Cooking With Frank

...and to a lesser degree, the rest of us...

Well, we said we have a lot of interests...one of them is cooking. Even though we have issues with food (we don't eat much, Bitch has a tendency to want to eat all the time, so I have to control her, someone has to, or we'd be fat all over again). We still love to cook occasionally, and nibble at our creations - and to cook for those we love.


One thing the keeps us from cooking is that it's hard to want to cook for just one body. Tonight I decided that we get to have a treat, a nice meal; if only because we had a venison steak begging to be removed from our freezer. Venison?; you ask? What's venison? Techincally it's a term for any wild meat: elk, boar, moose, rabbit...anything wild. In this case we are talking about deer meat.


It should be noted that we have a culinary degree. Thankfully The Other Girl got us some useful skills to use, since we rarely leave the apartment these days. We don't really like eating at restaurants, we're very picky and critical (even of our own cooking); and given our most recent experience of last weekend when I called a waitress a whore, and Bitch got upset; we would prefer to save money, and cook for our self.


So, given that this is a blog, and the whole point of blogs is to write stuff, to share information, etc.; we thought we'd teach you to cook something - or let you read about us cooking, if you are not inclined to pick up a whisk.


Why not listen to music while we talk about cooking? Some of our playlist from this afternoon:

 

It won't surprise you that The Other Girl used to write restaurant reviews for "friends", she even used to post them here, up until about her last week with us. The reviews where removed for the obvious reasons, as we desire to keep our location and identity as much a secret, for now, as possible. We feel safer this way, and we feel our family members can feel safer, given some of the content on this blog. Let that be a note for locals, who we know are reading, and know our identity. Discretion is not just for our own protection.


We have many "skills" - this is merely one of them. Talented Boyfriend of about 4 years ago, once told The Other Girl that she was a "jack of all trades, master of none"; well, guess what ass hole - We're a master of making wicked tasty food - too bad they didn't let you stick around long enough to fully appreciate their skills; even though before they got the degree they could cook pretty damn well. And now we can, for our self.


Our menu this evening was:
Venison tenderloin with mushrooms and onions, and gravy
Carrots and asparagus
Baked Potato with green onions, shredded cheese and sour cream (we're out of bacon! Tragedy has struck our kitchen!)
...and for dessert...
Fruit Parfait (though we might now get to that until very late this evening)


What you'll need:
Meat
Mushrooms (sliced, diced, chopped...however you like to eat them)
Onions (we sliced and diced, you cut them however you want 'em)
Carrots (we used baby, you can slice some regular ones if you want)
Asparagus (make sure to cut about one and a half inches off the bottom, it's woody)
Potato (use a russet, that's a baking potato)
Green Onions
Cheese
Sour Cream

Butter/fat

Flour

Salt

Pepper

and dessert...well, figure it out. (we will use plain unsweetened yogurt, honey/along ganola, and sautéed apples...maybe bananas and strawberries...we'll see.)


The thing about cooking is that it's not as much of a science as something like baking. Except the roux, to make roux you only need equal parts butter and flour; but all that other stuff? Just use as much or little as you want. It's really that easy! 


So, to start you'll want to:

• Acquire and/or thaw some venison tenderloin (or beef, if you're scrunching your face right now).
• Season the meat - which means salt and pepper on both sides - we recommended fresh cracked, but whatever you have is good enough)
• Set the meat aside, at room temperature for a bit (a bit? Whatever, under an hour is good)
• Preheat the oven to 400 (F)/205 (C)
• Shred the cheese
• Slice the green onions however you like

Next, prepare the gravy:

• Start with a roux (the video attached will teach you that - sorry about the brief ad, if WE were making the instructional videos for you, they wouldn't be there...)

We had to remove the roux video, it wouldn't stick and kept reverting back to a copy of that gravy one...here is the link:

http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Make-a-Roux-148685554 

Note: You want to make a Blond Roux


The Gravy!!!!
Now that you have made the roux...skip ahead to 0:56 seconds on this video and pick up there...make it as thick or thin as you like.

How to make gravy

Our Gravy

The Mushrooms and Onions!

Meanwhile, if you can multi-task (if you can't multi-task start this before you start the gravy and set aside for reheating, cover with tinfoil until ready) you can sauté the sliced mushrooms and onions in whatever fat you choose, like butter - we did it in bacon fat, leftover from last weekends bacon!

Mushrooms and Onions!

The Steak and Veg!

Sear the steak in a pan with a little fat, again we used bacon fat (we use it for as much as possible). Just sear it until it's a little golden brown, then put it in the oven with the carrots and asparagus. We put them on top of the meat, as to not burn the asparagus. How long do you put it in the oven, you ask? Depends on how you like your steak. 

Dinner in our oven

When the meat is done to your liking (we do rare as much as possible, that's a few minutes after a nice searing) - pull it out of the oven and wrap it in tin foil to let it rest, when it rests it will reabsorb some of the juices, making it ...well...a juicier steak. The vegetables can stay in the oven to be made to your liking, we like them to be not mushy, so we probably pull them out faster than you would.

Complete!

Did we forget anything? Got questions? Post them in the comment section and we'll do our best to answer them! This is our first "instructional" cooking post. We could use suggestions on making it better

COOKING TERMS USED THAT YOU MIGHT NOT UNDERSTAND:

sauté; sautéed; sautéing: [saw-TAY, soh-TAY] To cook food quickly in a small amount of oil in a skillet or sauté pan over direct heat

sear: To brown meat quickly by subjecting it to very high heat either in a skillet, under a broiler or in a very hot oven. The object of searing is to seal in the meat's juices, which is why British cooks often use the word "seal" to mean the same thing.

FOOD PORN!