Two recipes to cheer you up for Fall (steaks and baked apples)

I found two steaks on sale Sunday. Two bone in steaks. $5. Priceless. So I made a nice Fall Feast last night for my self.

I did not know exactly how I was going to cook them, but due to other factors (my brother drank my red wine). I boiled them for the first time.

bone in steak.
wash with cold water and put salt and pepper (lots of pepper) all over the steaks.
take garlic cloves and rub down. Make slits in steak and put garlic cloves in the steak.
place uncooked onion rings all around.
drizzle with olive oil and balsamic.

Broil uncovered for about 10 or 15 minutes on each side.
DELICIOUS.

APPLES.
I thought Halloween left me a little wanting for fall. (Even though the nyc combo of Halloween and the Marathon was very nice).
So I decided to taste fall.

I found some locally grown fresh apples.
I cut out the center (be careful this was not as easy as I thought)
Chop walnuts.
heat lots of butter, a fair amount of brown sugar and a bit of cinnamon in a pan and sautee the walnuts in there. (the mixture should make kind of a nutty syrup for the apples)
Fill apples with the mixture and bake (uncovered) in a glass dish at 350 for 30 minutes.

Serve in a giant Margarita glass with a scoop of Ben and Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk.

I have to bring food to work and I was not quite done playing in the kitchen so I used the bones from the steak to make some stock, froze part of it and then made soup. That I am about to eat right now 8).

Poughkeepskie

This past Sunday I went on a double date up to visit the Culinary Institute of America in Poughkeepski, New York. I didn't realise until we got there (after a 2 hour train ride from Grand Central) that the school is located in an old monastery.

The main cooking classes are in the monastery, the big building in the center of the school. The chapel center now serves as a dining hall, complete with the original stained glass. I find this former worship area an appropriate place for eating at a culinary institute.

J. King, a graduate of CIA took us around. He showed us the classrooms, professional kitchens throughout the monastery. And explained each room. We saw the asian room and the BIGGEST Woks I've ever seen. JKing told us about one professor who could de-junk a line of shrimp in second (whosh whosh- with two swipes of the knife) and the shrimp are sans-gunk.

There were pictures of the finished daily coursework and I was very impressed with the presentation. They really are being educated for 5 star restaurants. We walked past more and more rooms and James told us that each class cooks for all the other students, so you never eat your own food.

(p.s. I also noticed that there was hand sanitizer dispensers on the walls all over the school)

We walked around the campus enjoying the warm fall day. The combination of the trees' colors; the view of the Hudson River and the incredible buildings made me reminiscent of boarding school and gave me a sense of future possibilities.

The restaurants were closed but there are three 5 star restaurants that are student run. JKing's favorite is the American Bounty restaurant and there is an Italian one (complete with a back garden and a wine tasting room were you learn wine parings, a french one and an apple pie cafe where JKing claims the best Apple Cider.

Everyone who is there is taken over by food. Having a beer outside by the clay tennis court behind the student center, I read an article about food porn (link is to a similar article written by the same author) in the student newspaper, La Papillote. It compared people watching the foodnetwork and watching people do complicated dishes that takes a great amount of training (never to be tried in the viewers own kitchen) and was quite interesting.

I walked through the casual student grill (the menu was delicious featuring gourmet soups served in paper cups and turkey sand witches with cranberry mayonnaise. It was interesting to listen to the students talking. All about food. Talking about how some friend found goat cheese for his soup and laughing haughtily at some culinary fact that was above my head.

Before we left we sat over a high ledge on the Hudson watching the sun set (If I can, I will get a few of the pictures from Lisel and post one) It was beautiful, the train tracks down a steep rock ledge and the hues of the trees highlighted by the setting sun and a tugboat going by.

At a bar waiting for the train a man asked me if we'd come up to see the pedestrian bridge that had recently opened. I told him no, but while driving, that we had discussed the huge number of people walking on the bridge. Turns out it is the worlds longest pedestrian bridge and a new destination for walkers. It just opened earlier this month by this mans group, Walkway over the Hudson.

KD's October Stuffing

It occurred to me that I could essentially make a stuffing out of anything so I tried for one with Mushrooms, red peppers, shredded carrots, onions and hot sausage and peas. It was so good. I took the long route- I made this on day two of cooking and it was my weekend masterpiece.

S&P, thyme, parsley
red peppers 3 eggs
carrots wheat bread
milk & butter OR can cream of chicken
mushrooms Hot Italian Sausage
onions frozen peas

1. Either get break crumbs or Lightly Toast a little less than a loaf of wheat bread and cut into little squares; place in big mixing bowl

2. Make the Veggies

• cut an onion or two in supersuper small chunks (everything is really small)
• use a peeler to peel all of the carrot into super small flakes (note- this is easier with a large carrot- I only had the bags of little carrots so I used a cheese grater)
• cut up mushrooms (brown) also into super small chunks
• peas (frozen- already thawed) need the least amount of peas
• 2 or 3 red peppers, also diced

combine all in a sauteing pan with olive oil, butter, salt, pepper and thyme.
stir constantly- it should be basically filled to the top with veggies (also when combining the veggies in the pan go from hardest veggie to softest because they take longer)-- also this mixture smells SO delicious and it smelled like my dads cooking which I did not plan on and it was soooo yummy smelling and it took me back!

3. Take a whole package of hot Italian sausage and take it out of the casings and cook in a separate saucepan

4. (I didn't want to use cream of chicken- so I kind of made a cream of sausage- take fat from sausage pan and heat in small pan with a small amount of water, melt in a fair amount of butter piece by piece stirring w fork or whisking the whole time, adding salt at intervals to help it bond, then pour in milk or cream while still whisking. add your cream of sausage (or a can of cream of chicken, or I guess cream of mushroom or whatever, to the veggie mix and bring to a boil, cover and let simmer after boiling and stirring for awhile.

5. Beat 3 eggs with parsley and salt and pepper.

6. combine sausage pieces with the bread pieces and then pour egg mixture all over- try to get all the bread pieces completely coated with egg (Its fun to use your hands for this but watch out for the salmonella factor)

7. Take huge soup or big chilli pot and combine bread/sausage mixture in the pot (best to do a bit from each mixture and stir & repeat till all mixed in pot. Pour mixture into cast iron skillet. Garnish on the top with extra shaved carrot pieces.

8. Bake at 375 or 350ish for 30 minutes- covered with tin foil. Take tin foil off and bake for another 10 minutes


Umm this is so good. It is the best lazy food in the world. I think I am going to invent another one soon with all kinds of veggies.... also I cooked a casserole and beets and mashed potatoes and a cake and THE BEST Green Beans EVER this weekend

There was actually a point where Katie, MK and I were all sitting on stools in my TINY kitchen shelling green beans and henning away drinking sweet tea!
Take beans, shell and wash. Put in water with pieces of onion (a very few) and rip up a piece of bacon. Add Salt, Pepper, brown sugar, basil, and a dash of clove powder and a dash of Cinnamon. Boil ALL DAY (to quote Katie "You boil the shit outta 'em"), do not cover the pot and add water continuously as it evaporates (maybe some spice replenishing as well)

Coming soon- I have all these finely shopped beets and my friend Josh stopped by this weekend as well, and told me about his boyfriend's Costa Rican beet dish that is like egg salad with hard boiled eggs and beets and mayo and cooked carrots.... I am going to work on that one and figure it out and post lates. Lovelovelove to cook!