Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Operation Ribeye

The weather was beautiful last Saturday, but even if the rain hadn't held off we would've had our ribeyes and jalapeño poppers. The poppers were beautiful ~ short, plump jalapeños; soft cream cheese; thick-cut smoked bacon ~ and I didn't even have to prepare them! My darling husband did it all {happy sigh}.


They were grilled to almost done, then moved to the top rack when the ribeyes were started.


The man is a genius ~ both poppers and steaks were perfectly grilled. His steak was rare and mine was medium rare and everything was ready at the same time.


A blue cheese dip for the poppers and a spicy chipotle sauce for the steaks completed the meal. Operation Ribeye was a complete success.

For lots of good suggestions about poppers and ribeyes and cheese check out the comments at From A Submariner's Perspective.

3 comments:

Mermaid said...

Yummy Beckaroo! I'll take mine rare please, and then when I'm done with the steak part, can we throw the rib part back on to grill till well done? That's why I like ribeyes so much. It's a steak AND a rib!

I had a few thoughts I'd like to share with you ~ your chipotle sauce for the steak made me think of it.

I've mentioned La Mina's, the restaurant I like that features Steak Vaquero? Well, they also have a dish that I adore called Camarones en Zarape, which is bacon wrapped shrimp. They take large shrimp, butterfly them, stuff them with a thin slice (really a large matchstick size) each of green pepper, onion, and mozarella cheese. Then they close the shrimp back up and wrap it all in bacon and either deep fry it or throw it in a very hot oven.

They serve it with a chipotle dipping sauce that's out of this world. After I'd been a regular there for a while, I asked my server if the chef would share the recipe for the sauce with me. He returned from the kitchen with the challenge from the chef that, if I could guess the ingredients, he'd tell me the recipe.

Well, I guessed mayonnaise, sour cream and chipotle pepper in adobo sauce. The server returned from the kitchen and said the chef said "Close enough!" and gave me the recipe as one cup mayonnaise, one cup BUTTERMILK (instead of sour cream) and a chili pepper in adobo sauce (this should be done to taste but I find a large pepper is quite enough). I like to add about 1/2 tsp. salt to taste. Put all ingredients in a blender and whir until smooth. You got sauce!

I'm thinking this would be excellent with either the ribeyes with the taco mix I suggested, or the jalapeno poppers ~ but if you really want killer, try the Camarones en Zarape. I throw them in a 400-425 oven for about 25-30 minutes.

Now, I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to make another suggestion to you about your jalapeno poppers, one that I find works really well for me. I can see that you are using thick-cut bacon on your poppers. While I am always a fan of thick-cut for just when I'm making a bowl of it to eat in front of the tv like Elvis used to ;) ~ I'm going to make a crazy suggestion to you.

Try using regular bacon on your poppers, the normal everyday, even cheaper brand (because they're thinner.) I take it you're cutting the bacon slices in half? Try using a full slice of thin (regular) cut bacon bext time. The reason for this is, if the bacon is thinner, it can be stretched and worked with a little, and I find I can get complete coverage, including the ends, with the thinner bacon. Just start at one end and sort of wrap it like a mummy, slightly overlapping the previous wrap until you get to the other end. If you can get it completely covered with the ends tucked in, the bacon shrinks up around the jalapeno and makes a nice little bundle that keeps your cheese from running out. And god knows we don't want to lose any cheese!! :)

So, how is life in Roswell, if you don't mind me asking? A dear friend and I have always wanted to visit there and explore the local lore. Maybe we will someday and I'll stop in and see you. I'll just follow the delicious smells of bacon wrapped chipotle pepper and onion camarone cheese jalapeno ribeyes!

Thanks for sharing, Beckaroo! And I'll see you over in the Lagoon! (don't worry about that noise you hear, it's just SmagBoy's stomach growling...) ;) *Stop drooling on the lady's shoe, Captain..!*

Beckaroo Banzai said...

Hi Mermaid! Your comment is the first one for my blog! Thank you! I appreciate your hints and recipes and I'll try that sauce soon. Sadly, I cannot eat shrimp but I will keep this recipe to make for my husband soon.

I'll also keep in mind your hint about completely wrapping the jalapeno in thin bacon. We use the whole strip of thick bacon instead of cutting it in half. It is a bit difficult to stretch it all the way. Our next cheese will be Havarti, maybe even this weekend.

Life in Roswell is ... interesting. It's greener and more humid than in Portales, where we lived for several years. The city has made a point of planting lots of trees to take advantage of the Pecos River, the Hondo River and the Spring River that are all nearby. We're far enough away from the oil wells that we don't have to deal with that smell.

There are aliens everywhere, of course. If you can stand the anthropomorphization, my cat has a blog too. Her first post (http://thetigerlilypad2.blogspot.com/2009/03/tiger-lilys-excellent-adventure.html) is about her move to Roswell.

The temp was in the 70s today and I truly enjoyed driving with the window down! It could snow tomorrow, though, and no one would be surprised.

You are always welcome to visit!

I could hear Smag's stomach growling from here. I think he might have been moaning a bit from thinking about the Velveeta slices and their placement, too! See you in the Lagoon.

SmagBoy1 said...

Wowsers! I'm amazed that I can type, Beckaroo! I'm drooling, my stomach is growling expectantly, and my nose is playing tricks with my brain wherein I can almost imagine that I'm tasting those poppers! This looks most delicious and yummy and pleasing to every sense.

I going to double what MM said. If I'm ever in Roswell, forget the aliens, I'm going to follow my nose! :-)

Thank you for sharing the great pics and descriptions!