Ah, Bacon.

Yes, bacon. There is no consumable known to man or beast that bacon does not improve upon with one small exception, better quality bacon. Since bacon, black pepper and steak are the holy trifecta in the grand derby of taste, I snuck in one a couple nights ago as a safety. After shopping for the meal I made last night I was worried I was over reaching and that surely everything would be ruined. So I had one of the bacon wrapped filets, silently and alone prepared like the peppercorn steak I did already. So you see, there was nothing interesting to report there other than it was delicious. But last nights meal...

 6oz of steak is small. really looked like even with additional things sitting next to it, it just wasn't going to be enough. It's amazing how far the right sides can carry 6oz of bacon wrapped meat....mmmmm, bacon.....I'm as shocked as anyone that anything I tried last night worked. Maybe not in every instance according to the specifics of the recipe, but it was all beyond edible reaching well into delicious.

Guacamole Stuffed Tomato

A couple small things took me by surprise while doing this one. The first of which was, I was going to have to make guacamole and that's what all these random ingredients were for. Secondly, while fork mashing the avocado I glanced back at the instructions to see when I put all this in the blender.... never. Great. But let me back up. First was cutting a small slice off the top of the tomato. It WANTED me to scoop out the seeds and discard and then scoop out the pulp and chop it up. I realized this small detail after I scooped everything out and chopped it all up together. So, some tomato seeds, no big deal. 

after coating, sorry, "drizzling" the insides with olive oil and fresh lime juice (so I was out of olive oil and vegetable oil had to do, I hardly noticed considering what follows as the end result), set my tomatoes aside at room temperature to dive into the guacamole. It consisted of 3 avocados, sorry, "california" avocados (la-di-da big shot california produce) and the right amounts of chopped onion, fresh chopped cilantro, minced jalapeno (with the seeds this time, these people don't know what they want) and salt. Oh, and the pulp from the tomato and here's the thing about that...

the recipe is for making 12 of these and I really didn't want to eat 12 guacamole stuffed tomatoes. So what I ended up with is a lot of extra guacamole that's light on tomato. But the most important thing is, I made guacamole, and it was good. Any way, yeah, spoon it in the tomato and serve IMMEDIATELY. Most of these seem to want to be served immediately.

They were good, however, the instructions at no time included how you are supposed to eat them. They are essentially guacamole bombs. I tried at one point like an apple, and I don't recommend it. Very strategic fork and knifing seemed to be the way to go. Also of note, it's a lot of guacamole. And these were pretty small vine tomatoes. The only thing smaller I could have used would have been like plum tomatoes but the first line of directions reads, "12 small 2-2 1/2 inch tomatoes (not plum tomatoes)." Eh, what can you do. 

Parsley Rice

Yum. I should try this with brown rice since I'm always looking for a way to make that stuff not taste like wet bark. This time I used white rice because I'm afraid to intentionally stray from a recipe my first go around and, you know, brown rice sucks. I was a little frightened when I was told, "preheat the oven to 350 degrees, 325 degrees or 400 degrees." Excuse me? It's best not to throw baking options at me. I went with the 350 since that's what my oven likes to default to. 

Then the fun began. I greased up a 1 quart overproof dish which to me means, that one 1 quart item you have, a soufflé dish. They may have meant something else. Then I beat a single large egg in the bottom and needed to add 1 cup of milk. Luckily for me, the bit of fat free milk and bit of whole milk I had left added up to nearly a whole cup. I need to get milk. I added the finely chopped onion, garlic, parsley, curry powder, black pepper (yay), salt and....rice....cooked rice.... ok, had to cook rice while the rest of it waited patiently in the dish, but it got there. Then I had to cover the dish...COVER THE DISH... or use aluminum foil (phew) and bake (45 minutes at the 350). Oh, and of course, serve immediately!

It was supposed to turn green. It didn't which was disappointing. Perhaps the parsley needed to be cut up even finer, which seems obvious to me now looking at the giant parsley leaves sticking out of the rice. But still, even with it's lovely yellow coloring, it was excellent. And the bottom layer of it in the dish were even a little like corn meal and even better, until I burnt my tongue. Then it didn't matter much. I should not lick spoons I've just been stirring out of the oven rice with. Fortunately, this was after I had already eaten.

incidentally, this makes a wonderful reheated late breakfast.

The "Tuscan" Steak

Most of the Tuscan style recipe's I've looked at on steak seem to want to have oil drizzled on it at the end and lemon squeezed over it. But this one didn't. It was pretty much all about the marinade. So I have no idea how Tuscan this really is, and I was constantly worried about it until I tried it. 

The marinade consisted of taking rosemary leaves, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, crushed fresh garlic, sea salt and, that's right, ground black pepper and blending them together. Then it claims, "pour" it on top of the steak, flip over and "pour" the rest letting the meat soak it up anywhere from 2 hours to overnight. I gave it most of the day. The thing was, when I turned the pitcher of the blender over to pour, nothing came out. It was like a paste. I checked my proportions and all were correct. I guess I should have let it blend for another hour or so to thin out, but instead I just used a basting brush to scoop it out and slather all over the poor little steak. I could only think, no way this is right.

Come cooking time I tried to brush some of the excess off the meat, but through some conundrum of physics, the more I tried to remove, the thicker it got. Since I didn't remember using Bailey's and lime juice in it, I figured well, screw it, this is why I had the peppercorn one last night. I did a pan sear and roasted it as I've become accustomed now, and since the rice was still cooking away in the oven. 

In the end. It was delicious. the marinade didn't blacken up to a crisp as I had expected and the steak didn't wear it as a gloomy coat. Plus, even though it was no where in the directions, I got bold and squeezed a lemon over it, which worked out complimenting everything on the plate well. The lemon twist on it was just me being cocky.

But the true miracle of it all? All three things finished at the same time and were able to be served "immediately"

Now, what to do with excess guacamole, tomato, and onion...hmmm...

next up, I'll try one of the burgers.