CAB Manhattan Filet with Creamed Spinach and Twice Baked Potatoes

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Have you ever had the Manhattan filet? I learned about this excellent cut from the Snake River Farms folks at Kingsford University back in 2011. It's essentially a NY Strip cut into two filets. I like this cut for the portion control and because it gets a little more crust on your filet.  

Here's a Manhattan filet that we made this weekend, along with the classic sides of creamed spinach and a twice-baked potato. 

Manhattan Filet with Creamed Spinach and Twice Baked Potato

Here's what we did for each item.

Manhattan Filet

The pictures tell the story for this one.

Buffalo Chicken Smash Burger

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I've been enjoying smash burgers lately, and something occurred to me. I don't recall seeing smash burgers made from ground chicken. It sounded good, so I decided to give the idea a whirl on Saturday while our favorite college teams played basketball. 

Buffalo chicken smash burgers are spicy and fun gameday food.

They were slightly crispy, spicy, and absolutely delicious; we both loved them. If tomatoes were in season, I would definitely add a slice but hothouse tomatoes in the Winter just make my taste buds sad. I almost added some bacon but thought it might overpower the flavor of the chicken. I'll make them this same way again, no doubt. 

Tips for Working with Ground Chicken

Raw ground chicken isn't as easy to work with as its beef counterpart. Here are a few tips to make the process go more smoothly.

• Ground chicken is extremely tender, almost mushy. Keep it quite cold until the last minute.
• Wash your hands with cold water before handling the chicken.
• Ground chicken tries to stick to anything that it touches, so I spray my burger press and deli sheets with spray oil (Pam, etc.). 
• Ground chicken is bland, so don't be shy with the seasonings.

Here's what we did.

Buffalo Chicken Smash Burgers

Shaved Steak Fajitas on the Big Green Egg

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This is my quick and easy version of fajitas. It features thin pieces of shaved steak seasoned and cooked in a hot skillet or griddle. You get a lot of delicious, crispy edges this way with more of the Maillard reaction for flavor.

Fajitas with shaved steak, peppers, onions, and chipotle-lime crema.

Normally, I will either marinade or dry brine a whole flank or skirt steak, then grill it and slice it for fajitas. But for this version, I take a pound of shaved steak and cook it like I would for Philly steak and cheese. I season it with a Southwestern or fajita seasoning as it is cooking so no time is needed for marinating or dry-brining. 

Shaved Steak Fajitas

By www.nibblemethis.com

Published 12/3/2020

Ingredients

Gringo Jalapeno Smash Burgers Sliders

 [FTC Standard Disclosure] We received no compensation for this post. I am fortunate to cook with the Flavor Anonymous guys at Memphis in May each year and recently they were kind enough to send me a box of their exciting rubs and seasonings.

Hungry? How about this triple-decker smash burger with bacon and layers of roasted jalapeno cream sauce? 

Don't panic, that's not as big as it looks - it's only a slider. A slider with a half-pound of beef on it but still a slider. 

The Gringo Jalapeno sauce is a cream sauce with fire-roasted jalapeno and the Dirty Gringo rub from Flavor Anonymous. This rub has Southwestern flavors with smoky chiles that bring a lot of flavor to this sauce. I originally made it as a dip for hot wings but it also goes great on burgers.

Gringo Jalapeno Sauce for Wings and Burgers

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter, unsalted
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup half and half
• 1 jalapeno, fire-roasted, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon Flavor Anonymous Dirty Gringo rub
• pinch or two of salt to taste

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Asian flavors, especially Thai, make my mouth happy. This easy Thai Peanut Ground Beef recipe is no exception.

The heat and tastes that the peanut sauce brings to this recipe put a smile on my face and a song in my heart...or is that my belly? Either way, we love it so much that I've cooked it a few times in the past two weeks. 

The idea for this recipe came while making The Recipe Critic's popular Korean Ground Beef and Rice Bowls recipe. 

It was delicious and super easy. But even still, I immediately knew that I wanted to make a Thai Peanut version of it. You can also make this into Thai Cashew Ground Beef by swapping out cashew butter for peanut butter. That's how we made it the first time; both renditions are lip-smacking good. 

These would also be fantastic as the filling for lettuce wraps.

Thai Peanut Ground Beef

Fire-Roasted Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Shells

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The days are getting shorter, which means it is time for me to start turning more to comfort food. Cheese stuffed shells are something that we frequently make when we have leftover meat sauce for spaghetti. Our base recipe is a simple cheese filling, ut it is easy to experiment by adding spinach, sausage, or other ingredients to the mixture.

Fire-roasted Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Shells on the Big Green Egg.

Of course, you can make these in the oven but cooking them on the Big Green Egg gives them the enhanced fire-roasted flavor.

Here is how we make our Fire Roasted Spinach Stuffed Shells on the Big Green Egg. One tip: If your leftover meat sauce is extra chunky or "rustic," you might want to pulse it in a food processor. I think it is easier to work with a finer texture sauce with this one. 

Fire Roasted Spinach Stuffed Shells

Shaved Steak Tostadas

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 Life has been very busy in our house. Work and home improvement projects have collided to interfere with my time available for cooking so we have been doing a lot of 30-minute meals. 

This is one that I threw together last night - Shaved Steak Tostadas. These tostadas are loaded with skillet seared steak, peppers, onions, queso sauce, enchilada sauce, tomatoes, black olives, and green onion. 

This started with a package of Certified Angus Beef® Brand Shaved Steak that I bought at my Food City. They just started carrying this product but it has fast become a staple here for quick and easy dishes. The obvious use is for steak and cheese sandwiches but it is also great for Korean bulgolgi, stir fry, and Mexican beef dishes. 

Bayou Grits

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These are one of the best grits I have ever had. I was in Pensacola for the Pensacola Eggfest this time last year and had breakfast at the Dog House Deli in Downtown. 

I went with Bayou Grits, over-easy eggs, and smoked Duroc pork belly.

The Dog House Deli's Bayou Grits are thick, cheesy, bold, and amazing. Chef Nathan Holler and his crew saute bacon, ham, sausage, peppers, onions, garlic, and tomatoes and add them to their cheese grits with a touch of salsa.  They are shut-your-mouth good!

My version of the Dog House Deli's incredibly good Bayou Grits.

I was smoking a pork belly this weekend and decided I would make a version of their Bayou Grits. Here is what I did, starting with the pork belly.

Smoked Pork Belly

I started with half of a pork belly weighing just a smidgen over  5 pounds. I patted it dry, lightly oiled it, and gave it a moderate coat of my NMT Southern Sweet rub recipe (from my second book, The Offset Smoker Cookbook). You could substitute a general sweet BBQ rub, like Meat Church Honey Hog.

I loaded my Oklahoma Joe's Rider DLX with Kingsford Hickory pellets and pre-heated it to 200°f. I smoked the pork belly at that temp for about 4 hours. I spritzed it with apple juice every hour or so. Then I raised the temperature to 250°f and cooked the belly until it reached an internal temperature of 200°f, about 3 more hours. Then I glazed it with a homemade cherry-bourbon BBQ sauce similar to my Honey Bourbon BBQ sauce.

How I Restore and Maintain Cast Iron Skillets for Use On The Grill

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When I post pictures of my cast iron collection, I often get comments and questions about how I season and maintain them. As promised (ahem...months ago), here is what I do to keep my cast iron looking black, shiny, and beautiful. 

I'll start by saying this. Maintaining cast iron isn't about a magic product or special oil. Maintaining cast-iron skillets is a behavior. If you clean and spend 10 minutes reseasoning your skillets each time you use them, they will stay immaculate, non-stick, and last a lifetime. 

A second important point. Cast-iron is meant for use day-in, day-out. The best thing you can do to maintain your cast-iron cookware is to use it often.

Restoration

A good story starts at the beginning so let's start with the 1930's era Griswold #8 skillet that I restored earlier this year. 

When Do I Need To Restore A Skillet?

Typically, when a skillet loses its seasoning or gets a little flaky, the cast-iron just needs a thorough cleaning, reseasoning, and frequent use. But when a piece of cast-iron cookware has been abused and has built-up carbon or large sections of rust, the restoration will make it as good as new. Restoration is time-consuming, but you should never have to do it again if you maintain your cast-iron in the first place. Restoring cast-iron includes: 

• stripping/cleaning, 
• establishing a base coat, and then 
• repeated use to build up the seasoning.

This skillet definitely needed restoration. It was made over 80 years ago and had definitely seen better days. 

Gorgonzola and Bacon Burger

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The black and blue burger, a burger topped with blue cheese, is one of the classic burgers. You either love them or hate them. I'm a lover of these pungent flavored burgers, they make my mouth water like a car hitting a fire hydrant.  

I did a spin on this time-honored burger for happy hour tonight. Some folks are wary of blue cheese because of the intense flavor. Instead of the typical blue cheese crumbles, a thick, creamy gorgonzola sauce graced our burgers. The milder flavor works better on a burger for me.

This burger is bursting with flavor! The sharp taste of the cheese sauce, the smoky/salty bacon, and fresh ground chuck patty make this a spectacular burger.

I start off making the cheese sauce because I like to give it time to rest and thicken. That way it stays on top of the burger on the grill instead of dripping off into the flames below.

NMT Gorgonzola Burger Sauce

Steak and Cheese Sandwich on the PK Grill

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I haven't been posting much on here lately. That is because we have been busy on weekends doing home repairs. We are also renovating our basement patio, which we have never used much in 20 years, into an expanded grilling area. 

Here's a quicky that we did this past weekend when the heavy rains from Hurricane Delta's remnants kept us from working on projects. I made these super simple steak and cheese subs on the PK grill.

Normally, I will do these when I break down a whole ribeye, and I save one of the ends just for steak and cheese sandwiches.  I run it through my meat slicer on a near-zero thickness setting for shaved steak. I don't do that often because a whole ribeye is not inexpensive, and cleaning the slicer is a bit of a chore. 

The Hatch and Guac Burger

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We have made a boatload of juicy and delicious burgers this Summer, and this Hatch and Guac Burger is among the best of them. 

It's a 6-ounce beef patty cooked on a coal-fired griddle to get the grilled taste but with a flavor-delivering crust of which Maillard himself would be proud. We put it on a bed of mixed greens and topped it with fire-roasted Hatch chiles, a slice of Grainger County tomato, homemade guacamole, and fried tortilla strips.

But a great burger isn't just about toppings and condiments. For me, a phenomenal burger patty starts with two factors - 

1. the freshness of the grind and 
2. the cuts used in the grind. 

We used brisket and sirloin for the ground beef that we used for these burgers. Let's talk about grinding before jumping into the recipe.

The Daily Grind

Event: Last Year's Praise The Lard BBQ Contest

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It has been a weird year since our team hasn't competed in any BBQ contests this year and we have only cooked at one food festival. In case you are missing these events as much as we are, here is a look back at the 2019 Praise The Lard event.

Praise The Lard is one of the crown jewels in the BBQ competition realm for several reasons. 

• Praise The Lard is two BBQ contests in one, featuring both KCBS and MBN sanctioned events. 
• Praise the Lard also includes a steak contest sanctioned by the Steak Cookoff Association.
• Praise the Lard is excellently organized and well-executed by the legendary Mills family of 17th Street Barbecue.

This BBQ event has been on my BBQ event bucket-list for years. I finally got to compete in it last year with my friends at Flavor Anonymous. We have competed together at Memphis in May for years, but this was my first time with Flavor Anonymous in Murphysboro. Here are some of my pictures from the event.

The Cookers (aka Smokers)

I'm a gear junkie, I admit it. So the first thing I do after our team camp is set up is to walk around looking at all of the smokers. 

This was one of the first pits that caught my eye. It is a reverse-flow offset smoker with a transversely mounted firebox. TBH, I'm not sure what mounting the firebox that way does, but my guess would be they could get more volume that way without increasing length. Or, it does allow access to the firebox from the front instead of the side.

Leftover Special: Steak and Cheese Breakfast Hash

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We kicked off last weekend with a steak and scallop dinner.  Here's what we made with the leftovers.

We made our skillet potatoes au gratin on one of our Big Green Eggs. This skillet is one that we recently restored; it's a Griswold #8 from the 1930s.

We also grilled several Certified Angus Beef® Brand ribeye steaks from Food City. We dry brined them in our NMT Umami Steak Seasoning for about 6 hours and then grilled them about 4 minutes per side at 450°f.

We had steak and cheesy potatoes leftover. The first thing that came to mind was making steak and cheese breakfast hash. 

Half-Pound Cowboy Burgers on the Grill

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We get so busy "doing" on the weekends that we'll often eat lunch so late that we just combine it with an early dinner. Do you do that? That's what we did last weekend when we made these classic, big honkin' Cowboy Burgers for our lunch-dinner. 

This elbow-dripping burger starts with an 8-ounce patty of fresh ground beef and is loaded with smoky cheddar cheese, crispy bacon, bourbon-laden BBQ sauce, fried onions, and homemade spicy pickles.

As always, I have my cooking notes, tips, and more mouth-watering pictures below the recipe. Enjoy!

Cowboy Burgers

By www.nibblemethis.com

Published 08/30/2020

Ingredients

Ribeye Steak with White Beans and Bacon

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A popular dish in Tuscany is a straight-forward T-bone steak with white beans. So this quick steak dinner that I made this past weekend is Tuscan-inspired but Appalachian-influenced since I'm using East Tennessee's own Bush's® Beans. 

I used a ribeye instead of a T-bone because the ribeyes looked the best. 

Cooking Strategy

My strategy was to set up a two-zone fire on a simple charcoal grill. I did my skillet cooking directly over the coals until it was time to simmer. Then I slid the beans to the indirect side, raised the grill temperature, and seared the steak directly over the coals. 

Equipment Strategy

For this cook, I chose to use my old CharBroil 500x. This tabletop grill is no longer in production but the Oklahoma Joe Rambler is an improved similar version. Tuscan grilling is basic (in a good way) and this aged grill is like that too. That's really the main reason that I picked this particular grill for this cook. 

This grill is set up for a two-zone fire with all of the fuel on the right side for sauteing and grilling and the left side is left open for indirect cooking.

 

Certified Angus Beef Brand® ribeye steak with white beans and bacon

Confession:  This is my bean and bacon soup recipe with less stock. Just about 1/2 to 1 cup more of stock and you'll have a quick and tasty soup. 

White Beans and Bacon

By www.nibblemethis.com

Published 06/22/2020

Ingredients

• 3 strips Smithfield Homestyle bacon, chopped
• 1/4 cup carrot, peeled and finely diced
• 1/4 cup sweet onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 can Bush's Great Northern Beans or other white beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon finely ground white pepper

Instructions

1. Place cast-iron skillet or another grill-safe, non-stick skillet on a 350°f grill (medium heat) and allow it to preheat for 5 minutes.
2. Add the bacon, carrot and onion and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the bacon is turning brown and slightly crispy.
3. Sprinkle the flour into the skillet and whisk until the flour and bacon fat combine to form a light roux, 1-2 minutes. Slowly add the stock while whisking until it is fully combined. OPTIONS - If you want rustic beans, leave this as is and move to step 4. For a finer sauce, use an immersion blender to process the liquid mixture before proceeding to step 4. We like it both ways.
4. Stir in the drained white beans. Season with the salt and pepper. Push to the indirect heat on the grill or over a low heat burner, and let simmer lightly while you cook the steak.
5. Season to taste with additional salt, as desired.

Yield: 4 servings

Prep Time: 00 hrs. 10 mins.

Cook time: 00 hrs. 20 mins.

Total time: 30 mins.

Tags: skillet

I seasoned this beautiful Certified Angus Beef® ribeye steak from Food City with my NMT Beef Rub v.2 recipe, loosely covered it, and put it back in the fridge for about 4 hours to let it "dry brine". I took it back out 1 hour before I was ready to grill.

Lighting up a stack of Kingsford blue bag using a JJ George grill torch. Kingsford is doing a pretty cool thing to help support BBQ joints right now. They are opening a $5,000 tab at certain restaurants on a scheduled day.  Check out their Famous Bites page for details and recipes from those restaurants.

The mise en place for my beans. If you do a lot of cooking outdoors, do yourself a favor and get a tray like this. They reduce the number of trips back and forth and also make clean up easier.

I started the grill on medium heat (350°f) by having most of the vents shut down. Then when it was time to grill the steaks, I opened up the vents and opened the front access door to let more oxygen to the coals. That bumps the heat up real quick.

This view gives you a good visualization of the two-zone fire. I'm using direct heat to saute in this picture and will shift the skillet to the void on the left when it's time to let it simmer. That skillet is a 80+ year old Griswold #5.

Stirring in the flour to make the light roux. Your flour should be completely incorporated with no white lumps to be seen. You also might notice a "nutty" aroma that tells you it's done as well but that's harder to detect when grilling compared to using the stovetop. It shouldn't take but 1-2 minutes.

Finishing up.  If your beans simmer too long and get thicker than you like, you can always stir in a smidgen more of stock to thin it out. I like them thick.

There you have it. Straight forward, tender, and amazing.

Want more delicious recipes and grilling tips?
I have two great books available for sale through Ulysses Press.

The Kamado Smoker and Grill Cookbook  
The Offset Smoker and Grill Cookbook.

[FTC Standard Disclosure] We received no compensation for this post. We bought our own Easy Kabab out of curiosity and have no affiliation with the manufacturer, but the link is an Amazon Affiliate link. 

I absolutely love a good gyro. Chef Adam Perry Lang calls them a "hyperseasoned crowd-pleaser" in his first book, Serious Barbecue. I have to agree because the bold flavors and tender morsels of meat make my mouth happy.

A batch of gyros that I cooked on the Big Green Egg last weekend.

What's a Gryo?

Gyro is a spicy ground lamb (or a mix of lamb and beef) that is roasted upright on a vertical rotisserie, basting itself as the fat renders. Thin slices of the meat are shaved off and typically served in a pita with sliced tomato, onion, and tzatziki sauce. The meat is slightly dense compared to the more loose texture of hamburger, yet very tender.

In Knoxville, your best bet for a great gyro is Yassin's Falafel House. His gyros are loaded with the highly seasoned meat, and the pitas are thick yet delightfully soft in texture.

A Crusty Strategy

For me, the best gyros have slices with crispy edges from the outer edges of the roasting meat. The crispy edges are like having bark in your BBQ, in that it adds texture and boosts the flavor. I've made Alton Brown's recipe and Chef Adam Perry Lang's smoked lamb gyro, and they were both delicious. But they both use a loaf or large roll for their process, which gives less of the crispy bits to go around. So I have started making my gyros as kabobs to get more of the crusty tidbits.

Grilling my second test batch of this recipe on a PK Grill set up with GrillGrates.

I use a Fresno chile in my gyro meat recipe because I enjoy their mild heat. I have substituted a single serrano chile with excellent results. If you want more heat, use 2-3 serranos. 

I use some ground beef for 2 reasons. First, lamb is expensive, and second, I'm not a massive fan of lamb. I made a batch using just ground beef, and it tasted like seasoned hamburgers which was not what I was looking for. I think you HAVE to have a good bit of lamb in there to make it taste like gyros.

Gyros on the Grill

Cheddar Burger with Candied Bacon and Brisket Jus Mayo

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This burger that we made for dinner last night was amazing. It boasted a big half-pound beef patty laced with mild cheddar, topped with candied bacon, sliced fresh Grainger County tomato, greenery, and a ridiculously good brisket jus mayo. 

Brisket jus is the delicious, gelatinous nectar that is left in the foil after wrapping a brisket. It comes from the magic of breaking down the connective tissues during the long cook and turns it into something intensely flavored and velvety in texture. Adding it to mayonnaise creates a killer condiment or dipping sauce.

This is the gelatin formed by the beef jus when I left the whole brisket in the fridge overnight. It's a cheat code for beefilicious flavor.

I realize most folks aren't going to have brisket jus sitting in their fridge. I haven't tried it yet, but I think you could probably substitute one of those concentrated Knorr Beef Stock gel packs. Mix it with some mayo and adjust the flavor with some finely ground beef rub if necessary.

I used some of my home-cured and home-smoked Sorghum and Bourbon Bacon for the candied bacon.

Reverse Seared Porterhouse Steak with Skillet Potatoes Au Gratin

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Last night, Alexis and I grilled a thick porterhouse steak and improvised a skillet potatoes au gratin. This isn't a recipe post exactly but it is the details of what we did.

We found the beefy 24-ounce porterhouse at Butler & Bailey Market, an unassuming, single-establishment grocer in Knoxville. The store is dated and small, it's like stepping back in time to a grocery store in the late 80's. That's part of their charm, they are the opposite of the chain mega-stores these days.  You can't buy tires or mattresses there, Butler & Bailey excels with their customer service and specialty departments. They also sell Parker's Lump Charcoal, which is made with Tennessee hardwoods.

Steak Preparation

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This was a quick and easy dish that we whipped up this weekend after Alexis bought some chicken sausage from Costco that had artichoke, garlic, and mozzarella. The sausages looked and sounded delicious, so I wanted to use them some way other than just grilled and thrown in a bun. 

In the Summer, I like to keep my pasta dishes simple and on the light side in terms of sauces. The only sauce in this dish is the butter and juices from the sauteed vegetables, which totally works. The Sabatino's sausages were boldly flavored and juicy, but you could probably swap out any fully-cooked chicken sausages, and it would work in this recipe.

Grilled Chicken Sausage Pasta

By www.nibblemethis.com

Grilled Sirloin Steak with Sweet and Sour Vegetables

[FTC Standard Disclaimer]  I received a free sample of Dizzy Pig Spicy Pineapple Head in the mail. The approximate value is $0.62, so I think we're safe from undue influence on this one. 😋

Sirloin steaks are my red-headed stepchild. There's nothing wrong with them, but I have a hard time turning down the well-marbled ribeye steaks and NY strips that my grocery store routinely offers. But with COVID-19 affecting things, I need to shed some quarantine pounds, and beef prices have been a bit more expensive. Sirloin steak is a delicious, lean, tender, and less-costly alternative. 

These Grilled Sirloin Steaks with Sweet and Sour Vegetables are an excellent example of that. 

I thought that the sweet and spicy flavor of the Spicy Pineapple Head would pair well with sweet and sour stir fry. My prep for the steak was simple - I marinated it in ponzu sauce, then seasoned it with Spicy Pineapple Head and grilled it.