I’m thrilled to have a camera again! After several follies, I received a replacement from Best Buy for the camera I lost to unknown circumstances a few months back. I still have to eat, so it’s not as though I haven’t been cooking. But I don’t feel great about publishing any recipes without a visual to accompany it.

In celebration of the occasion, I decided to make a simple, elegant and delicious meal. When I think simple luxury, Filet Mignon is never far from my imagination. Here’s a quick and easy recipe.

Ingredients

Beef Tenderloin Filet
Sea Salt
Fresh Ground Pepper
dash Cayenne Pepper

Trumpet Mushrooms

1 4oz package (about 6-7) Trumpet Mushrooms
2 tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 cup milk or cream
1/2 cup beef broth
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp Sage
2 tsp lemon juice
salt
pepper
cayenne

Cover a cookie sheet with foil. Top with your Filet(s). Season both sides with salt, pepper, and (lightly) cayenne. Preheat oven to Broil or get your grill going nice and hot.

Heat oil over medium heat in a skillet until hot. Add mushrooms and turn until browned on all sides. Add Worcestershire, stir to coat. Pour excess liquid over your Filet(s).

Reduce heat on your mushrooms. Add milk/cream and broth, and stir gently until combined. As this sauce reduces, continue to turn mushrooms individually with tongs so they remain firm, cook evenly, and don’t break up from overly zealous stirring. This will take about 25-30 minutes. As the sauce thickens, add sage and stir around and over the mushrooms.

Place the Filet tray into the oven or onto the grill. For medium rare (on the rare side), I cook 1-2 minutes per side to sear and a total of 6-8 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for a minimum of 5 minutes before serving.

Plate the Filet(s). Adorn with a couple mushroom, and ladle the sauce over all. Grind a little fresh pepper over the top and provide salt at the table. Perfection! I served mine with a vinaigrette of roasted green beans and slivered carrot, plus a scoop of brown rice tossed with steamed leeks and roasted garlic. If you went cream instead of milk, you might as well toss some butter in there. I learned to resist.

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I have a DDMWorks Racing Backbone in the mail installed, to stiffen the chassis over the drive shaft/exhaust tunnel. Being a convertible, the car has an inherent flex that this will eliminate. Basically it’s another 5 lbs. of metal to compensate for not having steel up overhead like normal tops would have.

I upgraded one of the intercooler pipes and I’m working on installing the second. I have an AEM Methanol injection system that is mounted and ready to install–cooler temperatures, advanced timing, and it’s basically like running 115 octane all the time.

I dropped my car at the shop to have my Solo Performancecatless downpipe installed. They called and refused to install it, so now I’m out a fair amount of time. They claimed they can’t install it. I made one call and have another place which will. The new place probably won’t try to sell me their own part, instead of the superior product I already had when I delivered it for install–unbelievable!

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• Zero Percent Financing, or How I Ended up with Another New Solstice
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• Moving to a Faster Tune
• Less Is More – GXP De-Badged

• A nice long trip to the Bahamas – highlights:
  • Snorkeling – Guana Cay, Pete’s Reef, Mermaid’s Reef, Sandy Cay
  • Dolphin fishing
  • Lighthouse Hike
  • Blue Hole Hike
  • Cave Hunting
  • Bi-Annual Buccaneer’s Bandana Cook-off
  • Nipper’s Wild Pig Roast
  • Hopetown Golf Carts and Bar Hops
  • 2 Locals Nights at Pete’s Pub
  • Bronze casting at the Johnston Foundry
  • Tour of Pete’s Gallery
• Lost one and broken two cameras
• Winter’s over, back to cooking healthy
• Picked up an iPod touch
• Started and finished a one page website for a client
• Met and outlined projects with two clients (pending)
• Have continued working on a client project that is 60-70% complete
• Purchased 3 new domains
• Went camping twice
• Got Snoop a Grinch harness so he can pull me on my bike
• Guitar Hero drumset
• Finished up Sarah Connor Chronicles, Heroes
• Went to Star Trek, Wolverine, The Soloist

The iPod touch is only a phone away from being amazing. I probably won’t travel without one of these again. Between e-books, movies, music and games, the trip goes by quickly. Once I’ve arrived at my destination access to email, web, and IM are about all I need. The location-based service apps are just icing on the cake.

The camera curse really holds me back from posting. I make food all the time, for instance, but if I can’t post a picture of it I just stave off writing it down as I’d have to do it all again for the photo opportunity. I’m deciding now whether to get an HD camcorder or another $100 semi-disposable. With my luck in photo gear, I should probably avoid upping the ante, but we’ll see…

I have a few recipes which I do have pictures for that I intend to post soon. I’ll post more news about the domains and what I have planned for them when I get a little bit closer to finishing all my outstanding client projects.

Camping in March was very cold, icy even. Went again recently and it was perfect. I took the tent down to the Bahamas, but the accommodations were too inviting to pass up. I ended up sleeping the indoor experience and outside all the rest of the time.

New camping gear:

• Marmot Trestles Trails Sleeping Bag: Synthetic
• MSR Ground Hog Stake Kit
• Eureka Solo Spitfire Tent
• Mens Vibram FiveFinger KSO

Ciao,
-Dan

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Last but not least I applied several coats of Zaino polish. It’s a polymer finish that really smooths out swirls and gives a surprisingly 3D sheen to it. It seems a little pricey, but you actually apply very little of the product and it is reported to last between 6 and 9 months. The really great part is that it actually layers once dry, so you can do 2 or 3 coats, and actually make an additional impact (unlike wax). Great stuff, very pleased by it.

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Ingredients
1 lb lean ground beef
1 pkg french bread dough
cherry, strawberry, or grape tomatoes
mini kosher dill pickles
red onion
endive or other greens
1 lb thick sliced bacon

mustard
mayonaisse
ketchup

Preparation

You’re going to have 3 major components in this dish. First, a large relish tray that will serve as the lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and condiments. Second a thin length of french bread loaf rolled in ground beef and grilled. Last, but not least, a weave of bacon cooked, then stuffed with a bed of cheddar cheese and the hamburger roll.

Slice greens, onion, and pickle and arrange on two sides of a large serving plate. Douse each liberally with mayo, ketchup and mustard.

Make a weave of bacon slices on a baking sheet lined in foil. Weave over and under until you have a square shape of equal length and width.

Season ground beef as you like, then divide in half and gently knead and roll it until it’s a little greater in length than your bacon weave. I tend to like garlic, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, possibly oregano, and onion. Refrigerate these two rolls so they will respond well to being shaped over your bread when finished.

Using about half a tube of french bread dough, divide in half lengthwise then cook as per instructions. If you want to make use of the remaining bread right away then you can make 1 1/2″ balls of dough to use as “mini-buns”. Simply cook them and slice. The key here is that your main tube of bread only measure about 1 1/2″ in diameter, and should be equal to the length of your bacon weave. You can trim the bread if needed, but a little advance shaping and sizing can save the trouble.

You could of course make your own bread. Between grilling, baking and prep I find this homemade enough (meaning plenty of work already) without doing the bread making too, but that’s up to you. You want something at least as crusty as french bread. It has to stand up to the grease of the hamburger cooking around it, so it’s got to be nice and toasted when done, and allowed to cool and dry adequately before adding the hamburger layer.

After you take out the bread, set your oven at 350 degrees and add the bacon weave in. You’re only going to half cook it, and only cook only side (literally). Remove when the bacon is still soft, as it needs to be pliable. Add a few layers of paper towel on top, then “flip” twice onto clean paper towels to remove grease.

Light your grill, and apply a thin layer of olive oil to what should be a very clean grate.

Next flatten each roll of hamburger out side-by-side. Add the bread to the top of one portion, then carefully lift the remaining portion over the top. Gently press the hamburger around the bread so it is completely encased. The burger should be about an additional 1/2″ layer on top of the bread, for a total size of between 2-2 1/2″. Any larger and you’ll have difficulty with the meat cooking enough, or with it fitting into your bacon weave later. Keep it thin.

Grill your burger roll very gently, using a spatula and tongs. Take care not to lose any meat, and reclaim any that might separate. You can fuse any lost bits back on in the final construction.

Place the bacon weave on a foiled baking sheet, with the original “less cooked” side down. To this add a hefty layer of cheddar cheese, about 1 bag finely shredded. Place your hamburger roll along one edge, then carefully begin to roll up the bacon wrap. Add to a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Remove the bacon wrap from the oven and serve on your relish tray. Serve at once. Easiest to serve if sliced.

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