A Simple Marinade
So as I've said over the years, for one reason or another, I never did learn how to cook growing up. Yes, I can make things like spaghetti or whatnot, but I was never taught anything besides mix it up, warm it up type stuff.
I don't own an open grill, but I do still have the mini George Forman grill that my parents gave me when I moved into the dorms. This grill has made cheeseburgers, grilled cheese, salmon, steak, chicken and pork chops under my hand with varying levels of success, on the whole steadily improving over the years.
Well, I wanted to add a quite note to my journal to say that I've found a FANTASTIC way to prepare certain foods on the grill that requires damn near 0 prep time.
I've found that ground black pepper can really make a steak. I also know that an old employer or mine would mix soy sauce with some other ingredient. (I never had to mix and I never made it a point to find out what; I've wondered how vinegar would work.) Having bought some steaks the last time (prior to today) when I was at my local provider, I decided to improvise. All I put on my steak was ground black pepper and soy sauce right before I put the meant on the grill. The meat may have 90 seconds or so to marinate.
I wouldn't say that it was the best steak that I've ever had (I've had phenomenal fillet mingnon on more than one occasion) but I would go so far as to say that it was the best steak that I've ever made and that's saying a lot. But if the steak is something worth writing a post about, the use of the concoction on the last of the pork steaks I had is worth writing a book about!
The pork was frozen solid. I ran water over them and I threw them in the microwave for a single minute. But when they came off the grill, it was like I was eating pulled pork that was cooked for a competition and won first place.
Suffice it to say that when I was at the store, I picked up some more beef. This time, instead of picking up eye of round, I picked up stir-fry meat since it was thinner. I'll have to report how that works out later in the week.
Meanwhile, I need to make stew again given that I have the ingredients. The problem is trying to get everything timed just right so I'm not waiting until after 2000 to eat and clean up. I'd really like to have the stew ready in early afternoon, but given that I work full time, the math just doesn't come out right. That and I'd have to be up at like 0300 to get the time right.