I’m still on a bit of a high after the Arizona Cardinals won the NFC West title yesterday. While researching area foods for the post for yesterday’s game in Detroit, I not only found the Chop Salad, but also this tasty and famous steak sauce – a Detroit favorite. It brings out the best in beef and adds a spicy punch of flavor.

The Flat Iron Steak, also known as the top blade steak, has been a popular restaurant menu item for the past few years and is increasingly becoming available in grocery stores. It was developed at the University of Florida. The researchers wanted to find a way to use a waste cut of beef from the shoulder of the cow. Though a flavorful and relatively tender cut of meat, the top blade roast has a serious flaw in its center; an impossibly tough piece of connective tissue running through the middle.

The researchers developed a method for cutting and presenting the steak, and wound up with an amazing cut of beef, a nearly perfect steak for the grill. The Flat Iron, named because it looks like an old-fashioned metal flat iron, is uniform in thickness and rectangular in shape. The only variation to the original roast is the cut into the middle of the steak where the connective tissues have been removed.

The Flat Iron is similar in flavor and texture to Skirt and Flank steaks and is best grilled over medium-high heat. For this particular recipe, we are using a grill pan so that we can gather drippings from the meat. Enjoy!
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There are so many Thanksgiving recipes to get posted before the big day!  I figured, I better get the star of the show up soon, as in today!

The turkey here is trussed, which means the wings and legs are bound closed. When you truss a bird, the wings and legs stay close to the body; the ends of the drumsticks cover the top of the breast and keep it from drying out. Trussing helps cook evenly, reduces shrinkage by about 15%, and also makes for a more beautiful roasted bird.

The pictures here are lifted from the internet and will be replaced with my pictures when I actually make my turkey next week. Until then…
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This versatile parsley sauce can be used on a variety of dishes, including grilled meats, poultry, and seafood. It is also great tossed with cherry tomatoes or any type of grilled or roasted vegetables.  Keep it on hand to liven up any dish you’re finding a bit bland.

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Tonight my husband, Dave, is off at a Company Softball Game. This is a new thing for his office – participating in softball. They played their first game last week and lost. Tonight is a double-header, so there’s a 50/50 chance they might win one, right? I don’t know, he’s the CPA, so my life-long mental handicap in math is kept in business without a need to ever have to do any sort of it that doesn’t involve measuring cups, degrees, ounces, and pounds, etc. And I thank God for that on a daily basis! If they do start winning, maybe I’ll go watch a game, but there has to be at least a chance of a win for me to get excited enough to go! Something that does excite me?…I went to lunch today my BFF, Peggy, I love, love, love, her and love to spend time with her!  So after a lunch out, I needed a light and quick dinner tonight and this one fits the bill. BTW, Peggy had a very yummy Corn Chowder that I will be trying to duplicate for her, so she can make it at home. Look for that in the next week or so. Back to the recipes at hand, here are a few tips and techniques to make this dinner truly quick and easy. Usually I think of Potato Pancakes as a bit heavy, but these really are light and oh so tasty. Part of the secret is adding the 0% Greek yogurt, I keep pushing here, instead of milk and butter for the mashed potatoes. Chilling the mashed potatoes before forming into cakes is also important to the texture of the finished product. I had leftover Brie cheese from the salad a few days ago, so I actually made 4 of the cakes with Brie and the other 4 with Parmesan. Honestly any type of cheese you like or have on hand is fine to use and I couldn’t really tell any difference in texture or enough difference in taste between the two versions. Next, what are Panko breadcrumbs? Panko are Japanese breadcrumbs. They are made from crustless bread and are a coarse grind which are more like flakes than crumbs. These fakes have a larger surface area, that not only absorbs flavorings and seasonings well, but absorb far less oil or grease and stay crispy longer. They are readily available in the Asian section or where you would find breadcrumbs in your grocery store.  Use them in any and every recipe that calls for dried breadcrumbs, from now on, and you will be a happy camper!  Lastly, for the salad, you’ll notice that all of the vegetables are julienned. If you don’t know what that means, hey, I’m not going to tell you here! You will benefit by going to my July 27 post “the basic kitchen: glossary of cooking terms” and learning about it there. All of the July posts are “the basic kitchen” and are a wealth of information, so check it out! This is a colorful and healthy salad anytime, but especially if you have carrots in your garden or pick them up at a farmer’s market. It is “The Best” with fresh carrots! If you don’t have access to them, just purchase a bag of shredded carrots (which are the same size and shape as hand-cut julienned) from the grocery store and use them, it is delicious and convenient that way!

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Dinner has been decided upon for this lovely Sunday evening. It’s only supposed to get up to 99 degrees today! It was not decided by me, but instead by my garden. I went out this morning, while it was only 84 degrees, and noticed that if I didn’t do something about the luscious basil going wild and the very tall bay laurel tree in my garden that they would take it over.

I’m thinking about an appetizer of flatbread with basil in the dough, basil oil, and roasted tomatoes with – wait for it… basil pesto! And maybe salmon grilled on top of the bay leaves and lemon slices and also some Yukon gold potatoes braised in stock and more bay leaves.

I’ve had crème brûlée scented with fresh bay leaves, fresh from a bay tree, before, and although it was delicious, I really don’t want to stand over the hot stove in the summer “stirring constantly” (two of my least favorite words!) a steaming custard. After painting that little picture for myself, the crème brûlée is definitely OUT! So something else may be with the bay leaves for dessert – any thoughts out there? I am off to the movies…

……I am thankful no one came up with any dessert ideas because I was actually too busy to even think about dessert today! Dave and I saw Inglorious Basterds early this afternoon and LOVED it! This is from a girl who has to put her hands over her eyes during the icky parts! And there were plenty of icky parts, but I still want to go back and see it again! I’m not a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, I liked Kill Bill(s) and Pulp Fiction but this movie was just so cool, and Brad Pitt… love him even more than before, if that is possible. What about Christoph Waltz? If he isn’t nominated for an Oscar, there is something wrong in the movie biz! Enough about that, this is a “cooking/food blog” so on to the rest of that part of the day…

After the movie and a Costco run, I arrived home at about 3:00 and began making the Grand Basil-Bay Dinner. Good friends, Chris and Kathy Froggatt were to arrive at 6:00, with nice wines in hand! It was a great evening with good friends. They recounted their wonderful vacation cruise to Monaco, Italy, and Greece (ready to go tomorrow after hearing about it all!)

Amidst all the catching up and garden touring, I totally burned (we’ll call it charred!) the flatbread while grilling it. But we enjoyed it anyway because the Bay Leaf Roasted Tomatoes that topped it was still tasty and the Baileyana Chardonnay that Chris brought somehow washed away all thoughts of those nasty carcinogens we were ingesting.

Dinner itself went off much better. We had a fabulous Chasseur Pinot Noir from Sonoma and the bay laurel flavors present in the fish and potatoes were truly sublime. Kathy is not a salmon fan, so I did a “personal-size” piece of halibut for her. I think the individual size is a really nice presentation for a more formal dinner. A bit more work to individually wrap each piece of fish, but it’ll cook faster and it does look fancy!

One last note about the salmon. It is drizzled with olive oil, and any fruity olive oil will do, but I adore our own local Queen Creek Olive Mill Meyer Lemon Olive Oil. It is available locally at A.J.’s or can be ordered online HERE.

And if you are a neighbor or live close enough to drop by, just give me a call if you want to make any of the dishes with the fresh bay leaves. You can have all you’ll need, free for the taking. The salmon recipe uses way too many leaves to purchase at the store in those tiny herb packages when you can actually find it. So don’t be shy, the bay tree grows better when it is pruned, so you’ll be doing me a favor… really!

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