A three day weekend. How cool! An extra day scheduled for nothing. How many of you left it at that? And how many of you said, “Oh good, now I’ve got time to clean out that closet, move 600 lbs of flagstone, change the oil in my car”….or one of a million other projects you haven’t had time for during your normal weekends—which usually land me up to my neck in Epsom salt bubbles (oh, my aching back!).
That, or you packed everything from your house into your car, sat on the highway for 2 – 7 hours in order to go somewhere to do something and then reversed the process 3 days later.
Whatever happened to taking it easy? Napping in a hammock? Sipping tea and reading a book? Not an audiobook that you listen to while vacuuming under the beds, but sitting and leafing through a real, honest to gosh book. The Eagles tried to tell us:
Lighten up while you still can
Don’t even try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand
Take it easy
We should have listened better.
I’m as guilty as anyone. Why use a bottled teriyaki sauce when I have the recipe for one from scratch? And it only takes 15 ingredients!?! Open a can for dinner? Blasphemy!
A wise man once said, “If it were easy, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”
Ok, that may work for baseball, but it isn’t necessarily true for cooking.
To be great, cooking doesn’t have to be hard. The most common ingredient in great food is….time. Not the fresh green herb (although thyme is one of my favorite herbs for tastiness). I’m talking about time for flavors to blend, merge, tenderize and flake.
But sometimes you just don’t want to spend the afternoon babysitting your stew, basting your chicken or cutting, slicing and dicing.
Sous vide (French for “under vacuum”) cooking can be your friend! It requires a moderate investment in equipment but trust me, when you get used to the process, you will find it more relaxing than all the Epsom baths in the universe.
Sous vide allows you to cook a tasty meal with a small investment of active time at the beginning and end of the process, and promises to hold the temperature of your meat at a constant once it’s finished cooking, so you never have to worry about dried out or burned roast, chicken, fish, etc. again, leaving you free to play a round of golf, visit with family, or read the book currently collecting dust on your nightstand.
Americans seem generally to suck at self-care. Although some have this process dialed, more of us keep scanning the room for “what needs to be done next”.
What drives us so hard? Is it that elusive thing we call “The American Spirit?” I hope so. Have we retained a bit of our forefathers’ tenacity and drive to go, do and improve? It has served us well for several generations now, and I hope it isn’t dying out.
If you’ve never watched the HBO mini series, “John Adams”, I highly recommend it. Released in 2008, it is, to my mind, a more realistic depiction of the birth of our nation than anything else I’ve seen. Are there glorious battles and victory of good vs. evil? Yes. Do the “good guys” (meaning the Colonists) win in the end? Of course. But the careful consideration, anguish and politicking that took place before the infamous “screw you” to King George III is very well depicted. My favorite scene in the whole series is when the Continental congress takes the vote on Independence and whether to issue the Declaration of same to the King.
The roll is taken. Votes are cast. Result is unanimity. Motion passes.
No shouts of “Hurrah!” No thunderous applause. Not even a single high-five, but rather a silent scan around the room and an air of “So THAT happened….”
This country has flaws, no question. We have broken bones, broken spirits, broken government….we may even have a collective case of athletes foot. But what we also have are good genes. We started from hearty stock. People who had a dream, a vision and were willing to take steps to push through seemingly impossible odds (the British Navy?!? Pahlease!) to achieve their goal of independence.
These visionaries were also flawed men and women with their own weaknesses and foibles. But they also had balls.
So if you are that person who rarely sits, plans out the year on New Years’ Day, puts in more than one 12 hour day every month and does it all in the name of financial independence for you and your family and striving for a dream of achieving more—give yourself a break. Cook you and your family a lovely meal without sweating over a hot stove for hours.
Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.
And…Take it Easy.
Stiver out.
Sous Vide Soy Garlic Tri-Tip Steak
Equipment
- Sous Vide Precision cooker unit
- Sous Vide container or Large Stock Pot – 12 quart at least
- Sous Vide container hinged lid or plastic wrap and binder clips
- Culinary Butane torch with Butane
- Food storage bag – 1 or 2 gallon size
Ingredients
- 1 ½ – 2 lb Tri-tip steak/roast
- Kosher salt
- Pepper
- 2 Tbsp Soy sauce
- 6 Cloves Garlic, pre-roasted, peeled and crushed
Instructions
- Set your Sous Vide Precision Cooker to 129.2°F/54°C
- Put your unpeeled garlic cloves in a small frying pan and roast over medium heat for about 5 – 7 minutes, tossing them every so often until you see dark spots on the skin. Take off heat and let cool until you can handle them. Then peel and crush slightly with a meat mallet or heavy knife.
- Generously season both sides of the tri-tip with salt and pepper.
- Place the tri-tip in a zipper lock bag.
- Add the soy sauce.
- Add the whole garlic cloves to the Ziplock bag.
- Add the zipper lock bag to the water bath using the water immersion method to remove all air.
- *Water immersion method: Close the zipper bag about ¾ of the way and slowly lower it into the water bath, allowing the water to squeeze the air out of the bag as you lower it. Once the meat is completely submerged in the water, finish closing the zipper bag and hang it slightly over the edge. If you have the hinged lid, close it down snugly. If you didn’t spring for the lid, spread one or two sheets of plastic wrap tightly over the stock pot and clip the bag and plastic wrap in place with the binder clips.
- Sous Vide for at least 2 hours
Finishing steps
- Remove the tri-tip from the bag and pat dry. Let it rest for 10 minutes. Discard the contents of the bag.
- If you don’t have a culinary blow torch, heat a cast-iron skillet over medium high heat. Sear the roast for about 1 minute on each side.
- If you have a culinary blow torch, place the roast on a foil lined rimmed baking sheet. Fire that bad boy up and sear the roast to a lovely shade of brown. Remember to keep moving the torch as you go or you could burn the roast, or burn the foil. Or your kitchen. Bad move.
- Slice the roast and serve alone, or with your favorite sauce, like chimichurri.
Mmmmmmm!!
Oh to have a kitchen again. Yes. We don’t take care of ourselves. This looks so good. Missing Fam Diners.
Missing you too, Harry! Glad you’re happy and safe, but we miss your face.