I’ve started lifting weights again now that Jeff and I finally bought a small set of adjustable weights for the house. I’ve noticed that now that my body is constantly breaking down and rebuilding muscle that I am craving protein much more, which makes sense, but has led to some really unusual dinners lately.

I left the farmer’s market the other day with 4 huge short ribs, something I haven’t bought in over a year. I got home and suddenly thought to myself, “How did I talk myself into buying all this meat?! What am I gonna do with all of it?!” As you may know, Jeff and I are not vegetarians, but meat is never a requirement and is rarely the focus of the meals I make. So to come home with several pounds of beef ribs as an impulse buy kinda made me chuckle at myself a little.

Well, I had them, might as well make them awesome right?

I started making a flavorful marinade by heating up some garlic, ginger, scallions, and red pepper flake in sesame oil to release their flavors.

Then I added soy sauce, rice vinegar, mirin, and lemon juice. That got poured over the short ribs and left to marinate for about an hour.

I got a grill pan searing hot and sizzled the ribs on it, about 5 minutes on each side.

When those came off, I added some cubed pineapple to the grill pan and drizzled the leftover marinade over them. When the pineapple was nice and hot, it was time to eat!

I served it with jasmine rice and some of the spicy cucumber quick pickles that I made the other day.

This cut of meat has a lot of fat on it and several bones to work around, so there are really only a few good bites of meat on it. That’s why I bought 4 for just the 2 of us and it really was just the right amount. We ended up having about one and a half each and then Jeff took the last one to lunch the next day.

Garlic and ginger short ribs

Short ribs coated in a flavorful asian marinade.

Prep Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Yield: 2 to 4 servings

Ingredients

• 4 medium-sized flanken-cut short ribs
• 3 large cloves of garlic (sliced)
• a 1 inch piece of ginger (grated)
• 2 scallions (sliced)
• a pinch of red pepper flake
• 2 tbsp. mirin
• 1 tbsp. rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• the juice of 1 lemon
• sesame oil

Cooking Directions

1. In a small pot heat garlic, ginger, scallions, and red pepper flake with sesame oil until fragrant.
2. Add liquid ingredients and allow to heat up but not boil.
3. Pour over short ribs in a sealable container, shake to coat and leave to marinate for 1 hour.
4. Grill short ribs on a very hot grill pan coated in sesame oil for about 5 minutes on each side.

This was a delicious combination of flavors. The ribs were so garlicky and flavorful, and the pineapple was bursting with sweetness.

Do you like fruit in savory dishes?

May 25, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 8 comments

Helllooo everyone!

I have a blog-related announcement today…the look of my Recipes page has changed! Click the link or the Recipes tab in the header bar to check it out!

The Recipes page used to be just a searchable database of past posts tagged as a recipe. Each one was listed as a paragraph excerpt from the beginning of the post with no pictures to help you find what you were looking for.

Well…my awesome programmer husband has jazzed it up and now it looks like this!….

Now, all recipes show up as a Poloroid-like icon, much prettier and easier to sift through than the clunky search feature was.

Currently, about half of the total recipes from the site are available, but as I have time to update the rest to the new format more will pop up.

Speaking of the new format….

Some of you may have already noticed that my posts containing recipes appear a little differently now. To show you an example of the new look, here’s a short recipe for spicy cucumber quick pickles that I made yesterday.

Spicy cucumber quick pickles

These spicy cucumber pickles are quick to make and are a cooling compliment to spicy dishes.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Yield: About a cup of pickles

Ingredients

• 2 small cucumbers
• 1 sliced scallion
• 1 tbsp. mirin
• 1 tbsp. rice vinegar
• up to a 1/4 tsp. chili garlic sauce
• sesame seeds for garnish
• salt to remove excess moisture

Cooking Directions

1. Slice cucumbers very thinly and sprinkle with salt.
2. Massage salt into cucumbers and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
3. Rinse and squeeze out cucumbers and return to bowl.
4. Add mirin, rice vinegar, chili garlic sauce, scallions, and sesame seeds.
5. Mix everything well and store in the refrigerator.

Now, recipes appear in a box with all the information you need to recreate them at home. Even if all the steps for the recipe were explained elsewhere in the post, you’ll still find the whole recipe written out like this towards the end of the post. That’s because soon I intend on adding a print feature to make using recipes even easier!

Neat, huh?

I hope these changes really do make finding and using recipes easier. I know even I was having trouble finding anything with the old layout.

What kinds of recipes do you get most excited about? Desserts, smoothies, appetizers, ethnic foods, dinners?

May 24, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 3 comments

While we were in Seattle, Jeff had a Thai dish that had him “mmming” and “yumming” the whole time. It was this dish of pork, flavored with Thai basil, garlic, and ginger, and served with a fried egg.

It looked like something that I could recreate at home, so I logged it in my memory to try out sometime.

I got together a pound of ground pork, Thai basil, scallions, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, fish sauce, chili-garlic sauce, and 2 eggs for my attempt at recreating that memorable flavor.

I chopped up the scallions, garlic, and grated some ginger and set it aside.

I browned the pork in a pan without oil, there’s enough fat in the pork to keep it from sticking. When the fat had rendered out and the pork was browned, I drained it in a metal sieve then returned it to the pan to add the aromatic ingredients…

As soon as those were smelling fragrant, I added the sauces and made sure to mix the spicy stuff in well…

Then I added the chopped basil and let it wilt completely.

And here’s my finished version!

Complete with a fried egg just like the original.

This was awesome. Certainly a more meat-heavy dish than we typically have for dinner, but it was a nice indulgence. I think the pork would taste amazing in crisp lettuce cups, maybe I’ll try it that way next time.

Pork with Thai basil and fried egg

Pork with the aromatic flavors of Thai basil, garlic, ginger, and scallion. Served with a fried egg over rice.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 bunch Thai basil
• 2 large cloves of garlic (minced)
• a 1 inch piece of ginger (grated)
• 2 scallions (sliced)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp. fish sauce
• 2 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp. chili garlic sauce

Cooking Directions

1. Brown pork in a pan without oil.
2. When pork is cooked through, drain off fat and return to pan.
3. Add scallions, ginger, and garlic.
4. Add sauces and mix in.
5. Add chopped Thai basil and allow to wilt.
6. Fry eggs sunny-side-up in a separate pan.
7. Serve pork over rice with a fried egg and garnish with toasted sesame seeds if desired.

Have you ever made something at home that you’ve tried in a restaurant?

May 22, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 5 comments