Lambs, Yams, and Red Peppers
This was a fun one, today! I dirtied FIVE pots and pans on a weeknight dinner. It's a new record for me, I think.
I had a few nice lamb chops, so I just marinated them in a bit of olive oil, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper. The basics. Fried 'em up in a bit of olive oil. I made a quick red pepper sauce by pureeing a jar of red peppers with some olive oil.
I boiled the sweet potatoes and fried some onions, adding just a bit of thyme. I then used my handy-dandy immersion blender and whipped the potatoes and onions together, adding juuuuust a pinch of cloves, salt, and pepper.
Frozen Peas.
Dinner took more time to clean up than to cook. It was great. And we ate one of the fruitcakes for dessert. Dayum, they're good!
Pomegranate Chicken
I worked up an appetite today! I actually went to the gym. Yes. Me. A gym. Not only did I go to a gym, I saw a personal trainer. Yes. Me. A gym AND a personal trainer.
I just quit smoking and decided I just didn't want to gain 60 pounds - again. I've lost 35 pounds this past year just by watching what I eat, making better choices -and smaller portions. I haven't done any excersize. None. Nadda. Zip.
The way I like food, I'm going to balloon if I don't do something drastic - and for me, there's nothing more drastic than walking into a gym. Until three days ago, I had never been in one in my life! Oh... I've done my share of luxury hotels with their health spas. I head directly to the massage table and then to the steam room and sauna.
Times have changed.
So I'm starting a regimine that should start to get this old out-of shape body back into shape. And I hate to admit it, but I felt good after leaving today! Granted, this was only session one of the program - the easiest - I'm looking froward to going back for more.
But all the working out in the world will be for naught if I don't eat better.
Tonight's better choice was Chicken with Pomegranate Sauce. (Better doesn't have to be boring!)
I took two huge chicken breasts and cut them in half, pounded a bit and dredged in seasoned flour (King Arthur White Whole Wheat.) I browned the chicken in a bit of olive oil and removed it from the pan. I added a cup of chicken broth and a couple of tablespoons of sherry and then about a cup of pomegranate seeds. A bit of S&P.
I cooked it down a bit and then added the chicken back to the pan to finish cooking and to help thicken the sauce a bit.
Meanwhile, I cooked up wild rice and steamed a big bunch of broccoli.
I was a good boy and didn't clean my plate! (But I sure wanted to!) I had to leave room for dessert! (Baked Apples!!!)
Turkey Soup
It was cold today - at least this west coast blood thought it was cold today - and cold means soup at my house!
I had cooked a small turkey breast on Thursday, and with plenty of meat and a carcass, I set to work.
Soups are generally 'clean out the refrigerator' meals, and today's soup was no exception. Into the pot went the stripped carcass, broth, an onion, some questionable celery, a slightly dried half-head of garlic and a bit of S&P. I boiled and then simmered the stock for a couple of hours and then drained it all. I salvaged whatever turkey meat I could, and then the broth went back into the pot.
Into the pot went the leftover gravy from Thursday night, along with the elbow macaroni and gravy Victor concocted Friday when I was at work. I chopped up the rest of the celery, carrots, and then added a melange of partial bags of frozen vegetables that were just taking up space in the freezer - and not enough of any one of them for a meal.
A half a loaf of a crusty whole wheat batard finished off the meal - and finished me off, as well!
Start-to-finish a couple of hours. Actual work time was less than 15 minutes. AND we not only had a great dinner, we now have a clean 'fridge, to boot!
Leftovers
I think I mentioned I cooked a LOT of food this past weekend. A lot. Granted, we ate a lot, but there have been a few leftovers...
I can handle leftovers as well as the next guy, but after a while, I just don't want to see them anymore - at least not in their original state.
Tonight I took leftover sausage with peppers and onions and the leftover beef and put them in a pot with some beef broth. I had a couple of really ripe tomatoes, so they were chopped up, as well. And a bit of celery and a can of black-eyed peas. Stir in some hot chile pepper, and dinner was born.
I also made my own version of Rice-A-Roni to go along with it. I used some orzo and white rice, sauteed in butter with a bit of minced onion and garlic. Then added vegetable broth and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.
Who says leftovers have to be boring?!?
Pass the Bromo Seltzer!
Everyone's gone. The house is eerily quiet after three days of non-stop eating, drinking, laughter, and fun. Did I mention eating, drinking, laughter, and fun?
It was a late Friday arrival from San Francisco (thank you, Delta and the baggage crew at PHL...) but as the arrivee's were on Pacific time, we ended up staying up until three ayem eating, drinking, laughing, and having fun. We were up ridiculously early Saturday and started off eating right away... Bagels and cream cheese and stuff like that, and then a light lunch of sandwiches and chips and stuff because we were saving ourselves for a bit of a BBQ with Victor's family. (Thin-sliced real German Bologna from the Farmer's Market on kaiser rolls... YUM!)
I figured an absolute maximum of 20 people, so I cooked for about 40. I kid you not. I cooked for three or four armies. Victor's brother walked in, looked at the table, rolled his eyes a bit and said "I see you've done it, again." We have a bit of a reputation when it comes to having people over and quantities of food being served. And we definitely didn't let anyone down. We had food.
Wednesday I had picked up 2 chickens at the Farmer's Market, cut them each into 10 pieces, and soaked them for 2 days in buttermilk, garlic, cayenne pepper, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and probably a few other spices from the cabinet. On Friday afternoon, I mixed pretty much the same spices with flour and a bit of cornmeal. I dredged the chicken in the flour mixture and set on racks to dry a bit. Then I deep-fried it in peanut oil... Cooled, and then refrigerated.
I made my mom's potato salad - potatoes, green onions, pickles, hard cooked eggs, celery, mayo, catsup, mustard, a splash of worcestershire, garlic, S&P... And a pasta salad - tortellini, onions, sundried tomatoes, roasted peppers, diced celery, carrots, currants, and a dressing of olive oil and raspberry balsamic vinegar.
I grilled a ton of homemade chipotle chicken sausages I had made a couple of weeks ago and then mixed them with Italian peppers and onions...
Plus a couple of London broils I marinated in the now-infamous Pumpkin Butter and Organic Steak Sauce. And Phoebe's Chipotle Baked Beans. Plus salami and cheese and crackers and chips and dips and guacamole and breads and rolls and... and...
Oh. And four (yes, four...) Pineapple Cream Pies. I can't imagine why Steve rolled his eyes.....
We proceeded to eat all day, all night, and into the wee hours of the morning.
Bright and early Sunday morning was just your typical light breakfast... Sausage, bacon, fried potatoes, eggs, and more toasted bagels. One of the great Mysteries of Life is the amount of pots and pans one can dirty making breakfast, and I did my best to uphold the mystery.
We did a quick trip into the city to show Eileen the Liberty bell, took a stroll down South Street, and grabbed a Philly Cheesesteak. (Eileen had never had one IN Philly!) then back home to the Italian Sunday Dinner Victor was preparing...
He made a great sauce (Italians call it 'gravy') with homemade Italian sausages, homemade meatballs and hunks of pork, and served it on a couple of pounds of spaghetti. Plus garlic bread and a great savory bread ring that Marie picked up in Manayunk.... And more pie.
All I know is there's no way I could cntinue eating like this! I am soooooo out of practice!
But what a great time it was! And Eileen reminded me that when we hit San Francisco in February for my father's birthday that it will be the begining of Dungeness Crab season...
If I start dieting now, I may be ready for it.
Posole
In a recent issue of Smithsonian magazine, I spied an article about Native Harvest and the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota. They spoke of having real Wild Rice - actually wild and collected by canoe (not cultivated as with wild rice sold in the stores.) Intrigued, I went to the website. What fun for a foodophile! Real, natural, minimally processed food! I ordered a couple of pounds of wild rice - and a couple of bags of hominy.
Hominy is not something I grew up with in San Francisco. Other than hominy grits when I was in the Navy, it just wasn't part of my dietary routine. But my grocery store treks and natural curiosity about food found me buying dried hominy every once in a while - and then wondering what to do with it!
Posole has been the usual dish - it's a stew of sorts, usually made with pork and peppers, simmered for hours and just plain ol' good. The native harvest hominy looked interesting - and am I glad I bought some!
It is probably the closest thing our ancestors had when they arrived here many moons ago! Just flat-out great!
So... I made Posole.
I didn't follow a recipe, I just threw things into the pot. I simmered some pork for a couple of hours until it was fall-off-the-bone tender. I added onions, peppers, garlic, tomatoes... LOTS of chipotle powder and other chili powders from the cabinet, salt and pepper, and a bit of cloves. I then added the cooked hominy, and let it simmer even longer.
What a treat.
Mommie Dearest
Okay - a strange title for a foodblog, but I could really use a mommy hug right now. It's been one hellava summer. Victor's surgery, my wisdom tooth, then - and I'm sure it was from the pain meds and a complete change in diet for me - I was in and out of the hospital most of the week with bleeding intestines.I have no food restrictions, I can eat whatever I want whenever I want. I just have to stay away from NSAIDS - pain meds that are blood thinners. I didn't. My bad.
And then, to make a bad summer worse, my Unkie Dick passed away this morning. Only 77. Besides being just a fantastic and wonderful guy, he was also my very last uncle. I'm not ready to be the oldest generation. A mommy hug would be good right now.
But... Since mom is with Unkie Dick, I had to do the next best thing - make a dessert like she would have made.
My mother was queen of desserts. We had dessert virtually every night - and with six kids in the family, that was quite a feat. She could whip up something in a heartbeat, from scratch cookies to pineapple cream pie - or her most excellent fudge. And, as a modern housewife, she always had cake mixes in the cupboard. But a plain ol' cakemix cake was not mom's style. She had to doctor them up, create something new and wonderful. In short, experiment and have fun.
She had a Duncan Hines recipe pamphlet that she gave me with her cookbooks - and needing a mommy-recipe, I pulled it out tonight. Glancing through the recipes, I found a perfect "Mommy Dessert" - Buttery Cranberry Cobbler.
- 1 pkg Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Butter Recipe Golden Cake Mix, divided (I used America's Choice yellow cake. Better ingredients)
- 1 cup quick cooking oats (I used old fashioned, I never have quick cooking in the house)
- 3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened and divided (I used butter)
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup water
- 1 can (16oz) whole berry cranberry sauce
1. Preheat oven to 375F. Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch pan.
2. For topping, combine 1/2 cup dry cake mix, oats, and 1/4 cup butter in medium bowl with fork until crumbly. Set aside. (I added 1/2 cup walnuts - mom always improvised!)
3. For base, cut together remaining dry cake mix and remaining 1/2 cup butter with fork until crumbly. Stir in eggs and water until mixture is moistened. Spread on bottom of pan. (I used the mixer. Mom never followed directions, either.)
4. Stir cranberry sauce until smooth. Spread over batter in pan. Sprinkle with topping. bake at 375F for 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes before serving.
I cut the dessert into 8 pieces - in honor of the 8 of us who used to sit around that table every night - and actually juuust a tad more generous than mommy used to be. It came out great! In fact, I may just have to go back for seconds.
It was the perfect mommy-hug. Thanks, mom.
Pumpkin Polenta and Perfect Pork
We were at the Dr's office last week for a check-up on Victor's foot surgery and I came upon a magazine entitled Today's Diet and Nutrition. I'm usually game for a food-type magazine and hadn't seen this particular mag before, so I started perusing...
Opening the magazine at random, I immediately found a recipe for Maple Pumpkin Polenta! OMG! Three of my most favorite flavors in one recipe! I decided I had to try it! And am I glad I did!
Maple Pumpkin Polenta
- 5 cups water
- 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 1/4 cup coarse ground cornmeal
- 1 cup pumpkin (canned, fresh-cooked, whatever)
- 3 tbsp maple syrup
- 1/4 to 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 cup grated parigiano-reggiano or grana padana
- 1 tbsp butter
Bring the water to a boil in a medium sized saucepan. Add the salt and olive oil, reduce heat to simmer, and gradually whisk in the cornmeal a small amount at a time to prevent clumping.
Cook the polenta, stirring often until it is tender and pulls away from the sides of the pan, about 25 minutes.
Stir in the pumpkin puree, maple syrup, and cayenne. Cook another minute or two, remove from heat, and stir in the cheese and butter. Adjust seasoning with salt, if necessary.
Serve warm.
It was so good!
Of course, I couldn't just serve polenta for dinner, so I stated thinking about what would go good with it - and decided a pork loin would fit the bill. I had already been shopping (What?!? Plan dinner BEFORE you go to the store?!?) and completely lucked out having ingredients to make a Pork with Leeks and Mushrooms from Bon Appetit.
Roast Pork Loin with Shiitake and Leek Compote
- 1 large leek (white and pale green parts only)
- a 1-pound center-cut boneless pork loin
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley leaves
- 1 teaspoon unsalted butter or olive oil
- 1/2 pound fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded and caps cut into 1/2-inch slices
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup dry red wine
- 1/2 cup beef broth
Garnish: fresh parsley sprigs
Cut leek crosswise into 1/2-inch slices and in a bowl soak in water to cover, agitating occasionally to dislodge any sand, 5 minutes. Lift leek out of water and drain in a colander.
Trim any fat from pork. Season pork with salt and pepper and pat with 1 tablespoon chopped parsley. In a 10-inch oven-proof non-stick or cast-iron skillet heat butter or oil over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking and brown pork loin, turning it. Transfer pork to a plate.Preheat oven to 425°F.
In fat remaining in skillet cook mushrooms and leek with salt over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until liquid mushrooms give off is evaporated, about 5 minutes. Add wine and broth and bring to a boil. Put pork on vegetables in skillet and roast in middle of oven 40 minutes, or until a thermometer inserted in center of pork registers 160°F.
Transfer pork to a cutting board and let stand 10 minutes. If vegetable compote is too liquid, cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, until almost all liquid is evaporated. Stir remaining teaspoon chopped parsley into compote.
I didn't have shitakes, but I had baby bella's and some mixed wild mushrooms that worked just great. I also added some asparagus to the roasting pot midway through the cooking process just for fun.
Definitely a keeper.
I usually make my polenta with non-fat milk - I just like it that way - and next time I make this, I probably will use it. I also think I might add juuuuust a tiny tad bit of chipotle powder instead of the cayenne. Who knows.
But I do know that I'll be making this again!
And I subscribed to the magazine!
Birthday Dinner
Happy Birthday To Me! And what a fun birthday it has been!
It's been a crazy few days around our house... Wednesday, Victor had surgery on his foot. He had a Retro-Calcaneal Right Heal Exostectomy… Roughly translated, he had a bone spur on his heal that had gone around his achilles' tendon and they had to go in, cut the achilles’ tendon, scrape a bunch of crud, and sew it (and him) back together. He’s in a knee-high cast for the next 4-6 weeks, and lots and lots of therapy after. He's not exactly the most mobile person right now.
Yesterday, just to add a bit of misery to the household, I had a wisdom tooth pulled. We had already taken the time off to go up to New York to visit friends and celebrate the 34th anniversary of my 21st birthday.But... it was not to be.
Trust me... I would have rather been up there!
Fortunately, the surgery came out fine - as did the tooth. Between Victor's vicodin and my percoset, things have been going swimmingly along. The house has been full of family and friends, the phone and doorbell have not stopped ringing - plants and flowers and chocolates and a huge Edible Fruit Bouquet... and even an ice cream birthday cake!
The house finally cleared out and I decided I wanted a nice birthday dinner - and since Victor is out of commission as a cook for a while, I headed off to the kitchen...
We made a great stilton and arugula soup at work last week and I bought the fixin's thinking I'd make it at home. Instead, it became Chicken Breasts with a Caramelized Onion and Stilton Sauce served on a bed of sauteed Arugula and Baby Bella Mushrooms, topped with Caramelized Onions and Currants. Can you say "yummy" boys and girls?!?
I also made a classic pommes anna. Butter and potatoes. How decadent! It was just what the Doctor ordered.
It was one of those use every pan in the kitchen meals, but it was worth it!
And I made a Fresh Peach Pie for dessert.....
Happy Birthday, indeed!
Homemade Sausage
I finally did it! I made sausage from scratch! I have been wanting to do this for years, and just never got around to it. Many moons ago, my sister-in-law, Debbie, gave us all the attachments for the KitchenAid. And I do mean all... So, I finally ordered casings from Ask The Meatman, and to work I went! What a blast!
I bought some nice, fatty pork - about 10 pounds total, and a huge tray of boneless chicken thighs...
The pork was ground (using the large-hole attachment) with onions, garlic, cracked black pepper, salt, and LOTS of fresh basil, oregano, rosemary, and parsely from the garden. I then added a bunch of pine nuts after it was all ground up.
The chicken was ground (using the smaller-hole attachment) with salt pork for fat, chipotles in adobo, more garlic, cumin, a combination of several different chile powders, smoked paprika, and a couple of handfuls of dried mixed berries.
The mysterious part is I couldn't find the sausage attachment! I have never used it and it has been in the bottom cabinet with all the other attachments to the KitchenAid since we moved in. The pasta attachment was there, the grinder attachment was there, the slicer attachment was there, the food mill attachment was there. The sausage stuffer was not there. I checked every other cabinet, pulled everything out, searched the basement - all to no avail. So... off to the local Kitchen Kapers and for a mere $9.99 plus tax, I bought a new one - which means I shall find the old one any minute!
So... I ended up stuffing about 15 pounds of sausage - and I have several on the grill right now.
I'll let ya know how they turned out!
Chipotle Chicken
We've been having a lot of food fun the past few days... Our friend Dorrie and her son Jordan are down visiting from Boston - and that means getting to cook even more food than we usually do!
We had planned on going over to Victor's brother's house for the 4th - they're out of town and have a pool - but the weather just wasn't cooperating, so... we just BBQ'd at home. Hot dogs, burgers, ribs, three different types of sausages... It was yummy. Of course I cooked a bit too much... So...
Last night I decided to just do a bit of a clean out the 'fridge dinner... I took the leftover sausages - andouille, chorizo, and spicy Italian - and sliced them up. I fried up a bunch of onions and mixed peppers, and added tomatoes and lots of chipotle pepper and cumin. I then grilled a couple of chicken breasts and added them to the pot.
Boiled up some egg noodles, and voila! Dinner was served!
It was spicy hot without being 5 alarm, and we had some crusty bread to sop up the sauce. Simple and satisfying.
Dessert was a snap... We just got in puff pastry at work, so I baked off a sheet and after it came out of the oven, i split it in two. Earlier, I took some raspberries and sprinkled a bit of brandy over them.
I whipped up some cream, spread half on the pastry, added the raspberries, more cream, and then the top. Can we say "Yummy" boys and girls?!?
I have a whole chicken marinating in the 'fridge for tomorrow.....
Herb Grilled Chicken
That few minutes yesterday really paid off today! Dinner took 15 minutes from start to finish!
The herb-marinated chicken came out great! All of the herbs - and the wine - were present, but none of them overpowered the flavor of the chicken. Starting with good chicken is the key. It seems that most times when one buys that massed produced commercial chicken nowadays, it's so flavorless that if you don't marinate or add some sort of sauce, you end up with a blah bird on your plate. A free range organic bird may cost more, but it's the difference between eating at McDonald's or eating at Le Bec-Fin. It's worth it.
To round out the dinner was a tortellini dish that tomorrow will make a great cold salad. While cooking up the tortellini, I cooked up some onions, garlic, Italian peppers, and mushrooms, and then added roasted tomatoes in oil, kalamata olives, and roasted red peppers. I then mixed the tortellini in with the veggies and called it good!
Who says they don't have time to cook?!?