Today we had a gaggle of hyper kids and their parents over to celebrate our older son’s birthday. I knew that the kids were gonna eat pizza and fruit but I wanted to offer the adults something more sophisticated and stealthily Paleo-friendly. Earlier in the week, I sous vided some flank steak seasoned with Spice Hound’s fajita and taco seasoning (130 F for 36 hours) and chicken breasts seasoned with salt and pepper (140 F for 2 hours) and I planned on serving them along with some Cobb salad fixings.
When I woke up, I preheated the oven to 400 F to bake two pounds of bacon and roast 1.5 pounds of mushrooms tossed in a few tablespoons of the resulting bacon grease.
Here’s the tray of ‘shrooms pre-roasting:
After roasting in a 400 F oven for 25-30 minutes:
Then, I sliced some hard-boiled eggs, and washed and chopped some ripe avocados, Persian cucumbers, and grape tomatoes. I also crumbled up some Point Reyes original blue cheese and Laura Chenel Chef’s Chevre so our guest could pick one to sprinkle on their salads. Most people love one and hate the other (or hate both). I’m a goat cheese fan myself ’cause blue cheese smells raunchy.
When the bacon cooled, I used my kitchen shears to cut the strips up. I also put some pre-washed organic greens in two large bowls. Did I mention that I bought all this food from Costco?
For nibbles before the main event, I put out some Smokehouse almonds, two cheese platters, and an Italian salumi platter (all from Costco as well).
After surveying our spread, I realized that we already had a ton of meat/protein so I only reheated the flank steak (130 F for 30 minutes) in the SousVide Supreme. Fitbomb seared the two steaks on our gas grill outside and I sliced them up.
Here’s our make-your-own Cobb salad bar:
And here’s my lunch:
Truth be told, I found the flank steak a little mushy for my taste but everyone else loved that it was so tender. Hey, if my guests are happy, I’m happy!
