Limoncello

Every year, around this time (November through December, and if we're lucky, into early January) we are blessed with a bountiful crop of sweet eating lemons.  My son, Andrew, planted the tree a while back so he could get his fix of puckery goodness at the twist of his tiny little wrists.  After juicing gallons of the yellow orbs and baking mountains of gorgeously tart sugar cookies and tangy slices of French toast laced with lemon zest, I resolved to strip the tree of it's fruit with a friend and make my second batch of limoncello.  The process started at around 830 this morning and ended mere moments ago (it's around 330 pm on a Friday... New Year's Eve to be exact) and only took so long because I have little ones and nap times and snack cravings to quench.  Here, in some photographic detail, are the particulars of my cadmium odyssey for your viewing and perusing pleasure.

                                           Half of the 20-30 lemons i used in my production

                                           Naked lemons after I robbed them of their zest

   This was the longest part of the whole deal: scraping the bitter white pith from the zest
    

Final results: 1.5 liters of cheap drugstore vodka infused with about a pound of zest.  Hope the results are nothing short of amazing, because I only venture to do this once a year.

Perfect London Broil

I've created this recipe through many trials and errors (and horribly over/under done disks of beef protein).  The key here is low and slow, then hard and fast.  If you like your meat medium-rare to medium, this is how you do it...

Ingredients:
1 2 lb beef London broil
1/4 c regular soy sauce
2 tbsp crushed garlic
2 tsp dark sesame oil
crushed black pepper

Place all ingredients in a zip top bag, remove as much air as possible, and smoosh the marinade around the meat until every surface is covered.  Place sealed bag in a bowl big enough to contain it and place in fridge for at least 4 hours, turning and massaging in bag every 2 hour or so*.

Take steak out of fridge for at least 1/2 an hour and at most 2 hours prior to cooking*.  Remove the steak from the marinade and pat it as dry as you possibly can with some paper towels.

Preheat oven to 300 F. Cover the bottom half of a broiler pan with heavy duty foil.  Replace top half of pan and put the entire thing in the preheating oven with the rack in the top third of the oven.  When the oven has come up to temp, remove pan from oven, spray it down with some cooking spray and place the blotted steak on it.  You should hear a sizzle, which means a crust is forming on the bottom of the steak.  Slide pan with steak into oven and cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

At this point, the temperature from a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the steak should hardly move.  It shouldn't register much heat at all.  Now to sear, you can either switch your broiler on to low and

replace the steak directly under the live flame for 2-3 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the edges start to char or you can grill it for the same amount of time.  Either way, you'll want to watch closely, as this can go from medium-rare glow to beef jerky (not the good kind) in seconds.  After all cooking is done, tent for at least 20 minutes and cut on the bias.  We serve ours over steamed jasmine rice and leafy greens or steamed dark greens, but it's entirely up to your tastes.

*In a pinch, the steak can be left in marinade on the counter at room temperature away from any sources of heat for up to 2 hours.  The flavor will not be as deep, but the results are good enough to serve to company.