Steve Can Cook: Pork Tenderloin

Yuengling pairs with everything.

As opposed to some of my past cooking exploits, this meal actually came out perfect, despite the lack of a good oven. The picture can be a bit deceiving, just because I’m using a semi-low resolution camera phone, but that’s not burn marks on the top – it’s herbs and spices. Oh, la and LA, as a wise man would say.

My “recipe” is actually pretty simple, if you want to steal it. In a small bowl, add about a teaspoon each of ground black pepper, garlic, rosemary and maybe parsley and paprika, if you want some color. I usually add about two teaspoons of salt to the mixture, whether it’s regular kosher salt, garlic salt or some other variation.

From there, add just enough olive oil to make all of the dry ingredients wet, for lack of a better definition. Mix in the bowl, so that you essentially have a paste, and split the bowl’s contents into two equally-sized portions. Use one portion on the top of the roast, one on the bottom. (If you have an especially fatty roast, then you might not want to coat the fat-side as much, since that’ll have a delicious flavor on its own.)

Since I’m just a single dude, normally I also do my best to portion the roast beforehand. Obviously, I’m not going to eat a three-pound roast on my own, so I’ll usually split it into three or four parts to eat over the week or so that the meat is fresh. I don’t really like to freeze it though – I feel like the flavor gets affected when you freeze and then thaw X weeks later, so that’s only a last resort for me.

Final tips – An internal thermometer is a must, especially since they’re only like $15. I got one three years ago, and no other cooking device has helped me as much as that. You want one of the probe kinds, so that you can leave it in while the meat cooks. Also, remember that the USDA changed its temperature guidelines! Unless you have a desire for dry pork to tip into apple sauce, it’s done when hits 145 degrees.

And final finally, you absolutely want to let it rest for 10 minutes! I never used to do this when I was in my early 20s, being an impatient man, but those few additional minutes of heat collection and rest really do help out the flavor.

So ends the random cooking tips from the guy who mostly just writes about video games and his cat.

Steve Can Cook: Burgers

In my continued culinary experimentation, I made a discovery the other week – Ground meat is almost always cheaper than the full or partial cuts.

As a result, I picked up two pounds of ground beef, a pound of ground pork and a pound of ground veal. I mixed up a pound of the beef, the pork and the veal with some salt, pepper and garlic, and I’ll be making burgers with that tonight, once I get home from Brewed Awakenings and some other stops.

However, I used the leftover pound of beef Saturday night for burgers. To prep them, I let them marinate in some lime and chipotle mix overnight, which was probably a mistake – the meat got a bit too soggy, and as a result, I think the patties had problems problem holding together.


Above is an overview of the finished product. I also took the time to toast the buns, but in reflection, this was probably unnecessary. They were Kaiser rolls, so they took a while to toast, and I think they mostly just absorbed the butter taste. Next time, I’ll probably just stick to regular hamburger buns if I’m going to toast something.

I did make one great decision with the meal. See that in the middle? Let’s zoom in a bit:


mmm, That’s Vermont cheddar cheese. I made a very simple stuffed burger, basically splitting the patty into two, inserting a slice of cheese, and then sealing it back up. This was a great success, and I think it would work better next time with some flavored cheese, like jalapeno, as opposed to flavoring the meat, which makes it too soggy.

Steve Can Cook: Steak

So I've finally decided to start cooking at my house again. It's a bit of a chore, since I have a very tiny kitchen, and I don't really like using my oven – It's very close to the wall, so I don't have room to stand in front of it when the door is open. Plus, it is one of those ovens with a pilot light, and it's from roughly 1923.

Because of all of the preceding factors, I finally bought the bullet and got a Foreman grill. Well, to be more precise, I got a fancier, nicer version of a Foreman grill, a clone made by General Electric. You can see a picture of it to the right. Unlike the old Foremans, this has removable plates, which makes the clean-up about a million times easier. It would be about a billion times easier, actually, but I don't have a dishwasher at this place. (This also factors into my laziness when it comes to cooking.)

I got it on Friday night, so I tested it out Saturday after a thorough washing. It actually cooks pretty well! I had a thick cut of London broil, plus another smaller cut that I fileted. While it did really well with the fileted cut, it still did a passable job on the thicker cut. With the older Foreman, it would normally just char and burn the top and bottom layers, and leave the middle uncooked. Not so with this grill.

To the right is my dinner for Sunday night. In lieu of buying a bunch of BBQ and liquid marinades, I rely more on flavor packets, since they just require vegetable oil and vinegar. Saturday's delicious steak dinner was peppercorn, and Sunday is baja citrus. I think that implies a mix of tang and sweet, but the flavor is always somewhat ambiguous until it is cooked into the meat.

Normally, I wouldn't make steak two nights in a row. Unfortunately, I took advantage of a 2-for-1 sale on the steaks, and I didn't notice that the expiration date for them both was Sunday. Thus I find myself in my current dilemma, overdosing on steak.

… Well, I suppose there are worse fates. Bon appetite!