Mexican Street Corn, Grilled Ribeye and Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes

Boy did I get burned out on most everything with the end of the semester a week ago (that’s what happens when you basically do your entire group’s project to ensure you get a good grade…luckily it worked grade-wise).  I haven’t done much cooking and I’ve done even less blogging.  In fact, it’s been a week since I did any serious cooking (making ribs later today though), and now I have two meals to make note of.

The first one is grilled Mexican street corn.  When I saw this recipe I was so excited.  Back when I was in college, I spent two summers volunteering in Chicago on the South Side and there were these guys who would sell corn, mostly after church on Sundays.  And this is a more refined version of their corn on a stick.  The street vendors took steamed corn, slathered it with mayonnaise, then shook grated parmesan (the kind in a green can) and some cayenne on it.  It’s incredibly good.  I know the mayo sounds gross, but it’s not.

This version takes corn that is grilled until there are some nice char marks.  Then you again slather it with mayo.  But instead of the parm, you use queso fresco.  Then you put on some cayenne and cilantro plus a little squeeze of lemon.  It’s messy but great.  Although, I think I’d prefer a combo of the two and will have to try it out one of these days to confirm.  Basically I’d go the TCU route and grill the corn (it gives it nice flavor and it stays crunchy) but use the parmesan cheese instead.  I do like the cilantro although it might have a harder time sticking with the finer cheese since that will likely cover all the sticky mayo glue.  But either the street vendor way or the more refined way, it’s really easy and delicious.  Trust me on this.

Then last Sunday (aka Easter) I made a grilled ribeye with buttermilk mashed potatoes.  They were both really simple and totally delicious.  The mashed potatoes are very simple in that you just boil some yukon gold potatoes until they are tender (about 20 minutes or more depending on size).  The important thing is to start the potatoes in cold water and bring it to a boil then reduce it to a simmer.  This allows it to cook all the way through properly.  Then you peel them and put them through a ricer (or you could mash them, but the ricer makes them smoother).  Then you add a mixture of warm butter and buttermilk (2 T. to 1 cup ratio but the amount needed depends on how many potatoes you use).  Mix until creamy and then season and garnish with some diced chives.  These potatoes have a nice tang to them and are really good.  I didn’t even feel the need to put butter on them, they were that flavorful.

The ribeye is pretty easy.  Just mix together some thyme, garlic, and oil and rub it all over the meat (make sure the meat is room temperature).  Then put on a liberal amount of salt and pepper.  Put it on a really hot grill to start and get a nice sear on the outside. It’s best to start on a high heat and then lower it to finish cooking, especially if you want something a little more done so that the outsides don’t get burned while the inside finishes up.  I got my steak to a perfect medium-rare so I was very happy.  And my hashmarks looked pretty good too.  And it was tender and had an amazing amount of flavor.

So, now that I’m caught up on the blogging, I’m actually realizing I’m going to have to change my plans on all this cooking.  It’s too expensive and stressful to cook so much in any one week.  So, I’m just going to take my time with it all.  I’ll cook once or twice a week and make my way through each technique.  I’m still going to try to cook something from each lesson, although I might not get the alternate recipes (or I might do the alternate and not the main one, depending on what I like). This will let me go through things more methodically instead of jumping around as much as I was.

I also signed up for another online cooking program, called Rouxbe  (it was pretty cheap on Groupon.com today).  So far from poking around it looks like there is more technique and a ton of great recipes to go along with each.  So, I’ll probably be pulling in the information from that, too, as I go along.  I’ll still tackle everything in the same order of the TCU curriculum, though.  It’ll be interesting to compare the two.  I think each will have it’s pluses and minuses.  At least the Rouxbe stuff seems to be well edited!

So, grilled baby back ribs with homemade bbq sauce today.  Can’t wait.