.

5. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes, until the top is browned and the stew filling is bubbling. Let sit for about 5 minutes before serving.

Those Irish sure do know of a delicious way to re-purpose leftovers!

Bon appetit!

Tacos with Corn Salsa, Margarita(s), and New Shoes

I don't care what anyone says; I love Katy Perry's pink hair.  

Also, reading In Style was how I spent my evening.

I wasn't planning on blogging this week. I was in New Jersey and New York over the weekend, and I basically didn't sleep so I am in recovery mode (read: ordering pizza and concocting raggameals not fit for publishing).


Actually, I had planned on writing about the food I ate in New York City, but my phone died so I couldn't take any pictures except one of roasted peanuts I bought from a street vendor. As delicious as they are, I don't think I can build a post around roasted peanuts. Okay, fine, here's the picture.

But, Wednesday I went to the farmers market with Kate, and when I saw the huge barrel of corn priced at 5 for $2, I knew I needed to buy some. I haven't eaten much corn this summer because there hasn't been much of it around. In fact, I think the only corn I have eaten was in the sweet corn tomalito I made a couple weeks ago.


With my 5 ears of corn in hand, I quickly chose poblano peppers, heirloom cherry tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, and cilantro for a corn salsa. I had leftover pizza at home, so I made some corn salsa yesterday to eat some with chips, and made easy ground beef tacos for dinner tonight.


I also made a margarita (we will see if that becomes plural) because this morning a friend at work planted the seed in my brain to do so. The margarita recipe is below, but if you are older than 16 and you don't know how to make one, I highly recommend you re-evaluate the choices you have made in your life up until now.  Seriously.  


Oh, and as I was making my margarita, I looked down and realized I still had my shoes on from work. Usually I take off my shoes the instant I walk in the door, but today for whatever reason, I've been tromping around in these brand new Sam Edelman wedges I snagged at the Rack last week. So, per Santina's request, here's a picture of my new shoes getting busy in the kitchen. I always rest my foot on the towel bar as I cook. (No I don't.)

Nasty raw blister on my heel courtesy of being cute instead of comfortable as I spend an entire day walking around NYC.

Margarita 
2 parts tequila
1 parts lime juice
1 part triple sec


Put all ingredients in a shaker with 3 - 4 cubes ice, shake, pour into a glass with a salted rim and garnish with a slice or round of lime.


Corn Salsa
5 ears of corn
2 poblano peppers
2 jalapeno peppers
1 pint cherry tomatoes, each tomato cut in half, or 1 large tomato, diced
A bunch of cilantro
2 limes


1.  This recipe is tastiest, in my opinion, if you roast the corn on a grill. I did not do so because I am lazy, but if you want to do so, peel back the husks, remove the silks, then close the husks again. Soak the ears in water for ~20 minutes, then place on the grill and grill until they're done. Move them around and rotate them, obviously. If you burn them badly, you grilled them too long. If the kernels aren't soft and a little blackened, you didn't grill them long enough.


If you're lazy like me, just remove the husks and silks and boil the corn in water for a couple minutes.


You can roast the poblanos on the grill too, or if you aren't using the grill method, roast them under the broiler until the skins are blackened. Then put them either in a sealed paper bag or in a bowl covered with plastic wrap and let them cool ~20 minutes. You can roast the jalapenos in the same way, if you want.

2. Once the corn is cooked in whatever method you chose, cut the kernels off the cob. Place kernels in a large bowl.

3. Once the peppers have cooled, remove the skin, de-seed them, and dice them. Dice up the jalapeno too, whether you roasted it or not.

4. Add the peppers and the halved tomatoes to the corn.


5. The cilantro is probably prettiest if you pick the leaves off the stems and add to the salsa that way, but the stems actually have really good flavor. I usually just tear up the top quarter or so of each sprig. Add as much cilantro as you want. I love cilantro, so I added a lot.


6. Squeeze lime juice over everything and mix.


7. Eat!


I am not going to put a recipe for tacos.  The tacos I made tonight are nothing special: browned ground beef piled in a corn tortilla with corn salsa, regular salsa, cheddar cheese, and sour cream.  Delicious, but how am I supposed to tell you how to make that?

Bon appetit.

Milanesas Napolitanas and a Fernet Cocktail

Remember when I made grillades and grits, I mentioned that I had a lot of beef round steaks left?  And I also mentioned that the only things I know how to cook with beef round steaks are milanesas and chicken fried steak?  Here are the milanesas.


I used to date an Argentine.  He first made milanesas for me when we lived in DC, and I fell in love.  I had eaten chicken fried steak before, but milanesas feel lighter than chicken fried steak.  I don't know why, but they do.


Then when I lived in Buenos Aires, I ate them on a regular basis.  The restaurants serve HUGE slabs of milanesas.  I capitalize huge because they were seriously huge, like 12 inches across.  It's the type of thing you split between two people.  And there are a million different types of milanesas.  They're not always beef, and they can be topped with all sorts of things.


They are best served, and traditionally served, with french fries, but I didn't feel up for frying both beef and potatoes on the same night, so instead, in an attempt to make the meal more complete, I made milanesas napolitanas: milanesa topped with ham, cheese, and marinara.


About 3 lbs beef round steak, or any thin cut beef
3 eggs
About 2 cups plain bread crumbs
Salt
2 large cloves garlic, minced
Dried thyme
Vegetable oil (I used peanut, not a vegetable)


Deli ham
Cheese (Port Salut or muenster is best.  I used muenster.)
Marinara sauce


1.  Tenderize the steaks by pounding them with a meat mallet.  I used a hammer again because I don't have a meat mallet.


2.  Lightly beat the eggs with a fork and add salt, garlic, and thyme. Mix.


3.  Pass the meat through the egg mixture, and then through the bread crumbs, coating well.  A note here, I have no idea the quantity of bread crumbs I used.  I had the canister next to where I was breading the steaks, and when I needed more, I added more.  That said, I think 2 cups is a decent guess.


4.  Fry in oil until done, usually a couple of minutes on each side.


5.  Place on a towel and let the oil drain.


6.  Set the oven to broil and let preheat a little (I should have put this step sooner in the process, but I forgot and I don't want to renumber, and besides, when you broil you don't really need to let the oven preheat that much).


7.  Place the number of milanesas you want to eat on a cookie sheet or broiler pan.  Put a slice (or two) of ham on the milanesa and a slice (or two) of cheese on top of that.  Make sure some of the milanesa still shows so that your presentation will be pretty.


8.  Broil the milanesas until the cheese is bubbling and browning.


9.  Place on a plate and top with a spoonful or two of marinara.


10.  Eat.

To accompany my meal, I made a Fernet cocktail.  Fernet is a very argentine thing to drink, though it got really popular in the states, at least in San Francisco.  Last winter when I was visiting SF, my brother-in-law made me take a shot of Fernet.  I was disgusted.  Fernet is so not something you shoot.  But, to my point, it is very argentine so I thought it would be a good thing to go along with my milanesas.

2 parts gin
1 part fernet
1 part vermouth


Combine in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake, and strain into a martini glass.  It should be garnished with a twist of orange, but I didn't have any oranges.


I fried up quite a bit of meat making this meal.  I don't think it's worth frying one portion of anything.  And, something I should have mentioned earlier, milanesas save really well.  You can throw them in the freezer, and then put them straight in the oven from the freezer, and they'll taste pretty damn good.


I didn't freeze any, as that would defeat the purpose of clearing out my freezer, but I did eat them throughout the weekend.  One really good way of eating them is in a sandwich, like this.

That is one huge sandwich cut into three pieces.  You heard me; it is NOT three sandwiches, damn it.


Bon appetit.