The Weekend Post #24

Saturday Morning Snapshot

Took a break from photographing today’s recipe to eat today’s recipe…

State of the Blog

We finished up May Nerd Month week two! This week was Bryan Fuller week, which meant I got to spend all week talking about shows I love, posting Fullerverse-themed recipes and sifting through Tumblr for juuuuust the right GIFs of cannibal puns. It was great.

Weekend Post: Hannibal Cannibal Puns - 3

NBC via HannibalLecterMD

Seriously though, I have like 10 more of those GIFs.

Next week we have our first and only (I’m so ashamed) Nerd Month book-inspired recipe. That recipe is so good that the leftovers were literally stolen from my kitchen. Then Wednesday and Friday, there is a two-parter that pairs the most ridiculous combo. One’s boozy, one’s messy, both are delicious, neither should go together (but they do, surprisingly well).

Recipes/posts released this week were:

Candy-Sweet Jello Shots with Triple Sec Whipped Cream - 4

Candy-Sweet Jello Shots with Triple Sec Whipped Cream - 5

Candy-Sweet Jello Shots with Triple Sec Whipped Cream – Jello shots with a major flavor upgrade. Candy-sweet and topped with triple sec whipped cream, you’ll actually want to savor these shots!

Kahlua Cream Cheese Cup Pies – Miniature mocha and Kahlua cheesecakes with a crunchy Oreo cookie base, cool sour cream topping, and fudge sauce.

Lomo Saltado With Oven-baked Fries – Tender stir-fried beef sirloin, red onions, and tomatoes served with baked french fries and white rice. Carb lovers, you have to try this one!

Pop-culture Corner

How has everyone’s week in pop culture been? Read/watched/listened to anything good?

I will never stop laughing at this “leaked” Ghostbusters script .

Oh hey, almost everything I watch on network television was cancelled this week. Farewell, The Grinder , Grandfathered , Galavant , and Agent Carter . You were too good for this world. Did any of your favorites get axed?

In other everything-you-love-will-eventually-leave-you news, The Toast announced they will be shutting down in July [insert 1000 frowny faces here]. All I ask is that before they go, they pen a million more entries in their “If X Were Your Y” series because I’m not prepared to live in a world where I do not know what it would be like if Tom Hiddleston (and whoever is the new Tom Hiddleston in 3 months) were my boyfriend .

I’m off to go see Cap 3 again this evening with my dad (who owns a comic book store but has somehow not yet seen it). A week has passed and I’m still pretty high on this film. We’ll see where I land after a second viewing… Have you seen Civil War yet? What did you think?

Meal Planning

Saturday: Chimichurri Steak Quesadillas Sunday: Spicy Sausage Pasta Monday: Teriyaki Chicken with Homemade Teriyaki Sauce Tuesday: Cobb Salad Wednesday: TBD Thursday: Chinese Takeout Friday: Sharp Cheddar Broccoli and Ham Chowder

Have a great weekend!

Lomo Saltado is tender stir-fried beef sirloin, red onions, and tomatoes served with baked french fries and white rice. Carb lovers, you have to try this one!

Hold on to your butts, guys, because we’ve reached my most anticipated Nerd Month and Bryan Fuller Week post. It’s Hannibal day!

Hannibal is a show I adore and still can’t believe existed. It was rare and lovely and horrifying and beautiful. It definitely wasn’t for everyone, but for those of us who loved it, the show was a treasure. So I’m pretty excited to finish out Fuller Week with a Hannibal recipe.

If you watched the show, you know that there is an almost endless supply of dishes to choose from, but I went with Lomo Saltado from the second-season episode “Naka-Choko,” because it’s such a perfect, weird episode full of emotional climaxes and most importantly, contains one of my very favorite cannibal puns of the series.

Hannibal's Lomo Saltado, tender stir-fried beef sirloin, red onions, and tomatoes served with baked french fries and white rice, (also plenty of ginger <3 ). From Baking Mischief.com - 11

NBC via Psychoanalyzeme

This recipe is adapted from one by Janice Poon, the food stylist on Hannibal . If you have any interest at all in food styling, you should check out her blog , because it’s amazing and you don’t have to be a Hannibal fan to appreciate the works of art she made for that show.

And also, Hannibal fans should go pre-order her book, Feeding Hannibal: A Connoisseur’s Cookbook !* I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.

Okay, enough fangirling, on to the food.

Close up photo of lomo saltado in a frying pan. - 15

Close up photo of lomo saltado in a frying pan. - 16

Guys, Lomo Saltado is amazing. It’s a traditional Peruvian/Chinese fusion dish of stir-fried steak, onions, and tomatoes served with rice and french fries.

Yes. French fries. I mean don’t you look at your boring old stir-fries and think, You know what this needs? French fries.

No? Okay, me neither, but I should have been, because It. Is. Spectacular. The fries soak up all the vegetable and meat juices and turn into these amazing starchy flavor bombs when you bite into them. I would never have thought to pair potatoes and rice, but it works incredibly well.

For this recipe, I baked the fries because it’s a little healthier and deep frying at home is a pain. And by baking them, you can just pop the fries in the oven and basically forget about them while you stir-fry the meat and veggies.

The stir-frying process is super simple and done in batches so you don’t have to worry about some ingredients ending up under/overcooked. What you get is perfect, slightly blackened onions, incredibly tender meat, and beautifully cooked tomatoes. Then you give the fries a quick toss with the meat and veggies and serve everything over rice.

It’s colorful, beautiful, and a perfect dish for date night.

Some food styling notes: If you are looking to recreate the entire Hannibal plate , I used this carrot slaw recipe from Epicurious. I don’t actually like carrot slaw, but the people to whom it was served, loved it. And in the show, it looks like Hannibal uses Treviso radicchio as a garnish. I couldn’t find any locally, so I used Chioggia radicchio and served the rice wrapped inside of it rather than in cucumber slices.

And if you need a dessert, might I recommend Sanguinaccio Dolce (Senza Sangue) ?

Tell me, were you a “Hannibal” fan? What’s your favorite show in recent years?

Ingredients

Oven-baked Fries

▢ 2 medium potatoes about 24 ounces, cut into 1/2-inch thick fries
▢ 1 tablespoon olive oil
▢ 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
▢ 1/2 teaspoon paprika
▢ 1/2 teaspoon salt
▢ 1/4 teaspoon pepper
▢ 1/8 teaspoon cayenne powder

Marinade

▢ 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar*
▢ 1 tablespoon soy sauce
▢ 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
▢ 2 large garlic cloves pressed
▢ 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger*
▢ 1/2 teaspoon cumin

Meat and Veggies

▢ 1 pound top sirloin sliced into 1/4-inch thick strips
▢ 1/4 cup olive oil divided
▢ 1/2 red onion sliced
▢ 2 plum (Roma) tomatoes sliced into thin wedges
▢ 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon hot sauce I used Sriracha
▢ Salt and pepper to taste
▢ Cilantro optional, chopped
▢ Cooked rice

Instructions

Marinate the Meat

In a large bowl or plastic bag, combine marinade ingredients. Add meat and shake to coat. Allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes, up to 2 hours.

Prepare the Fries

Once your meat is done marinating, preheat oven to 400°F. Cover a cookie sheet with foil and spray generously with cooking spray.
Toss cut potatoes in oil and spices (I like to dump everything in a plastic bag and give it a good shake) and spread in lines over your tray. Bake for 20 minutes, until bottoms are browned. Flip and cook until just done, about 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fries.

Stir Fry the Meat and Veggies

While your fries cook, in a large skillet, over medium-high heat, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil. Once oil is hot, add sliced onions and cook until they begin to brown and the edges turn dark. Flip and brown the other side. Cook until they reach your preferred level of doneness–this is all the cooking they will receive.
Pour onions into a large bowl and return pan to heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil and half of the meat. Cook 2-3 minutes per side until meat is cooked to your preferred level of doneness (I like medium rare). Add the meat and its cooking juices to the bowl with the onions.
Repeat with another tablespoon of oil and the second half of the meat. Discard the marinade.
Wipe out pan and add the final tablespoon of oil, tomatoes and hot sauce. Cook until the skin begins to separate from the tomatoes and they are slightly softened.
Add the onions and meat back to the pan and stir to reheat. Add in the fries and stir until everything is coated in the juices.
Serve over rice.

Notes

Lomo Saltado Nutritional Information (Does not include rice) Recipe Adapted From: Janice Poon

Strawberry Mimosas make brunch even better with a simple but beautiful upgrade to your classic mimosa recipe.

Did you watch Happy Endings while it was on? I was such a massive fan of this show. It was the best of the Friends -style comedies that everyone was making a few years ago and so packed full of jokes that you could watch each episode twenty times and still find new things to laugh at. If you haven’t seen it, all three seasons are available on Hulu.

This recipe is actually part one of a two-part recipe pairing (come back Friday for part two) from one of my favorite Happy Endings episodes, in which characters, Penny and Alex, both drink about a million mimosas with very different results.

You’ll see what happens to Alex on Friday (or watch that clip, it’s very funny), but Penny finds she can speak fluent Italian when she’s drunk.

And guys, this is legit. I may have consumed these photo shoot mimosas , and let’s just say, my Italian, post- mimosas was great .

To be honest, I don’t actually love straight mimosas because I’m not a huge orange juice fan, but I desperately wanted to do this recipe pairing, so I got creative.

I added a simple homemade strawberry syrup to the mix to give it a slightly tarter, sharper sweetness and oh man, that little upgrade made all the difference. I could drink so many of these.

They are also just straight up beautiful. I mean, look at them. Don’t you want to invite all of your friends over and let them admire your handiwork while you drink sparkling wine and speak terrible Italian together? Don’t you!?

Usually mimosas are made with Champagne. I used prosecco because of the Italian theme and because it’s what the internet tells me all the cool kids are doing now. You can also use cava or whatever dry sparkling wine you have on hand. If you don’t do alcohol, I also heartily recommend using seltzer or club soda to make mocktails.

How ever you enjoy them, these will make for a lovely addition to any brunch.

Ingredients

Strawberry Syrup

▢ 1/2 cup ( 100 g) granulated sugar
▢ 1/2 cup water
▢ 1 cup ( 6 oz) sliced strawberries
▢ 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Mimosas

▢ Orange Juice chilled
▢ 1 bottle Champagne, prosecco, or cava chilled
▢ Strawberries and orange slices for garnish

Instructions

Strawberry Syrup

In a small sauce pan, combine sugar and water. Heat over medium until sugar dissolves completely.
Add strawberries and lemon juice and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer and cook for 15 to 17 minutes, stirring occasionally, until mixture is thickened and syrupy.
Strain through a fine-mesh strainer and transfer to a jar. Store in the refrigerator and allow to cool before using in drinks.

Assemble

Add 1 tablespoon of strawberry syrup to the bottom of your glass. Fill glass 1/3* of the way full with orange juice. Fill the rest of the way with champagne.
Stir, garnish, and enjoy.

Notes

Nutritional Information

Make brunch even better with a simple but beautiful strawberry upgrade to your classic mimosa recipe. Recipe includes nutritional information and - 29

Saturday Morning Snapshot#

State of the Blog#

Pop-culture Corner#

Meal Planning#

Have a great weekend!#

Ingredients#

Oven-baked Fries#

Marinade#

Meat and Veggies#

Instructions#

Marinate the Meat#

Prepare the Fries#

Stir Fry the Meat and Veggies#

Notes#

Ingredients#

Strawberry Syrup#

Mimosas#

Instructions#

Strawberry Syrup#

Assemble#

Notes#

Saturday Morning Snapshot

State of the Blog

Pop-culture Corner

Meal Planning

Have a great weekend!

Ingredients

Oven-baked Fries

Marinade

Meat and Veggies

Instructions

Marinate the Meat

Prepare the Fries

Stir Fry the Meat and Veggies

Notes

Ingredients

Strawberry Syrup

Mimosas

Instructions

Strawberry Syrup

Assemble

Notes