Fire Roasted Rib Eye Steak with Bacon and Chipotle Butter

Source:  Texas Pete Chipotle Sauce

1 1/2 inch thick rib-eye steak
olive oil
cracked black pepper

6 thick cut slab bacon slices
1/2 c of molasses
1/4 c Chipotle Sauce (any hot sauce you like)
salt and pepper
8 T butter

In oven cook bacon which has been brushed with 1/8 c of hot sauce and 1/4 c of molasses. Bake until cooked through -- not crispy.  Chop bacon and transfer to mixing bowl.  Mix in remaining molasses and hot sauce.  Mix in softened butter.  Refrigerate.

Season room temperature steak with olive oil and cracked pepper.  Place on hot grill for 3-4 minutes -- rotate 45 degrees and cook for an additional 3-4 minutes.  Flip the steak and repeat!

Serve hot with the butter mixture.

This recipe grabbed my attention -- steak is not something I cook at home often.  But this compound butter sounded so exciting that I just had to try it.

Really very easy to make.  The bacon cooks up nicely in the oven, and with the moisture from the molasses and hot sauce  - it doesn't get crispy and doesn't splatter everywhere.  The only tricky thing about this recipe is getting the steak to your liking.  By the way, the compound butter is plenty salty, so don't use salt when seasoning the steak.

Delicious, unique, smoky, rich.  Just a tiny bit of heat from the hot sauce.  Look this is not a light delicate meal -- this is hearty, juicy steak.  I chose to serve it with simple sauteed broccoli raab, which was the perfect accompaniment.  The steak desperately needed the slight bitterness of the broccoli raab. Not a meal you should have every day, but for a special occasion, this is absolutely great.

Strawberry Rhubarb Layer Cake

Source:  Good Housekeeping

1 orange
3.5 c sugar
2 lb rhubarb trimmed and sliced
1 lb strawberries, trimmed and chopped
4 egg yolks room temperature
2 eggs room temperature
1 c whole milk
3 t vanilla extract
3 c cake flour
1T baking powder
12 T butter -- room temperature
1 1/4 c confectioners sugar
8 oz cream cheese -- softened
2 c heavy cream, chilled

Squeeze juice from orange into saucepan.  Stir in 2 c sugar.  Cook on med. high until sugar dissolves.  Add rhubarb, cook 5 minutes until tender.  Transfer to bowl and cool.  Refrigerate for 2 hours.  Add chopped strawberries, refrigerate.

Preheat over to 350.  Grease and line bottom of 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper.  Grease and flour parchment, and sides of pan.  In bowl, whisk egg yolks, whole eggs,  1/4 c milk and 2 t vanilla.  Mix flour, baking powder, 1.5 c sugar in separate mixing bowl.  Beat in butter, and remaining 3/4 c milk.  Add egg mixture in 3 batches, beating well between additions.  Divide batter evenly  between pans.  Bake 20 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool on wire rack 10 minutes.  Loosen sides with knife.  Invert cake onto rack.  Cool completely.

Place 1 cake on plate.  Strain liquid from rhubarb mixture.  Spread half of rhubarb on cake, leaving one inch border.  Repeat with second cake, and remaining rhubarb.  Top with third cake.  In large bowl, whisk confectioners sugar, cream cheese and remaining vanilla until fluffy.  Slowly drizzle in cream.  Whisk on high until stiff peaks form.  Cover cake with frosting.


I love dessert.  My daughter's 4th birthday was coming up.  I thought this would be perfect springtime cake for her.  Special, beautiful, interesting flavors, and lots of decorating options with the simple white frosting.  Then, I got lazy.  My daughter's birthday came, and we ended celebrating with a big pile of donuts in the shape of a cake (BTW -- so fabulous).  Then, it was my turn to host our monthly "team building luncheon" at work.  By then I had all the ingredients for the cake, so I went for it.

I am not going to lie.  This cake is a pain in the b***t to make.  Starting with the trimming of the fresh rhubarb,  the making of the jam, trying to find 3 8 inch cake pans -- there are no shortcuts.  This is definitely not the dessert you want to make for the neighborhood potluck.

I've never worked with fresh rhubarb before.  That was a treat -- such pretty color, the texture like a stringy celery.....  And I love the smell of a fluffy cake batter.  -- General rules of cake baking apply, of course,  And don't be fool by the paleness of the cake after 20-30 minutes.  It may be done, and be careful so that the bottom doesn't burn.  Definitely use the toothpick trick.

Before you assemble the cake, let the filling drain for a while -- it has a fairly liquid consistency, so if you don't drain it off, it'll run all over your cake.  By the way --  it tastes AWESOME.

I didn't have enough whipped cream for the 2 cups in the frosting.  Apparently after I bought the whipping cream, I decided to use it for other stuff too, and ended up putting a little over a cup in my frosting.  So maybe my frosting wasn't quite as fluffy as it could have been.  It tasted really good though.  And frankly, I may not have been able to handle a much looser consistency frosting.

I made an absolute mess of frosting the cake.  I know I suck at it, and today proved that again.  I managed to get the strawberry filling into the frosting, so instead of pristine white, my cake has a slight pink tint.  Instead of sloppy and messed up, I choose to call it rustic.

I thought the cake was a little -- could have been a touched overbaked, or the three layers were just too thick.  The ratio of the cake to the filling was a little off.  Or maybe I could have poured a little bit of the liquid that I drained from the filling to soak into the cake (as long as it didn't ruin its integrity).

This was a very labor intensive dessert.  I would highly recommend the filling.  It's so good.  And the frosting is a keeper.  The cake needs a little tinkering.  If you want to make a cake for someone you care about, or want to spend an afternoon baking, give this cake a try.  It'll be worth your while.

Chewy Chocolate Brownies

source:  Nestle baking bar

1 c flour
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
3/4 c granulated sugar
1/2 c butter
2 T water
2 chocolate baking bars (4 oz each)
2 eggs
2 t vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter and flour 13x9 baking pan.  Microwave butter, sugar and water in large bowl for 3 minutes on high.  Immediately add baking bars broken into small pieces and stir until melted.  Add eggs one by one.  Mix until well blended.  Add baking soda and salt.  Add flour.  Stir well.  Pour into pan, and bake 16 to 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

So you ask me -- why bother with a brownie recipe?  I love brownies. They are so delicious, chocolatey, cakey, chewy -- what more could you possibly want.  I am also a little bit of a brownie snob -- most people make brownies from a mix and while those brownies are fine, there is no comparison to a brownie from scratch.

This was a fun recipe to make.  There was something playful and fun in dropping the bits of the chocolate bar into the boiling sugar and butter mixture, and seeing them melt and transform the mixture into a glorious chocolatey mess.

The batter is relatively thin, and barely gets around in the pan.  But remember, these are meant to be chewy brownies.  They do rise a bit due to the baking soda, but they are not going to be fluffy and cakey.

Super delicious, not overly sweet, and really highlighting the chocolate flavor.  Use good quality chocolate bars for this, and enjoy a delicious version of a classic.

Smothered Swiss Turkey Burger

Source:  Good Housekeeping Magazine

2 shallots
10 oz sliced mushrooms
1 lb ground turkey
1 T olive oil
sliced swiss cheese
1 T flour
1 c beef broth
1 T butter
1 T cream

Pulse two shallots, quartered in food processor until chopped.  Put half of shallots in small bowl.  To food processor add half of sliced mushrooms, and pulse into bits.  Mix and form mushroom mixture, 1 lb ground turkey and 1/2 t salt into four patties.  Cook in skillet, in 1 T olive oil, on med. high 8-10 minutes, flipping once.  Transfer to plate.  Top each with 1 slice to Swiss cheese; keep warm.  Heat 1 T butter in skillet.  Add remaining shallot and mushrooms and cook 5 minutes.  Stir in 1 T flour, cook 30 seconds.  Add 1 c beef broth, cook 5 minutes or until thickened.  Add 1 T cream and 1/4 each salt and pepper.

I was looking for a simple weeknight recipe.  I like turkey burgers because they are a touch healthier than regular burgers.  The challenge is always how you cook the burgers through without drying them out completely.  This recipe uses the chopped mushrooms and shallots to impart moisture as well as flour to the turkey mixture.

There is not much to this recipe -- pretty standard burger.  I think that cooking the burgers in the skillet in olive oil adds a little more moisture to the burgers.  Plus the bits of the turkey left in the pan flavors the mushroom sauce nicely.  I actually had a 16 oz package of mushrooms, so I used extra mushrooms in the sauce -- I love mushrooms, so I didn't mind a little extra.

This a very solid turkey burger recipe -- the burgers are nice and moist, and have a good flavor, and the mushroom sauce is dynamite.  Give it a try if you like mushrooms.

No-Bake Chocolate Cheesecake Pie

Source:  Nestle

1 premade chocolate crumb crust
2 chocolate baking bars (4 oz each) melted and cooled
2 8 oz packages of cream cheese -- softened
3/4 c brown sugar
1/4 c sugar
2 T milk
1 t vanilla
whipped cream (optional)

Beat cream cheese, brown sugar, granulated sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl for two minutes.  Add melted chocolate and beat for 2 minutes.
Spoon into crust.  Refrigerate for 2 hours.  Top with whipped cream if desired.

Back to desserts. Joyous.  But taking it easy with a super simple recipe.  I have been busy, and haven't been able to try the more elaborate and interesting recipes that I would like to experiment with.

If you have a stand alone mixer (by the way -- my favorite kitchen tool by far) -- there is really nothing to this recipe other than throwing ingredients in a bowl, and let it rip and then spoon into a crust.  Easy and quick.  Quality depends on the quality of the ingredients you are using.

I was disappointed in this.  It tasted like a very dense cheese pie.  It was super filling, and very sweet -- but didn't have any of the fluffiness of a real cheesecakes.  I guess some shortcuts don't work well.  Don't waste your time on this one.