NOTE TO CHILE: When I posted about the weekend with just my wife and some great food, one of your responses was to keep cooking and keep posting with lots of pics. I replied that I'd do just that and had a few more things in the works. Well...you may want to duck, run, hide, and take cover because this one is aimed directly at you sir. I can only hope to hit my mark and do you proud 
I sent two of our favorite people an email a few days ago inviting them for dinner. He was going to be out of town but she asked if the could attend solo. Of course she could. Note of interest here: these are two of our very closest friends and they have been my crash test dummies for many years. They were very instrumental in helping me develop the flavor profiles we enjoy so much when I started making BBQ and have been here for pretty much every new creation I've come up with. They are some courageous folks I guess. They had not seen the new Santa Maria grill nor had they eaten any of the Piedmontese beef so it seemed fitting to showcase both of those. Did the Rib Eye Cap Steaks, loaded taters, grilled pineapple, and Susan (our friend) brought an amazing salad which was dressed with my homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing.
Fresh pineapple all sliced up and cored
This is the gourmet olive oil I brushed the taters with.
Taters sliced thick, brushed with olive oil and seasoned with SPOG
Fried up some bacon crumbles from the last batch I made
Got the grill going with Mesquite
Steaks brushed with a bit of Worcestershire and seasoned with just a sprinkle of salt and pepper
Taters on the grill. These take a little while to cook
Done on one side and flipped over
Add the bacon crumbles
Steaks on the grill
Pineapple on the propane grill. Learned a couple weeks ago that fresh fruit picks up too much of the wood smoke on the SM so used a different grill
Moved the taters to the propane grill to keep warm and added the shredded smoked cheddar cheese to melt
Pineapple flipped and looking really good!!
Steaks after the flip
Steaks done and resting
Pineapple all done and off the grill
Loaded taters all done and ready to serve
The whole spread. Two pics
The salad was so incredible it deserved a pic all by itself. This is 5-Star restaurant quality!!
The ultimate money shot. Steaks grilled to perfection, amazing loaded taters, the pineapple grilled and caramelized exactly as it should be, and that amazing salad, all served along side a margarita on the rocks with salt. One of my best money shots to date I believe
BUT WAIT!! We aren't done yet. Bianca, my executive chef (pictured in my avatar) worked so hard on this one she deserves a special treat. This is a bone left over from the 45 day aged Rib Eye steaks I did a couple months ago that's been in the freezer.
We weren't the only happy campers yesterday :-)
To sum it all up, I've prepared meals that were much more complex and much more involved but from a standpoint of flavor, this one takes the cake for the best flavors I've ever put together in one meal. The steaks are nothing short of other-worldly....so flavorful, and tender beyond belief. They are vastly more flavorful than Filet Mignon and every bit as tender, maybe even more so. All the rest of the stuff was simple but cooked exactly as it should have been. This meal was better than the 45 and 60 day dry aged steaks I've done. It was that good!! Susan and her husband Rick (who was absent for this one) have eaten literally hundreds of meals that I've cooked and she was the first to voice the sentiment that this was by far the best tasting meal yet. Tracy was quick to share that sentiment. Far be it from me to argue with two independent and head strong women so I'll toss my hat into the "me too" ring and agree also. What was interesting is that I ate my pineapple along with the steak and thought the flavors went together incredibly well. Both of the ladies ate theirs for dessert and thought it was fantastic. Two different approaches with the same end result. Oh well, I've taken up enough of your time and eaten up enough bandwidth. I'm gonna crawl back under my rock now and resume my state of food induced coma.
Firing a friendly food salvo at Chile,
Robert
I sent two of our favorite people an email a few days ago inviting them for dinner. He was going to be out of town but she asked if the could attend solo. Of course she could. Note of interest here: these are two of our very closest friends and they have been my crash test dummies for many years. They were very instrumental in helping me develop the flavor profiles we enjoy so much when I started making BBQ and have been here for pretty much every new creation I've come up with. They are some courageous folks I guess. They had not seen the new Santa Maria grill nor had they eaten any of the Piedmontese beef so it seemed fitting to showcase both of those. Did the Rib Eye Cap Steaks, loaded taters, grilled pineapple, and Susan (our friend) brought an amazing salad which was dressed with my homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing.
Fresh pineapple all sliced up and cored
This is the gourmet olive oil I brushed the taters with.
Taters sliced thick, brushed with olive oil and seasoned with SPOG
Fried up some bacon crumbles from the last batch I made
Got the grill going with Mesquite
Steaks brushed with a bit of Worcestershire and seasoned with just a sprinkle of salt and pepper
Taters on the grill. These take a little while to cook
Done on one side and flipped over
Add the bacon crumbles
Steaks on the grill
Pineapple on the propane grill. Learned a couple weeks ago that fresh fruit picks up too much of the wood smoke on the SM so used a different grill
Moved the taters to the propane grill to keep warm and added the shredded smoked cheddar cheese to melt
Pineapple flipped and looking really good!!
Steaks after the flip
Steaks done and resting
Pineapple all done and off the grill
Loaded taters all done and ready to serve
The whole spread. Two pics
The salad was so incredible it deserved a pic all by itself. This is 5-Star restaurant quality!!
The ultimate money shot. Steaks grilled to perfection, amazing loaded taters, the pineapple grilled and caramelized exactly as it should be, and that amazing salad, all served along side a margarita on the rocks with salt. One of my best money shots to date I believe
BUT WAIT!! We aren't done yet. Bianca, my executive chef (pictured in my avatar) worked so hard on this one she deserves a special treat. This is a bone left over from the 45 day aged Rib Eye steaks I did a couple months ago that's been in the freezer.
We weren't the only happy campers yesterday :-)
To sum it all up, I've prepared meals that were much more complex and much more involved but from a standpoint of flavor, this one takes the cake for the best flavors I've ever put together in one meal. The steaks are nothing short of other-worldly....so flavorful, and tender beyond belief. They are vastly more flavorful than Filet Mignon and every bit as tender, maybe even more so. All the rest of the stuff was simple but cooked exactly as it should have been. This meal was better than the 45 and 60 day dry aged steaks I've done. It was that good!! Susan and her husband Rick (who was absent for this one) have eaten literally hundreds of meals that I've cooked and she was the first to voice the sentiment that this was by far the best tasting meal yet. Tracy was quick to share that sentiment. Far be it from me to argue with two independent and head strong women so I'll toss my hat into the "me too" ring and agree also. What was interesting is that I ate my pineapple along with the steak and thought the flavors went together incredibly well. Both of the ladies ate theirs for dessert and thought it was fantastic. Two different approaches with the same end result. Oh well, I've taken up enough of your time and eaten up enough bandwidth. I'm gonna crawl back under my rock now and resume my state of food induced coma.
Firing a friendly food salvo at Chile,
Robert
