The fourth of July is coming up fast. My Grandfather was a real live nephew of Uncle Sam, born on the 4th of July. Every year he would have a huge birthday party, and was very pleased that the whole country celebrated his birthday.
I’ll posting a few ideas for the holiday. The first is this simple “flag” cake, with all the food and BBQ’s on this holiday, a big dessert is not necessary. A plain cake with easy decoration should suffice.
Simply make your favorite cake in a 9 X13 cake pan.
9 X 13 Cake
For this recipe I used a simple butter cream icing and less than a pint of cut strawberries.
Butter Cream Icing
1 cup butter
4 cups confectioners sugar
1 tbs vanilla
5 tbs heavy cream
In a mixer with the paddle blade cream the butter, then slowly add the sugar, finally add the vanilla and about ½ the cream. see how the consistency of the icing is. If you want it thinner add the remaining cream.
Take a few tablespoons of the icing in a separate bowl and add blue food coloring.
blue icing
In a small pastry bag with a small star tip put a few tbs of white icing.
Decorate the top left corner with the blue icing.and cover the rest in the white. Take the sliced strawberries and layer them across as red stripes. Finally take the pastry bag and create the stars.
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I have for a very long time now butchered a lot of my own steaks and meats. From the local bulk market, I buy a whole Top Sirloin and make my own steaks and chop meat from it. On the top of this piece of meat under a layer of fat is a beautiful triangular piece of meat called a Tri-Tip. It is a perfect grilling piece of meat and I liked to marinate it, and then broil it. Sliced on a bias, against the grain, the slices of this cut are tender and moist and delicious.
Tri-Tip Steak Marinade
1 bottle San-J Szechuan Hot & spicy marinade
1/2 cup soy sauce
Lawry’s seasoning salt
2 -4 Tbs Demerara or raw sugar
1- 2 Tbs grated fresh ginger
I love to experiment with different marinades and tonight I found a great one. I started with a bottle of San-J Szechuan hot & spicy marinade and Sauce. To this I added soy sauce. To the steak I sprinkled a little Lawry’s seasoned salt, Demerara sugar and spread a little freshly grated ginger over both sides. Rotating the piece of meat about every 1/2 hour I marinated it for 3 -4 hours. I also use my carving fork, which is very pointed, and I “Jacquard” the piece of meat by puncturing it all over and then ladling the marinade over the top.
Another little trick I have perfected is to limit the clean up. Since we weren’t grilling outside I had to use the broiler in the oven and this method certainly soils the broiler pan. Simple remedy to make a lighter clean up is to line the top and bottom of the broiler pan in aluminum foil.
Broil Tri-Tip Steak
Take the marinated steak place on you grill or broiler pan and cook. If using oven, place the rack in the top third of the oven, but not on the highest rung. When cooked to your desired doneness, remove from oven and place on a cutting board or plate, and let rest for about 10 minutes. Slice against the grain on a slight bias.
It’s a steak, what else can I say, I love it forever and a day! 5 paws for this recipe
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sprinkle the Lawry's salt the sugar and the ginger on both sides of the steak and place into the spicy marinade and soy sauce turning it every 30 minutes, Marinade it for about 4 hours.
Take the marinated steak place on you grill or broiler pan and cook. If using oven, place the rack in the top third of the oven, but not on the highest rung. When cooked to your desired doneness, remove from oven and place on a cutting board or plate, and let rest for about 10 minutes. Slice against the grain on a slight bias.
Notes
I also use my carving fork, which is very pointed, and I "Jacquard" the piece of meat by puncturing it all over and then ladling the marinade over the top.
Another little trick I have perfected is to limit the clean up. Since we weren't grilling outside I had to use the broiler in the oven and this method certainly soils the broiler pan. Simple remedy to make a lighter clean up is to line the top and bottom of the broiler pan in aluminum foil.
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Easter Ham is great, a nice spiral cut, honey glazed. What to do with the leftovers? Here’s one idea Ham quiche. I took a quarter section of my flaky dough recipe ( see Key Lime Pie for the recipe) for the pie crust, it makes absolutely the best quiche crust ever.
Ingredients for Ham Quiche
1 part Flaky Pie Crust
1 cup shredded Cheddar Cheese
1 cup diced Ham
2-3 Scallions (White part) finely sliced
1 tsp fresh grated ginger
3 eggs
1¼ cups Cream
Salt & Pepper to taste
Directions for making Ham Quiche
Preheat oven to 350°
Take the pie crust, roll out and place in 9 inch pie pan. Place aluminum foil over crust and weigh down with pie weights or beans and blind bake for about 20 minutes, remove from oven and remove weights and foil and place back in oven and bake an additional 10 minutes. Remove and let cool.
When cool place the cheddar in bottom of the pie crust, place the ham on top of that. In a separate bowl place the eggs, cream, ginger, scallions, salt and pepper and whisk completely. Pour on top of cheese and ham and bake in oven for about 40 -45 minutes until center is slightly firm and jiggles only slightly. Remove from oven and let cool slightly and set up.
Serve warm with sour cream.
