manus2society

Grand Army Plaza: Brooklyn

Grilled Hanger Steak Served with Grilled Corn, Sauteed Mushrooms and Snow Peas, and Salad

30 minute meal, including prep. Preheat grill. Season steak with salt-n-pepper. Put corn on grill (turning occasionally). Prep salad, mushrooms, and snow peas. Put steak on. Sauté veggies. Flip steak. Peel corn, plate veggies, plate steak.

I don’t usually find Hanger Steak in many groceries. I read in a magazine that it’s because butchers keep them for themselves. There is only one per cow. The cut is located near the diaphragm. If you look at my picture you can see that there is still a strip of fat. That is also not common. If you order hanger from a restaurant, this would be two servings. Seeing how I am eating by myself, whatever is leftover will be warmed and eaten with eggs in the morning.

Grilled Corn on the Cob: Simple. Peel back husk gently, remove majority of silk. Layer back the husk. Soak in water for a couple minutes. Put on grill and turn occasionally till husk gets burnt.

Sauteed Mushrooms and Snow Peas: Salt, pepper, butter.

Salad: Premixed salad with added tomatoes, mushrooms, and croutons. 

Grilled Roast Pork (Rosemary & Garlic)

Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of the complete meal. That’s because I was too anxious to eat. While the roast cooled, I toasted the (fresh) garlic bread and sauteed the portabella mushrooms. I say fresh garlic bread because I roasted 3 bulbs and then spread them onto 2 heros and slapped on some soft butter. The mushrooms were seasoned with only salt (fine sea salt)) and pepper (mill).

Another tradegy…I didn’t snap any pics of the bbq sandwiches I made the next day for lunch. Pulling it doesn’t work so well, so I used a handheld blender thing that I have, and heated it up with some spicy bbq sauce. Mmmmmmm, tasty. 

Grilled Salt Crusted Shrimp

This was pretty quick and damn easy.  The shells are on when crusted (coarse sea salt). The idea is that the salt protects the meat and keeps it juicy inside, which it does! After grilled and peeled, I rinsed a few off because I was afraid of it being too salty. If you serve individual bowls (coffee mug size) it probably won’t be a problem. However, we shared 1lb in a big bowl. When we got to the bottom, there was a bit a salty juice that was overkill (only 3 shrimp were wasted at the end of the bowl).

Tomato Avocado Salad, Garnished with Olives and Mint

The dressing is a reduced balsamic vinaigrette (softly boiled down until syrup consistency) mixed with extra virgin olive oil (salt and pepper to taste). The sprigs of mint really add a surprise. I used vine ripe tomatoes and kalamata olives. 

K’naan: Troubadour: America

Grilled Skirt Steak

Trimmed skirt steak seasoned with fine sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, and chili powder. Served with a side of grilled garlic bread (pre-made: didn’t have time to roast 3 bulbs of garlic).

After spending three days painting and fixing up my apartment (my girlfriend moved in with me and I figured it was only appropriate to give the place a face-lift so that it would be just as much hers as it is mine) I was craving skirt steak. I tried to get it at my local grocery. I tried the two carneceria’s in my hood, but to no avail. My boy Brix and I talked about grillin’ and chillin’ for a bit that night (Saturday). One place we know has skirt steak…Western Beef, which conveniently has a liquor store next door. I get the meat, you get the whiskey.

——Knowledge——

Boneless cut from the belly area (near the front legs). Full flavor, boneless, and absorbs marinades well because they are thin with a loose grain. Skirt is located between the flank and brisket. It’s relatively easy to trim yourself, but I recommend watching a butcher doing it once.

——Leftovers——

I roasted garlic and jalapeño’s, grilled an onion (white, wrapped in foil), toasted a deli hero, and warmed the beef. Diced the garlic and jalepeño’s up, sliced the onion, and loaded up an amazing sandwich.

TV On The Radio: Return To Cookie Mountain: Wolf Like Me

Cornish Hens:

Each hen is stuffed with fresh rosemary & three cloves of garlic, then bathed in an lemon juice, salt, pepper, and olive oil bath.

It was my first time cooking cornish hens. I was about to leave the store with a center cut pork roast, but then I noticed that the hens were on managers special: $7.  Off we went (my friend Maya was over for the cooking session). I just got my rotisserie working. I found a set for $15 at Home Depot last year but it didn’t have the rod & spring set, which typically renders it useless, but Eli & I got some rebar and made it work. After letting them marinade for about twenty minutes I put them on the preheated grill. Checking on them every 5-10 minutes, adjusting the settings, as using a rotisserie is new to me (five minutes on high with the lid closed to sear, then set to low worked quite nice). When they looked about done I asked Maya to look up the “safe temperature” while I went and checked them…155˚F. Turns out the range is 152˚-160˚. PERFECT in my book. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes & serve.

Needless to say, it was delicious!

Today is a very special day. It is the memorial of a best friend to many people. If “Authentic Individuals” was a team, Eric Dutt would be the team captain. It is a real tragedy when you lose someone at such a young age. It has been four years now. There are so many memories that I am thankful for. Each time I feel like there is an empty spot in my heart, I just fill it with the happiness and love of our friendship.

Peace.Love.Respect.Siempre

Hey Eric, in case you’re listening, I’m wearing my special boxers that you gave me…and yes, they are on backwards! HA! Peace Brother.

Never a reality but nothing wrong with fantasy. I think this would be cool as shit. Where would I drive it? I don’t know…how about all over the fuckin’ place!

Hellz Yeah!

We’re (and when I say ‘we’ I mean ‘they,’ as in the engineers and designers) getting closer to electric motocycles. In this instance, there needs a little more “hiding of the batteries” but using an already existing (and quite popular) body type is a pretty good start.

Lightning Lithium Superbike: No Emissions

And here is the fancy-bo-blancy. I saw this company out in LA when I was visiting Jodes. They were having demo rides. I can’t remember why I didn’t go and ride one. Well, they are about to release their dirt bike version, but I am diggin’ the street model. Technology is getting there and so is the design (check out the empulse racing section). There are no gears to shift, it plugs into a house socket. Less than the issue of cost, I wonder how long it takes to charge. I mean, until Denny’s starts having sockets outside their establishments, road trips would be a bit difficult.

I will say this, as a motorcycle enthusiast, I am not willing to give up my ‘74. However, I would absolutely use an electric bike, maybe even the not so hot Enertia (another model offered by Brommel: see link below). In a city with millions and millions and millions of people, no emissions is a wonderful thing. *NYC is one of the only megatropolis in the world, that I can think of, that is not aggressively motorcycle/scooter friendly. Dump the car/truck/suv and buy a bike.

Electric Empulse

On a personal note:
 Click-4-a-Pic  of my moto when I first bought her. It’s a good story. I’ll have to tell you sometime. Although, I have changed a couple things, for the better of course.

409 Johnson skyline: 6 quick shots with my iphone

(Souther Tip)

snip, snip, snippet…stitched, coming back from heritage island.

(Sin Will Find You Out)

It’s quite amazing how many of these fuckin’ salvo’s i come a-cross. It’s like camo, as soon as you spot one, they’re all poppin’ out atcha. Don’t get me wrong, i dig a good plenty of them, like this one. Guess what it says on the other side.

(Wythe Ave)

One of the things that i have always appreciated is graffitti. Back in the day of jr. high i used to write out all my friends names. I guess it’s a good thing i never got caught up in the scene but it’s a shame i was never able to learn the style and art of it. I rolled with a kid back in jersey (shout out to 4saken) a couple of times to snap pics but i lost that connect when i lost my phone and changed schools.

(Pan American Aztec)

Back when i was in Albuquerque i snapped this pic. Living in a city that is dominated by big buildings and a closed sky, this imagery prompted me to pull over for a quicky.