Search Results for "coffee rub"
Dinner Menu: Grilled Steak with Coffee Rub and Blueberry Coffeecake
Been busy with my new motorized standing desk. I haven’t even stepped in the kitchen today. Had to put the desk together, then actually get some work done. I’ll post more about it tomorrow, it’s very cool. Until then, here is one of my most requested recipes:
From August 2013
A friend of mine spent a few months one summer experimenting with coffee rubs. This was one of my favorites. If you need something fun to do with your next grilled steak, this is a recipe to try. And with my love of blueberries, can’t go wrong with a blueberry coffeecake. Yum.
On the board tonight:
- Steak with Coffee Rub
- Green Beans w/Bacon & Onion
- Baked Potatoes
- Blueberry CoffeeCake
Steak with Coffee Rub
- 3 tbsp chili powder (pure ancho or a blend)
- 3 tbsp finely ground coffee (espresso works best)
- 1 ½ tbsp paprika (use a good one)
- 1 tbsp dark brown sugar
- 2 tsp dry mustard
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp fresh ground pepper
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 to 1-1/2 lb of steak (rib-eye, sirloin, NY strip, etc) in 4 thick pieces
Mix together all spices. Lightly rub each steak with oil and then coat liberally on both sides with coffee rub. Now you can cook in a pre-heated skillet on medium-high heat, 5 to 7 minutes each side for medium rare. You can broil in the oven, using the second slot down from broiler, for 5 minutes each side, again for rare to medium rare, longer for medium. Or if you’re lucky (sigh) you can grill them outside. Cooking times will vary no matter which style you choose, so watch carefully and you’ll probably have to use a meat thermometer to really judge, because the rub makes it a little harder to eyeball it. Let sit for a few minutes before serving.
Green Beans w/Bacon & Onions
- 1 lb fresh or frozen green beans (if fresh, snap off ends and snap into smaller pieces)
- 2 strips bacon, cut into small pieces
- 4 green onions, chopped
- salt & pepper to taste
Sm. Saucepan, steamer and Skillet
Steam beans until slightly crisp, but tender. While beans are steaming, begin browning bacon until crisp. You can drain most of the bacon drippings, leaving 1 tbsp to lightly coat beans. Add onions. Drain beans and dab with a paper towel. Add to bacon mixture, mixing well, until beans are coated in bacon drippings. Cook on medium-low for 1 to 2 minutes, until onions are heated through.
Blueberry CoffeeCake
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 tbsp cultured buttermilk powder (or 1 cup butter milk & omit water)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 8 oz frozen blueberries
Topping:
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup butter, softened
- ½ cup flour
8×8 baking dish, greased
2 bowls
In bowl, add flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, buttermilk and mix well. Make a well in the center add egg, water & oil. Stir quickly until all everything is mixed well, but don’t over mix. Fold in blueberries. Spread batter evenly in baking dish. In bowl, mix topping ingredients until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over the top of batter. Bake at 400° for 25-30 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.
Shopping List:
- 3 tbsp chili powder (pure ancho or a blend)
- 3 tbsp finely ground coffee (espresso works best)
- 1 ½ tbsp paprika (a good one)
- 2 tsp dry mustard
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 to 1-1/2 lb of steak
- 1 lb fresh or frozen green beans
- 2 strips bacon
- 4 green onions
- 4 tbsp cultured buttermilk powder or 1 cup buttermilk
- egg
- 8 oz blueberries
Also: brown sugar, butter, flour, vegetable oil, vanilla, salt, baking powder, sugar, fresh ground pepper
Thursday Recipe Exchange: Steak with Coffee Rub
JeffreyW’s Loaded Baked Potato would be great with Coffee Rubbed Steak
It’s another one of those Colorado weeks where it’s impossible not to want to be outside all day. Beautiful, warm spring weather, the flowering locusts are in full splendor making my evening bike rides fragrant and still cool enough at night to need a blanket…or a cat…or several. I’m halfway through my horseback riding lessons, I’m finally comfortable with my posting trot, but feel like my major accomplishment is being able to adjust my stirrups from the saddle. I also managed to get my deck flower pots planted, though I always want more than I have space for, I’m satisfied with what I’ve done for this season. It is definitely outdoor season here. What’s on your weekend agenda? Planning on grilling for Mother’s Day? What is your favorite food item to grill?
In honor of the great weather, I thought tonight should be about grilling. Steak to be specific. This rub is a favorite of a couple of readers, so I thought it was a good time to repeat it. This can be used with any cut of steak, though I originally had it on rib eye. It’s too heavy to use on poultry or white fish, but I would be tempted to try on swordfish or maybe salmon. Easy to do and adds a real dramatic flavor.
Steak with Coffee Rub
- 3 tbsp chili powder (talking the good stuff here, pure ancho or a blend)
- 3 tbsp finely ground coffee (espresso works best)
- 1 ½ tbsp paprika (again, you want a good one)
- 1 tbsp dark brown sugar
- 2 tsp dry mustard
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp fresh ground pepper
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 to 1-1/2 lb of steak (rib-eye, sirloin, NY strip, etc) in 4 thick pieces
Mix together all spices. Lightly rub each steak with oil and then coat liberally on both sides with coffee rub. Now you can cook in a pre-heated skillet on medium-high heat, 5 to 7 minutes each side for medium rare. You can broil in the oven, using the second slot down from broiler, for 5 minutes each side, again for rare to medium rare, longer for medium. You can grill them outside. Cooking times will vary depending on which steak cut you choose, so watch carefully and you’ll probably have to use a meat thermometer to really judge, because the rub makes it a little harder to eyeball it. Let rest for a few minutes before serving.
Friday Recipe Exchange: Grilling Up Some Steaks
![DSC_4803 [1600x1200]](https://whats4dinnersolutions.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/dsc_4803-1600x1200.jpg)
JeffreyW is always making magic with steak. Here he shows off his Cheesesteak.
A big work project came up this week, as a result I have barely been in my kitchen. So for the featured recipe, I pulled up one of my prettier projects, Flank Steak Pinwheels. Not as much effort as it looks. Although I save them for special occasions.
If you’d like something with a bit less work, how about a Spicy Grilled Flank Steak? (Recipe here)
JeffreyW whips up some Cheesesteak Sandwiches (instructions and photos here)
This week’s dinner menu is Grilled Steak with Coffee Rub and Blueberry Coffeecake (menu, recipes and shopping lists here).
No real Bixby update this week, but I did finally receive and assemble my new motorized standing desk. It fascinates him, so of course there is video here.
What’s on your plate for this last weekend (how did that happen) of August? Are you sad summer waning or is fall more your season? Most importantly, whatcha cookin’?
This steak can be prepped the day before, just wrap each one tightly in plastic wrap. Makes it great for a date night, anniversary or small dinner party. I pan-seared and finished in the oven because with the cheese, I thought grilling them wouldn’t work as well. The reward was great pan drippings when I was finished, which I drizzled over the potatoes before serving. If I was going to grill, I’d probably use a grilling pan to avoid flareups.
Flank Steak Pinwheels
- 1 large flank steak, butterflied
- salt and pepper
- crushed garlic (at least 2 cloves)
- 8 oz sliced provolone cheese
- 1 bunch washed and dried spinach leaves
- 8 wooden skewers
- olive oil
Cast iron or oven proof skillet
You can ask the butcher to butterfly your flank steak, which is what I did. But it’s fairly easy to butterfly. You want the grain running up and down in front of you and then you’ll slice it in half, NOT slicing all the way through. When you’re done you’ll lay it open, flat, basically making a larger, thinner steak.
Once you have it laid out flat in front of you with the grain running left to right, you’ll want to tenderize it, pounding it flat. I use my pronged 
tenderizer, so I add the spices first and use the tenderizer to help infuse the meat.
If you haven’t already, once it’s pounded, add salt, pepper and garlic evenly over the meat. Layer the spinach over the meat. You want it to be several leaves thick, because it will reduce as it cooks.
Next layer the provolone cheese slices, two to three slices thick, over the meat.
Now it’s time to roll. Roll tightly in the direction of the grain. Add a skewer every 2 inches and then slice between the skewers, so you have 2-inch thick pinwheels.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Heat 1/2 to 1 tbsp of oil in large skillet, reduce heat to med-high and add pinwheels, flat-side down. After a minute, using the skewer (you may also need a metal spatula to get all the cheesy goodness) flip over, sear additional minute. The usual method of waiting until the meat moves easily to flip will not work with this because the cheese is sticky. So just do one minute each side, it will be fine.
Place the skillet in the oven, turn the oven off and let the steak finish for 10-15 minutes for medium rare. These are thin and don’t need a lot of cooking time and you don’t want the cheese to burn.
Remove to a plate, cover with foil and let rest 10 minutes. You can then use the great juices in the skillet to make a gravy if desired. I just drizzled them over the steak and potatoes right before serving.
My steak made 4 pinwheels. If you have more, you may need to finish cooking on a baking sheet after searing them in groups.
That’s it for this week. Have a good weekend, I’m sad to see August go, but fall in Colorado is stunning. – TaMara
Friday Dinner Exchange: Holiday Weekend Grilling
I have a four day weekend and most of it is supposed to be wild and windy weather, so grilling will most likely have to wait. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have grilling recipes. These all seem to be favorites based on comments, views and requests.
First up, the basics of grilling a good steak are here.
Next is one of my most requested recipes in the summer, Steak with Coffee Rub (click here). There is an entire dinner menu and shopping list at the link.
There are nine different hamburger recipes here, including Stuffed Burgers (pictured above) and veggie Black Bean Cheddar Burgers.
And finally, a few grilled chicken recipes, including Sunrise Chicken and Fruit Juice Marinated Chicken are at this link.
What’s on your menu for the weekend? Staying home or hitting the road? What are some of your favorite grilling recipes? Hit the comments and share. Be safe this holiday weekend, and don’t forget to thank a vet.
Tonight’s featured recipe is one of my favorites, because, well, blueberries!
Grilled Sirloin with Spicy Blueberry Sauce
- 2 cups frozen wild blueberries (unsweetened)
- 1/4 cup sugar + 1 tbsp
- 2 tsp white wine vinegar
- 1/2 to 1 tsp red pepper flakes (depending on how hot you want it)
- pinch of chili powder
- 1 lb Sirloin, cut into 4 pieces
- Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Saucepan and small bowl
Run still frozen blueberries through a food processor until finely chopped. Add all ingredients to a small saucepan on low heat until the blueberries melt and give you enough water to bring to a boil without scorching. Boil for 1 minute or so, stirring constantly until liquid is reduced by half. Let simmer on low, stirring occasionally, while you prepare the rest of dinner.
Broil or grill sirloin until cooked according to your preference, if you can, sear the outside so it’s really crispy on the outside. It works well if you coat the steak with lots of ground pepper on the outside as well. Once the sirloin is done, place two tablespoons of blueberry sauce on the plate, place steak on the sauce then top with more sauce. Place remaining sauce in a small bowl and serve with meal. Goes great with garlic mashed potatoes and sautéed zucchini.
That’s it for this week. If you missed it, I did post the Blueberry Upside Down Cake photos and recipe here. Later this weekend, I will finally have my gadget review for my robot “butler”. Have a great holiday weekend – TaMara
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Friday Recipe Exchange: Labor Day Grilling
![DSC_5307 [1600x1200]](https://whats4dinnersolutions.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/dsc_5307-1600x1200.jpg)
Grilled Steak with all the fixin’s by JeffreyW
Since it’s Labor Day weekend and I’m ready to go out and play, this will be quick and easy. We’re going to grill some steaks. And while you’re waiting to flip them over, let’s talk about what you’re gonna do this weekend for fun.
For recipes, let’s start with this week’s Dinner Menu: Grilled Steaks with Coffee Rub (click on over here).
Yum, Cranberry Pepper Steak (recipe here).
And my all time favorite: Steak with Spicy Blueberry Sauce (click here).
If you just need to drool over some great photos, here’s a round up of Jeffreyw’s steak portfolio (click here if you dare).
And finally, here are some basic steak grilling rules:
My version is here. But my all time favorite version is from John Cole at Balloon-Juice:
(Warning, some salty language ahead)
Not to go all Anthony Bourdain (or McMegan) here, but everyone was commenting that the ribeyes were delicious and the best steak they had had in ages, so I am here to do a beef PSA.
You know how you have a good steak? It’s easy.
1.) Unwrap it, wash it in cold water, pat it dry with towels. Season it with salt and pepper, then let it sit out on a plate for an hour or so until it is room temperature. NEVER EVER EVER EVER COOK UNSEASONED MEAT. NEVER EVER EVER THROW COLD MEAT ON A GRILL. EVER.
2.) Have a hot grill where you can get a good sear. Sear for a minute or two,turn 45-90 degrees, cook for another minute or two or three (depending on thickness). Flip. Get a good sear after a minute or so, turn 45-90 degrees for the nice markings, let finish.
3.) Never ever ever ever ever ever ever poke or prod your steak. Use tongs. Period. You seared the steak to keep the juices in, right, you fucking clown prince? WHY WOULD YOU POKE IT WITH A FORK AND SEND ALL THE JUICES INTO THE COALS? If you want to know whether it is rare, med. rare, or well done, use the method involving the ball of your hand. BUT NEVER CUT INTO IT TO LOOK FOR COLOR. You do that, you might as well just fucking microwave your meat.
4.) Take your steaks off, put them on a plate, let them sit for ten minutes so the juices redistribute throughout the cut. If you take a steak off the grill and immediately cut into it, you have just committed a felony. Hell, this is not hard, it requires you doing NOTHING. Put your steaks off to rest, open a beer, slowly sip it for ten minutes. Congratulations, you have just saved your steak from a capital crime.
It’s really that easy. Grilling cuts do not need to be marinated in vinegary bullshit or overwhelmed by spices and seasoning. It needs salt, it needs pepper, and if you want to give it a steakhouse flair, throw a small pat of butter on it when you let it rest.
I’m sorry for this post, but listening to my guests as they watched me grill just fucking depressed (and mortified) me, and I realized how many cows go to their grave only to have Americans murder them a second time. How does a society this obese not know how to fucking cook?
Make the madness stop.
*******
That’s it, now you’ve got your instructions, go out and start grilling. Have great holiday and see you next week – TaMara
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Back to Basics: Grilling Steak
A little background. When I began What’s 4 Dinner Solutions, it was a subscription menu service. Because of the experiences of the people around me, I targeted it to families and specifically those who were intimidated by cooking. I wanted them to have easy, fool-proof recipes that kept them away from fast foods. It grew and grew and then as my life went in another direction, it kind of morphed into this blog.
I want to explore some cooking basics, just because I think everyone can use a refresher now and then. And also, while I was watching a cooking show the other night I realized I could use to improve some of my basic skills, too. I’ve gotten a little sloppy over the years.
Since it’s Memorial Day Weekend, I thought grilling would be a great place to start.
Photo by JeffreyW
Step 1 – Always have meat at room temperature before grilling. This means taking it out of the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before grilling. Season it, cover it and set it on the counter.
Step 2– Seasoning. Start with the basics while you perfect your technique. You’ll want to salt it, lightly if it’s a thinner steak, a little heavier for a thick steak. Use pepper and garlic liberally, With these you are creating a crust that will grill up nicely on your steak. Later on you can move to coffee rubs or seasoned rubs.
Step 3 – Grilling. You’ll want a very hot flame to sear both sides of the steak. Here’s the trick, put the steak on and do not turn it until you can easily move it when you give it a push with a utensil (usually about a minute or 2). Flip it and repeat. Then move it to a medium flame (or away from direct flame on a charcoal grill) and let grill. For rare your total grilling time is about 5 minutes a side, including searing. Use a meat thermometer until you get a feel for it. NEVER cut into it to test it, see step 4. Rare to medium-rare is going to give you the best grilling experience.
Step 4 – Rest. Steak (and roasts, too) need to rest for 10 minutes to let the juices redistribute. This keeps your steak from losing all its juice when you cut into it. If you cut into before that, you’ll be chewing a completely dried out piece of meat, no matter how rare.
That’s it. That is a perfect steak. I’ve heard some people put a pat of butter on it as it rests, I’ve never tried it, but watch enough cooking shows and you’ll see someone do it. Some people use steak sauce…I have no idea why. A good baked potato and salad are all I need with my steak.
Have a good holiday. And remember to thank a vet somewhere along the next three days.
How to Find a Recipe
Believe it or not, I use this blog as my own personal recipe book. I have most of the recipes I’ve posted on my computer in my cookbook…which eventually I will someday finish editing and make it available to you guys. But there are many recipes that I created just for the blog, recipes from other guest bloggers (and of course JeffW) that I don’t keep on file anywhere else.
And, don’t tell the guys, but sometimes I need to look for a recipe at work so I can stop at the market on the way home, so it’s nice to be able to pull up the blog and get it from here. What I love about the blog is I can search by recipe name or ingredient and find what I need no matter when the original was posted. Then I print it out and take it with me.
I started thinking the other day that you may not know how to search for recipes on the blog, so I decided a quick tutorial might be needed. It is very simple:
Go to the Search W4DS box (which right now is at the top, right hand side of the page, it may not always be there)
Type in an ingredient and hit enter.
If that is too many choices, choose a couple of ingredients, like carrots, cake, pineapple.
This will bring you fewer recipes, or in this case, I was looking for the recipe for my carrot cake.
If you have a specific recipe in mind, say you want the ever popular steak coffee rub recipe, just put quotation marks around your search items: “coffee rub” and that will bring up all the references to the recipe.
I know this is all pretty simple stuff, but I wanted to make sure you could find any recipe anytime on our little blog. Once you find a recipe, let us know how it turned out for you, I’m always excited to know. Bon appétit!
This information will be permanently posted under finding a recipe at the top of the blog.
Finding a Recipe
How to Search for a Full Menu
All you’ll need to do is click on ” Full Dinner Menu” in the category cloud or type that phrase into the search box and you’ll get all of the weekly dinner menus I’ve posted. They’re quick, easy, seasonal and come with a shopping list.
How to Search for a Recipe
Believe it or not, I use this blog as my own personal recipe book. I have most of the recipes I’ve posted on my computer in my cookbook…which eventually I will someday finish editing and make it available to you guys. But there are many recipes that I created just for the blog, recipes from other guest bloggers (and of course JeffW) that I don’t keep on file anywhere else.
And, don’t tell the guys, but sometimes I need to look for a recipe at work so I can stop at the market on the way home, so it’s nice to be able to pull up the blog and get it from here. What I love about the blog is I can search by recipe name or ingredient and find what I need no matter when the original was posted. Then I print it out and take it with me.
I started thinking the other day that you may not know how to search for recipes on the blog, so I decided a quick tutorial might be needed. It is very simple:
Go to the Search W4DS box :
Type in an ingredient and hit enter.
If that is too many choices, choose a couple of ingredients, like carrots, cake, pineapple.
This will bring you fewer recipes, or in this case, I was looking for the recipe for my carrot cake.
If you have a specific recipe in mind, say you want the ever popular steak coffee rub recipe, just put quotation marks around your search items: “coffee rub” and that will bring up all the references to the recipe.
I know this is all pretty simple stuff, but I wanted to make sure you could find any recipe anytime on our little blog. Once you find a recipe, let us know how it turned out for you, I’m always excited to know. Bon appétit!
