Jonathan Zdziarski's Domain

Steak Involtini is a Tuscan dish according to my home girl Giada. She makes it sound rather poetic in her book, but this happened to be one of the dishes in the book that had a picture, and boy was I hungry tonight. She had me at “cheese”. Feeling a little more confident after managing a good meal in spite of last night’s kitchen fire, I decided to try an entree this evening for supper. Since I still haven’t figured out how to halve recipes, I decided to just make leftovers for tomorrow.

Tonight went much smoother than last night. Nothing burned, no fire department showed up, and cleanup didn’t involve a chain saw. Instead, I took my time and followed the recipe as best I could. Imagine cheese stuffed steak sitting in a pool of seasoned marinara sauce. Nom!

The one big problem I had with this recipe was lack of a good steak tenderizer. The town I live in is a very small town, and I’m at least a half hour from civilization. In the absence of a steak tenderizer, the best I could find was an old shoe.. I decided not to use the shoe, and instead, deferred to a potato masher. The essential problem is that the London Broil steaks are supposed to get utterly pulverized to be only about 1/8″ thick. I think mine was about twice that or more by the time I grew exhausted.
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I’ve always been a good grill-man. Bobby Flay is a flat out retard compared to me on the grill. While I can also cook basic meals and follow directions for the stove, I’ve never given myself a fair shake at making some real dishes. Given that I’m up in my Maine cabin for the week, and all alone now, I thought I’d take a whack at it and have a new adventure. What I’ve found is, even though the kitchen has to be occasionally extinguished, I can actually make some pretty decent stuff.

The first thing to do before cooking is getting all of the gear on. Who’s dishes do I want to make? Ray-ray is kind of strange, and seems to have weird boobs. So she was out immediately. Emeril? He’s just too l33t for me, plus I don’t want to smell like garlic permanently. Come to think of it, he has weird boobs too. Giada de Laurentiis has always been ridiculously enthusiastic about the food she makes. In fact, I’ve never seen anyone quite frankly so excited about the things they throw together on the stove. I went out and bought Giada’s pots and pans set. I got all of the major utensils I’d be using. Finally, I bought her “Giada at Home” book, which is chock full of nom, and in spite of the pink cover, has some dishes that look awesome! OK. Ready. Now what?
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