Happiness is roast beef and gravy on a Tuesday, a lousy Tuesday

 

Happiness is a cauldron of fat beef

 

 A caldron of fat beef, and stoop of ale,

On the huzzaing mob shall more prevail,

Than if you give them, with the nicest art,

Ragousts of peacocks brains, or filbert tart.

 

-- William King, The Art of Cookery (London, 1708),  p. 107

 

Happiness is Benny Bell's McCarthy and McGinnis

 

McCarthy is dead, McGinnis don't know it McGinnis is dead, McCarthy don't know it They both lay dead on the very same bed But neither one knows that the other is dead.

Before he died, this fellow McCarthy One Saturday night got drunk at a party He took a swing at Officer King The next day he carried his head in a sling.

McCarthy was always good to his wife He had to be so, or I pity his life Although she was only half his size She'd jump on a table and scratch out his eyes.

On Saint Patrick's Day he was there A shine on his shoes and oil on his hair He wore a green jacket and really looked swell With a genuine shamrock in his lapel.

One day he was taking his wife to a dance A dog took a chance and snapped at his pants McCarthy got angry and started to sneer Then lifted the mongrel and bit off its ear.

He drank like a fish, he ate like a savage His favourite dish was corned beef and cabbage He fought like a tiger, he hit like a mule And boy could he knock off a good game of pool.

McCarthy and Mister McGinnis next door Could never agree, they were always at war Said he to McGinnis, "The day when you die I'll buy everybody a strawberry pie."

Said Mister McGinnis to Mister McCarthy "You may be tough, and healthy and hearty But if you don't shut up and behave You'll soon be asleep in a seven foot grave."

One stormy night, they met in the hall To settle their argument once and for all Now one used a shovel and one used a rock And both were in heaven at seven o'clock.

So McCarthy is dead but McGinnis don't know it McGinnis is dead and McCarthy don't know it They both lay dead on the very same bed But neither one knows that the other is dead.

Happiness is an Omaha Steaks Filet Mignon Burger on the grill

About $5 a pop for 5.3 oz. of delicious, tender beef with a whopping 16g of saturated fat per burger, a full day's allocation of dangerous, heart-clogging lard if you have coronary artery disease, or want to get it.

Still, a nice gift for that occasional transgression of the rules.

I washed it down with a head of broccoli!

Happiness is being a pork-eating infidel

Ounce for ounce, pork has three times less saturated fat than beef.

Happiness is cheap, plentiful canola oil for a happy, healthy heart

Otherwise known as rapeseed oil.

From the story here:

Although care must be taken in handling and processing of canola oil and other vegetable oils, canola oil is a safe and healthy form of fat that will reduce blood LDL cholesterol levels and heart disease risk compared to carbohydrates or saturated fats such as found in beef tallow or butter. Indeed, in a randomized trial that showed one of the most striking reductions in risk of heart disease, canola oil was used as the primary form of fat. Whether using cold pressed canola oil provides some small additional benefit is not clear.

Some of the top food sources for vitamin B12, per ounce (daily need is 6 micrograms)

Some of the top food sources for vitamin B12, per 28 grams or roughly 1 ounce (daily need is 6 micrograms):

clams: 27.6 micrograms

liver: 23.9 micrograms

fortified cereal: 5.8 micrograms

mackerel: 5.3 micrograms

king crab: 3.2 micrograms

beef steak: 2.1 micrograms

swiss cheese: 0.8 micrograms

fortified tofu: 0.6 micrograms

eggs: 0.3 micrograms

low fat yogurt: 0.1 micrograms

More here.

Some of the top food sources for vitamin B6, per ounce (daily need is 2 mg)

Some of the top food sources for vitamin B6, per 28 grams or roughly one ounce (daily need is 2 mg):

sunflower seeds: 0.38 mg

pistachio nuts: 0.31 mg

wild salmon (cooked): 0.26 mg

white meat poultry (cooked): 0.23 mg

pork sirloin (cooked): 0.22 mg

prunes: 0.20 mg

beef (cooked): 0.19 mg

bananas: 0.10 mg

avocado: 0.08 mg

spinach (cooked): 0.06 mg

More here.

Happiness is mutton chops

 

 

 Old Cross condemns all persons to be fops,

That can't regale themselves with mutton chops.

-- William King, The Art of Cookery, in imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry (Humbly inscrib'd to the Honourable Beef Steak Club), 1708

Happiness is sodium-adjustable barley, beef and mushroom soup for lunch

6 cups water

.75 cups hulled barley, rinsed

1.25 cups leftover, strained and defatted beef stock made from a chuck roast

8 oz. leftover shredded beef chuck (braised in onions, rosemary, peppercorns and 1 T balsamic vinegar all day)

.5 cup sauteed baby bella mushrooms, sauteed in extra virgin olive oil and chopped

1/ boil the water, add the barley, and simmer covered until puffed up, about 1 hour

2/ add stock, beef and mushrooms and heat through on simmer, about 15 minutes

makes about 8.5 cups

contains about 32 mg natural sodium per cup

add 1/8 teaspoon salt per cup served or to taste (an additional 291 mg)

Happiness is Gordon Ramsay's braised short ribs of beef for Mother's Day

I'm at the "put up your feet" part right now.

Here.

Some of the top vitamin-rich foods

Fish are more vitamin rich than any other category

Seen here:

Tuna and trout

Spinach and kale

Sunflower and flax seeds

Broccoli

Pork

Beef and lamb

Mushrooms

Nuts

Eggs

Sweet bell peppers

Avocado

Peas

Butternut squash

Papaya

Dried fruits

Some of the top mineral-rich foods

Nuts are in a class all by themselves

Seen here:

Almonds, cashews and Brazil nuts

Beans and lentils

Spinach and kale

Salmon and sardines

Sunflower seeds, flax seeds and pumpkin seeds

Oysters, scallops, mussels and clams

Mushrooms

Oatmeal, whole wheat and wheat germ

Milk and yogurt

Beef and lamb

Avocado

Dark chocolate

Parmesan, Swiss and Mozzarella

Apricots, prunes, raisins, figs and dates 

It's National Burger Day today, but we made stir-fry by mistake dontcha know

We use a Cantonese style wok with a lower base ring on a gas stove without difficulty

We grill burgers on Sunday evenings like clockwork, but not today!

And to think it was the National Day to celebrate our custom. Oops.

We made stir-fry in the wok because we had accumulated leftovers from . . . the grill!

But not beef! Pork and chicken, mostly.

Here's the basic ingredient list for our stovetop stir fry (you can get by without the celery if you have 1/4 tsp. celery seed):

2 cups leftover cooked meat, like pork and chicken, diced small without the skin or fat

1 cup fresh mushrooms, about 4 oz., diced and then sautéed in butter or oil

3/4 cup diced carrot, about 2

2/3 cup diced onion

1 green onion chopped

2/3 cup diced sweet bell pepper, orange or red

1 cup diced celery stalk, about 2

1 cup sweet baby peas or pea pods

1 can drained bamboo shoots

1 can drained sliced water chestnuts

2 cloves garlic chopped

1 tsp. grated fresh ginger root

3 slices bacon already cooked, chopped

1 cup prepared Jasmine rice in a pan, left covered off the heat (1 cup rice, 2 cups water, a little salt, brought to a boil in a heavy covered pan and then simmered on low for 20 minutes--easy peasy)

1/2 to 1 tsp. sugar

ground black pepper

San-Jay Tamari sauce

2-3 tablespoons Sesame or Canola oil

Here's the cooking order:

Heat oil in the wok OVER MEDIUM

Add carrots and stir

Add celery and stir

Add onion and stir

Add mushrooms and stir

Add garlic and stir

Add sweet pepper and stir

Add black pepper and stir

Add meats and stir

Add fresh peas or pea pods and stir,

And bamboo shoots and water chestnuts and stir,

and cover and steam 3 minutes ON MEDIUM LOW.

Then add ginger and more black pepper

Add 1/4 cup Tamari sauce and the sugar in a pool in the bottom, mix together and stir everything

Add the cooked rice and stir until well blended

Add more Tamari sauce as desired (but you want to keep the mixture on the dry side)

Stir in cooked bacon and green onion

Turn off and cover and prepare to serve immediately 

Happiness is Boar's Head natural casing beef frankfurters

Available at D&W for $8.99 a package of seven, about $1.29 for each 2 oz. 6.5 inch sausage.

You'll want an extra long hot dog bun for these.

Happiness is Italian beef sandwiches and fries made at home

My version costs $2.13 a serving vs. $6.99 plus tax at Wally's in Park Ridge, IL. No offense to Wally's, who saved my sorry butt more than once in 1988.

The beef was $4.49/lb. The jar of peppers $3.35. The 8-pack of buns was a buck. The giant bag of french fries at Sam's was $6.88 for 32 servings!


















Italian Beef and French Fries

3.2 pounds beef chuck
1 jar Dell' Alpe Pepperoncini
1 package white hamburger buns
Ore Ida Fast Food Fries


Brown the chuck in a large cast iron skillet on medium, ten minutes on a side.

Drop the chuck into a Le Creuset oval oven, dump the pepperoncini on top and put on the lid.

Bake at 170 degrees F for ten hours.

Remove from the oven and reserve the peppers for serving, drain the liquid and shred the beef. Return shredded beef to the pan and keep warm, adding back juice to moisten as desired.

Bake the fries per the package directions.

Serve a half cup of the shredded beef on a bun with the fries on the side.

Easy peasy. Weepy cheapy.




h/t Don Wade, may he rest in peace

Happiness is Chinese braised beef with 5-spice seasoning you can make from scratch

Chinese 5-spice seasoning


1.5 T anise seed
2.5 t fennel seed
1.5 t ground cinnamon
0.5 t ground black pepper
0.5 t ground white pepper (optional)
0.5 t ground clove
0.5 t ground ginger (optional)

If you use them all it's 7-spice seasoning, right?! The dominant spice is obviously the anise seed.

Put them all in a coffee grinder and pulse until powdery, about 15 seconds.

This was wonderful for a nice Chinese beef braise I made today.

Recipes for that will vary, but I used one teaspoon (t) of the above for about 3 pounds of beef chuck, as well as 6 big cloves of garlic pressed, a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger root finely diced, a bunch of green onions chopped and .25 t hot red pepper flakes (or use a fresh red chilli pepper).

You coat the raw cubed beef with 2 T salted flour in a freezer bag and brown that in a pan in batches in oil. Take your time and do that right and you won't be sorry. The browned meat then goes into the crock pot, after which I very briefly sauteed the mixture above in the fat left in the pan, a couple of minutes.

Then I added 2 cups of beef stock I had ready, made from a bouillon cube, 3 T of Tamari sauce, 3 T of red wine and 2 t sugar to the pan, heating and scraping and mixing until nice and hot.

The contents of the pan go over the meat in the crock pot, then cover it and cook on low at least six hours.

Serve the meat and gravy over Jasmine rice with a vegetable on the side. I chose green peas.

It was so good I wanted seconds and thirds and fourths.

Which gin are you?

I'm a Beefeater. Take the gin quiz here.

If McDonald's wants its mojo back it should make french fries the old-fashioned way

Seen here.

"In the good old days, McDonald's fries were cooked in beef tallow. But customer demand for less saturated fat prompted a switch to vegetable oil in the early '90s."

T-Bone Tuesday

It's cold and blustery outside, but I fired up the charcoal anyway and grilled a single 1.3 pound Angus T-Bone. Wind has been in the 25mph range most of the day, and temps in the low to mid 20s. Just like Wisconsin when I was a boy.

I picked up three of these T-Bones for about $8.50 each last week and put two in the freezer. You defrost one all day in the frig until grilling time, and grill over hot coals in a covered grill about 6 minutes on a side for medium rare. It served three of us, with some Jasmine rice and steamed green beans on the side, for well less than $4 per person. The bone will simmer on the stove tomorrow to make some beef stock for soup. Maybe beef and barley with mushroom.

Steak. It's what's for dinner during Protestant Lent.