Real quick one here…
We’re driving home from dinner this evening and Lori says, “Is that the fuzz behind me?” I died laughing! The fuzz? Really? Who uses that? It just came out like it is an everyday word. I knew what she meant, but I have never heard anyone use that word in “real life”. I had only heard it in movies.
Turns out that it wasn’t the fuzz behind us…
Cheers!!
After opening with a heavy hitter, I thought I would follow that up with a classic side dish / dessert. Applesauce!! This, however is one of Alton Brown’s super fast and super easy recipes.
The Program
3 Apples – Golden Delicious; peeled, cored & quartered
3 Apples – Fuji; peeled, cored & quartered
1 cup Unfiltered Apple Juice
2 tablespoons Cognac
2 tablespoons Unsalted butter
3 tablespoons Honey
½ teaspoon Cinnamon
The Prep
The prep for this could have gone a little bit better. I went to purchase the Apples and managed to forget the non-filtered apple juice that is also required. Of course, I didn’t remember it until I had already started peeling the apples. I finished peeling and cutting the apples and put them in a big bowl covered them with water and put a plate on them to keep them under the water. I hoped this would stave off the oxidation long enough to run to the store and back. Luckily, it did.
The Process
This recipe, which comes from Alton Brown’s “Good Eats – The Early Years”, is super easy. Literally toss all the ingredients in a large bowl and microwave on high for 10 minutes. Let them cool a bit and hit them with the immersion blender until you have sauce. It really is just that easy.
The Payoff
This is very good applesauce for the time and effort involved. It is not, however my grandmother’s hand pressed cinnamon red-hot applesauce that I have eaten gallons of in my lifetime. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like, because I did and I will make it again, it’s just that… well you know… not Grandma’s. The only thing I will change next time is to double or triple the cinnamon. I’m a big cinnamon fan and while this applesauce had hints of cinnamon, I could use a little more.
I knew I wanted to start with something serious for my first AB and Me recipe. I went straight to steak – good steak. This recipe for Steak au Poivre came from the Good Eats episode “Tender is the Loin – I”. I found the details and recipe on the food network site.
The Program
4 ea Tenderloin Steaks, 6 to 8 oz <1 1/2" thick
2 tablespoons Peppercorns
1 tablespoon Unsalted butter
1 teaspoon Olive oil
⅓ cup Cognac, plus 1 teaspoon
1 cup Heavy Cream
The Prep
I had, in the freezer, two 1-pound hunks of beef tenderloin around 2 inches thick. Those will be perfect. Scanning the ingredient list the only other thing I didn’t have was cognac. I know, I know – I don’t want to hear it. I’m a whiskey drinker. Anyway, knowing that Indiana has absolutely ridiculous laws concerning liquor sales, I went and got a hip-pocket sized bottle of Courvoisier last evening since I wouldn’t be able to today. Other than moving the steaks to the fridge to thaw yesterday morning, that was the only prep needed.
The Process
I’m going to cut straight to chase on this one…. FIRE! Yup, you add the cognac to the pan after removing the steak to rest and light the fumes. This was my first kitchen fire and luckily, it was intentional. It did, however, scare the dog a bit 
I’m not sure if the flame made it all the way to the ceiling or not, but since I had a couple of seconds of trouble lighting the firestick, I definitely got a fireball. Next time, I’ll have Lori ready with the camera!!
The Payoff
mmmmm Steak & Potatoes
The picture was taken before putting the final layer of sauce on every thing. Sorry I didn’t take a “final – final”… I’ll learn
So, the results were very positive. Not quite the best steak I’ve ever had, but putting alcohol and cream on a really good steak certainly put it up there. Final score:
As you may or may not know, Alton Brown is my culinary hero. His show Good Eats is the only cooking show since Julia Child’s show to win a Peabody Award – and not without good reason. His unique approach to cooking strikes a chord with me. I am a big fan of learning how and why something works and that’s precisely how he goes about teaching. From putting himself in a giant grill to explain radiant heat and the convection process to wire and foam representations of chemical compounds his use of props to make the point is not only fun to watch, but is an effective way to get you to remember.
So, it is with great respect that I launch this section of the website. I plan to prepare at least 1 Alton Brown (AB) recipe per week, usually from his book “Good Eats – The Early Years” (but sometimes from the Food Network site) and blog about it. I’ll post pictures, explain the process and talk about the results. Please join me every week here on AB and Me!!
Cheers!
I currently have a few days off from work and thought I would try my hand at stop motion animation. I have all the tools already at my disposal, so it was just a matter of giving it a whirl. I thought I would use the assembly of a simple LEGO helicopter as the first run test.
I didn’t edit any of the photos and didn’t really set up everything properly as I was just giving it a try to see if I could get the concept down. After a couple of hours of photography and computer time, here is what I came up with:
For those interested, I used my Canon 40D with the 24-70 f/2.8L lens. I had it connected to an Alien Bees 1600 (lime green, of course) strobe that was pointed to the ceiling. I shot 1/125 @ f22 using the remote shutter release cable. I dumped the 141 images into iMovie set the length of each still and exported using the built in YouTube share feature… doesn’t get much easier than that.
I know it isn’t very pretty, but I was just after proof of concept here. I am going to plan a larger project to see how it goes. If you have any ideas, let me know!
Cheers!!
Edit: Apparently YouTube cut off the last few frames of the video… sorry!!
