[Food] Welcome to Eat Club

Nerdwife, celesathene, and I have started an 'Eat Club', where we cook dinner for each other once a week. Last night was my turn. The rules of Eat Club are:

1) No one talks about Eat Club
2) No one talks about Eat Club
3) If it is your first time, you have to cook
4) Everyone eats, no one quits

Anyways, on your night you choose what to make and are in charge of planning as well as preparation.

For my night, I choose to make beef and portabella skewers, here is my menu:

1st course: endive and mixed green salad w/ Ginger-Miso organic dressing, artfully arranged

Main course: beef skewers, portabella skewers, grilled portabella tops, chips-n-salsa

desert: strawberry shortcake, bosten cream cake

charcoal: natural hardwood chips

meat: locally raised, organic, grass-fed, free-range beef, pre-cut into large cubes

portabella tops: organic large portabellas (x5), 1 package of small-medium whole portabella

salad: 3 endives, leaves peeled and arraged at corners of square bowl, the cores chopped and mixed with a spring-mix of salad, sliced radishes, shaved carrots

skewer fixings (for both types): 2xlarge red peppers, sliced into squares, 1 large red onion (quartered, the layers are broken apart and used on the skewers), left over medium whole portabellas, 1 dozen small red potatoes cut in half. I arranged the skewers as followed:

===[potatoe half]=[red pepper slice]=[onion layer]=[beef cube/mushroom]=[mushroom/potate]=[red pepper slice]=[beef cube/mushroom]=[potatoe half]==>

Marinade:

I made the marinade in an amount large enough for both mushrooms and the beef.

1.25 cups balsamic vinegar
1 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
1 cup onion diced
4 branches of fresh rosemary (de-stemmed, just use the leaves)
enough shavings of fresh ginger to taste

mix the ingredients in a large bowl until the oil and vinegar are evenly mixed. Split amount in half and put into 1 gallon sealable freezer bags. Refridgerate overnight.

On the day of cooking, place the beef into one bag for at least 8 hours and put back into the refridgerator.

2.5 hours before cooking, remove bags from refridgerator. Add mushrooms to non-beef bag and let set for 1 hour. While waiting for marinade to work its magic, clean up the large portabella tops. Gill side up soak with olive oil, dash of balsamic vinegar, put on some fresh garlic, crushed red pepper (in my case it was cayanne) and let sit until ready to grill.

Assemble skewers and let cook on grill. When meat skewers are almost done add the mushroom skewers and portabella tops. Cook to taste.

I am not a cook and this was a great learning experience. I was far more capable than I thought. One of the main lessons learned was that I should have pre-cooked the small potatoes before putting them on the grill. They were quite underdone. In the future I would nuke the potatoes until they are half-done before putting them on the skewers.

Beer that was served: Bohemia (a nice ale from Mexico)

Wine served: Relax Riesling (white), Fezter Gewurstrimzer (sp?, white)

Coffee served with dinner: Illy espresso decaf for drip coffeemakers.