Thanks, Amatuer Gourmet!

About a year ago, I started using Google Reader (GR) to keep track of all of the blogs that I liked to read on a regular basis. Based on what you are already reading, GR will suggest blogs that you might be interested in. This is how I stumbled upon one of my now favorite blogs, The Amateur Gourmet. The AG (also known as Adam Roberts) blogs about new recipes he's tried, new restaurants he's gone to (in NYC...jealous), and cooking dos and don'ts that he has learned along the way. As a self-proclaimed cooking idiot, I appreciate the blog mostly because he isn't afraid of admitting when something has gone wrong.

I've tried one recipe from the blog before, a watermelon salad that was quite good (Nate didn't appreciate it quite as much as I did - he views watermelon more as dessert :)). However, I caught a baking bug last week, and decided to itch it on Saturday. So, I went to The AG and perused the recipe section to find something to bake. I ended up finding a yummy cobbler to make, and here's the result:

It was tasty. I used Nectarines and Rainier Cherries as the fruit; however, at some point they kind of settled, so there was more cobbler topping than fruit in the serving (which some people like - I want more fruit).

Anyway, that same evening, Nathan and I were trying to figure out what to make for dinner; Nate had discovered that the Amateur Gourmet had a great video on how to make the perfect steak on Food2.com, so we decided to give it a try. The pictures are below - what you don't see is the fire that we started in the pan in the kitchen! The recipe called for getting the pan REALLY hot and then adding oil; our pan was so hot we had reached the flash point of the oil we were using! Yikes! It seriously looked like the Smoke Monster from LOST had taken up residence in our apartment.

BUT - this was the best steak that we had ever eaten! We're pretty sure we never have to go to a steak place again.