Roquefort stuffed pork chops + potato and onion casserole + chopped salad

What a terribly yellow-y blurry photo! I assure you the meal tasted better than this sorry photo indicates. I have two recipes to share. The first is for the roquefort pork chops. I've made this a few times now and it's become a family favorite. It's a bit of work to slit the chops and stuff them but every thing else is super quick and easy. I prepped everything during leftie's nap and then just cooked everything up to have it in time for supper.

My few changes would be to use panko breadcrumbs as one of the reviewers suggest. I use only one TBSP of butter when sauteeing the mushrooms and onions and just add it to the breadcrumbs. Makes it a little less rich and faster since you're skipping the step of cutting up the bread and toasting it. This time around I also sauteed some figs in the pan drippings. Yum. I think figs+pork are a combo made in heaven. Pork really works well with cooked fruit in my opinion. The fruit gets all caramel-y and the pork responds so well to that sweetness.

The second recipe is for the potatoes. More my notes than a recipe. It's one that I grew up eating as a kid. It's kind of time consuming to make so I'm surprised that my mom made it as often as she did. She didn't have a food processor so she did all the prep work by hand. I think it's a southern dish mom picked up during our stint in Louisiana. I made a few changes which I think still honors the flavors without giving in to the can of cream of mushroom soup that gives the dish it's creamy flavor.


Potato + Onion Casserole

6 medium sized russet potatoes peeled and sliced 1/8"
1 and a half medium onion sliced very thinly into rings and then separated into individual rings
1 cup of beschamel or white sauce (I made mine with butter, flour, lowfat milk and a little onion powder)
a few sprigs of fresh thyme leave pulled off of the spines (optional - we have a lot of thyme in our garden this year)
french fried onions to garnish (optional - mom used Durkee's, I've found a version at Trader Joe's (?) I think and often I've gone without)
salt + pepper
finely grated hard cheese like parmesan or gruyere (optional)

Preheat oven to 350.
Butter a 9x13 baking dish. Add a layer of onions to the dish and then top with a layer of potatoes. The onions should lace the bottom of the dish and the potatoes should lay on top without overlapping each other. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.

Repeat with the rest of the onions and potatoes sprinkling each potato layer with salt and pepper until all the ingredients are used up. End with a layer of potatoes. Add the thyme and pour the white sauce evenly over the casserole, it should seep through the layers. Sprinkle lightly with parmesan cheese or french fried onions (I've never tried both, but if you do, you should let me know how that turns out).

Bake covered (aluminum foil works just fine) in the oven for 45 minutes - 1 hour or until bubbling and the potatoes are fork tender. Finish by taking off the cover and letting the top brown lightly. Serve hot.

Photographing my meals is getting harder. When my meal is ready I'm often hungry and tired and the lighting is poor and I'm negotiating an 18 month old in my arms and around my distended belly. I've got at least 6 meals that I cooked and savored and wanted to share recently but do not have any photos to post. Alas.

Tonight I lingered a bit too long at the market arguing with aforementioned 18 month old who was screeching at the top of her lungs while we cruised the produce section. Yes, shoppers of the Fresh Pond location Whole Foods, that was us. The acoustics are excellent I am happy to report.

At the last minute I grabbed one of the store's rotisserie chickens and also the fixings for a greek style salad. Suddenly all I wanted was a greek style salad. I don't know why I don't make one more often I really enjoy them when I get them as a side to my meal at greek/mediterranean restaurants. So easy, so tasty. I added the roast chicken chopped up to the salad and mmmm'd my way through the rest of the meal (in between reading to leftie who insisted that she perch on my lap with a stack of board books on the table before us).

I don't want to forget even this very basic salad so here are my notes: My greek style salad consists of large chopped pieces of romaine lettuce (which I've been favoring in my salads lately because it's so easy and quick to wash the leaves). Added to the lettuce was cubes of a luscious heirloom tomato and cucumber, a handful of kalamata olives, lemon juice, dried oregano, crumbled feta (yay for cheeses made from pasteurized milk!), salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar.

I think the vinegar I use really makes the difference in this basic oil+vinegar dressing. Years ago I bought a bottle of a brand called Napa Valley Naturals red wine vinegar at a fancy organic market. It brought such a wonderful flavor to my salad dressings that it's the only red wine vinegar I ever use anymore.

Oh and I add a bit of onion to the salad as well. Finely chopped though. I enjoy the taste that raw onions impart on salads and such, but I don't like biting into a raw onion. I wonder about that though. How come so many dishes come with red onions these days? Are they more special than regular onions? (I usually buy yellow but have also been known to use white when I want a mellower flavor.) Are they supposed to be fancier? Cheaper? Prettier? I certainly enjoy the color but I feel like restaurants are getting a little unoriginal when they add red onions to every dish on the menu.

I tossed everything together adjusting the seasonings to suit my tastes and added the chopped up chicken at the very end.

Yum yum.

I've discovered a new way of making green beans. I discovered this back last September when vacationing with friends in Ithaca, NY. I saw some green beans at their local organic market and they looked good so I bought a bunch intending to make them up the usual way. I got back to our rental cottage and realized that I was short a few key ingredients so I improvised. What a yummy serendipity! M prefers this new method and I've only made them this way a few times so I'll probably stick to this new method for a while longer. Can't wait till the beans in our garden make their appearance.

Jean's Green Beans

1 lb of fresh green beans trimmed of their ends and cut (if desired) into 1"-2" pieces
1 TBSP of unsalted butter
1 clove of garlic crushed

1/2 pint of cherry tomatoes quartered or 1 medium ripe tomato chopped
1/2 tsp of dried oregano

Add the first three ingredients to a pan sautee on medium high heat until the garlic gets nice and rendered. Add the tomatoes and continue to stir until the tomatoes cook down. Add the oregano, stir and cover pan for a few minutes. Keep cooking covered until the beans are tender (about 10-15 minutes). Serve and enjoy!

NB: I usually trim and rinse my vegetables before I cook them so there is always a bit of water clinging to them when I add them to the pan. If you've bought pre-prepped veggies or did the work yourself and the beans are dry, add a tablespoon or two of water to the pan so that the beans and garlic don't burn.

Lunch: cheryl's zucchini squares and chopped salad. Recipes and notes at the bottom of each post.

My go-to mac'n'cheese recipe these days.

My go-to lunch these days.

Croque Monsieur and butternut squash soup.



Gratuitous sammich shot.

This croque monsieur recipe is what I used. I'd omit the salt for the sauce as the cheese and ham were salty enough.

The butternut squash soup was something I improvised based on a soup I had at (of all places) Au Bon Pain. I took butternut squash, an apple, an onion, half a pack of bacon (really nice stuff - the kind that is thick sliced, center cut, etc etc), rosemary and roasted it all on a rimmed baking sheet until everything is nice and soft and roasty and the bacon is rendered. Then I dumped everything into a big stock pot added enough water to cover all of it. Brought it all to a boil and then pureed it with my immersion blender. Then a dollop of heavy cream stirred in at the end. Next time less apples or possibly no apples.

and also candied walnuts

I used to make these all the time to add to salads. Then I think m asked me not to because they were making an otherwise healthy item (walnuts) unhealthy. He'll probably deny this if asked.

Anyways, I keep forgetting the measurements for each ingredient so here it is for posterity. I really ought to make up a cheat sheet like Amy from angrychicken does with my go to food stuffs.

Candied Walnuts

1/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar

1/4 cup water

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter

Large pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups walnut halves

Combine first 4 ingredients in another heavy large skillet. Bring to boil, whisking. Boil 1 minute. Add walnuts; stir. Toss until syrup forms glaze on nuts, about 3 minutes. Transfer nuts to sheet of foil and quickly separate nuts with forks. Cool. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.

chocolate pudding

I keep making this and looking up the recipe each time is a pain in the buns. So here it is:

Chocolate Pudding

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 large egg yolks

3 cups whole milk

5 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), melted

2 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

Whisk together sugar, cornstarch, salt, and yolks in a 3-quart heavy saucepan until combined well, then add milk in a stream, whisking. Bring to a boil over moderate heat, whisking, then reduce heat and simmer, whisking, 1 minute (filling will be thick).

Force filling through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, then whisk in chocolates, butter, and vanilla. Cover surface of filling with a buttered round of wax paper and cool completely, about 2 hours.

Spoon filling into crust and chill pie, loosely covered, at least 6 hours.

dinner: it looks better than it tasted. mostly.

Yesterday afternoon I had the culinary revelation that chicken parm is not that far from chicken katsu. I've never made chicken parmigiana (I can't even spell it according to my web browser's spell check) but I've made chicken katsu plenty of times. Pound some chicken breasts, bread it, fry it and you've got chicken katsu. Add sauce and cheese and broil it and you've got chicken parmigiana, right?

Well, maybe (I'm too lazy to look it up right now). But last night's efforts didn't turn out so great (don't let the flashy photography fool you).

What's up with that wooden spoon handle right in the middle of the photo? Let's call it an arty composition and go with that.

I think the error of my chicken parm came from the fact that I did not have any sauce in the house, just a large can of crushed tomatoes which I didn't doctor in any way before I spooned it atop the lovely little fried chicken fillets (by the way, pounded, breaded, fried chicken breasts cut up into thinner strips = chicken tenders when served with bbq and honey mustard sauce. Ta-dah!). Back to the chicken parm snafu...

Then after I spooned my lame excuse for sauce on my chicken breasts and covered them with cheese, I stuck them in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes. Instead of hitting them with the broiler. So the sauce made the fried chicken breasts all soggy. Sigh. It was getting late, I was tired and distracted.

I served this with some store bought gnocchi and the sauce. By the time the chicken was in the oven, I was able to remember to do something to the sauce so that it wasn't just crushed tomatoes heated up and spooned over gnocchi. Still meh, but better.

Oh and in case you think that I served this meal with no vegetables in sight, there's some steamed broccoli under that plate on the right of above photo. And I served Cheryl's zucchini squares (pictured again below) which really can't count as a vegetable because it's more like a savory cake or tart or something (4 eggs! and really zucchini is a squash and squashes are a starch and not a green vegetable despite the color of their skins, right?). But oh, I do love Cheryl's zucchini squares and finally got the recipe from her so I had to make it last night. Of course, tired and distracted as I was I managed to fudge this dish as well. Not that you can tell from the photo, right?



It was supposed to be baked in a 9"x13" pan instead of this 8" (8"? or maybe 9") square dish I used. So the squares aren't as flat as they're supposed to be and so the middle didn't cook as thoroughly as it should have done. Nothing that a quick trip through mr. microwave can't fix. But still.

Also, the recipe calls for 1cup of bisquick which is something that I don't ever carry in the house. I think I did okay figuring out a substitute for it though.

Also, the recipe calls for 4 eggs and I didn't realize until it was too late that I only had 3 eggs in the house and no time to run (waddle) out for more eggs. I tried to fix it by adding about 1/4 cup of whole milk to the batter. That's a wild guess. I didn't even measure it out but just poured until the batter reached a consistency that I guessed was right. What the hell was I thinking? I'd never made this dish before. How was I supposed to know what "correct consistency" meant?? Might have been too much milk. I would know this if I had used the proper pan that I was too lazy to dig out because maybe the slightly undercooked middle had to do with too much milk and not the size/aspect ratio of the pan. Are you still with me?

Also, the recipe calls for grated parmesan and I used pecorino romano (yum!). That wasn't an f-up. I liked the flavor with the different cheese. Same with my omission of seasoned salt, snipped parsley and additional pepper to taste - whoops! Seems I forgot to read the recipe carefully.

Also, and this is a personal thing: the recipe calls for 1/2 cup of finely chopped onion which I thought gave the dish a fine flavour. I ate like 4 squares last night at dinner. I had two for breakfast. M had one. He's not a huge fan of onion. I'm thinking next time around I'll just use 1/4 cup of finely chopped onion or thereabouts. I think it'll still taste good.

The thing about this recipe is that it's very forgiving. So even if you use different herbs or omit some of the seasoning, it still turns out great.

Cheryl’s Zucchini Squares

3 C of thinly sliced unpeeled zucchini (about 4 small ones)
1 C of Bisquick

(or sub with 1 Cup of flour
2 1/3 tsp of baking powder
2/3 tsp of salt
2/3 TBSP of sugar)

1/2 C of finely chopped onion (dried can be used)
1/2 C of grated parmesan
2 TBSP snipped parsley (or dried equivalent)
1/2 – 1 tsp seasoned salt (regular salt is fine)
1/2 tsp dried marjoram or oregano (can use some of each) or dried rosemary (which is what Cheryl used)
pepper to taste
1 clove garlic finely chopped (dried can be used)
1/2 C olive oil
4 eggs lightly beaten

Heat oven to 350. Grease 13”x9” pan. Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Lightly whisk eggs and oil together in a small bowl and then add egg mixture to the bigger bowl. Add zucchini and onions. Mix to combine. Spread in pan and sprinkle the top with more parmesan cheese and rosemary. Bake until golden brown about 25-30 minutes. Cut into squares of any size you desire. Can be made ahead, stored in refrigerator and warmed in oven, microwave or served at room temperature.

sunday night supper

Sort of without meaning to, I whipped up a supper last night that was really cozy.



I baked a whole chicken. I wanted to make roasted potatoes in this new way that I learned from my mum-in-law, but I decided at the last minute to combine the potatoes with the chicken.


It was a good move.

While the chicken was cooking, I made up a batch of baking powder biscuits (the recipe is all the way at the bottom). Served piping hot with three different kinds of fruit spread (blueberry, strawberry and some of the cranberry jelly leftover from the last time I made a batch). And put together the ingredients for a build-your-own salad.

The build-your-own salad featured baby lettuce, goat cheese (with pasteurized milk, yeah!), toasted walnuts, steamed broccoli, dried cranberries and a raspberry vinaigrette. I made the raspberry vinaigrette the other day and can't stop eating it. I like it best in a simple salad of greens+goat cheese+toasted walnuts and the dressing drizzled over it. Love, I tell you. Pure love. That hunk of peccorino romano is there just for show. I forgot to remove it from the table.



Man do we eat good around here.

Recipes for the potatoes and the salad dressing below. Is it really worth it since they are so easy? Oh, what the heck...

my mum-in-law's roasted potatoes
half pound of potatoes (I used mini yukons so I didn't need to cut them up) cut up into big chunks. leave the skins on 'em
1 small onion quartered
6 cloves of garlic or more depending on how garlicky you like things. don't be afraid, you really can't over do it with the garlic in this recipe
salt+pepper to taste
2-3 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 350.
In a big baking dish combine all the ingredients and toss to coat evenly with the olive oil. Cover with lid (my mum-in-law uses a aluminum tray and covers it tightly with aluminum foil) and roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Don't touch the suckas during this time. Your house will smell nice and garlicky and roasted oniony. After the 45 minutes/1 hour has passed, open up the dish and check on the potatoes. They should be fairly cooked through. Give them a good stir and remove the lid/foil and let cook for another half hour till they get nice and brown and caramelized.

Raspberry Vinaigrette
2 tbsp raspberry preserve
1/4 cup toasted walnut oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar

Try to use the best quality ingredients you can afford. It will really make a difference. Combine all ingredients into a blender or a tall container and blend. I used my immersion blender and gave it a good whirl. The dressing got nice and creamy/emulsified. Store in a sealed container. Keeps for 1 week (or longer, depending on how anal you are about such things).

fluffy pancakes

I was having issues with my pancakes. I used the recipe from m's second hand copy of The Joy of Cooking. I don't know what I was doing wrong but the pancakes were so dense instead of being light and fluffy. Last weekend I did a search for pancake recipes and found one to try. I can't remember where it came from (sorry recipe source! If you recognize this recipe, please let me know and I will give you credit) and I certainly don't want to lose it because it made the BEST pancakes EVER. Light, fluffy, soaks up the syrup. So good!



The photo is blurry because my rechargeable batteries don't hold their charge long and within a day of putting freshly charged batteries in my camera they give up and the camera says I need to change the batteries again. Argh.

Also I put too much butter in the pan for this batch so they sort of fried in butter instead of searing on a hot pan. Still tasted good.

Fluffy Pancakes

1.5 cups of flour
3.5 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1 Tablespoon of sugar
1 1/4 cup of milk
1 egg
3 Tablespoons of melted butter

Melt the butter.
Mix all the dry ingredients together with a whisk. Make a well in the middle and crack the egg into it. Pour the milk into the well and then the melted butter. Mix well. The batter should be thick and a little lumpy. That's okay.

Heat a pat of butter on a skillet on high heat. I usually turn the skillet to spread the butter around. Sometimes I'll use the spatula to help out. When the butter starts to make a little noise, turn the heat down to medium-high and add scoops of batter to the pan spaced out at least 1" apart.

I used a large soup spoon to spoon the batter into little pools. The batter spreads a bit and if it's not as big around as I like I add a little more batter to the top and watch the weight of it spread the pancake out further. When the edges start to harden and the pancake starts to rise a bit, I slide the spatula under the side of the pancake to test the give. If it feels sturdy enough, I take a chance and flip. I didn't time it to see how long it would take to brown enough for flipping, I'll try to remember and do that next time and edit the info here.

Once flipped, watch to see that the doughy sides have hardened/cooked through. That's when you know that the pancakes are cooked all the way through.

I place the cooked pancakes on a plate and stick that in my oven (unheated) while I make up the rest of the batter.

Serve with syrup or jam and enjoy.

Arroz Con Pollo revisited

I made arroz con pollo for dinner last night. I've made it before so I didn't bother taking any photos but you can go here and here for reference.

I originally got the recipe from here years ago. And followed it pretty much faithfully the last few times I've made it. But after having it for dinner last night I decided that I need to make a few adjustments for the future. There are little bits about it that I could improve upon in terms of taste and technique. Like I think the chicken would do well to marinate for longer than an hour in the sauce - overnight even. So here goes.

Arroz con Pollo

The night before (or at least 3 hours before):
For chicken
3 large garlic cloves, minced (I don't have a blender so I have to do this all by hand)
3 tablespoons fresh orange juice
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 (3 1/2- to 4-lb) chicken, cut into 8 serving pieces (I like to have the breast pieces cut in half too) trimmed of any excess fat
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

This is on the day of, but you can prepare the vegetables or set up a mise en place:
For rice
1 1/2 - 2 cups onions, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1/8 teaspoon crumbled saffron threads
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons salt
1 Turkish or 1/2 California bay leaf
1 (14- to 15-oz) can diced tomatoes, including juice
1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth (12 fl oz)
1 1/2 cups water
2 cups long-grain white rice (3/4 lb)
1 cup frozen baby peas (not thawed; 5 oz)
1/2 cup small or medium pimiento-stuffed green olives (2 oz), rinsed
1/4 cup drained chopped bottled pimientos (2 oz), rinsed

Special equipment: a wide 6- to 7-qt heavy pot (about 12 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep)
NB: I covet a Le Creuset dutch oven desperately. But since I don't have one I always make do with a heavy bottom extra-large skillet.

Prepare chicken:
Mix garlic, orange juice, lime juice, salt, and pepper in a large mixing bowl. Put chicken pieces into the bowl and turn to coat the meat in the marinade. Marinate chicken, covered and chilled, turning occasionally, at minimum 1 hour or overnight.

Transfer chicken, letting excess marinade drip back into bowl, to paper towels, then pat dry. This part is really important. Pat them suckers dry!!! Or the sauce will burn on the pan before the chicken's got a chance to brown enough. Set aside the remaining marinade.

Heat oil and butter in pan/pot over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then brown chicken in 2 or 3 batches, without crowding, turning occasionally. This takes about 20 minutes or so with my pan. Transfer chicken as browned to a plate, reserving fat in pot.

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat to 350°F.

Sauté onions, bell peppers, and garlic in fat in pot over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally and scraping up brown bits from chicken, until vegetables are softened, 6 to 8 minutes.

While vegetables cook, heat saffron in a dry small skillet over low heat, shaking skillet, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add wine and bring to a simmer, then remove from heat.

Add cumin and salt to vegetables and cook over moderately high heat, stirring, 2 minutes. Stir in saffron mixture, bay leaf, tomatoes (including juice), broth, half of the water, and reserved marinade and bring to a boil.

Add all chicken except breast pieces, skin sides up, and gently simmer, covered, over low heat 10 minutes. Stir in rice, then add breast pieces, skin sides up, and arrange chicken in 1 layer. Add rest of water to rinse off bits of stray rice from the chicken (this helps the rice cook uniformly). Return to a simmer.

Cover pot tightly, then transfer to oven and bake for about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and set back on stove top at medium-low heat until the rice cooks through.

Scatter peas, olives, and pimientos over rice and chicken (do not stir) and let stand, pot covered with a kitchen towel, until peas are heated through and any remaining liquid is absorbed by rice, about 5 minutes. Discard bay leaf.

Serve with beans or steamed greens to round out the meal.

I woo with ribs.

I was craving Korean style short ribs. I made this once for m on his birthday years ago when we first started dating. It was his birthday. I think cooking this meal for him sealed the deal on the success of our romance. M is definitely a man whose heart can be got through his stomach.

I can't believe I haven't cooked this again since. It's been (holy freak-out!) eight years since I last made these ribs. Tsk, tsk.

Searching around on the internet, I cobbled together the following recipe for the ribs I served tonight. The sides came out a little mediocre*, but the ribs more than made up for it. It's such an easy and delicious dish I'll definitely be making it again.


Braised Korean Short-Ribs
5 tbsp sugar
1 cup of soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin (I used vermouth)
5 cloves of garlic minced
1 medium onion chopped into slivers fajita-style
2 tbsp sesame oil
1tsp cracked red pepper
3 lbs of short ribs with the sides scored

(I forgot to get the following but would include in the future)
toasted sesame seeds
green onions with the white parts halved and then the whole thing cut into 2" pieces

Mix all the first ingredients in a large pot and let marinate for several hours (up to 24 hours, but for at lease 1) turning every once in awhile to make sure the marinade gets nice and soaked into the meat. Put the pot on the stove and add some water so that the liquid comes to halfway/ three-quarters of the way to the top of the meat. Put the heat on high and when the liquid comes to a boil turn down to low and let simmer for 2 hours. Tilt the pot and skim off the fat adding the sesame seeds and green onions. Serve over steamed rice.



*That soup wasn't one of the mediocre sides. It kicked ass. Just good old fashioned Korean kelp soup - if you grew up in a Korean household, that is. Do searches for Korean seaweed soup (also called mee-yeok guk or me-yeok gook) and you'll find a bevy of recipes.

chicken pot pie

My new dining table is dark. As is our dining area. It's a borrowed table so I'm not going to fret over it, but it does mess with my dinner photography endeavors. Anyways, last night I made a pot pie. It's also part of our regular rotation.

Is it worth it to post about chicken pot pie? I feel like it's sort of a no-brainer. But then again, I might stop making it for one reason or another and then one day I'll want to make it and not have any notes on my methods. So here we go:

Chicken Pot Pie
about 2 cooked chicken breasts meat removed from the bone and cubed (I usually used leftover baked chicken, last night it was the leftovers from two whole chickens I'd had cut up to make oven fried chicken)
1 cup of mushrooms (I used white and cut them up in quarters to be roughly the size of the cubed chicken and potatoes)
1/2 cup of chopped celery (about 1 or 2 stalks)
1/2 cup of chopped onion
1 medium sized russet or yukon gold potato cubed and par-boiled
olive oil to sautee vegetables
3/4 cup or so of frozen mixed vegetables (I get the kind that has peas, carrots, corn and green beans. I do a little dance if I can find the one with lima beans. I love lima beans.)
1 med bay leaf
1 tsp of dried oregano
1 tsp of dried thyme
1 pie-crust (I make my own but a frozen one will do in a pinch)
2 tblsp of unsalted butter
3tblsp of flour
1 cup of lowfat milk
1 cup of chicken broth (when I can't make my own I use a tsp of Better than Boullion)
salt+pepper to taste

Make the piecrust and put in the fridge to rest while preparing the vegetables.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a skillet sautee the mushrooms in olive oil (about 2 tblsp) until tender and most of the water has been released. Pour into a medium sized bowl and set aside. Add another 2 tblsp of olive oil to skillet and sautee onions until tender. Pour that into the bowl with mushrooms and repeat sautee process with celery.

Once celery has been sauteed and poured into the vegetable bowl, reserve the skillet for making the roux. Add butter and heat till melted. Don't let the butter brown or heaven forbid burn. Add flour and whisk to blend. Keep whisking until the butter+flour paste turns a nice golden brown. It'll start to stick to the bottom of the skillet a bit and get really gooey. Add half the milk and whisk to blend. You may need to adjust the heat at this point. You want it to be warm enough so that it turns the butter+flour+milk mix into a nice thick gravy, but not so hot that the milk starts to bubble and boil before it has a chance to get married to the butter+flour. When your roux gets nice and thick, add the rest of the milk. Blend to smooth it out and wait till it gets nice and thick again and then thin out with 1/2 the chicken stock. Blend to smooth it out and then when it gets thick again, thin it out with the remaining chicken stock (again). This time blend to smooth it out and once it get's to that nice thick gravy consistency turn the heat down to the lowest possible. Add the herbs, salt and pepper and stir to incorporate.

Turn off the heat and add the sauteed vegetables, the cubed chicken, the potatoes and also the frozen mixed vegetables at this time to the roux. Mix it all up so that the veggies and chicken are completely saturated with the roux. Pour the mixture into a baking dish. Cover with the pie crust and set the baking dish on a baking tray in case the insides of the pot pie bubble over. You can cut slits into the pie crust too to let some of the steam out. My pies usually bubble over and the insides burble out of the sides of the baking dish pushing the pie crust out of the way. It gets a little messy, but I don't mind because it still tastes good. Bake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes or until the insides are bubbly and the crust is a nice golden brown. You might want to let it cool for a few minutes before serving, but I usually plate it piping hot while waiting for M to get to the table or getting drinks and such. By the time we've pulled our chairs up to the table the pie is just cooled enough for us to dig into.

white bean turkey chili

Sometimes when I can't fall asleep at night, I think about a sweater that I want to knit or a dress I want to sew. Somehow, this mental problem solving exercise does the trick of lulling me to sleep. And when I don't have a craft project to worry with my brain-teeth, I visualize cooking something that I've never cooked before.

The other night it was a white bean turkey chili. At least I don't believe I've cooked one before. I wanted to make a turkey chili, but I didn't want it to have a tomato sauce base. And I pictured it studded with bits of carrots and celery and served with a square of homemade cornbread. I really like the way it came out and I want to remember what I did.

White Bean Turkey Chili
1 lb ground turkey meat
1/4 lb of bacon (I found chunks of bacon ends at my local grocery store so I used that) chopped
1 med sized carrot chopped
1 stalk of celery chopped
1/2 smallish onion (I used yellow) chopped
1 medium Anaheim-type chili pepper
1 15oz can of white beans (I used navy beans, but I wonder if they were just a mite too small) drained
1 tbsp of ground cumin
1 tsp of chili powder (my chili didn't come out terrribly chili-flavoured, so maybe a good idea to use more)
2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 small bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

grated cheese for garnish (I used goat's milk white cheddar)

Roast the Anaheim chili pepper over a burner until blackened spots appear, turning pepper to roast evenly. Lay pepper in a medium sized bowl and cover with a plate so that it's mostly sealed. Set aside for about 15-20 minutes. The heat from roast will steam the skin off of the pepper. After it's sat in the bowl for 15-20 minutes, peel off the skin and discard. Slice and chop the pepper reserving the seeds if you want a kick-ier chili.

In a saucepan cook bacon until almost crispy and the fat has rendered. Add onions, carrots and celery and cook in the bacon grease scraping up the browned bits with a wooden spoon. When the vegetables have softened, add the ground turkey breaking up the meat so that it browns evenly and there aren't any large clumps of turkey meat.

When the turkey is more or less cooked through, add the beans and incorporate carefully so that the beans don't get smashed up with the stirring. Add the chopped roasted pepper. Add about half a can of water to the mix and then the herbs and spices. Stir well and cover letting the flavors and ingredients marry over a low heat. Stir occasionally checking to see that the water has mostly evaporated and a thicker stew has been left behind.

Serve with grated cheese and a square of cornbread.

Do you think closeup photos of my food is obscene?

winner, winner chicken dinner - oven fried chicken

[Note to self: Oven at 400 and use those glass baking dishes.]



My father-in-law mentioned something about a fried chicken his mother used to make in a dutch oven with just a little bit of oil or maybe a bit of butter when he was a kid. For picnics at the beach to feed her 5 kids. He says it's the best fried chicken he's ever had in his life. It sparked a memory about a recipe I had at home that I never tried out.

I've had this recipe for oven "fried" chicken for over 5 years. I heard about it on npr's All Things Considered and amazingly the recipe and story link are still on their site (you have to scroll down a bit towards the middle of the page).

I only just tried it out a few weeks ago and unfortunately it was a disaster. I guess I was thinking of what my father-in-law said and thought I needed a dutch oven. I don't have a dutch oven, but I do have a huge ovenproof skillet with an extra-heavy bottom that I sometimes use as a dutch oven. That's what I used last time when the chicken tasted good, but the mouth feel was all wrong and boy was it one ugly meal. Not surprisingly, this meal was not photographically documented.

I tried this recipe again tonight but somehow I ran out of real estate in the pan (something that hadn't occurred the previous go). So I pulled out my trusty glass baking dish and laid out half the chicken in it. The chicken is dredged in flour and cooked in the oven on two tablespoons of melted butter. After 45 minutes or so, the meat is golden brown and you flip it to brown the other side. The result is a crisp chicken, a little different from fried chicken but 100 times more heavenly if you ask me. I can't remember the last time I grunted my lip-smacking approval as many times as I did during dinner tonight. I couldn't help myself. I'd take a bite of chicken and just Oh my dear lord, this chicken is so good! I'd find myself murmuring.

I'll ditch my faux dutch oven and go straight for the baking dishes next time around. And the brining. Don't forget the brining. It's what makes the meat so freaking delicious, I believe.

I served this heavenly dish with roasted mashed sweet potatoes (I haven't gotten over it yet) and collared greens. When I was sketching out the menu yesterday I was far more ambitious thinking I would include cauliflower au gratin and fresh baked cornbread with this meal. Alas, I planned poorly and didn't have time. Next time, I suppose. Cause there will most certainly be a next (and next, and next and next) time.

meatballs

Speaking of comfort foods, I made meatballs for the first time. I've been having cravings for at least a few weeks. I'd planned to whip up something like the meatballs I enjoyed at a SuperBowl party last year (turkey+pork I believe, with an incredible sweet/tart/savory sauce) but I opted to go tradish for my first try.

I based my meatballs off of this recipe with a few changes. I didn't like the way the sauce read in the recipe. Seemed a little insubstantial. Discarding the drippings and browned bits from the meat is a crime in my kitchen. It makes the best sauces and gravies and such. If you can help it, never throw out those drippings!

So I turned the order of the recipe around and made the meatballs first and used the same skillet to make the sauce so that those yummy bits didn't go to waste. I think it made for a richer hearty sauce.

Also, since I used ground lamb instead of ground veal, I feel like there is a strong lamb flavour in the sauce (strangely though, not as much in the meatballs) which I sometimes minded and sometimes didn't (we've been eating meatballs pretty much all week alternating with cannelloni and other left-over meals). I'm mulling over how I might wrestle that flavor down so that it's savory and not overpowerful. Maybe a sprig of fresh rosemary in the sauce while it simmers? Or mix up the lamb on its own with some cumin+chopped rosemary and let it set for a day in the fridge before combining up with the rest of the meats? Problem is, I don't want the spices/herbs to overpower the rest of the flavours in the meatballs. They should just taste like meatballs not like I'm trying to mask the lamby flavour. I guess I could also try omitting lamb and using ground veal as I'd originally intended. Moving on.

I served the meatballs over a creamy polenta with some vegetables on the side. The photo above was from today's lunch so only the meatball and polenta and the sauce. Damn that sauce was good. I could get religious over it.

Jean's Meatballs
1/2 lb each of ground beef, pork and lamb (I'd like to try ground veal too one day as the original recipe called for. But since my grocer didn't carry any ground veal at the time, I went for lamb. Also, I'd recommend buying the best quality meat you can afford. I bought organic grassfed meats with a very low fat percentage and I do believe that it makes a difference in the taste. And the better quality lower fat meat is better for you.)
1/4 cup of a finely chopped onion (Next time, I'll try grating it as the original recipe recommends.)
1 16 oz can of chopped tomatoes
2 garlic cloves chopped
1 tsp dried oregano, crumbled
1 tsp dried basil
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup fine fresh bread crumbs
1/2 cup milk
5 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

In a small bowl stir together bread crumbs and milk and let stand 5 minutes. A thick paste will form. In a large mixing bowl combine meat, onion, 3 tablespoons parsley, the breadcrumb paste and a teaspoon salt and blend with your hands until just combined well (do not overmix). Form 2-tablespoon amounts into meatballs (about 20) and lay them on a baking sheet while working the rest of the meat mixture.

Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté meatballs in 2 batches, turning occasionally, until well browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer as browned with a slotted spoon to bowl.

Add a little more oil to the skillet and add the chopped garlic stirring until it softens. Add the chopped tomatoes and stir with a wooden spoon loosening up the bits of browned meat stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add the oregano, basil and the last two tablespoons of fresh parsely. Cook until the dried herbs have hydrated in the sauce and the flavors have married. Pour the sauce into a blender and pulse until smooth (I used a big bowl and a stick (immersion) blender). Pour the sauce back into the pan adding the meatballs. Let simmer over a low heat until the meatballs have cooked through about 5 minutes. Serve over pasta or creamy polenta like we did.

I hope I don't kill us from undercooked pork

I wanted a pork roast for dinner tonight. I had this great recipe in Gourmet Magazine for an awesome looking roast but it was for a bone-in roast which my local market didn't carry this morning. So I got a boneless roast instead and came up with something on the fly. It's in the oven right now and it smells pretty good. I am a little worried about the cooking time since I'm not too familiar with cooking pork roasts. And I don't want us to die from undercooked pork.

Guess I'd better fire up my search engine.

Recipe (more like a road map since I made it up as I went along) and results to follow.

* * * * *

I'm back, it's now after dinner. The table's been cleared and everything washed and put away and so far we're not dead.

The internet tells me that for pork roasts you want to cook until the inside temperature reaches 150-160 degrees. I had cooked this roast for nearly two hours and the meat thermometer was still hanging out at 140. I had this similar problem with the Thanksgiving bird. But I had to give up that night because M and I were both starving to death. And if there is a choice between starving to death and death from a really good albeit undercooked meal, M and I are the type of people who would choose to die on a full stomach. That's just us.

But here's the thing. I'm wondering if maybe my meat thermometer is off because the turkey was cooked fine. Just like tonight's roast was cooked fine. No suspicious bloody juices or anything. The meat was all firm and juicy in the yummy not deathly way. And we're also bad about letting our meat "rest" after pulling it out of the oven. When I get more experienced with cooking roasts I think I'll be able to time the cooking better. And I'll include the resting time too. But for now, I am just going to hope that we live through this experiment. I mean experience.

So here you go.

Pistachio and Spice Stuffed Boneless Pork Roast

1 organic boneless pork roast about 2.25 lbs
half cup of golden raisins chopped
half cup of chopped pistachios
1 tbsp of oregano
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/4 tsp of nutmeg
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp honey
drizzle of olive oil
1-2 cloves minced garlic (I used one regular sized one and one fat one and I think it was just a hair too much so next time I will use just one fat one or two regular sized ones)
salt & ground black pepper
pinch of white pepper
kitchen twine
1/4 cup dry white wine

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium sized bowl, combine all the ingredients except the pork and wine and mix well. I got the pork roast already trussed up in bakers twine, but I wanted to stuff it so I cut apart the strings and found that the roast was actually two pieces of meat tied up together to look like a much larger roast. No matter.

My goal was to cut away parts of the meat so that the cut bit was still attached to the rest of the roast. Then evenly spread the stuffing so that the meat can be folded back over itself. It will effectively become a cinnamon bun sort of swirl of pork and stuffing. The pictures tell it better than I have words for right now.

Then I spread the stuffing over one half of the meat and then place the two halves together and tie up with twine. I placed the trussed up roast into a baking dish and drizzled a little more olive oil over the top and added more salt and pepper.

I basted the meat a few times and cooked it for about an hour and a half to two hours. Or until the meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat read 150 degrees. Then I poured the wine over the meat and let it sit in the oven for another 5 minutes so that the wine can cook down a bit.

Remove from oven and let meat sit for 10 minutes (really) before cutting. Cut into slices and serve.

I served it with brussels sprouts (I can't get enough of 'em) and corn mush because I thought I had polenta and the internet told me that cornmeal was a finer grind of polenta so I gave it a go.

Tomorrow I'll write about some of my leftover turkey recipes, if I'm not dead that is.

The end.

thanksgiving was awesome

I hope all you Americans had a nice Thanksgiving. This year M and I went to my brother James' place.

Sorry about the blurry shots. I must have been excited over the spread. I tried to make my photos look artsy and hip by poladroiding them.

James and his wife Yoko hosted us with a feast and then musical performances in the guitar hero/rockband sort of way. It seems we are a singin' family. On M's side, they are a dancing family. When we gather and there's music on, our respective sides will sing or dance up a storm. We just can't help it.


James and Yoko's cats were at the ready. (James: Here's the photo you wanted. Let me know if you want the original jpg, dude.)


I did a lot of cooking this past weekend. Because we had ham at James+Yoko's, and with the influx of large birds in the market, I cooked up a turkey. What can I say? I am a greedy girl. I want my ham and my turkey.

I have come to love and revere brining my fowl.


And the cranberry sauce was my particular favorite. All my life I've pretty much et cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving that came out of a can (ridges intact sometimes). Why don't we make cranberry sauce more often? It's so crazy delicious and easy to make. Rinse fresh berries picking out the soft ones. Boil in water with a cup or two of sugar. Strain through a fine sieve or cheesecloth into a bowl. Set aside to cool. Eat and go into fresh cranberry sauce ecstasies.

The night I cooked up the turkey, I ran out of time and didn't get to bake any breadish sort of deal. But the cranberry sauce (which had jelled up nicely on its own) was begging to be spread over some fresh biscuits. And there was gravy too. So I made these the next morning (honk if you love 4 day weekends! I mean, can I get an AMEN?).

I made them once before (from a Martha Stewart Living recipe) and they were fantastic, sick good but way lumpy and ugly. I've got a better handle on working with cut up bits of butter and dough, these are much prettier.

I made some adjustments to the original recipe which calls for two sticks of butter and two cups of heavy cream (be still my heart, literally). So I'm including it below in case you want to give it a shot. The original recipe came from MSL November of 2001.

Now I'm going to try and motivate with some exercise to work off all this amazing food I've been eating.

Baking Powder Biscuits
(Makes 12 pretty biscuits, but you can squeeze out a few more with the scraps. Not as pretty, but still as tasty)

4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces (make sure the butter stays cold throughout. I am serious about this. If you think the butter has warmed up at all, then stick the bowl with the flour and butter and everything in the fridge (or freezer even) for a few minutes and then work again once the butter is cold.)
1.5 cups lowfat milk (I used 2%, but I bet nonfat milk would work as well)
1/2 cup of heavy cream

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Whisk together well. Add the butter and using a pastry blender or two knives, cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
2. Add the milk and cream and stir just until dough comes together, it will be sticky.
3. Transfer to a lightly floured surface and with floured fingers, pat down to a 1" thickness. Use a 2 1/2" round biscuit or cookie cutter to cut the biscuits, cutting as close as possible so there are very few scraps. (NB: I used a rolling pin to gently roll the dough into the general shape and thickness. And I used a small jar that was about the size I wanted my biscuits to be. I enjoyed the soft popping noise the dough would make as I pushed down on it with the glass and the air released from between the dough and glass and surface.)
4.Transfer to a baking sheet. Bake until lightly browned about 20 minutes. Remove from oven, cool on a wire rack and serve warm.

NOTES:
MS has a few variations on the recipe where you can add chopped up fresh herbs if you want to serve these as a savory accompaniment to your meal.

Next time I make this, I might try and go for a version with no cream at all. Maybe whole milk and no cream? And if that works, lowfat milk with no cream? And then eventually wean myself into a nonfat milk version so that the only naughty bit is the butter. Something to think about.

Also, since it's just M and me, we have a lot of these babies left (dangerous!) and so I stored them in a sealed container in the fridge. They still taste good a few days later, heated in the toaster oven. With fresh cranberry jelly of course. Bon appetit my friends.

quiche for all

Except Pekoe.


This quiche has become a regular part of my dinner menu rotation. I got the recipe from epicurious, but I've made a few adjustments. So what the heck? I'll post it here with my changes. I served it with a simple salad of red boston lettuce+bartlett pears+goat cheese+walnuts+homemade vinaigrette.

It was a nice crisp counterpoint to the quiche. Just a little sweetness from the pear, a little freshness after a bite of the cozy hot quiche. Yum. The quiche has only three eggs and lots of arugala. So I'm wondering if this might not be considered a guilty pleasure. There is bacon, but maybe with organic heritage bacon? And organic low-fat cheese? Possibly this could be good for you? Even the crust, I adapted the recipe so it's only one stick of butter. So a little heavy on the butter. Oh, and a cup of cream. Rats. So maybe not. But if you went for a run that day and ate a salad for lunch, I think this slightly rich dinner would be okay.


Arugula & Bacon Quiche
Crust
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
4-6 tablespoons (about) ice water

Filling
6 bacon slices, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 cup chopped shallots
8 ounces arugula, stems trimmed, leaves coarsely chopped (about 5 1/2 cups)
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

1 cup whipping cream
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 cup shredded Gruyère cheese (about 2 1/2 ounces. I’ve always used something else from parmesan to mozzarella. Not a huge fan of the gruyere.)

Preparation
For crust: Blend flour and salt with a whisk. Add butter. Using a fork and the whisk you can break up the butter with the flour to process until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Mix in enough ice water to form moist clumps. Gather dough into ball; flatten into disk. Wrap in plastic and chill until dough is firm enough to roll out, about 30 minutes. Roll out dough on floured surface to 12-inch round. Transfer to 9-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom. Trim dough overhang to 1 inch. Fold overhang in and press, forming double-thick high-standing sides. Pierce crust all over with fork. Freeze crust 30 minutes. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and keep frozen.) NB: I use a pyrex pie pan and just rolled out the dough to fit the pan. We like crust in our household. Also, if you’re not accustomed to making piecrust from scratch, just keep in mind that everything needs to be really cold. If your ingredients lose their ice-box chill, stick everything in the fridge for about half an hour (bowl, flower, whisk, etc). Also if it’s a hot day, and you‘ve got no AC, you might want to wait till night when it’s cooler to work the dough and then store it till the next day for the baking. It also helps to have really cold hands when you are handling the dough. Sometimes I dunk my hands in ice cold water for a few minutes to get them cool.

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 400°F. Bake crust until golden brown, piercing with fork if crust bubbles, about 20 minutes. Transfer crust to rack. Reduce temperature to 375°F.

For filling: Cook bacon in heavy medium skillet over medium-high heat until crisp, about 5 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels and drain. Add shallots to same skillet and sauté until tender, about 2 minutes. Add arugula and sauté until just wilted, about 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add balsamic vinegar; toss to combine.

Sprinkle arugula mixture, then bacon over crust. Whisk cream, eggs, salt and pepper in large bowl to blend. Stir in cheese. Pour mixture into crust.

Bake quiche until filling is slightly puffed and golden, about 45 minutes- 1hour. Let stand 10 minutes. Cut into wedges. Serve with a salad and a nice wine. Don't let your cat get into it.