Weekend cooking

We did a bit of cooking this weekend. On Saturday, we dined on grilled flank steak fajitas with Boston cream pie for dessert. Sunday, we used the leftover steak to make the Rigatoni with Steak Sauce about which I've raved in previous posts.

For the flank steak, I marinated said piece of meat for about 6 hours in the fridge. The marinade consisted of splashes of olive oil, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, a dash of sesame oil, a hefty handful of steak seasoning, ground pepper, red pepper flakes, and some lime juice. It was grilled and sliced thinly to serve in tortillas, with grilled onions and peppers. And cheese and sour cream and salsa. All the normal fajita accoutrements.

For the Boston cream pie, I relied on an Everyday Food recipe. I have to admit I wasn't wild about it. I have nightmares about vanilla pudding after participating in an "over-the-head pudding feed" contest at Duke's TIP program in high school, where the pudding was room temperature (the room being the quad on Duke's West Campus when it was approximately 99 degrees outside) and I remember gulping down vast amounts of warm vanilla pudding. Ew. Gives me the shivers now.

But back to the dessert and the present day. A normal Boston cream pie is yellowy sponge cake, custard, and a chocolate topping. This cake was fine - kind of boring, and definitely an unusual preparation method, but dull. Which I guess is the point, as the custard and chocolate should be the show. The chocolate topping is fine - basically a ganache. However, I cheated. The recipe is already having you cheat a bit - using their vanilla pudding recipe. I cheated more - I bought a box of Jell-O instant french vanilla pudding.

Strike 1) This pudding is yellow in color, and looks like lemon curd. I'm not a fan of lemon curd. It kinda grosses me out.

Strike 2) See commentary on pudding competition above.

It tastes fine. R liked it. But I think the traditional custard filling would be better. So I'm not giving up on this recipe entirely...we'll see what the future holds for me and this "pie."

Note - Boston cream pie is not a pie. I don't know why it is called a pie. I bet Alton Brown knows. In fact, I know he knows, I just can't find the relevant episode. Dang.