Teriyaki Marinated Beef Steak

By Paul Briand

Sometimes it's nice to let someone else figure out a dinner menu for you, especially when a hurry-up day doesn't give you much time to think about or even prepare a dinner for four.

Lots of grocers have seen the need to help harried consumers and have come up with prepared or semi-prepared meals. I recently tried one from Hannaford, a large grocery store chain in this part of the country. Hannaford describes these meals as "a cooking show to go: everything you need -- fresh, pre-cut and measured for a fantastic meal you make at home."

Meals are offered to cook four or two, the the store provides handouts listing a two-week menu, so that you can decide on Thursday, for example, you might want the chicken thighs with leeks, olives and orzo, or you might want to wait until Saturday for the Caribbean tilapia with toasted cabo coconut with jicama slaw.

I decided to try the teriyaki marinated beef steak with citrus sesame summer slaw. Indeed everything is self-contained. Ingredients are measured and cut, then bagged or put in a container. Then it's all packaged in a convenient, easy-to-carry cardboard box. Cooking instructions are contained within the label that's taped to the box. Here's a look at what was inside (which you could duplicate on your own):

Ingredients

1 1/2 pound beef loin grilling steak, marinating in a 1/2 cup of teriyaki sauce

12 ounces sliced Chinese cabbage

2 1/2 cups shredded carrots

1 small sliced red onion

4 teaspoons chopped cilantro

2 teaspoons dried ginger

2 teaspoons granted orange peel

2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 cup orange juice

1 teaspoon lime juice

3 ounces wonton crisps

Directions

1) On a preheated grill cook the steak 5 - 8 minutes or until medium rare, transfer to cutting board and let sit 10 minutes. (If cooking under an oven broiler, cook 7 minutes per side or until desired level of doneness.);

2) Place vegetables -- cabbage, carrots and onion -- into a large bowl;

3) Combine ginger, orange peel and sesame oil and mix thoroughly then combine with orange juice and lime juice in a small bowl and mix all together;

4) Pour dressing over vegetables and toss to thoroughly coat the slaw;

5) Thinly slice the steak against the grain;

6) Divide slaw among plates, top with sliced beef and wonton crisps.

The directions go so far as to suggest a complementary wine: a Pinot Noir.

This meal was ready in 20 minutes and was a real time saver given the extent of vegetable and dressing ingredients' preparation that would have been necessary had you done this on your own.

All in all it was very tasty, though I thought it was a little heavy on the red onion. I would have used maybe a half a red onion rather than a whole one.

For more information go to: http://www.hannaford.com/cookingshowtogo.

Mac and Cheese with Scallops and Bacon

By Paul Briand

In last week's post, I wrote of how great it was to eat a variety of great seafood at a local seafood festival my wife and I attended. In particular, I had the chance to munch scallops and bacon on a stick.

I confess to a passionate love for scallops and bacon. It is my favorite appetizer. Any cocktail party that serves scallops and bacon is a hit in my book. I'm the guy with the toothpick chasing after the server with the scallops and bacon tray, knocking aside whoever and whatever is necessary to get to them.

In that vein, I was moved last week to cook my own scallops and bacon but with a twist -- combined with homemade macaroni and cheese.

Ingredients

1 pound sea scallops -- numbers about 12

1 pound package of thick cut bacon

2 cups elbow macaroni

2 cups milk

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons flour

2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese

1/2 cup Italian fontina cheese

1/4 cup minced onions

Dash Tabasco sauce

Pepper to taste

Splash of white wine

1/2 cup bread crumbs

Directions

1) Start by cooking the bacon in a large skillet, set aside on paper towels to drain (break into pieces once cool enough);

2) Retain some of the bacon fat and in the same skillet sear the scallops, browning on all sides;

3) Add a dash of white wine to deglaze the pan, set scallops aside and cut in half;

4) Cook elbow macaroni in 4-5 quart pot of boiling water about 6-8 minutes or until just tender (macaroni will cook more when it's baked);

5) While the macaroni cooks, prepare the cheese sauce in saucepan by first heating milk but not letting it boil;

6) Melt butter in large saucepan and stir in flour;

7) Gradually stir in heated milk, stirring constantly until sauce thickens;

8) Add onion and cheddar cheese, stirring until cheese melts;

9) Add dash of hot sauce and pepper, stir;

10) Combine cheese sauce with cooked macaroni;

11) Stir fontina cheese into mixture;

11) Combine halved scallops and crumbled bacon into mac and cheese;

12) Spoon entire mixture into large greased baking dish;

13) Top with bread crumbs;

14) Bake in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

This dish feeds 6-8. I like the fontina cheese as an addition because it combines a complimentary taste to the cheddar and has the stringy, cheesy quality of mozzarella.

Sweet Corn and Crab Bisque

I had the occasion during the weekend with wife Jane to attend the annual Hampton, N.H., Seafood Festival. Certainly as the name implies, it is a festival devoted to seafood and we certainly got our fill as we trolled the food tents, assessing the offerings from a variety of restaurants from throughout the New Hampshire seacoast region.

I got more than my fill with lobster stew, scallops and bacon on a stick, and lobster roll. It also inspired me to try something new in the kitchen for dinner, which I'll talk about next week.

The festival included some cooking demonstrations, and we watched Ron Boucher, a restaurant owner and instructor, show how to prepare his recipe for sweet corn and crab bisque. Boucher (pictured here, photo courtesy of his web site) owns Ron's Landing in Hampton, N.H., and Chez Boucher, his French cooking school.

Here is the bisque recipe he presented at the festival:

Ingredients

12 ears of corn on the cob, hulled (Save the used cobs, you'll need them later.)

1 each bay leaf

1 stick unsalted butter

1 sprig fresh thyme

1 each Vidalia onion, diced

16 ounces crab meat

8 cups seafood stock (Boucher recommended the clam juice that you can buy bottled at your local food store.)

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 package fresh basil, stemmed and chopped

2 ounces butter

2 ounces sherry

Directions

1) Hull all of the corn off the cob and reserve;

2) Melt butter on low heat in a large soup pot. Add the diced onion and hulled corn kernels, cover and sweat on medium low heat for about 12 to 15 minutes. (In the demo, he talked of the importance of sweating to covert the starch of the corn into sugar.);

3) Add the seafood stock and blend well;

4) Tie all of the fresh basil stems together along with a bay leaf and fresh thyme and drop them into the pot along with the corn cobs;

5) Bring the soup to a slow simmer and once at a simmer cook it out for 20 to 30 minutes;

6) Remove the corn cobs and fresh herbs. Puree the soup with a stick blender to a pulpy consistency;

7) Add the crab meat, chopped basil and heavy cream. Bring the soup back to a simmer, adjust the seasoning with salt and white pepper;

8) Optional: Finish the soup with a little butter and splash of sherry if desired.

Easy Chili

By Paul Briand

My son David called the other evening from college, not about money or his courses, but about my easy chili recipe. I've used this recipe often and cooked it with him most recently when we were together for a few days toward the end of his junior semester in London. We made this chili in his dorm kitchen and shared it with the friends he'd made during his semester at King's College.

He was entertaining again and couldn't remember the specifics of the recipe. So here it is for David and you.

Ingredients

1 1/4 pounds hamburger

1 onion

1 green pepper

Several cloves garlic

16 ounce red kidney beans

Chili seasoning mix

24 ounce jar of salsa

Beer

Directions

1) Chop onions and green pepper;

2) Peel and mash (or rough chop) the garlic. Use more to satisfy your own particular garlic need, by the way;

3) In a large skillet at medium/high heat, sautee onions, peppers and garlic in heated olive oil;

4) As the vegetables just begin to soften (about three minutes) add hamburger;

5) Cook hamburger thoroughly and drain excess grease from pan;

6) Add chili seasoning mix and completely stir through the mixture;

7) Add kidney beans undrained and completely stir through;

8) Add salsa, stir through and reduce heat to low/medium;

9) Add a bottle of your favorite beer, a little at a time to control the foamy head;

10) Heat through, about 10 minutes, stirring as needed;

11) Serve with any number of toppings -- sour cream, shredded cheese and sliced jalapenos for example.

Now, there are about a billion chili recipes out there. Okay maybe not that many, but do a Google search of "chili recipes" and you'll get 690,000 results.

What I like about this recipe, besides the fact that it's quick and easy, is its versatility. The versatility comes with the salsa, because, once again, there are about a billion salsas out there. You can choose a mild, medium or hot salsa. You can use a thin salsa, a chunky salsa, or a southwestern style with some beans and corn in the salsa. And there is versatility in the beer you use. With some darker beers the hops and caramel will add a certain nuttiness to the chili, less so with lighter beers. And, of course, you can elect to cook without the beer and add up to 1 1/2 cups of water instead.

Fried Meatballs

(Editor's note: This week's contribution is courtesy of Dick Schuler, pictured here, originally of Oswego, N.Y., where his grandmother -- his Nana -- was famous in their neighborhood for her cooking, especially her homemade pasta drying throughout the house. Dick is now a resident of Minnesota and is the author of "An Italian Family Cookbook of Family Treasures." He describes his recipes as follows: "Each recipe has is own unique story and the best part is the book open with the family history of my grandparent’s journey from Italy to the U.S. in the early 1900's.")

By Dick Schuler
schuleritaliancooking.com

Nana’s three specialties were her sauce, homemade pasta and the ultimate family recipe, fried meatballs. The unique thing about Italian cooking is each family has a slightly different recipe. Our family sauce had several variations from household to household. Some of Nana’s siblings would use olive oil, some would use pork in place of beef. Nana did not add oil to her sauce so it was always seemed smoother and thicker. She would also change up the meat she would use in her sauce. She would use either ground beef, stew beef or meat balls.

Pasta was served twice a week in our house. I carry on that tradition of having pasta twice a week with my family. Nana would make her homemade pasta noodles the old fashion way. She used an old broom handle and the dinning room table as a work space. She would roll out large sheets of dough with the broom handle and with a knife cut the sheets into long strips. To dry them she would hang them over clothes bars, clothes line and the backs of chairs. The pasta would dry for a day before she would cut it into short lengths and send off paper bags of pasta to our relatives and friends. I can still smell the flour and egg mixture from the old house and hear her hands scrapping the dried dough and flour off the old broom handle between each stroke of the roller.

Our most popular and traditional food is our fried meatballs. For almost 100 years our family has been either frying or adding to the sauce these great flavorful treasures. It was my mother’s job to supply the meatballs at all the family gatherings.

The meatballs were the trademark food from our kitchen on old East Ninth Street in Oswego, N.Y. Everyone wanted to taste the meatballs whenever she made them and most of the neighborhood knew when she was frying them. The aroma of garlic would quickly spread out of the cast iron skillet and into the neighborhood. She was the master of the meatball recipe and my mother was second. My Uncle Joe would try to copy it but he could never get the same taste that came out of Nana’s skillet, I think he was light on the garlic. I was fortunate enough to help them mix and be part of the unique measuring process.

I can get the same results and duplicate the unique flavor to this day. See, the trick is when you add the garlic and you’re not measuring, you would add a little and taste the raw meat mixture until you hit the exact combination and flavor. People tell me I am crazy for eating raw hamburger but this is the only way to tell when you have added the correct amount. But to get this right you still need to know or have experienced the flavor before. Believe me there is no better smell or sound than the sizzling oil in the frying pan than that of meatballs cooking.

Ingredients
3 pounds ground beef
1/2 loaf of stale Italian bread
5-6 teaspoons of garlic power (be prepared to add more)
3 teaspoons fresh ground pepper
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups ground Parmesan cheese
1-2 eggs (start with one, if mix is too dry add a second

Directions
1) Start by breaking up the ground beef in a large bowl;
2) Take the bread and wet with warm water to soften but not saturate, wring any excess water out. Break up the bread into the meat;
3) Add the egg and mix in slightly;
4) Add the garlic, pepper, salt, and cheese. Mix thoroughly using your hands;
5) Now the tough part – taste the mix if you dare to determine if you lack anything. If anything you will need more garlic powder (experience tells me). Shake some in lightly covering the top of the mix and re-mix again. Repeat the test if you like;
6) Use your hands to shape and roll into individual meatballs
7) In a wide and deep frying pan add oil about ¼ inches deep. Preheat on medium and add meatballs. As you add them flatten slightly so they are not a true ball shape, this will allow them to cook more even;
8) Cook for 2 minutes and flip;
9) Once both sides are browned you should be OK to remove and place on a platter or bowl. I usually line the bowl with 2-3 paper towels to absorb any excess grease. Let cool and enjoy.

Linguica Hash

By Paul Briand

I distinctly remember my first Homecoming Weekend as an alum of the University of New Hampshire as if it were yesterday, even though it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. A bunch of us planned to meet mid-morning for a big tailgate party before the football game. And we planned to do it up right with Coleman stoves and grills and lots of good food and friendship to share.

I wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary and decided to make a hash, substituting the usual corned beef with linguica, the Portuguese sausage that I had sampled during a then recent visit with a former work colleague living in New Bedford, Mass. New Bedford is a fishing community with a significant Portuguese population. (The mother of Emeril Lagasse, the renowned chef, was Portuguese and he grew up in Fall River, next door to New Bedford, by the way.) I pre-made the hash at home then brought it in a dish that could be reheated on one of the portable stoves.

A word about linguica: It is a pork-based sausage typically seasoned with onions, garlic and paprika. I use a mild version, because of the others I tend to cook for at home. For a spicier version, use chorizo, a Spanish pork sausage made with chili, garlic and paprika.

Ingredients
Package of linguica, about 1 pound
6 medium sized potatoes
1 large Vadila onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
Parsley
Cilantro
Pepper
Dash of hot sauce

Directions
1) Cook the linguica (grilling is recommended, made easy with a Pannini grill if you have one);
2) Cook the potatoes (prepare them as you normally would for baked potatoes);
3) Rough chop both the linguica and potatoes, place in large mixing bowl;
4) Add chopped onions and garlic to mixing bowl;
5) Add parsley, cilantro and pepper to taste and dash of hot sauce, and give everything a good stir;
6) Heat oil in large skillet (I use leftover bacon fat);
7) Add the hash mix and cook through,. using large spatula to turn the mixture so that the hash takes on an even brown texture;
8) Optional: Add half cup of water (or milk), reduce heat, cover and cook for 10 minutes or until water is absorbed and hash is crisp.

Recommended serving: with over-easy eggs; there's nothing like that egg and yoke combining with the linguica and hash.

Meatloaf - the TV "Throwdown"

By Paul Briand

"Hello, my name is Paul, and I'm addicted to the Food Network."

If there isn't a support group -- like Alcoholics Anonymous or Gamblers Anonymous -- for Food Network junkies, there ought to be. We can be a desperate lot, watching the culinary experts like Emeril and Bobby Flay when we ought to be doing something more productive. But I view my Food Network viewing as being very productive. In the same way that a good book can inspire me to write, a good cooking show inspires me to cook.

I have three Food Network favorites: "Emeril Live," "30 Minute Meals" with Rachel Ray, and "Throwdown with Bobby Flay." And the more I watch Guy Fiori, who hosts "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and "Guy's Big Bite," the more he's growing on me.

Each brings something a little different to the table. Emeril Lagasse is a little high end, but I like to watch and learn from his technique. A lot of people dump on Rachel Ray's cooking methods, but I like the 30-minute recipes and the in-the-kitchen shortcuts. I especially like Bobby Flay and his "Throwdown" -- the challenge to go one-on-one against someone else's recipe. He'll choose a popular dish from a local restaurant -- like the meatloaf from the Colucci Bros. Diner in Hyannis, Mass. -- and go to their location in an attempt to one-up them with a better recipe of the same dish.

Since I'm not taking copious notes during a cooking show, I'm often left wondering whether I might be able to find the recipe for a dish that I found intriguing and might want to try in my own kitchen for my own eats at home.

I did some rooting around in the Food Network web site to determine just how easy it is to find a specific recipe. Trust me, they have lots and lots of recipes that are accessible right from the home page. But I wanted to know how easy or difficult it might be to find a recipe for the meatloafs I saw on "Throwdown" this week

There are two ways to do it. If you know the name of the show, you can sort through by name ("Throwdown") and either the episode topic ("meatloaf") or the week that the show aired. You can also click on "TV Schedule" and sort through the information until you find the episode and the recipe you were seeking.

Here are the two recipes from the meatloaf throwdown, with due credit to the postings on the Food Network:

Colucci Bros. Meatloaf
Ingredients
Salad oil
1 carrot, small to medium dice
2 stalks celery, small to medium dice
1 medium onion, small to medium dice
2 pounds ground beef
2 eggs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Dash hot sauce (recommended: Tabasco)
Dash Worcestershire sauce
3 slices bread
1/2 cup seasoned Italian bread crumbs
Ketchup

Directions
1) Preheat oven at 375 degrees F.
2) In a medium-sized saute pan, put 2 dribbles of salad oil and heat over medium-high heat.
3) Add the carrots, celery, and onions and saute, about 5 minutes. Put aside and let cool.
4) In large bowl put the carrot mixture, ground beef and remaining ingredients, except for the bread, the bread crumbs and ketchup.
5) Soak the bread in cold water, then squeeze water out (like a sponge) and drain it. Add to the ground beef and mix. (A stand mixer is may help make it easier).
6) Add the bread crumbs and mix.
7) Roll into firm loaf, spread ketchup over the top, and place into preheated oven for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, or until cooked through.
Take out and serve hot.

Bobby Flay's Meatloaf
Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large zucchini, finely diced
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
1 yellow pepper, finely diced
1 yellow onion, finely diced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 pound ground veal
1 pound ground beef chuck
1 cup panko (Japanese) bread crumbs
1/2 cup freshly grated Romano
1 1/2 cups ketchup, divided
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Directions
1) Pre-eat oven to 425 degrees F.
2) Heat the oil in a large saute pan over high heat.
3) Add the zucchini, peppers, onion and salt and pepper, to taste, and cook until almost soft, 5 minutes.
4) Stir in the garlic and 1/4 teaspoon the red pepper flakes and cook for 30 seconds. Set aside to cool.
5) Whisk together the eggs and herbs in a large bowl. Add the meat, bread crumbs, cheese, 1/2 cup of the ketchup and 2 tablespoons of the balsamic vinegar and the vegetables and mix until just combined.
6) Mold the meatloaf on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
7) Whisk together the remaining ketchup and balsamic vinegar in a small bowl then brush the mixture over the entire loaf.
8) Bake the meatloaf for approximately 1 to 1 1/4 hours.
9) Remove from the oven and let rest 10 minutes before slicing.

By the way, each "Throwdown" episode has two local judges to determine whose recipe is better. In the battle of the meatloafs, the Colucci brothers beat Flay.