Garlic stuffed pork anyone?

Do you like pork?  Do you like Garlic?  Do you wonder why you haven't put them together yet? If you answered no to all of the questions above, you probably don't need to read on ... otherwise, please do.

For this dinner I had a pork tenderloin and was looking for something fun to do with it.  This was a leadup meal to vacation, so I was serving it simply with rice and roasted veggies, so I really needed the pork to have a kick and make the dish.

I decided that garlic would be the way to go to make this dinner healthy but still have a kick.

Garlic Stuffed Pork
1 pork tenderloin
1/2 tbsp dijon mustard
7 cloves of garlic (or the equivalent of garlic paste or pre-minced garlic)
2 tbsp parmesan cheese (grated or shredded)
kitchen twine
salt and pepper mix

Preheat oven to 375F.  Remove the skin from the garlic and slice thinly (skip this step if using paste or pre-minced).  Use a sharp knife to cut a slit, lengthwise, starting and ending about 1/2" from either end.  The slit should be about halfway deep into the pork.  Spread the mustard evenly into the slit that you have cut.  Layer the garlic slices (or mince/paste) into the slit that you cut, filling it evenly.  Top the garlic with the parmesan cheese, again filling evenly.  Use the kitchen twine to tie the pork back together (between 4 and 5 pieces most likely), keeping the slit to the top.  Put the pork into a roasting pan with a rack, sprinkle the top with salt and pepper mix and then into the oven it goes.  The pork should cook for between 30 and 45 minutes (or until a meat thermometer registers 160F) depending on the size of your tenderloin.  I prefer to cook mine covered, but if you like the outside a little crispy you can cook it uncovered, however you risk drying the pork out a bit.  Remove from the oven and let sit for about 5 minutes, slice & Enjoy!

Scallops with a spicy polenta

Anyone who has been reading this blog for a bit is surely starting to think that we have an infatuation with scallops ... my question back would be: why don't you?

That being said, sometimes just cooking some scallops over pasta gets a little boring, so for this dinner we were looking to spice it up.  I decided to whip up a batch of polenta and make that the flavor base for this dish by adding some heat to it.

Spicy Polenta
1 cup yellow corn grits (not instant)
6 cups water
1/4 cup of diced green chilies (canned, found in the Mexican food section of your grocer)
1 jalapeno
1/2 tsp garlic pepper
1 tbsp whole milk
2 tbsp grated asiago cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Bring water to a boil and add grits.  Turn down heat to a simmer and continue to stir grits with a whisk frequently (to keep from sticking and burning) for about 30 minutes.  While this is going on, drain the green chilis and dice the jalapeno (deseeded if you would like less heat).  After the 30 minutes add the chilies, jalapeno and garlic pepper and continue to stir occasionally to allow the polenta to thicken (about 15-20 minutes).  After the polenta has thickened, remove from heat, stir in the milk and cheese and any salt and pepper you want to add, serve and enjoy!

Blistered (my mouth) salsa with steak and sweet potato puree

For this dinner I decided that I wanted to throw a curveball to a somewhat basic combination of sweet potato puree and steak.  I made a fairly basic sweet potato puree and served sliced grilled steak over the top of that.  But the part of this dinner that really lit it up was the salsa.

Blister (my mouth) salsa
10 Cherry Tomatoes
1/2 red onion (quartered)
2 large jalapenos
6 garlic cloves

Pre-heat an oven to 425F (I use my counter-top for this) and wash all the veggies.  Put the onion and the jalapenos on the pan and into the oven once pre-heated. Cook for about 10 minutes and then flip the jalapenos and onion and then put the tomatoes on the pan.  After 10 minutes add the garlic.  Continue checking the veg until it is all shriveled and the garlic is soft (if the garlic begins to blacken pull it out).

Allow the veggies to cool for about 10 minutes before the next step.  If you want to take a little of the heat out of the salsa, cut a slit into the slides of the jalapenos and remove the seeds (discarding them).  Remove the back most part of the jalapenos and then roughly chop all of the veggies before mixing them well in a bowl and then spooning on top of the food of your choice, enjoy!

More Morel Mushrooms Makes My Meal Magnificent!

Yes, I apologize for the alliteration but once I had written "more morel mushrooms" I just had to see if I could complete the entire title using only words starting with M!

I did one of our old favorites for this dinner: broiled dry-aged NY Strip steak, rice and sauteed greens and so in an attempt to jazz it up, I decided to do a Morel mushroom au jus to top it off.  Morel mushrooms are a great, flavorful, mushroom that has a fun shape for stuffing (as I have posted about before) as well as a great texture.  Beware though of two things (which do kinda off-set each other): Morel mushrooms are almost always sold dry, and are quite pricey (although you will be surprised how much you get for a little money) and they can give you a bit of a tummy ache if you eat too many.  I buy them at the bulk section at Whole Foods and can usually get 10 - 12 of them for about 5 bucks.

Morel Au-jus
6-8 large dried Morel mushrooms
1 cup beef stock (Veggie stock can be used here too!)
Little bit of butter

Put the mushrooms and stock in a 2 cup measuring cup and then weight them down with something like a smaller measuring cup or bowl so that the mushrooms are as submerged as possible in the stock.  Allow the mushrooms to re-constitute in the stock for about an hour.

Once the mushrooms have softened, remove them from the stock being careful to allow excess liquid to drain back into the measuring cup.  Begin heating a small saute, or sauce, pan over medium high heat. Put the mushrooms on a cutting board and chop them shortways, so that they make rings.

Put the butter in the pan and allow it to melt around the pan (you should use just enough butter that spreads around the base of the pan). Put the mushroom rings into the pan and saute for about 2 minutes, using a wooden spoon to keep moving them and making sure they don't stick.

Add the stock that you have retained and allow it to cook down to about half of what it was before turning the heat to the lowest setting (or melt setting if you have that one).

(Optional Step) If have allowed your steak to rest on a cutting board and some juices have leaked out (and if you had an juices in the pan from the broiler) ... you should definitely add these juices to the stock and mushroom mix and stir well before serving.

Your Au-jus is now ready to go on top of your meal, try it and enjoy!

Comfort Food = Meatballs

It was a dark and cold sunday and Shells & I were looking for something warming to make the day feel better.  I really just wanted to spend the day in chef pants and a sweatshirt on the couch, so I tried to come up with something that would meet both requirements.

I wandered around Whole Foods looking for inspiration and when I saw the huge line at the meat counter I decided to see what was in the packaged case.  I saw the packages of ground meats and that made my decision for me ... I grabbed a 1 lb package of ground pork and a 1 lb package of ground veal.

Now that I had my main course figured out, I worked my way back through the store filling out the remainder of what I would need: white beans, asiago cheese, pancetta, Pomi strained tomatoes, garlic cloves, red onion and brussels sprouts.

I got home and put on the before mentioned chef pants and a chef coat (the sweatshirt would come once this first part was done), put down a cutting board and grabbed my favorite knife.  I finely diced the red onion and cut the garlic cloves into slices and then tossed them into a sauce pot that I had heated over medium-high heat with olive oil.  I cooked the onion and garlic until lightly browned and then reduced the heat and added the tomatoes and some salt, pepper, dried basil and crushed red pepper.

I put a cup of white beans in a pot with three cups of water and then brought it to a boil.  I had to do this because I hadn't made the decision to cook this in time to soak them overnight.  Once it reached the boil I reduced the heat.

I left the sauce and beans, covered, on the lowest heat settings and just let them cook for a few hours while I donned the sweatshirt and retired to the couch.

I would eventually get back up off the couch to make the meatballs (pork, veal, bread crumbs, grated asiago cheese, eggs and seasoning) and after cooking them I served them over a bed of white beans, topped with sauce and accompanied by pan roasted brussels sprouts w/ pancetta.  Shells prefers hers ordered on a plate (pictured above) while I enjoyed mine all mixed together in a bowl (below) ... try it either way and enjoy!

2014 New Years Eve dinner

This year, Shells and I had some company over for New Years Eve dinner, so we thought we would do something fun.  We also looked for something that would burn some time so that we could hopefully make it to midnight!

We went with an Italian theme for dinner as we could make everything from scratch and we had plenty of inspiration with 3 new cookbooks.  In addition to all of this fun, I also was looking for something that would let me play with my new Christmas toy ... my Vitamix!

First things first, we were going to be making different stuffed pastas so I pre-heated the oven to 325F and put l lb of pork belly and about 3 lbs of short ribs in to cook.  The pork belly was slow roasted on a raised pan, and covered with foil, to allow the grease to drip off of the pork.  The short ribs were braised with red wine, beef stock and pomi strained tomatoes.

For the first course, I made frutti del mare with some fresh fish and calamari.  I used a light mixture of flour, yellow grits, salt & pepper to dust the seafood before pan frying them in light olive oil.

For the second course I made one of our favorite dishes from Marc Vetri's Vetri restaurant in Philadelphia: Sweet Onion Crepe with White Truffle Fondue.  We cooked down the onions for a little over two hours and then cooked the crepe.  I spread a layer of onions across the entire surface of the crepe and then rolled it.  I allowed the crepe to sit for a few minutes and then sliced it into circles.  I sprinkled the top with parmesan cheese and then cooked them in a 500F oven for a few minutes to brown the tops and then served the crepe over a bed of the White Truffle Fondue.

For the next course, I made mini "caprese" calzones.  Shells made the pizza dough and when it was time I rolled it out and made four small calzones stuffed with mozzarella cheese, fresh tomatoes and basil.  I cooked them on the pizza stone at 500F until they were nicely browned.

Following the calzone was the first of our stuffed pasta courses, Roasted Pork Belly Manicotti.  I shredded the slow roasted pork belly and mixed it in a bowl with roughly chopped red chard and a little bit of parmesan cheese.  I stuffed the mixture into cooked manicotti shells and then put the shells side by side in an oven-proof dish.  I covered with bechamel and topped with more parmesan cheese.  I cooked the manicotti for about 20 minutes in a 450F oven.  While the manicotti was cooking I got a chance to play with my Vitamix!  I made a sweet potato and sage puree by slowly cooking the potatoes and sage in milk and then adding all of the ingredients to the Vitamix and pureeing until smooth.  I served the manicotti over a bed of the sweet potato puree and a side of roasted brussels sprouts.

For the last course of the evening I pulled the short ribs from the oven and went to work on Shell's and my Short Rib Ravioli.  I pulled out all of the ribs and then moved the red sauce to a new pan (I didn't need to do this but I didn't have room on the stove for the large Le Creuset so I moved to a smaller sauce pan).  I added the meat from three of the short ribs to the red sauce and another small box of strained tomatoes.  I reserved one of the ribs to provide a topper and then shredded the rest of them into a bowl with ricotta cheese to make the ravioli filling.  I mixed the filling together well and then handed it off to Shell's to make the raviolis.  Once the ravioli was prepared, I cooked them in a pot of boiling water and then plated them over the red sauce and topped with a little of the reserved short rib and some shaved parmesan cheese.

The final course of the evening was Shell's new favorite dessert, babkallah which she will be posting about in the near future.

Taco Night

I've found that a quick way to make flavorful tacos is to de-case fresh sausages that are already spiced and make a good taste.  Whole Foods near us has been making a lot of great flavors that work well as taco filling such as: cilantro chicken and chipotle chicken.

I just de-case the sausages and cook them in a saute pan, breaking it up well.  I'll add a little bit of extra spices if needed (e.g. red pepper flakes with the cilantro chicken) and serve it as the main protein.

For this dinner I added rice and beans, sliced avocado and quesadillas with the sausage.  Try it and enjoy!

Stuffed Rib Roast

Does anything say Christmas Dinner quite as well as a nice rib roast?  I can't think of anything.

For this dinner I took a page from the most recent Bon Appetit and then put a little twist on it.  The stuffing was a horseradish and parsley stuffing, but rather than butterflying and stuffing a boneless roast, I went with a bone-in rib roast.  I used a sharp, flexible, knife to make an incision between the bones and the meet, careful to go slowly and only about half way so that the bones would stay attached to the meet.

I packed the stuffing into the space created and then cooked the roast as I would normally.  I served it with roasted brussels sprouts and pancetta.

Preparing a pasta dish like they do in a restaurant

I have to admit that whenever I see U-10 scallops at the store, I have to buy them.  For this dinner I went very simple with a white wine, butter and garlic sauce over the noodles paired with kale and the scallops.

If you have the pans to do it, and want to make your pasta like they do in a restaurant, you'll want to use one saute pan per portion that you are preparing.  Start a pot of water boiling on a back burner, and then heat up your saute pans (I used two in this instance since it was just Shells and I for dinner) on the front burners.

Once your pans are warm add a little olive oil to each saute pan and then start cooking the kale until it has cooked down a bit (about 5-7 minutes).  You'll want to time your pasta cooking to finish just as the scallops do, for this instance I needed 6 minutes so I put the pasta into the pot of boiling water just before starting the scallops..

Next add a dollop of butter to each saute pan and then add the scallops.  I cooked these for about 3 minutes per side.once I flipped the scallops I added the chopped garlic (I used pre-roasted garlic) and white wine.  After three more minutes I removed both pans from heat, drained the pasta, and then added some butter to each pan, stirring to make the sauce.  I added the portion of pasta to each pan and then used tongs to mix everything together and then slide the whole bit right from the pan onto each plate.

Try and enjoy!