New Dishes I cooked in June 2019

• bigger on the inside burger patties
• FreshJax Bold Bayou Rub
• pit beef
• quick cheese bread
• quinoa taco salad
• roasted asparagus with gremolata
• Speculoos (aka Biscoffs)

The biggest dish for me this month was the pit beef, which I’d been wanting to make for at least two years now. I finally went ahead and smoked it according to Meathead’s recipe (along with his recipe for Tiger Sauce - a type of horseradish). I was afraid after waiting for so long I’d have hyped it up too much in my head, but it turned out to be my new favorite way to eat roast beef.

The bigger-on-the-inside cheeseburgers were one of those rare (for me) America’s Test Kitchen recipes that were just OK. So far I’ve enjoyed Weber’s Big Book of Burgers more than ATK burger recipes. The FreshJax Bold Bayou rub was a gift from my mom and I can say that it tasted very delicious when liberally rubbed on some chicken legs.

The quinoa taco salad was from Dinner Illustrated and was a vegetarian dish. Rather than using ground beef, the quinoa was showered in taco herbs and spices. It was actually incredibly good. Sometimes the veggie imitation is just as delicious as the meaty dish it apes. The roasted asparagus was actually from a recipe I’d cooked before, but this time I made the accompanying gremolata and that really elevated the dish to the next level.

On the baking front were the Speculoos and the Quick Cheese Bread. The bread was the second or third cheese bread I’ve made since I started baking breads, but of all the cheese breads I’ve made, this was my favorite tasting. It seemed to have the perfect balance between cheesy taste and quick-bread (or chemically leavened) taste. The Speculoos were a request from the wife. I liked them a lot, as did Stella. My wife said they were good, but not the same as Biscoff’s. Fair enough - while the recipe started off making a replica of Biscoff, they did admit to changing the recipe to increase the cinnamon taste and reduce the sugary taste.

• Food