[TND] 12.18 Balsamic Garlic Pork Loin

I adapted a Rachel Ray recipe for pork tenderloin. Hers had the tenderloins rubbed with balsamic vinegar and then crushed garlic in slits. I used roasted garlic instead, and because I didn't want to leave the house, didn't put fresh thyme and rosemary on it. I used a bit more balsamic vinegar, and then made a glaze from more vinegar, a bit of butter, and the drippings from the pan I roasted the pork in.

I paired it with some roasted potatoes and some salad (with a balsamic vinegarette). I'd like to do something a bit more herbal with the potatoes, I think it would tie together a bit better.

I made some dessert too, an experiment I've been meaning to try for a few weeks now. It's an upside down apple caramel tart. We had some issues making the caramel, as I had a drastically smaller cooking time then was actually required. Gotta let it sit for a long while, until it reduces and then finally caramelizes. We let it go a little too long, and so the final product tasted a bit burnt. I think the second cooking means you can err on the side of not as caramelized. You take peeled apples, slice it in half, then split one of the halves into thirds. A bit of caramel in the bottom of a ramekin, then the half apple, then arrange the thirds on top of it to make a flat area. Add more caramel, and top with puff pastry. I need a better way to cut the puff pastry, it ended up kind of ragged and uneven and not quite the right shape. I also need deeper ramekins. Or smaller apples. But really, I think deeper ramekins is the way to go. Also, it really, really needs vanilla ice cream.

[TND] 12.08 Seafood feast

I missed one or two in here, teaching a class from 5 to 6:30pm on Tuesdays has made it difficult to do the dinners every week. I did make turkey noodle soup from the turkey stock from thanksgiving, but I'm not sure that was on Tuesday.

Kuba came down for the weekend, and brought with him a bunch of scallops and some white fish (flounder, possibly some haddock) that he had taken out of the water on his last cruise on the NOAA fisheries research boat. The fish and scallops went directly into the deep freezer, so were about as fresh as it gets without cooking it on the boat. I also had stopped by a Polish bakery nearby, and gotten some fresh kielbasa. So instead of using bacon to wrap the scallops, I sliced the kielbasa thinly, and put the scallops on top of it. I also made a tarragon polenta crust for the top, which I also used on some of the white fish. I wasn't sure how many people I would have, so I got some shrimp on sale and made a quick scampi as well. The scallops were definitely the highlight, sweet, tender and delicious. The kielbasa worked beautifully, since it was subtler than bacon would have been, but still had a nice smoke and spice to it. A lot of it was the quality of both scallop and kielbasa, and I'm not sure I'd recommend it with lesser versions.

I also took the opportunity to overcome a hesitation I had in making risotto. Last time I made it, I used a wok, since it was the only appropriately sized pan I had. This is suboptimal, as you don't get even heating, and thus don't get even texture. This time I used my Caphalon 12" everything pan, which lives up to its name admirably, and it was a different experience. Much better integration, nice texture, much easier than last time. Parmesan and parsley to finish, and it was a nice backdrop to the seafood.

[TND] 11.06 Tomato Soup, Potato Pancakes and Pumpkin Pie

The tomato soup I made is one I make very frequently in the winter, since it's based on canned tomatoes and quite good despite that. Basically put a chopped potato, a quartered yellow onion, 3 cups of water, 2-4 tablespoons of butter, a couple bay leaves, the juice of an orange (save the zest), a tablespoon (or more) of cumin (I like to had ground ginger and a bit of coriander too), a bit of salt and pepper into a big pot. Boil, reduce to a simmer for 15-20 minutes. Add two big (28 oz) cans of peeled tomatoes, the zest from the orange, and bring back to a boil. Let it simmer for at least another 20 min, though it can easily sit and simmer for longer if you need it to. Fish out the bay leaves, blend it with an immersion blender (beware steam/splatter). It can simmer for a while without issue, serve it hot with fresh chives and sour cream. You can supplement the orange with more juice, or even use two oranges, but I don't think I'd use all the zest, in that case. It scales wonderfully, halves or doubles, and is quite lovely on winter nights. The original recipe puts it through a mesh strainer before server, but you lose so much fantastic texture from the tomatoes and potato that I don't recommend this.

Best thing about it is what you can dip into it. I've done grilled buffalo mozarella sandwiches before, but last night we did potato pancakes. There was a recipe in the most recent Fine Cooking, but it relied very heavily on a specific type of food processor with different grating attachments. We grated up a bunch of potatoes, a couple of onions, and mixed them together with salt, pepper, paprika, flour and eggs. Two eggs, two onions for 2.5 lbs of potatoes, maybe half a cup of flour, but it's really just looking for texture. Squeeze out as much liquid as possible, fry, keep warm in the oven. I only have one pan suitable for frying, so it took a long time, but I also made some applesauce to go with them. Surprising to me was that the combination of the potato pancake with applesauce was very nice with the citrusy-spicy tomato soup.

Finally, I made pumpkin pie. I cheated on the crust for lack of time, using the Whole Foods frozen premades, and used the recipe out of the Joy of Cooking with pointers from my Dad. I ended up with excess mixture, which I put into little custard cups and cooked as though they were custard, in a water bath. Water baths suck, I need to work on executing that before I try it with an actual custard. One important note, make sure you stir the pie mixture immediately before pouring into the crusts, or else the spices, particularly the ginger, seems to settle. I also would like to get the appropriate spices from Penzey's, instead of using the McCormick ones, as they really do make or break the pie.

[TND] 10.30 Acorn Squash Pasta

A couple weeks ago, Dave gave me a couple of acorn squash that his mother had found mysteriously growing in her garden. I supplemented them with a few organic, locally grown squash from the supermarket. I found a pretty simple recipe for making squash into a sauce of sorts, and modified it pretty heavily to get the end product.

I peeled (skinned?) the squash (I used five 2 lb squash), chopped them into 1" pieces or so, and roasted them much as one would potatoes, with olive oil, salt and pepper. Parchment paper on the bottom of the pans is amazing and I wish someone had told me about it sooner. I also roasted some garlic in the usual way (3 heads, we likes the garlic). Garlic goes into a pan with a bit of (optional) butter, and half a bottle of white wine, Barefoot Chardonnay in this case. Heated it to a simmer, let it do that for a while, then added about half of the squash, since there was no room in the pan for more. Stir that, let it integrate and come back to heat, started the pasta (3 lbs) cooking. Once the pasta was done, reserved about 2 cups of the cooking water, drained, and put the squash-garlic mixture into the pasta pot with the rest of the squash, put it back on the heat, then added pasta water until the texture was nice and smooth. Added about half a cup to a cup of shredded parmesan cheese, stirred and heated until I couldn't see the parmesan anymore, tweaked it with more pasta water. I added a dollop of sour cream, half and half or milk would work nicely too, though you could just as easily skip it and the parmesan if you wanted it vegan. Then add the pasta, I used rotini so the squash would get into the ridges, and mix thoroughly.

While this was going on, I fried some sage leaves, which in the future, I will do ahead of time, since they really need to be watched. I used a mixture of olive oil and butter, the latter being the traditional, the former making it easier not to end up with a lot of burnt stuff.

Serve the pasta with toasted walnuts, more shredded parmesan, and crumble some of the fried sage leaves on top. I served it with some mixed greens with a balsamic dressing, which was a really nice pairing, to the point of potentially using balsamic vinegar on the pasta next time.

[TND] 10.16 Mac'n'cheese

Pure and simple, mac and cheese. I use the white parts of some scallions in the roux, sweet paprika, and white pepper. There was a bunch of edam on sale at the grocery store, so I used that and some sharp cheddar, so it's going to have a lot of sharp flavor, as I usually cut the cheddar with monterey jack instead. Since I didn't add anything like ham or veggies, the sharpness doesn't have anything to compete with.

[TND] 10.2 Flank steak, roasted potatoes, green beans

A simple birthday dinner designed to make good use of the last of the grilling weather. I definitely need a bigger grill, the two little ones are nice for some purposes, but just lack the surface area that I need for my typical grilling ventures. I did the flank steak with lime juice, ancho chile powder, salt and pepper, something I did a couple times this summer. I got the steaks from a different place, and there was definitely a noticeable difference. The more I use the all natural, grain fed beef from Highland Park, the less I want to eat the stuff from the regular grocery store. I think I'd rather have steak of higher quality, less often, then the lower quality steak. Green beans were just steamed, probably some of the last of the summer. I did some of the potatoes with cumin, some without, both were quite delicious. I did have to roast them a lot longer than I would have thought, which is something to bear in mind for future roasting endeavors. I also recently saw a recommendation to try parchment paper on the bottom of the roasting dish to prevent sticking, I'll have to try that next time.

[TND] 9.25 Shepherd's Pie

A while ago, I had an idea for a less traditional shepherd's pie, using sweet potatoes instead of the traditional russet. It's a pretty intuitive idea, so you can probably find some recipes out there for it. I couldn't find one I liked, so I just made mashed sweet potatoes like I would have to serve separately, with a bit of brown sugar and a hint of ancho chile powder. At the suggestion of my mom, I used frozen corn, heated 3/4 of the cooking time (I got the organic stuff 'cause it was on sale). I wanted to mix ground beef and lamb, but the grocery store had one small package of lamb, so it was basically just ground beef. Typical seasonings, but I also added a good bit of chipotle chile powder. A while ago I made some twice baked sweet potatoes with chipotle, and the combination is quite good. It worked very well here, I'll definitely be doing this recipe again.