Beef Wellington with Bleu Cheese and Mushrooms

So this last Friday (May 27th) was my father's 56th birthday and so I told him I would make dinner and asked what he wanted.  He insisted on this dish, I had made it for him 2 years ago and he has been craving it ever since.  This recipe is definitely a fat kid recipe and will surely fill you up to the brim.  We had a bunch of family and significant others come to dinner so I ended up making 8 individual beef wellingtons...it was quite the process to say the least, but fun and rewarding.  So I will stop blabbering and give you the recipe already.

Adapted from Gourmet
Serves 8

The Ingredients
8 sirloin steaks
1 box of frozen puff pastries (2 rolls), defrost
3 cups crimini mushrooms, sliced
1 cup bleu cheese
1 egg
1 shallot, finely chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon soy sauce
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

The Process
1.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees, pat dry the sirloin steaks and season with salt and pepper.

2.  Put steaks in a shallow roasting pan and put in oven and cook for 12 minutes.

3.  Then take steaks out of oven and refrigerate for 1/2 hour. 

4.  While the steak are in the fridge in a large skillet heat up (over medium heat) some olive oil and add shallots.  Cook shallots for 1 minute then add garlic and mushrooms, cook for about 5 minutes and add soy sauce and salt and pepper.  Cook until desired texture and set aside

5. Next roll out the puff pastry and cut each sheet into 4 squares.  Next whisk up the egg in a small bowl you can add water if you want to dilute it for an egg wash.

6.  When steaks are done take a square of puff pastry and put about 1 tablespoon of bleu cheese diagonally across pastry then add about 2 tablespoons of mushrooms in the same direction.

7.  Then place one steak on top of the fillings, put egg wash along all edges of the pastry and fold up all four corners to the center of the steak fully covering the steak and creating a pastry pouch.

8.   Then put the steak pouches in the fridge for another 1/2 hour. Do this with all the steaks and at the end but egg wash all over the tops of the pastry/steak pouches. When done preheat oven to 425 degrees put steaks in and cook for about 15 minutes and you are done!!!

Coconut Sweet Potato Fries

This meal was insanely good.  I went to hang and cook with my awesome friend Kelly who I hadn't seen or cooked with in far too long and we began with the ever so magic coconut oil.  This meal consisted of bacon wrapped pork loin and parsley mushrooms and then the coconut sweet potato fries!  Throughout the night we gossiped and watched Harry Potter...honestly I couldn't want much more for a Monday night after five days in L.A. and traveling.  I hadn't cooked with coconut oil until this meal and wow I really have been missing out.  So here is the ever so successful Coconut Sweet Potato Fries recipe created by Kelly and I

Serves 2

The Ingredients
1 large sweet potato, peeled and sliced into fry sticks
1/4 cup coconut oil, heated so it is liquid form
1/4 cup fresh Italian parsley, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 medium yellow onion, chopped
1/2 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

The Process
1.  Turn oven on to 425 degrees.  In large bowl mix together all of the above ingredients.

2.  Lay fries flat on a foil covered baking sheet.  Put in oven for 10 minutes, then flip fries and bake for another 10 minutes or until tender.

3.  When fries are tender turn oven to broil to crisp up the fries, broil until preferred crispness is achieved (about 5 minutes for us).

These fries were seriously perfect with the sweetness of the potato that mixed so well with the coconut, a little kick from the paprika and the freshness from the parsley....perfect combo.

Chicken Adobo

I realize I haven't written a blog post in a little while, it is not that I haven't been cooking, it is that I have been making simple things, or things that I have already posted, or I have forgotten to take pictures....but I remembered this time!  This recipe is one that I made up after looking at several recipes and techniques for making and cooking chicken adobo.  All the recipes I did look at seemed to lack one thing or another and I like dimensions to my food.  I made this as part of a yummy feast that my two friends and I created.  One of my friends made two Vietnamese dishes: shrimp toast, and pork pastries which were to die for!  My other friend so kindly made awesome strawberry lemonades and brought brownies, this was an indulgent night to say the least!  I was planning on making roasted broccoli to accompany this meal but when it came down to it we all decided we had way too much food already....so everything we ate was golden brown!  Pretty funny, awesome, and rare.  So here is the recipe for chicken adobo that I made:

Serves 4

The Ingredients
Chicken thighs(boneless/skinless), about 3 pounds (fat trimmed)
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
1 small yellow onion, chopped
5 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon pepper

The Process
1.  In a large tuber-ware mix apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaves, onion, 3 tablespoons honey, paprika, and pepper.  Add chicken and let marinate overnight in fridge (about 12 hours).

2.  When ready to cook heat up oven to 425 degrees and take chicken out of fridge to let it warm up.

3.  When oven is preheated put chicken in a greased glass baking dish, make sure the chicken is spread out in one single layer so it can cook evenly.  Then take marinade and pour over all the chicken.

4.  Put chicken in oven for about 30 minutes or until cooked through, and take out of oven.

5.  Pour marinade out of glass dish into a small saucepan and bring to a boil then turn down to slow simmer.  While making this sauce make sure the chicken is somewhere where it will stay warm for 15 minutes.

6.  While sauce is simmering add the last 2 tablespoons of honey and the tablespoon of brown sugar.  Simmer for 15 minutes.

7.  Put chicken on a serving platter and slowly pour sauce over chicken and serve.

Grilled Potatoes with Sour Cream Green Onion Sauce

This recipe I loosely based off of a recipe from Life's Ambrosia and after making them they were really good but I think they would be better with pain yogurt instead of sour cream, much less mayo, and I think raw garlic pressed into the sauce rather than the powder.  That said here is the story.  It's BBQ season and I attended my first of the season, this last beautiful weekend here in Portland, Oregon.  In preparation I went on a grilling recipe hunt through the endless blogs to get ideas for new things or ways to grill.  I came upon this recipe after about an hour and decided it was perfect.  The BBQ of course had all the other basics of steaks, sausages, asparagus, salad, wine, beer the usual.  So here is something new, fun, and easy to put on your grill this summa time!

Serves about 5 as an appetizer

The Ingredients
5 medium red potatoes, sliced about 1/4 inch thick
3 green onions, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper 
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup sour cream
1/3 cup mayonnaise


The Process
1.  Start by putting sliced potatoes in boiling water and boil about 4 minutes so that they are par-boiled.

2.  While potatoes are boiling mix together in large bowl green onions, salt, pepper, garlic powder, sour cream, and mayonnaise.

3.  When potatoes are done boiling rinse them several times with cold water to stop them from cooking and then put into the bowl of sauce.

4.  Make sure that each potato is covered with sauce and place on large plate for grilling, there should still be about a 1/2 cup of sauce remaining in the bowl for post grilling dollops.

5.  Grill potatoes until tender, about 5 minutes each side.  Take off grill and put a small dollop of sour cream sauce on each potato and eat!
 

Mushroom Chicken Curry Soup and Becca's Bday

This soup is my go to.  It impresses, comforts, fills, warms and is damn irresistible.  I owed Becca a wonderful birthday dinner because I was unable to go to her celebration so I had to knock her socks off with this dinner.  I began the birthday dinner search by trying to find an amazing new recipe that didn't include pork or big slabs of beef.  I knew I could make chicken, fish, tofu, or full on vegetarian.  After looking at countless recipes I settled on this panko crusted tofu chunks but as I thought about it I realized I needed to create a meal that I know well, something that isn't new, something that will impress and Becca is a fellow cook so impressing pays off.  So I decided on the chicken curry mushroom soup full of onions some butter and mounds upon mounds of varying mushrooms!  I accompanied this meal with roasted broccoli and a large bottle of wine and much laughter.  Birthday dinner success!  And now she is going to make me an amazing birthday dinner, um yes please!