I threw a bunch of spring-y ingredients together; I thought it worked really well. The broiled shrimp had been marinated with olive oil, shallots, lemon, smoked paprika, and Aleppo peppers. Other ingredients included ruby grapefruit, avocado, hearts of palm, red onion, and grape tomatoes, all tossed with a tarragon-citrus vinaigrette (fresh grapefruit, tangerine, and meyer lemon juices).
This was a comforting meal on the last day of winter. Roasted yellow squash, zucchini, Anaheim and poblano chiles, and onions mixed with poached shredded chicken breasts, Chihuahua cheese and baby spinach were the components of the filling. The filled rolled tortillas were topped with a homemade red chile & tomato sauce and covered with more Chihuahua cheese before baking. The simple green salad was dressed with a green chile-cilantro vinaigrette.
For three years I’ve banked with Washington Mutual, which was recently acquired by Chase. Yesterday I stepped into a Chase branch for the first time to ask for help on a simple problem. The customer service that followed was so bad and revealed so much about their culture that I’ll be canceling my account after my first interaction with the company.
In 2000 I did an internship with Walt Disney World in Orlando. Disney’s guest service is legendary. From the top down, every “cast member” is commissioned and empowered to provide guests with a “magical” experience. For example, even though I was merely a “custodial engineer” I was given Guest Service Recovery cards: fill-in-the blank vouchers to right the wrongs of the Magic Kingdom. See a guest drop their ice-cream cone? Give her a GSR to get a free replacement. Seagull crap on a guest on the River Walk? Give him a GSR for a free Mickey Mouse sweatshirt to change into. Parents freaked-out because it took an hour to find their lost six-year-old? Give them a GSR to skip to the front of the two-hour line at Splash Mountain…
This is a very simple recipe – the marinade/glaze is equal parts mirin, soy sauce, and brown sugar. I marinate for a half hour, then either saute or broil briefly. Served with asparagus and jasmine rice – recipe from Nigella Express, a very useful cookbook.
So naturally, lunch involves corned beef, because I’m just that predictable. Slow cooked corned beef, sliced and served with a mustard dill cream sauce, caramelized onions and swiss cheese on warm Red Hen pumpernickel onion baguettes. With lemon-scallion potato salad since the weather is so summery.
I’m guilty of typically cooking corned beef only once a year and had always used the traditional long, slow simmer as my cooking method of choice, but have generally been somewhat dissatisfied with intermittent, unpredictable toughness of the meat. I’ve been cooking a lot of corned beef over the past few days and have taken this opportunity to simultaneously experiment with other cooking methods, and now can unequivocally say that the simmer is the one method that I would never repeat, having had great - and near identical – results with both the slow cooker (12 hours on low with about 1/4 inch of water in the crock pot) and the oven (3 1/2 hours at 300 degrees, tightly covered and also with 1/4 inch of water in the pan). Both methods resulted in tender, juicy meat – not too salty but full-flavored. In case you were wondering…
We’ve got a growing bicycle gang/crew here and sometimes it means turning our “Waiting Area” into a makeshift bike shop. Especially on Fridays. (Is this 2 Friday the 13ths in a row? Weird, but I guess that happens every time Friday the 13th happens in February… it happens again in March. Never noticed.)
Erik is the leader of this posse. His call sign is ‘The Stache’. Alex “B-Boy” Hanna is the Muscle… and Greg “I just got back from Hawaii so I’m tan” Baugues is the Treasurer. Beware.