Pan-seared Bavette (our steak method)

This week's video is a bit of a back-to-basics sort of thing. We like throwing these in with more complicated recipes, because honestly, lots of folks don't know how to cook a steak! Most important things to remember is that protein needs salt and pepper before it hits the heat, it really helps with the Maillard reaction for that amazing seared flavour.

For a searing steak like this (or filet, or ribeye, or anything like that) the trick is to use very high temperatures for not very long. Get the meat on the seasoned side on super hot cast iron, and don't leave it for too long. We usually eat it medium rare, but for rare, you can cook it a little less than we did here, and you can keep cooking longer (in two-minute increments) to get it up to medium, or medium well. I don't recommend well-done, personally! I think it lacks a lot of flavour!

We ate this with our chimichurri from last week!

Unification Church ceremony literally worshiping guns

This was the ceremony that caused a nearby school in Newfoundland, PA to cancel classes for the day.

AP posting photos here:
https://twitter.com/AP_Images/status/968938936973365255

And for any who can't read twitter:

Worshippers clutching AR-15 rifles and some wearing bullet crowns, participated in a commitment ceremony today at World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, in Newfoundland, Pa. The event led a nearby school to cancel classes for the day. Photos @jacquelinelarma

Sure this is extremely abnormal, but at least it's also terrifying.

These people are not mentally ill. They aren’t physically ill. They are culturally ill. This is a deeply sick culture. I don’t know what treatment exists for a sick culture. There is no medicine for this.

Jeff Flake is ramping up for a presidential run:

NH Republicans who are open to this kind of thing tell me they had no idea Flake was coming. But, as they/everyone always says, one doesn't just end up in Manchester by accident.

Easy Chimichurri recipe

So, when hubby ran his restaurant, one of his most popular dishes was his Carnitas Benedict. Super tender braised carnitas pork over his house-made english muffins, a poached egg, and hollandaise and beneath the pork was a little dab of his super spicy fermented ghost pepper sauce and a little smear of this great fresh chimichurri. It really adds a great little sharp flavour to an otherwise pretty round dish, and elevated the whole thing.

Chimichurri is a South American (mostly Argentina) dish, and is a great accompaniment to grilled or roasted meats or poultry. We put a dollop in the plate beneath pot roast the other night and it was delicious. The flavour profile and texture can be adjusted by the amount of lime juice and olive oil you use, and if the sharpness of the fresh garlic is too much for you, then you can give it a little roasting in oil in a pan like we did in the hummus and baba ghanouj videos we did, too!

I was reminded today of this piece from a few years ago: Guns With History

From the group Prevent Gun violence.

The author of this 1812 book gives a recipe for vegetable soup that provides no ingredients.

This showed up on my Twitter feed today:

https://twitter.com/TedMielczarek/status/964529286467211264

May we all strive to be as confident as the author of this 1812 book on preserving food, who gives a recipe for vegetable soup that provides no ingredients.

Leek and Bacon Quiche recipe!

So, this is similar to a Quiche Lorraine, which is onion and bacon, but we switched it up a little because we had some amazing local leeks in the freezer from the summer. We went easy and did this with a store-bought pie crust (part of the point of this channel is to show people that cooking at home can be easy!) but everything else is home made. As my hubby says in the description, there's some variation in how people treat the bacon for this recipe. Some people recommend cooking it whole in strips and crumbling it to add to the quiche, but we prefer to not leave it quite so crispy. We give it a good browning to render the fat, and then drain it to add, so it's still a little chewy.

This is just a basic recipe, and you can make any alterations you like. Mushrooms are a popular addition, and if you're a big fan of allium, you can also add garlic, onions, and shallots. You can switch the cheese up, too. We used a gruyère, here but any good melting cheese will do. Swiss and emmentaler are good choices, but I'd stay away from oilier cheeses like cheddar.

Also! Just an aside, but this dish is -amazing- garnished with the spicy fermented slaw from last week's video.

Congrats to Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris!!

West Virginia Police Officer Fired After Choosing Not to Shoot Distraught Suspect Gets $175000 Settl

Source: KTLA

Full title: West Virginia Police Officer Fired After Choosing Not to Shoot Distraught Suspect Gets $175,000 Settlement

A West Virginia city has agreed to pay a former police officer $175,000 to settle a wrongful-termination lawsuit after he was fired following his decision not to shoot a distraught suspect who was holding a gun. “At the end of the day, I’m happy to put this chapter of my life to bed,” Mader said in a news release by the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia.

The incident occurred May 6, 2016, when Mader responded to a domestic-disturbance call and found Ronald “R.J.” Williams Jr. with an unloaded handgun. Mader told CNN last year that Williams was “visibly choked up” and told Mader to shoot him. As a Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan, Mader told CNN that he concluded Williams wasn’t a threat and so he tried to de-escalate the situation.

As Mader was trying to get Williams to drop his gun, two other Weirton police officers arrived. Mader told CNN that Williams raised his gun and was immediately shot and killed by one of the other officers. A state investigation found the officer’s actions were justified.

“No police officer should ever lose their job — or have their name dragged through the mud — for choosing to talk to, rather than shoot, a fellow citizen,” he said. “His decision to attempt to de-escalate the situation should have been praised, not punished. Simply put, no police officer should ever feel forced to take a life unnecessarily to save his career.”

Read more: http://ktla.com/2018/02/12/west-virginia-police-officer-fired-after-choosing-not-to-shoot-distraught-suspect-gets-175000-settlement/

So they aren’t just passively selecting for that tendency now, they’re leaning into it and making it explicit; kill by preference over any other way of resolving the situation.
Utterly disgusting.

Officer Mader used de-escalation techniques instead of deadly force in an encounter with RJ Williams, a Black man with a gun. Mader was fired for NOT shooting. We sued on his behalf and won, but police to embrace de-escalation techniques to save lives.

Scott Pruitt thinks climate change might be fine, so time to bring this back:

From Aaron Sorkin's "The Newsroom"