Coming Soon to Screw Your Diet!

Hello everyone, and happy holidays! It’s been about a month now since I’ve really been able to update Screw Your Diet with new recipes, but that doesn’t mean I have nothing to post. Quite the contrary, in fact – I’ve been so busy cooking and learning, that I’m backlogged with delicious recipes! For the next 2 weeks, I’ve got a well deserved break from school, and I’ll use that time to post up as many of the dishes I’ve been working on as possible (the dish above is roasted rack of lamb with creamy polenta and ratatouille, by the way).

Also, I will soon be adding a new page to the site called “The Basics”. Here you’ll find basic recipes and techniques to help you get started. Lessons on stock making, how to clarify butter, mother sauces, vinaigrette, pan reduction sauce, knife cuts, etc., just to name a few. A lot of the upcoming recipes feature these techniques, and rather than detailing them every time they’re needed, I felt it’d be easier to be able to simply refer to the basics page. It should be up and running before too long, so check back soon!

In the meantime, enjoy previews and descriptions of all the recipes you’ll be seeing here over the next 2 weeks! (Note: they will not necessarily appear on the site in the order they’re listed below.)

Eye of Round Roast

Going into my first roast was a bit intimidating. A big chunk of meat and instructions that call for the oven to remain closed for nearly 3 hours? “What have I gotten myself into?”, I wondered. Turns out my worries were mostly unfounded, as the recipe calls for little preparation and a lot of anxious sitting around. Follow this recipe and you too can enjoy a delicious roast that requires almost zero actual effort.

Spicy Beef Rolls

Once again, I’ve gone and opted for an Asian style recipe when it comes to preparing meat. I don’t know what it is about the combination of soy sauce, sesame oil, etc., that I love so much, but that flavor is quickly becoming one of my favorites to work with. First it was beef bulgogi, then blackened ahi, then Mongolian porkchops, and now this!

This recipe began as something quite different than what it became. My original intent was to try my hand at beef negimaki, a Japanese dish where green onion is wrapped in beef. I decided it’d be more interesting to improvise with the ingredients and instructions a bit and put my own spin on it. The result was even tastier than I had hoped.

Spicy Beef Bulgogi

For dinner tonight, I thought I'd try something a little different. With a 2 pound flank steak in hand, I set myself to the task of locating something delicious to do with it - preferably something I'd never tried before. What I found was beef bulgogi, a Korean dish that CNN Go named as #23 on their list of the world's top 50 most delicious foods.

Intrigued as I am by most things involving beef, bulgogi seemed like the right choice. I served it on a bed of sticky rice and a bit of greenery, and I'm happy to report that it is, in fact, quite delicious, so here's how I made mine.