Bone in pork chops ... this time no brine!

I know that for frequent readers of this blog, it will amaze you that I cooked a pork chop that I didn't brine first, but that's my commitment to you dear readers that I'll change it up so you don't get bored!

For this meal I started with two bone-in, thick cut, pork chops and cut into them from the middle towards the bone.  This allowed me to open them up and have a nice large area for stuffing!  For this dish I decided to go simple and so I went with a blend of peppers for the stuffing and then grilled the chops.

I diced up a couple large pieces of roasted red pepper and one serrano pepper (I kept the seeds to increase the heat but you could go either way with it).  I pressed the red peppers pretty well to get the liquid that they were packed in out, otherwise it will cause them to ooze water when cooking.  If you have a nice cheese that will melt but not ooze too much (a parmesan or something like that) it would make for an interesting addition to the mix.

After stuffing the pork chops I grilled them (remember that the butterflying of them will cause them to cook more quickly), hitting them with a little bit of bbq sauce right at the end to give a little glaze, and then served them with braised greens and oven roasted sweet potato waffle fries.  They came out awesome so I will definitely be trying other combinations like this in the future ... try it yourself and enjoy!

What sort of hash does one serve with fish? Read and see ...

Not everyone finds fish to be as exciting as I do without accompaniments, for my regular readers you will know that Shells falls into this category.  For this dinner I decided to forgo my regular salsa or sauce topper and went with a take on a hash instead.  For this hash I used a potato base with a mix of veggies and, of course, some garlic.  I served it with a piece of broiled red snapper.

Onion & Pepper Hash

2 small yellow potatoes

1 small yellow onion

6 cloves of garlic

20 shishito peppers

1 Tbsp olive oil

Chop all of the veggies into bite sized pieces, keep the potato separate and soak in water for 30 minutes, drain and allow to sit in a colander for 30 minutes.  Slice the garlic cloves.  Heat the oil in a saute pan over medium high heat and once hot add your potatoes.  Use a wooden spoon, or spatula, to keep moving the potatoes around for a few minutes or so to prevent them from sticking, after about 10 minutes add the onion and shishito peppers.  Continue to stir and agitate the mix for another 5 minutes and then add the garlic.  Cook for another 5 - 10 minutes (until everything is as browned and done as you'd like) and then serve and enjoy!

There's a reason that everyone prefers to eat at an Italian Grandmother's house!

There's just something about Italian food that makes you feel all warm and happy inside.  Movies will tell you that for Italian chef's "food is love" or that you should "never trust a skinny Italian chef" ... I don't know about all of that, but I do know that when it was cold outside the other day I knew that only a nice filled pasta dish would do.

I thought about stuffing the pasta with the scallops I served for this meal, as well as the other fillings, but figured that might be over-kill for the simple, and classic, taste that I was going for.  The scallops therefore were relegated to the side!

For the filling I started with the traditional cheese base, ricotta, and then decided to add a non-traditional kale to the garlic and peppers.

Kale & Pepper Stuffed Manicotti
6 pieces dried manicotti pasta (cook in salted, boiling water, for 7 minutes then cool on a rack before stuffing)
2 bunches kale
1 large yellow bell pepper
3 cloves of garlic (feel free to add as much more as you'd like)
2 cups ricotta cheese
2-3 cups of pasta sauce (red sauce or vodka sauce; may not use it all)

Preheat oven to 400F.  Cook your kale however you prefer, I sauteed/steamed in a large saute pan to allow it to cook down (steamed) then ultimately removed most of the liquid via sauteing.  I diced it and then transferred to a large bowl to cool.  I then diced the pepper and the garlic and sauteed them until the pepper was just soft and then added to the kale.

Once the veggies had cooled to room temperature I added the ricotta and stirred until it was well mixed.  I then stuffed the manicotti with the mixture (don't worry if you have a little filling left over, it will be great in an omlette the next morning) and put them in a single layer in a baking dish.  I covered the manicotti with the sauce (I used vodka sauce for this dish), topped with a little shredded parmesan cheese and then popped it into the oven for about 25 minutes.  Once cooked remove and serve with a spatula, enjoy!

Flank Steak with Blistered Tomatillo Salsa

For the longest time I did not think I liked tomatillos, and not because I didn't like the taste.  They're annoying because you have to take the shell off of them, and they're sticky.  Great reasons, right?

Well, luckily, I've been forcing myself to get over this and do some cooking with them recently which has lead to some pretty awesome results.  For this dinner I wanted something with a bit of heat and flavor to go with strip steak so I fired up the oven to make a Blistered Tomatillo Salsa.

Blistered Tomatillo Salsa
10 tomatillos (husks removed)
8 cloves garlic (add less if you don't have a garlic obsession like me, add more if you are afraid of vampires)
1/2 small yellow onion (peeled and halved)
2 serrano peppers
1 lime
1 avocado
Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 400F.  Put the tomatillos, garlic, onion and peppers on a tray and into the oven they go.  They will need to roast for about 20 - 30 minutes, but check every five minutes or so (flip after ten) and remove the individual items as they finish roasting (garlic should be golden and soft, everything else should have a bit of a char on it and also be soft).

You'll want to bring the veggies to room temp, and while this is happening you can decide how much heat you want the salsa to have.  Remove the stems from the peppers no matter what, but then choose to remove some or all of the seeds to bring down the heat (this can be easily done by cutting the peppers lengthwise and using a spoon to scrape them out).

Transfer the room temp veggies (plus any liquid that accumulated in your roasting pan) to your vitamix (or blender) and then add the avocado and the juice of the lime.  Add salt and pepper to taste and then blend until smooth.  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!

Lately it's been corporate by day & night ...

The last few days have been pretty hectic getting ready for a workout next week, so while that has not prevented me from cooking, it has put a damper on my posting ability.  This is going to be a bit of a quick post, but I thought I'd catch up on the last couple of nights' dinners while I have a few minutes between meetings.

Tuesday night I decided to try something a little new, a buffalo flat iron steak.  I marinated it in Stubs Steakhouse Marinade overnight and then grilled it.

I served the steak sliced over black beans and rice and topped it with grilled red onion and sliced avocado.  I served a salad on the side.

Wednesday night we went back to an old favorite ... stuffed peppers.  Usually I don't break this dish out until the farmer's market opens and I can go get nice big local sweet & spicy peppers, but I decided to use some bell peppers to make this work instead.

For the stuffing I mixed in some of the leftover rice and beans from the night before with de-cased cilantro chicken sausages and some shredded cheese.  I topped & deseeded the peppers, stuffed with the mixture and then baked them on 425F for about 40 minutes, turning a few times to make sure that all sides blistered a bit.  With about 5 minutes to go I put some shredded cheese on top of each and let it melt.  I topped the peppers with avocado salsa & served with quesadillas and salad.

Quick avocado salsa

1 avocado (medium)

15 cherry tomatoes

1/2 lime

1/2 red onion (small)

1 hot pepper

I rough chopped all ingredients but the lime and added to a tupperware container, squeezing the lime juice over.  A good shake of the container mixed the ingredients and then I let sit in the fridge while I cooked dinner.  One more shake to ensure everything was mixed well and it was ready to go.