Dateline: January 8, 2021 Lamb Chops and Roasted Root Veggies

The other day I was surveying the fridge, and decided that things had to be made to take up less space.  I had a couple of turnips, a huge rutabaga, some orange bell peppers and left over broccoli.  Chop up some onions, add garlic, and voila, dinner side dish.

As you can see, I cubed up the rutabaga and turnips, splashed some olive oil on them, and added some salt, pepper, cumin, and coriander.  Into a 400° F oven for about 40-50 minutes, keep checking, until they were crisped and deeply browned.  All of that turnip-y smell and flavor had disappeared and you were left with a crunchy exterior and a creamy interior!  A miracle!

Next step, get out the wok, and heat up some oil, fry the onions, peppers, and garlic until softened, add a little stock and some chopped preserved lemon, and lastly the broccoli.  Perfect.  A delightful side, if I do say!

step 1, cubes 

finished veggie side

The lamb chops were seasoned with salt and pepper and broiled for 5 minutes on the first side, and about 3.5 minutes on the second.  They were perfectly cooked.  Rare, but not raw, cooked to the bone and delicious too!

 

Dateline: January 4, 2021 Homemade Merguez with Vegetable Stew

I made some sausages, brats and merguez, the other day and after eating vindaloo for 2 days, we needed a break  So out of the freezer came the merguez and I raided the fridge for suitable vegetation for a morrocan stew-ish kind of thing.

I browned the sausages and after browning them, I sweated some onions and garlic.  

Sausages

sweating the onions

Once that had softened, I added some stock and wine to deglaze the pan.  Next went in quite an interesting array of veggies, some orange bell peppers,  string beans, broccoli, preserved mandarin, collards, and cabbage.  

start of the veggie melange

veggies in Instant pot

I used the instant pot because it would be easy and quick.  And, only 1 pan to clean!

I seasoned the stew with harissa and sumac as both of those were in the sausages along with salt and pepper.  

The final dish was pretty darn good, not necessarily InstaGram worthy, but pleasing to the eye and the palatet.

Dateline: January 2, 2021 Pork Vindaloo and Aloo Gobi

 I was seriously jonesing for some spicy food.  I had ordered from FD 3 pounds of pork stew meat.  What arrived was beautiful large chunks of pork with very little excess fat.

I used Mahdur Jaffrey's recipe for pork vindaloo and Urvashi Pitre's Aloo Gobi.

This is one of my absolute all time favorites!  I love a vinegary peppery vindaloo, not super burn-your-mouth vindaloo, but one with a distinct vinegar flavoring.  Many recipes call for cider vinegar, or white wine vinegar, I prefer white distilled vinegar personally.  As I had a TON of couscous left over from last night, no need for rice.

Ingredients

2 t whole cumin seeds

2-3 hot dried chillies

1 t black pepper corns

1 t cardamom seeds

3 in cinnamon stick

1.5 t whole black mustard seeds

1 t fenugreek seeds

5 T white vinegar

1.5 - 2 t salt

1 t light brown sugar

10 T vegetable oil

2 med onions, sliced into half moon rings

1.33 c water, divided

2 lbs boneless pork cut into cubes

1 in cube fresh ginger peeled a

1 small head garlic, cloves peeled

1 T ground coriander seeds

.5 t turmeric

Method

1.  Grind cumin seeds, chilis, peppercorns, cardamom, cinnamon, mustard, and fenugreek in a spice grinder until fine.  Put in a bowl and add vinegar, salt, and brown sugar.  (I used 1/2 t molasses instead, I like the darker flavor).  Mix and set aside

2.  Heat oil in a wide pan (use a pan large enough to hold the pork) to and fry onions until brown and crisp.  Remove with slotted spoon and put into a jar of a blender.  Add 2 -3 T water and blitz until smooth.  Add to spices and vinegar.  This is your vindaloo paste.  Make double or triple and freeze rest for another day!

3.  Pat meat cubes dry and in a spice grinder add garlic and ginger with a little water, if necessary, and process to a paste.

4.  Reheat pan and add pork cubes a few at a time and lightly brown in batches holding in a clean bowl.  

5.  Add garlic ginger paste to pan after finishing up the pork cubes and stir for a few seconds, add coriander and turmeric and stir for another few seconds.  Add pork and any juices in the bowl, as well as the vindaloo paste.  Add 1 c water, stir well to coat.  Bring to a boil and reduce flame to a simmer.  Cover and cook until pork is tender.  Be sure to stir a few times as the sauce will be thick.  Feel free to add more water or stock so that it doesn't scorch.

plain old left over couscous

Aloo Gobi - potatoes and cauliflower

Dateline: January 1, 2021 Let's eat that Steak!

After being too full to eat the steak from NYE, I made some couscous and brussel sprouts with butter and vegemite to go with the steaks...

Quite yummy.  This was a great way to start the new year!

Steak sliced

sprouts!

couscous

 

Dateline: December 31, 2020 Let's Kick 2020 to the Curb. HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY

Since we are not able to party with friends, I wanted to cook something fun and special.  So we are having picanha steak.  This is a South American cut of steak, the sirloin cap, with fat cap.  

If you have been to a Brazilian steak house, you have seen the skewers of beef that is put on the skewer in the shape of the letter C.  That is picanha.  It has a generous fat cap and well marbled beef.  I bought mine from Grand Western Steak in Florida.  I found this outfit through my favorite sous vide YouTube channel, Sous Vide Everything.  This hosts are 2 South American men and a Cuban.  They are absolutely hilarious and have great tips and directions for learning how to sous vide food and how to finish it.

Back to dinner plans.  I ordered some lumpfish caviar and shrimp for a bit of caviar on idli (instead of blinis), shrimp cocktail, then steak and veggies.  

The sous vide of the steaks will take about an hour +, idli will be done shortly before that and the shrimp cocktail will be ready by then as well.  Maybe bubbly, but not sure yet.  Bill is not a fan, and I must say, I prefer cava.

I made the idli, which are steamed rice cakes.  I really love them, they are Indian breakfast food eaten with soup and curries.  I made a pretty platter and put the jar of caviar in the center.  Another two dishes  had chopped scallions and some sour cream.

This is the batter.  I used a packaged dry mix and added water and sour cream.  I read the instructions and they said to add sour curd.  I know in most Indian recipes when they write curd, they mean yogurt, so I assumed sour curd was not yogurt but sour cream.  

Found out this morning that sour curd is still yogurt!

 

Here we have the steaming little rice cakes.  They are steamed in these special idli trays that you can make out the little black plastic knob which unscrews and the trays separate from each other.  I also decided to add a little bit of scallion to some of the rice cakes.  

 

The steamed rice cakes are resting on some paper toweling to remove any moisture.  You can see the little bubbles on the edges of the cakes.  They are sooooooo tasty.  Light and fluffy little delivery bases for anything you can think of.

TADAH!

Now on to the shrimp cocktail.  I did buy a ring of shrimp from Fresh Direct that came frozen.  I defrosted it and then after tasting the cocktail sauce that came with it.  Decided I could do a lot better in that department.  I had some cocktail sauce in fridge, along with horseradish, ketchup, and lemons.  After tasting and adding, I finished up with a pretty good version.

I re-plated the shrimp, and this was the second course!

 

We washed down everything with this delightful Cremant from Alsace, Ginglinger.  It was really tasty!

We were so full that we never ate the picanha steaks!  Don't they look lovely all crisped up and glistening!  We did finish the salad, though!

 

Dateline: December 30, 2020 Brats and Cabbage

I ground and stuffed a bunch of brats on Tuesday, and they were ready to eat.  I decided to poach them in a liquid of a bottle of white wine, a handful of sliced onions, a couple of pepper corns, a crushed clove of garlic, water, 1.5 c turkey stock, and some salt.  I also threw in some of the preserved mandarins that I had made a couple of days ago.  They were still very sweet, and not too salty, time will heal that.

I had a head of cabbage that I cleaned up, split in half, and then cut one half into quarters.  I removed the core and thinly sliced the cabbage.  I cut 1/2 an onion into thin half moons, chopped up 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 orange sweet pepper,  and the rest of the preserved mandarin.  I held .5 c of turkey stock in reserve if needed with the cabbage.

I swirled a bit of garlic oil in a flat bottomed wok and softened the onions and garlic.  When the onions were translucent, I add the cabbage, peppers, and mandarin.  I stirred that around a bit to distribute the wilting to the whole pan.  I added the .5 c stock and lidded the pan.

When the poaching sausages reached and internal temperature of 155-160°F, I added them to the cabbage and mixed everything together nicely.

A very satisfying meal for a chilly evening.  Bill said the texture was perfect for the sausages as was the flavor.  Yeah Me!

Here are the brats in the pan with the cabbage.  I liked the bright citrus blast that the mandarins gave, Bill not so much.  He picked them out of his plate.  Sigh.

Here is my plate with cabbage and brats.  Note the mandarin in the 10 spot on the plate.  I really liked it.  

We finished the meal with some mulled wine that a friend had given us for the holidays.  It was really tasty.  A perfect ending to a midweek meal.

At the end of the YouTube video of Joshua Weissman's Sausage Treatise, there are 3 recipes for sausages.  I made the brats and merguez.  Both recipes are quite good and as I scaled down the recipe, I used his 0.02% salt to total weight of meat and fat to determine the amount of salt I needed to use.  I was happy with how both turned out.  Go ahead, make some sausage!  You can purchase casings on line from The Sausage Maker or on Amazon.  You might also be able to buy some from a good butcher.  I have only worked with salt-packed casings.  They last forever in the fridge.  If you have a stand mixer with a grinder attachment, you are all set with respect to equipment....no more excuses, do it!  Remember, at the rate the vaccine is getting into arms, we will be in lock down for 10 years!

Dateline: December 25, 2020 Christmas Dinner: Turkey and the whole megillah

 We had Thanksgiving at Dianne and Phil's, so  there were no turkey leftovers, the best part of the whole shebang.  I wanted turkey stock, turkey pot pie, left over stuffing, mashed potatoes and assorted winter root veggies.

For the turkey, I dry brined it overnight with a generous amount of salt and left it uncovered in the fridge overnight.  The next morning, I rubbed butter over and under the skin, stuffed the cavity with 2 garlic cloves, 4 onion ends from chopping onions for other dishes, 1 one orange, halved, sage sprigs rosemary sprigs, salt and pepper and a schmear of butter.  I mixed salt and pepper together along with 1/4 t baking powder to help crisp up the skin.  Before putting it in the oven, I injected the breast with homemade chicken stock in about 4 or 5 places on each side of the breast.

I put the bird on a rack in a roasting pan in which I had scattered chopped onions and celery along with a good glug or 2 of white wine and about 2 cups of homemade chicken stock.

I set the oven at 350° because it was an 11 lb turkey and set a timer for 1 hour, before rotating the turkey so that the other thigh pointed to the back of the oven, and set the timer for 1 hr.

After about 40 minutes, I checked and the turkey was very close to being done, I lowered the temp to 325°F and let it continue cooking for the remaining 20 minutes.

Naturally, I DID NOT photo the finished, beautifully bronzed bird, and I hadn't started drinking either!  You can get an idea of the color from the wing joint in the photo.  I made some cranberry sauce the day before, I usually make a chutney style sauce, but one of the people I promised Xmas dinner to can not deal with spice, so I went very straightforward with the cranberries this year.  Just sugar, water, pinch of salt until thick and syrupy.

Neither Bill nor I can have turkey without the Miles Standish Stuffing,  I do cut back on the butter, but pretty much follow the recipe, tweaking over the years.  This year, I used the called for breakfast sausage, and decided it was NOT going to used again, I prefer Italian sausage, either sweet or hot.  I used perlini mozzarella balls to save the cutting mozzarella up.  Next time I will use both containers I bought instead of just one, not gooey enough!

Behind the stuffing is a green bean, mushrooms, and pancetta amalgam that I thought would be tasty!  I sauteed 4 oz pancetta and then added the sliced king and oyster mushrooms and cooked through.  I steamed the green beans in the microwave for 4 minutes and then added them to the pan.  Seasoned, added some stock, and a little rice flour to thicken and tadah!

I love rutabagas.  I am alone in that devotion, but since I cook, well, we get them!  I steamed them first in the instant pot, then mashed into the pan that I had sauteed 4 oz of pancetta and 1/2 a chopped onion until rendered and crispy.  Perfect.

For the mashed potatoes, I steamed them in the instant pot and then riced them into another inner pot for the instant pot.  I added half and half, sour cream, salt, pepper, and butter and mixed well, tasting for salt, and checking consistency.  Adding half and half, butter and salt as needed.

The whole spread below.  I had the panettone that I made earlier for dessert, as well as a chai masala cake that Servet made.  We were very sated and ready for a rousing couple of games of Rummicube!

Dateline: December 24, 2020 Xmas Eve, Ribs and Broccoli Rabe

I rubbed the ribs with a quick dry rub of a mix to chili powder, ancho, chipotle, salt, sugar, paprika, dry mustard, allspice, black pepper, and thyme.  (I forgot to use onion and garlic powder, sue me!)

I roasted them in a hot oven 400° F for 20 min, then reduced temp to 325° for another 45 minutes to an hour.  When temp of ribs reaches over 185° F, they are good to go.  High temp will produce softer and less chewy meat.  Dealer's choice.   

The ribs came out juicy and pulled back from the bone ends.

An animal died, Bill was content!

Pre oven ribs, with an extra sprinkle of salt on top.

                                                     Post Oven, and cut into individual ribs

For the rabe, I sauteed garlic slices until golden brown in olive oil, and then removed.  I added the cleaned rabe, cut in half, to the hot pan and seared them for a little bit.  I added about 1/2 c of stock and cooked them down further.  Before serving, I added back the garlic chips and tossed.

Dateline: December 23, 2020 Meatloaf, Sprouts, Cabbage, and Crispy Taters

I decided to try the FD meatloaf mix based on a recommendation from my friend Jen.  It comes seasoned and ready to load into a loaf pan.  I added a topping that I was hoping would be somewhat spicy, but it turned out to be on the sweetish side instead!  A bit surprising given that the ingredients were Worcestershire sauce, cocktail sauce, Italian hot peppers, ketchup, oyster sauce, and dry mustard.  Strange indeed.

I also made my friend Lyn's Brussel Sprouts with butter and Vegemite.  Bill hates sprouts.  I love them.  He said over dinner, "if you didn't tell me these were sprouts, I would never have known."   High praise for the recipe!  

Sprouts with Butter and Vegemite

Trim and halve sprouts

1 -2 T butter

2-3 t Vegemite or Marmite

water/stock/wine

1.  Heat pan and lightly char sprouts in a dry pan.  This can take a while to get them on both sides.

2.  Pan will get bits of brown in it, this is good.  Use about 2 oz of water, stock, wine to deglaze and steam sprouts for a bit.  When liquid have evaporated, add butter and vegemite/marmite and cook to coat the sprouts.  Add water or stock as necessary to soften the sprouts to your level of doneness.

Braised Napa Cabbage 

1 small head napa cabbage

1 small onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped

water/stock/wine

1.  Cut the bottom 1 in off of the cabbage.  Make a cut in the base of the cabbage about 1-2 inches long, as if you were going to cut it in half lengthwise, but only go those 1-2 inches.  Grasp both halves and gentle pull the cabbage apart, tearing toward the tips of the leaves.  This splits the cabbage without lots of shredded leaves flying about.  Split each halve again the same way and perhaps again depending on the circumference of your head of cabbage.

2.  Cut the stem portions into about 1/2 inch slices and keep separate from the chopped leaves.  Cut the leaves into about 1/2 inch slices as well.

3.  Heat a pan, and add some olive oil.  When hot, add the onion and saute until softened, add in the garlic and some salt and pepper.  Saute until the garlic starts to soften.  Add the cabbage stem pieces and a sprinkle or two of salt and pepper, and saute until wilted a bit, then add the rest of the leaves.  

4.  Coat the contents of the pan with all of the onion and garlic mixture and allow the leaves to begin to get bright green.  Add about 2 oz of water/stock/wine and bring to a simmer.  Taste and adjust.  Reduce the liquid by 1/2.

Crispy Taters

8-10 new red potatoes, small ones, scrubbed 

salt and pepper

olive oil

1.  Coat a pan with cooking spray and add dried potatoes season with salt and pepper.  Put in a 350° F oven for about 30 minutes, or until taters are somewhat soft.

2.  Smash the taters with a fork so that they split open, add olive oil and put back in oven, but raise temp to 400° F for 15-20 minutes.  The should be crisped on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

Drank a lovely Barolo with dinner.  Happy, happy camper!

Dateline: December 22, 2020 VEGAN MEAL, I know, I know.....Creamy Vegan Tofu Noodles

This is a keeper!  I had no idea that it would be this tasty.  It will stay in the rotation.

Creamy Vegan Tofu Noodles  this is a true winner.  The spicy sauce on top, just added that lil sumpin' xtra that made the dish sing.

What I really liked about the recipe is that there were suggestions for substitutions or variations that will totally work.  I will try this again taking it in the Italian direction, but keeping it vegan with the use of nutritional yeast and various herbs.  

The sauce is garlicky, and delightfully creamy, just what one wants on a cold winter's night when FD is late and you need to improvise dinner.

I give it more than 2 thumbs up.  You will need a blender to make the sauce get creamy, but other than that you don't need much more to make this, except tofu and noodles and bits and bobs that you probably have in your pantry.

The red sauce on top is the real star of the show.  I doubled the recipe as I knew it would be good given the list of ingredients!  It's spicy, but not too, luscious and a great foil for the creaminess of the noodles.  You can use any noodle here, spaghetti, ramen, make your own, etc.

I do agree with the comments that you need to watch the addition of water, too little and it's too thick, too much, and it's too thin... use your eyes to tell you when enough is enough!