Test Run

So this is a bit outdated now, but I still wanted to share with you.

Do you read this blog? You should, it's a pretty good find.

Just recently a "community blog" feature was added that will allow readers to do their own guest posts for whichever (food-related) topic they choose. Have a great idea or recipe to share and you don't have a food blog? No problem! I got to be one of the testers for the community section before it was announced. You can read my post, a restaurant review, here.

I think the whole community concept is pretty exciting, actually. It is a great way to promote discussion and sharing among people like us who are looking for some new food inspiration.

This won't be the last time you hear me sing the accolades of the restaurant in the community post. If you happen to be in Sheboygan, WI anytime soon, you really should stop by. Your taste buds will thank you.

Hello, Saturday

Good morning everyone!

That's it. Just a picture of a tasty apple streusel muffin. :-)

Upgrade the chop

Sometimes you find a beautiful cut of meat and just have to cook with it right away.

Enter the pork chops.

Yeah, I know...big deal. "It's just pork chops!" But aren't they lovely?

We made these on a brisk Wisconsin evening, so they had to be cooked indoors. I decided to give my cast-iron grill pan a rest, and broke out the Emerilware pan instead. The cooking process was pretty basic, really. A small amount of vegetable oil in the pan, heated to medium-high heat. Salt and pepper the chops, and cook for about 7 minutes on each side, or until internal temperature reaches about 160 degrees (you are looking for 165 degrees, but the meat should continue to heat up for a few minutes while resting).

To accompany these bad-boy pork chops, I steamed some broccoli. Not rocket science. But a small twist: orange zest. It scents the broccoli in a subtle but noticable way, and adds some brightness to the veggies on the plate. It's also a great way to add aroma and flavor but not add "American flavor" (a.k.a. SALT).


Allright, so we've got some chops a'grilling, and some steamed broccoli on the side. Something is missing. We need an upgrade. A great way to make any type of mediocre event better--wine.

We had this tart and tasty cranberry wine which my dad had brought over. There was half a bottle left. Perfect. (I have this thing for cranberry wine, especially ones made in Wisconsin...more on that in another post)

I put the wine in a pan on medium heat until it started to reduce. It probably simmered for 10-15 minutes, until it was so thick that it could be described as a syrup instead of a reduction. The consistency was perfectly clingy. A tart but sweet sauce to top the chops with. Pork chop upgrade: complete!

Oh Those Leftovers

Seriously, how many people are eating leftover spiral ham today? We aren't excluded from that group. Those leftovers are tasty, especially with the glaze my mom put on it. But it needed something new. A nice partner in crime.

Solution? Sweet potato chips.

I mean really, fried stuff makes everything better.


My parents got us a deep-fryer as a house-warming gift. They must know us well :-)

We sliced the sweet potato with a mandoline into maybe 1/16th inch thick chips. Feel free to go thinner than that...what is most important is to have the thickness be uniform. The chips cook evenly this way. We heated our vegetable oil to 325 degrees and cooked the chips for about 4 minutes. As soon as they were done, we put them on a wire rack to drain and sprinkled them with salt and freshly cracked black pepper. The slight sweetness with the ham was just what we were looking for.

Confession

I have something to confess...I've been afraid of risotto. Well, not "afraid" in the phobia sense. It's just always seemed like an intimidating dish, so I've avoided it.
That is, until this week.

The stars were all aligned for this dish. I had to use up the rest of this stock and we had some broccoli that needed to be used up. Broccoli risotto. Well, ok...time to wing it.

As usual, I don't really use a recipe. I had an idea of what I needed: onion, garlic, wine, stock, parmesan, arborrio rice. What order? No idea. What quantity? Again, no idea. But hey, look at that, there's an ingredient list on the side of the rice box (Trader Joe's rice too...I love them more all the time).

So anyway, using their ingredient list and ignoring the quantities, I followed the order of operation. The result...


...was...


...uhh-maz-ing!
Seriously, why have I not made this before??


Here's the play-by-play, in case you haven't made risotto either.

Begin by heating up 2-3 cups of vegetable or chicken stock in a saucepan until simmering.

In a large pot, melt some butter on medium heat. Maybe 3 tbsp? Then, add some minced onions, say 1/4 cup. Sweat them until they become translucent. Add a tbsp of garlic and saute until golden. Now, add the rice. I used 3 palm-fulls (the recipe said 12 oz). Stir the rice in with the sauteed onions and garlic until the rice is clear. If the mixture starts to stick too much, add a little more butter.

Now the fun part--add the (white) wine. I had to break open my favorite seafood wine because everything else we had was red (if I had more options I'd probably use a sauvignon blanc). I used about 1/3 cup. Continue to cook on medium heat until the white wine is absorbed. Add the heated stock, one cup at a time, until the rice absorbs it. Continue this process for about 20 minutes, until the rice is fully cooked (you are looking for a smooth, not runny or pasty texture). I added the broccoli florets about halfway through this process so they would be perfectly cooked by the end.

When the rice is cooked, take it off the heat and shred parmesan into the pot, about 1/8 cup. Stir it quickly into the rice so it doesn't clump together. As the cheese melts it will add a great texture to the dish.

My husband rates my dishes (don't worry, I ask him to). It is a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being best. This dish got a 9. Need I say more?

Cubano

I have no recipe to offer. Only a few pictures and a description.
What is it, you ask?

Ox Tail.

I saw it on a menu and seized the opportunity to try it!

I have only heard Paula Deen mention ox tail on Food Network once. Otherwise, I do not claim to have any knowledge of how to prepare this dish.

If I had to guess, I'd say it was stewed for a few hours. This probably included some type of meat-based stock, as well as some tomato-type product (sauce or paste), as there was a reddish tint to the sauce. Included were some bay leaves (one found its way onto my plate...no problem), and stewed onions, as well as red and green peppers. The star of the show was the ox tail, on the bone (which no doubt added to the flavor of the sauce).

All that said, it was delicious. The meat was literally falling off the bone. And most importantly, what did it taste like? No, not chicken. Truthfully, it tasted like a tender and fatty pot roast--in a good way. The sides included white rice, black beans, and fried plantains. A really tasty Cuban meal.



And yes, that is a vertebrae :-) Don't shy away, the meal was delicious!

Supper Club

In this area of the Midwest, we have "supper clubs". I'm not exactly sure what defines an eating establishment as such, but that is not what I am referring to. As I was cooking (see below) tonight, I couldn't help but think that one thing I love to do is talk to others about food. My common work conversations consist of:
"So, what did you eat last night?"
"So, this is what I ate last night"
"Mmm, I'm so hungry for this ____"
"Tonight I'm making _____"

You get the gist. I think about food. A lot. I talk about food. A lot. No, I don't have some type of binge eating disorder (and yes I am qualified to make that determination...). I don't think it's an unhealthy obsession. I just like to discuss food, think about food, ponder new combinations of flavors. Sort of like an athlete focuses on a game. Except I'm not super-skilled at cooking. I just really enjoy it.

So, per the title, I should start a real supper club. Not a wood-paneled Midwestern restaurant that features a small salad bar and a waitress with a smokers' cough. But a group of people who like to talk about food, share recipes, go out to eat together, etc. Doesn't that sound like a riot? Anyway, until that exists in my life I will use this blog to talk "at" someone, anyone who might be reading. Welcome to my supper club :-)

Here was tonight's dilemma:
-It is towards the end of the month and we are getting down to the end of our grocery budget. To make a long story short, we have school loans we are *aggressively* paying off, and what we save in budgeted areas we put towards our loans. Thus, I like to save a bit in the grocery line when I can. I didn't want to run out and buy a bunch of ingredients for a meal. So I just played the cards I was dealt (i.e. used what was in the fridge and pantry).
-I made stock (see previous post) and wanted to make a point of using it before it spoiled
-I have some fresh broccoli that should be used, and some uncooked chicken in the fridge.

All this leads to: soup!

What kind of soup? Oh please, I have no idea. Most nights it is the fabulous process of working with what I have creatively to make something that is tolerable on the palate. Tonight's experiment turned out well, which isn't too rare of an occurrence.

I heated up half of my veggie stock in a pot, and added a handful of soba noodles (thanks sis for getting them in little Tokyo!), half of the fresh broccoli, and a can of sliced water chestnuts (drained). I pan-grilled 1.5 chicken breasts (whatever was left from our Indian food this past weekend...I'll write about that soon) and seasoned them with a Chinese-Cajun spice mix (who knew?!). As the soba noodles cooked and the broccoli and water chestnuts softened a bit, I cut up the chicken and added it to the pot. All in all, a delicious thrown-togther-semi-Asian soup.