Blueberry Salmon Avocado green salad

An ample salad for a crowd to get a taste. This is a scaled up and tossed version of a composed salad I did last year.

First allow me to review my Master Salad Schema:

• Fresh greens
• Vegetable(s)
• A fruit
• A meat
• A nut, toasted
• A soft to medium cheese
• Grated Hard cheese(s)
• A small amount of dressing
• Fresh Ground Coriander

Depending on what is in season and what is on hand I vary the details and try to fill out the other choices to balance. In this case I used:

• One head each of red leaf, green leaf, romaine lettuce
• Two carrots, scrubbed, chopped, soaked in white balsamic vinegar
• Fresh blueberries, and sliced avocado
• Smoked Salmon (skinned, flaked, no bones)
• Toasted pecans coarsely chopped
• Fresh lemon curdled cheese
• Grated Parmesan and Hirten Hard cheeses
• A couple tablespoons of dressing (rice wine vinegar, a splash of apple cider vinegar, a little water, orange juice, 4 drops of orange essence, micro-planned ginger, roasting salt, hazelnut oil, walnut oil, olive oil, a little sesame oil)
• Fresh Ground Coriander

Toss everything but the hard cheese and coriander with the dressing. Then put in presentation bowl and top with grated cheese and coriander. 

Quick Braised Asparagus with Bacon and Strawberries

With asparagus in season and and an abundance of strawberries and a wife that demanded bacon with her birthday dinner I was inspired to try combining them all into what proved to be a quite lovely dish.

• Wash and trim fresh asparagus. 
• Put in a pan with 1 Tbs each of bacon drippings, butter, olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, water, and sugar. 
• Cover bring to boil over high heat and braise for 3 minutes. 
• Add chopped cooked frozen bacon.
• Cook uncovered for a couple minutes. 
• Add fresh strawberries, washed, hulled, and quartered. 
• Cover for a minute or two until the strawberries get up to temperature, but you don't really want to cook them. 

Serve hot and enjoy!

Scramble on tortilla

Here is another take on a veggie scramble of winter veggies. This time with potatoes.

I parboiled the carrots and potatoes, cut into chunks, for long enough to become fork tender. I chopped the greens pretty fine so it wouldn't feel like the same dish I did earlier.

And of course bacon. Because bacon.

Winter veggie wrap

I've been cooking so much "brown food" lately that I thought it would be good to show something green. We chose our CSA in no small part because we wanted one that continued through the winter. This time of year that means lots of root veggies and cooking greens.

I sautéed some leeks, tossed in some roasted carrots, some oven-cooked bacon, and finally some coarsely chopped greens.

Once the greens just started to wilt I added a quarter cup of almond meal, a Tbs each of lemon juice and soy sauce, tossed and covered for a minute to steam a little.

Then I served it up on a tortilla.

Lamb chops

I wasn't sure how to cook lamb chops, so I thought I would treat them with my favorite (well, only) recipe for pork chops.

• Dry the chops, cut the outside band of fat/connective tissue in a couple places (to keep the chops from cupping as they cook).  
• Brush with oil. 
• Dust with roasting salt. 
• Dust one side with a little white sugar (to get some nice browning). 
• Cook the sugared side over medium heat until browned (about 3.5 minutes in this case). 
•  Flip, cover, turn heat to med-low and cook until internal temp is 140. (Just a few more minutes)
•  Put into a 200 degree oven until ready to serve. 
•  Deglaze the pan (I used a little chicken broth which created a nice delicate sauce).

Pork back ribs

We had some pork back ribs so I thought I would try a recipe by Alton Brown.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts -- FAIL

I tried out a recipe for roasted brussels sprouts but something went horribly wrong.

I tossed them in olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted them at 400 for 40 minutes. Maybe they were a little smaller and more open than "traditional" brussels sprouts, but they ended up really charred.

I turned them when they still had 15 minutes left, I turned them and they were starting to show some color.

Stuffed chicken thighs

Had a first go at chicken thighs stuffed with a spinach parmesan stuffing.

Overall, I liked how the chicken turned out. It produced a lot of sauce, so it would have been good to serve over something that could use the sauce (rice, pasta, steamed veggies, ...).  I also think it would have presented better sliced in 3 or 4 slices to show off the stuffing.

Pot Roast -- What's up Chuck

Browned chuck after salt and peppered

Had a nice piece of chuck roast that I decided to use to make a pot roast based on this recipe.
This was almost the last piece of meat from our first of two shares from our meat CSA.

Stir Fry in Seattle

Pork dish in the wok

I spent the weekend with a friend in Seattle and we had a number of culinary adventures. I brought some lovely tomatoes and peppers from home that we were drowning in. So our goal was to come up with some simple dinners that would make good use of them. On the final night, we picked up some lovely pork at the farmers market and made a stir fry in a wok.

This worked well on all counts. Easy to prepare, quick to cook, looked and tasted great.

We made a dredged the pork in seasoned flour. And added a sauce of corn starch, soy sauce, and sesame oil.

Summer sauté

I hit upon a summer sauté that was a hit with the wife.
I didn't measure anything, so these are my best estimates ...

• One leek sliced.
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 Tbs butter
• One zucchini cubed.
• Two fully cooked sausages (I used italian with cheese)
• 1/4 cup almond meal
• 3 fresh tomatoes
• 1/4 cup Grated romano cheese
• Some fresh basil
• Spices to taste (I used Dukes Powder II)
• 1/4 cup Sour cream

To prepare:

• Heat olive oil and butter in a large heavy sauté pan. 
• Brown sausages. 
• Add leeks halfway through browning. 
• When the sausages are browned remove from pan and add zucchini.
• Cover and cook and fairly high heat for a few minutes.
• Meanwhile cube browned sausage and tomatoes.
• Uncover, add sausage and tomato chunks. 
• Add Almond meal, Romano cheese, basil, and spices.
• Once it's all bubbly goodness, remove from heat add sour cream.

Serve it up.

The cheese, sour cream, almond meal, and juices from the veggies combine to make a creamy sauce.

Sweet and Sour Pork redux

I made a second try at sweet and sour pork. This time I managed to take some pix and a few liberties. 

You can read a little about my previous try here. 

I gathered up a bunch of things that looked good. 

Zucchini, roasted carrots, roasted red peppers, chard, kale, onion, peaches, pineapple

I had marinated the port the night before, and kept it in the fridge. 

 They got a quick dip in seasoned flour and almond meal then into 350 degree oil in batches.

Lots of veggies, peaches, pineapple, and prepared pork.

Serve it up.

Short ribs

We had some short ribs that I needed to figure out what to do with. Came up with two ideas. Both involved seasoning the ribs and browning them. 

First up Old-Fashioned Vegetable Beef Soup from the Fix it and Forget it cookbook.

Rolled turkey breast

Take a 3-pound turkey breast, butterfly it, slather with 6-oz of sliced prosciutto and 6-oz sliced, boiled ham, a Tbs of rosemary leaves, three cloves crushed garlic, some sage, salt, pepper.

Roll it up like a jelly roll.
Tie it up.
Place it on aluminum foil. sprinkle with 2 tsb more rosemary, salt, and pepper.

Bake at 400º for 45-55 minutes.
Take out and let rest for 20 minutes before unwrapping and slicing.

Next time: I baked it 45 minutes then took the internal temp and it was only 100º.
So I put it back in until I got an internal temp of 150º, but that was too long.
After the overshoot it got up to 175º.
So, probably taking it out when it gets to 135º would be good.

In any case, it was very tasty.

Christmas feast

We had some folks over for a Christmas feast -- a good day for cooking. In advance we made pumpkin pie and cookies: lemon cloud, chocolate crinkles, and oatmeal chocolate chip.

Experimented making orange jello from scratch for a spiced peach mold (recipe from Betty Crocker).

Probably rosemary oven roasted red potatoes.
On the day we baked Fresh yams baked in orange sauce which were well received, roasted red potatoes with garlic and rosemary, sourdough rolls, and a peach pie.

Pork chops and Apple sauce

Now that we have quite a supply of pork chops in the freezer, I suspect there will be a lot of experimenting with pork chops in my future. We had some applesauce that I used in the sauce with a reduction from the juices from cooking the chops.

I used the Easy Pork Chop recipe from The Best Recipe. At least I started with that recipe. To the reduced sauce I added some fresh bread crumbs, which made the sauce too thick. This gave me the idea to add a little hot apple sauce, and then a little more until it seemed about right.

I served the pan sauce on top of the chops and put a little of the hot apple sauce on the side for good measure.

Update: I made these again, but added some steamed mixed vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots) to the sauce. Seemed like a good addition.

Sausage Potato Casserole

I had some pork sausage and some potatoes that I wanted to cook. So after a little googling, I found an interesting looking recipe for Sausage Potato Casserole.

I mostly followed the recipe, except I used cream of potato soup rather than cream of mushroom. And I added some spices: ginger, galangal, grains of paradise, long pepper, and cubebs. I used a little more potato and pork than the recipe called for so it ended up being three layers rather than two. I thought about using a larger dish, but I like the added thickness.