Yesterday, I made the second HelloFresh dinner — the seared steak with tomato-olive ragout. The process of putting the meal together was fun, but there were a few glitches.
First, the provided bell pepper had a very nice mold garden growing around the stem. I am a wimp when it comes to mold on food, despite the fact that I (briefly) made my living as a cheese trimmer, back in the bad old days. So, out went the pepper. Usually, I have chopped pepper in the freezer, but — not yesterday. Lima beans turned out to be my substitution of choice, and worked surprisingly well.
The other glitch was the steak. Steve and I are Those People. You know Those People who go to a steakhouse with a group of friends and order salmon? That’s us. On the very, very rare occasions when we do eat steak, we’re not fans of blood; a little pink, OK. Freely flowing red juices. . .not so much.
I followed the directions provided by HelloFresh. In retrospect, this was a bad idea. I should have sliced the steak, seared the slices and then put them in the oven. What happened was that I seared the steak as a unit, as directed, put it in the oven for the longest suggested time, at the end of which — freely flowing red juices.
Long story short, I ended up doing what I should have done in the first place — sliced the steak and put it back in the oven until it was faintly pink, and, in our opinion, edible. It was tasty, and next time I’ll know to vary.
The construction of the ragout, even given the Tragedy of the Green Pepper, was pleasant, and easy, and the dish tasted great.
We have one more meal to make — peas and risotto, which sounds yummy.
So, that.
Yesterday, Steve and Sprite did a Skype-in at BayCon, chatting with about ten very dedicated and patient Liaden fans. Thanks to Jon del Arroz for making that possible.
With the exception of fixing dinner, my yesterday was All About the Writing, and I’ll be getting back to it in a couple minutes. Today should see the end of the read-through-deep-edit of the second chunk. Then, comes the reordering of the chapters, and then I can get on to writing new stuff. Yay! Writing new stuff!
Ahem.
As mentioned around here previously, Necessity’s Child by Lee and Miller is a finalist for the Maine Literary Awards. Here’s an article about the awards. We’ll be attending the ceremony in Portland on Thursday. Which reminds me that we have to write an acceptance speech, just in case.
Speaking of literary matters, Edgar Allan Poe House is back in business, so if you find yourself near North Amity Street in Baltimore, stop by.
For those following the latest in the long line of Amazon publisher abuse, here’s a link to an essay about Jeff Bezos and the building of Amazon.
And, wrapping up the Link Salad portion of this blog, just how well do you know your brain?
See y’all later.
Good luck on winning the award!!!!
Just discovered that Portland has a Cryptozoology museum (on Congress Street, near Longfellow Square) if you’re up for off-the-path touristy stuff while you’re down this way.
I love red meat but I do not like blood. It’s not just you.
That all sounded very yummy, and the links are crunchy too.
Nothin’ better n’ hot links! ;-))
Sharon, that is the one BIGGIE, and I have posted about it, with HelloFresh. They seem to want raw meat/fish. No. I mean, steak I can eat right after it stops mooing, but fish .. no. So we always know that “sear” means totally raw inside with their instructions. We simply cook the fish thoroughly and even the chicken we cook much longer than they suggest.