Outback Steakhouse Style Green Beans

Hello Friends!

Been almost 2 weeks since my last post, I apologize. I was rather hoping I would have my Shepherds Pie recipe nailed by now but I really haven't had the chance to experiment with it any further. Anywho we decided to go shopping at Lee Lees Asian market and I found some good looking, and reasonably priced Green Beans. Anyway I had been thinking about trying to replicate Outback Steakhouses' awesome Green Beans. Or at least what my wife calls, quote, liquid crack, end quote, that they put on them. After a little research and looking over some other peoples ideas and recipes I believe I got something close to them. Now they are not perfectly the same, but they are very tasty none the less.

Johns Outback Style Green Beans


Ingredients


3-4 Cups of Green Beans
3-4 Tbsp Butter
1-2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
Black Pepper to your taste
White Pepper to your taste
Salt to your taste
Bacon Salt, again to your taste (http://www.baconsalt.com/) Seriously, this stuff is to die for.

Directions


1) Sort your beans out, cut off any vines or any bad spots. If a bean looks too wilted, throw it out.
2) Steam the beans for 8 minutes, remove the beans and put them in a colander. Run cool water over them. This will stop the cooking process and make them more crunchy instead of a mush.
3) Since this item is most likely a side dish, you can wait until 5 minutes before the meal is ready to start this next part.
4) Melt the butter and brown sugar in a pan. Gently put the beans into the pan with the butter mixture.
5) Toss the beans until the beans are covered in butter. (whats not to love about that last sentence)
6) Add as much of the peppers, salt and bacon salt as you wish. (NOTE! Bacon Salt doesn't contain any salt and on its own isn't even that salty, its also awesome over popcorn)
7) Toss the beans until everything is evenly coated with the peppery, butter, bacon salty goodness.
8) Serve
9) Enjoy!

Hope you like this weeks recipe, tell your friends!

John's Greek Style Potatoes

Now first let me say that this was not intended to be my first recipe. My first recipe was going to be a kick ass Shepherds Pie i have been working on, however that is still in the tweaking stages. But already my Mother-in-law has already said that it is the best Shepherds pie she has ever had. But I digress.

Greek potatoes! There was a Greek restaurant in the city of Columbia, SC called Grecian Gardens, and they had the BEST Greek potatoes. I would love to know how they did them. My regular meal there was a pint of Newcastle and the Gyro platter with Greek potatoes instead of rice. I could tell they were freshly made because every time i went there they would taste a little different but always good. So anyway, tonight i had a simmer sauce i got from a new supermarket chain called Fresh and Easy (i highly recommend this store). I had the beef and the sauce i just didn't have a side. I had been craving Greek for a while so decided to do a little research and came up with an idea for Greek Potatoes. They came out AWESOME! They was a mix between a boiled and roasted potato with subtle taste of lemon and garlic. My biggest mistake was I didn't make enough! Hope you enjoy and please leave me any suggestions.

John's Greek Style Potatoes

Ingredients.

½ Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 Tbsp Lemon Juice (As I live in Arizona we have lemon trees-a-plenty, but use bottled if you don't have fresh)
2 Tbsp Red Wine Vinegar
3 Cloves Garlic Diced (Fresh will have a good punch to it, but jarred garlic works fine also)
1 Tbsp Parsley (Fresh or Dried)
1 Tbsp Oregano (again, Fresh or Dried)
Salt and Pepper as desired
1 ½ lb Potatoes (I used Idaho)
1 Cup Chicken stock

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425°
2. Combine the first 7 ingredients in a bowl and whisk until combined fully.
3. Chop the potatoes into 2 inch chunks. Combine with the vinaigrette and shake the bowl or rotate it until the potatoes are totally covered.
4. While moving the bowl side to side, drop the potatoes into a 9x13 ovenproof dish so that any remaining vinaigrette coats the potatoes as they drop.
5. Slowly pour the chicken stock into the dish, put in the oven.
6. About every 10 minutes you need to take the dish out and flip the potatoes. The idea is to half poach and half roast the potatoes. As it cooks the stock will slowly be absorbed by the potatoes. You need to cook until all the liquid is almost gone, about 45 minutes. (It doesn't matter if the stock is all gone, all that will happen is that your potatoes will stick to the bottom of your dish, another reason to keep flipping the potatoes)
7. Serve into a bowl, let everyone grab as much as they want.
8. Enjoy!
   
   

Well there it is, my first real recipe. I promise i will work on my food photography. This wasn't supposed to be my first dish, but it was so good i decided I had to upload it. Please comment if you wish and please enjoy!

Hello World, how have you been?

Wow... I am blogging. If someone told me a year ago (heck, even a week ago), that i would have this crazy idea to start blogging about my culinary life, I probably would of laughed at them. But sometimes even the craziest ideas lead to great things. So what is my crazy idea.

Well it all started last Friday. I was (technically still am) enrolled at the famous Culinary College, Le Cordon Bleu and had been thinking over whether or not I should in fact go to Culinary School. I know School is always a good idea, it guides you to the top of whatever career field you chose to be in. Knowing this I decided it was in fact a bad idea, and i will tell you why. I had been googleling (googling, what is the official term for that?), chef careers and seeing what people thought.  Now I am not afraid of hard work, but I was not looking forward to long days and late nights all days of the week. I don't care how much you like to cook that is going to suck the life out of anyone, and i have a baby on the way (Due July 20th, but I am hoping for the 17th as it is my father's birthday). Also, everywhere I saw a blog or posting about someone who started their culinary career always talked about 'passion'. Personally, I enjoy cooking, but I am not sure I could passionately cook for a living. It's more of a hobby.

So I had this idea. I believe right now I have the ability to cook. Since currently I am unemployed I have started cooking for the family (me and my wife are currently living with the in-laws in Arizona). So far they have liked what I have cooked. So I began having this crazy idea. Instead of following other people's recipes, why not start making my own? I rarely follow a recipe to the letter anyway, and, I could post the recipes online or start a blog... and so I did.

This blog is going to be a diary, if you like, about me and my culinary journey. I am going to use this space to post recipes I like or recipes I have done myself and want to share. But I would also like people to send my recipes they think I would like, especially from other cultures or areas of the world. Personally I believe the best way to get to know a culture is by trying their food. Because let's be honest, with all the differences we try and find with ourselves and other cultures these days, humans will always share a love for food; its in our nature, its our common ground. Food brings us together, I am sure a lot of us have been at a social gathering where there are a few people we don't know, and we have heard people or have used ourselves the subject of food and what your eating as an icebreaker.

But anyway I wont keep you long, I am better at recipes than life stories. And to be fair, that's what this blog is about, recipes and the culinary journey.

So please, read, print, take notes whatever. Just enjoy cooking and the recipes and please let me know what you think!