New recipe - about time!

A few months ago, I had cassoulet at a local bistro. I don't know how authentic it was, but, given the various opinions on what cassoulet is in France, I'm not sure it matters. What I do know is that it was GOOD!

This month we've been having cooler and wetter than normal weather. After a spending a cold weekend at a Boy Scout camp for a cooking symposium, and watching snow and graupel come down during work, I wanted something warm and comforting for dinner. I remembered the cassoulet I had and decided to make something like it. It's not cassoulet, but it's inspired by it.

Cassoulet-inspired Bean Stew

1 15oz can of white beans
1 15oz can of cannelini beans
1 15oz can of great northern beans
1 15oz can of pinto beans
1 15oz can of red beans
1 duck leg
2 links Andouille sausage
1 smoked ham hock
6-8 oz pearl onions
4-6 oz sliced mushrooms
3-5 tablespoons fresh garlice
1/2-1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Roast the duck leg for 30 to 45 minutes. Simmer the ham hock in a couple cups of water. Slice the sausage into coins and carmelize in a hot skillet.

Remove all meat from bones and add all meat (and bones) to water. Add all remaining ingredients (including fluid from beans) to soup pot and simmer for at least 45 minutes. The longer you can let this simmer the more the flavors will marry.

I was ecstatic to discover I can get duck parts at my local grocery. I was afraid I would have to wait until this weekend to make the stew so I could thaw the whole duck in my freezer.

The stew was everything I wanted: savory and hearty with just a hint of heat. I wish I had fresh bread to eat with it, but I don't usually have time to make it after work.

In case you hadn't noticed, the recipe makes a lot of bean stew. Fortunately, this is the type of stew that gets better as it sits, so today's dinner tasted even better than it did yesterday!

Chicken and Dumplings

I had some frozen chicken breasts that needed to be used up as they were starting to freezer burn. This called for some seriously moist cooking. I also have a sore throat, so soup seemed like the best idea to me.

Chicken and Dumplings

3 large half chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
Several chicken necks
1/2 pound carrots
1/2 pound or so mushrooms
1/2 large onion
1 sprig rosemary
several sprigs thyme
2-3 tablespoons chopped garlic
2-3 bay leaves
20 oz. chicken stock
1 cup Bisquick(tm) baking mix
2.5 oz 2% milk
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Salt to taste

Boil the chicken necks in a gallon of water for about an hour, scumming the fat and flotsam from the surface. I put mine in cheesecloth so I didn't have to retrieve bones and skin.

Once the necks have boiled, remove them from the pan and discard (you could retrieve the meat if you so desire - I was lazy).

Chop carrots, onions, and mushrooms into bite-size pieces and add to pan. Add chopped garlic. Let simmer for an hour or so.

Add chicken breasts (still frozen) and simmer until done. Remove each breast and cut into bite-size pieces and return to pan.

About half an hour before you want to eat, add the salt, rosemary, bay leaves, and thyme.

Fifteen minutes before dinner, mix the baking mix, milk, garlic powder and a pinch or two of salt together. Add to boiling soup in teaspoon (or tablespoon) sized dollops, depending on how large you want your dumplings to be. Simmer for 10-12 minutes, turning over halfway through the cooking.

Of course, this won't be enough dumplings for the entire pot; I knew we'd have leftovers and I will make fresh dumplings for them. Double baking mix and milk quantities for a single sit-down dinner. If you don't like the baking mix I used, or can't get it, substitute your favorite. Adjust the fluid amount accordingly.

I'd forgotten how rich and creamy the dumplings make the soup; noodles never quite achieve the same effect. The dumplings just melted in my mouth. The soup was just velvety as we ate. Just what I wanted when I have a sore throat.

Feel free to add celery or mess with the proportions of vegetables in the soup. I just like a very carroty and mushroomy soup, particularly when I don't feel great. If you have a chicken (or turkey) carcass and time to make your own stock, feel free to omit the chicken breasts, chicken necks, and broth -- I only used them because I didn't have the time to start fully from scratch today.

Irregular posts

I'm sorry about the irregular posting these last few months. Life's been quite hectic and, while I've been cooking, I haven't had as much time to play as I would like. And I've had even less time to record what I've been playing with.

One of the reasons is I've gotten sucked into a big research project. I'm exploring how spices were used in the late medieval kitchen. One of my inspirations for this project was Tom Colicchio making a statement in his Top Chef blog about how medieval chefs would use spices to cover rancid/spoiled meat. That's like putting $30 gold braid on $2 cotton broadcloth -- doesn't make sense. Anyone with enough money to buy the spices would have enough money/resources to get fresh meat on a regular basis. So I'm looking at data from medieval household about how much spice they buy, how much is sent to the kitchen, how much is sent to the still room for perfumes and the like, how much is used medicinally, how much is sent to the creamery, and how much is given to visitors as gifts (lots and lots). I'm also looking at how many people are in the household so I can get an average of how much spice per person was purchased and used in the kitchen.

My preliminary results suggest that they weren't using that much more spice than the average American household and less than modern Indian households. When I say spice, I'm not talking about the herbaceous basil, oregano, etc. I'm looking at clove, cinnamon, pepper, etc. Salt and sugar are also excluded because they are used in a multitude of ways that are really outside the scope of what I'm interested in.

When I have more data and conclusions to post, you'll find them here. I'll also be posting recipes, but I don't know how often. Things are quieting down activity-wise, but winter is approaching with the waning energy that the cold brings.

Dyed Pie Crust

The dyed pie crust didn't happen this weekend. But I learned a couple of very important things:

• If you are going to dye a dough, don't add the to the dough after the dough is mixed. No matter how much you work it (and with pie dough this is bad), the dye does not get distributed evenly. In some situations, marbled pie dough might be the way to go, but this was not one of those situations. Next time: try mixing dye with the water the dough will be made from.
• Wear gloves. Blue might have been the shade I wanted for the dough, but it was not the color I wanted for my fingernails. Fortunately food dyes are reasonably water soluble, so with many repeated handwashings, the worst of it came out. But I do still have traces of the dye around the cuticles and edges of the nails from last Wednesday's experiment.

That said, the experimental painting with the dyes worked okay. I need to get some food-safe brushes for applying the dye, a spoon just doesn't give light enough coverage. And I don't know what I want to do with the yellow dye; as a paint it looks more orange than yellow. Hmm, just had a thought: cake decorators thin their dyes with vodka so they can airbrush with them. Perhaps that will work for these dyes too!

I'm also going to look into a local cake-decorating store. Perhaps I'll find something a bit more appropriate.

Life

Life has just been kicking my can this summer. If I could work 80 a week at my office, I'd still be behind. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel so things should get better soon.

I am planning to do some pie shell decorating for this weekend. I promise I will post my results!

Still here!!

I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I've been dealing with a lot of life right now - including the death of my mother-in-law. So, it's been kind of tough to write and tough to cook. Next week, things should be easier, so look for a post mid to end of the week.

Radishes, Not Just for Salads!

When my mother rejoined the workforce in my teens, my dad and I picked up a lot of her cooking tasks. Over time, my dad took over making all weekend breakfasts and was usually pretty good. My mother never needed to worry about leftovers as my dad kept finding new and inventive ways to use them. Some of them didn't work out too well, but most of them worked incredibly. I think it helps that my dad never had a home ec teacher to tell him it wouldn't work.

One of his great discoveries was that radish roots sauté wonderfully. They didn't work too well in the omelet, but on their own they were exquisite.

This week I was able to get wild-caught, fresh salmon on a wonderful sale. I've been grilling it until tonight, when a wind/dust storm made grilling inadvisable. Each night, I've been trying to come up with a new vegetable combination to accompany it. Tonight, I decided on radishes.

Sauteed Radishes, Zucchini, and Onion

1/2 cup zucchini, sliced
1/2 cup radishes, sliced
1/2 cup onion, (sliced lengthwise in strips)
1/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon olive oil

Heat oil in skillet. Sprinkle salt over veggies as the oil heats. Sauté onions until they start to become translucent. Add radishes and zucchini and sauté until they are to their desired doneness.

This is a very easy and flavorful vegetable dish. A lot of people find zucchini to be bland, but I don't. I do find that it plays well off a stronger flavor, so it's creaminess can come to the fore.

When choosing radishes to sauté, make sure the radishes aren't too big or too strong. If they are, the radishes will be bitter.

Book Review: Over a Red-Hot Stove

Over a Red-Hot Stove (ed. Ivan Day) is a wonderful series of essays of reviewing the development of cooking technology from the 16th century to present. The six-essay series tackles a different aspect of technology development from the development of the kitchen range to changing meat roasting technologies to changes in yeast/leavening techniques in breadmaking.

I found Peter Brears' (author of Cooking in Medieval England) essay on the changing technological changes in the methods of roasting meat quite compelling. His discussion of the transition from open hearth roasting to closed oven roasting provoked a lot a thinking about why we value grilling so much today. Grilled meats share a lot of characteristics with open-heart roasted meats.

Early meat roasting technologies involved one or more spits arrayed in front of a large open hearth, burning wood or coal (occasionally even turf, when fuel prices are too high). Drip pans placed under the spit caught the fats and fluids rendered from the meat as it roasted, and were basted back onto the meat as the roasting process progressed. This treatment led to a very succulent and flavorful piece of meat.

Two important characteristics of open-hearth roasting are intense heating of one side of the meat at a time and removal of the rendered fats from the meat. The alternating periods of heat allows the sugars to rise to the surface of the meat and carmelize, providing incredible Maillard reactive flavors (enhanced by basting from the drip pan). In addition, the application then removal of heat allows the heat to slowly penetrate the meat and slowly change the protein structure of the meat, leaving the meat very tender and juicy.

Most grilling instructions call for grilling one side of the meat, then turning the meat and grilling to desired doneness. If a thin steak is being grilled, this may be the most efficient way to grill, but for a thick piece of meat, this process increases the likelihood the meat will be burned. Personally, I prefer to work with meat at least one inch in thickness (and thicker when doing pork ribs). By turning the meat periodically during the cooking process, I alternate the intense cooking heat with cooling, drawing the sugars out of the meat. I also drain the rendered fats away from the meat, preventing the fat from overheating and affecting the flavor of the meat. While I can't baste with drippings to increase succulence, I can marinate and add flavor and fluid prior to cooking, thus increasing the succulence.

I love it when a book about food or cooking makes me put things together in different ways! Over a Red-Hot Stove certainly stirred things up in my mind. Go get a copy for yourself and see what it makes you think about cooking!

Curried Potato Salad

Potato salad is one of America's summer staple food. But face it, too many times, potato salad is bland or one-note or uninteresting. Most of them use mayo or sour cream as their bases, which is more fat than any of us need.

A couple years ago, a local restaurant gave me the recipe for their creamy curry sauce. It's excellent, but not as versatile or healthy as I like. So I started playing with it (of course).

Yogurt is a common (and quite yummy) substitute for mayo. I buy a (relatively) local creamery's yogurt - Tillamook. The creamery is situated near the town of Tillamook on the Oregon coast. I am partial to their products, which I feel are far superior to nearly all the larger regional brands -- and head and shoulders above the national ones. But this is all beside the point.

My point is that low-fat yogurt, from any source, is healthier than mayo. It has loads of nutrients, especially vitamin D and calcium.

Curry Potato Salad

3-4 cups of diced potatoes
1/2 cup diced onions
1/2 cup celery

Curry Dressing

1-1/2 cups plain, low-fat yogurt
1 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar

Blend well by hand or with a food processor.

Steam the potatoes until done, but firm. Cool.

Once the potatoes are cool, mix the onions, celery, and potatoes. Add the curry dressing 1/2 to 1 cup at at a time, until everything is coated. Do not add too much dressing (you probably won't use all of it). Enjoy!

I prefer the waxy potato varieties (red, Yukon gold, white) to the mealier russets. I think it nicely highlights the creaminess of the entire dish. The celery and onion provide a nice crunchy counterpoint to the unctuous creamy conspiracy of the potatoes and sauce. One of my next experiments with this dish is deciding what other vegetables to include - carrots and broccoli are definitely contenders.

I made the salad the night before I served it. The flavors tend to marry and intensify overnight, especially as the potatoes absorb some of the curry flavor.

Fry-ups

Every so often, fortunately not very often, I decide to do a fry-up for dinner. The contents of the fry-up vary, but usually in some way include a meat, a starch, garlic, onions or leeks, mushrooms, and a veggie. Tonight's fry-up involved leeks and mushrooms I had purchases over the weekend for camping -- they needed to be used and used quickly!

And did I add, needed to be fast? I hurt today.

Beefy Leeks and Mushrooms

8 oz beef sirloin cut into cubes
1 large leek cut into coins
8 oz. mushrooms sliced thickly
2 large potatoes
2 cans green beans (I know, but I didn't have fresh -- and I said quick)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large tablespoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon salt

Microwave the potatoes for 4 to 5 minutes, then cube.

Add oil to a large skillet or wok and heat on medium/high. Add potatoes and mushrooms. Saute until halfway done.

Add leeks and garlic. Saute until done.

Remove everything from the pan and saute the steak on high until nearly to desired doneness. Return everything to the pan and add the green beans. Heat until green beans are done.

This was wonderfully savory and amazingly yummy. The dish was mostly vegetable, but tasted very full of meat. And it was fast and easy to make -- about a half hour, from first chop to serving.

I love the interplay of leeks, mushrooms, and beef. That combination is so savory, so umami that I just can't get quite enough of it. In some ways, I prefer leeks to onions; while the taste isn't as sharp, it contains a lot of the freshness I associate with green onions. However, I prefer to go gently with the spicing, simply because I like to let the leeks shine.

New Recipe Finally - Grilled Mahi Mahi

I'm sorry about the lack of post last week - I had a virus or something and one demon of a headache (not a migraine - that I know how to deal with) that two prescription meds just could not knock out. So I went to work and came home and let Julia baby me.

So I'll try to do two recipes this week!

The last week has been rather toasty here in the Pacific Northwest with highs in the 90s. This wouldn't be too bad, but the highs the week before were in the upper 60s to lower 70s. We went from mid-May to mid-July with no stop over for June!

So I'm going to enjoy my grill. Today's recipe is Grilled Mahi Mahi.

Grilled Mahi Mahi

1 lb mahi mahi fillets (four fillets about 4 oz each)
1 large lemon
6-7 garlic cloves
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1 cup water
2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons olive oil

Zest and juice the lemon and put in a sealable plastic bag. Chop the garlic finely and add to the lemon juice. Add the rice wine and water (I collected the water in the lemon husks to add flavor). Add salt and fish. Marinade no more than 30 minutes. I marinaded for 60 minutes and I think that was a little too long.

Lightly coat each side of each fillet with olive oil.

Grill on medium heat for about 1-2 minutes per side. I grilled 2-3 and the fish was a little more done than I preferred. Part of this may have been the marinade time being too long.

The fish held together reasonably well, though the edges of some of the fillets tried to fall off. The fish was firm, but not yet tough; I definitely should have shortened either the marinade time or the grill time (I think both).

However, the fish was delightfully lemony and not overly garlicky. I thought about adding fresh dill, but the store was out of it. I refused to use dried dill; I really wanted a fresh flavor to the fish.

I served the fish with brown basmati rice, steamed broccoli, and a lovely, well-chilled rosé. Now, I'm going to enjoy my dinner.

Salmon

Salmon is a fish that, when I lived on the East Coast, I thought was good and solid, but not spectacular. I didn't quite get why so many cooks thought is was one of the best saltwater fish to cook and eat. Then I moved to the Pacific Northwest and discovered why.

Most salmon eaten on the East Coast is from the Atlantic is farmed salmon. Farming helps keep the salmon population up but keeps the salmon in proscribed areas. This leads to less foraging for food by the fish, which leads to lower muscle tone, increased fat, and less flavor. Atlantic salmon's flesh is lighter pink than Pacific salmon, in large part because the salmon is fed a farm-feed. Some areas add beta carotene to help increase the pinkness of the flesh, but that doesn't improve flavor.

Pacific salmon, on the other hand, is largely (but not exclusively) wild-caught. There are Pacific salmon farms, but, most restaurants and groceries carry several varieties of wild-caught fish. Admittedly, the stocks of fish in the Pacific have been very stressed in the last few years, so wild-caught is both becoming more scarce and more expensive.

One really interesting facet of Pacific salmon is the variety of flavors you can find. All salmon is labeled by subspecies, such as king, sockeye, and chinook, and some are also labeled by river, such as Copper River. So, at my local grocery store, I can have my choice of Copper River sockeye salmon, Copper River king salmon, chinook and others. Copper River salmon of any type is seen as superior to others, with good reason. While many people claim that king salmon is the best, most flavorful, I actually prefer sockeye. King salmon has firmer flesh and make larger fillets or steaks, but I find the flavor of the sockeye to be far superior.

Regardless of where the fish is from, if you don't pick a fresh fillet, you won't have good fish. The fish should be firm, relatively odorless, and reasonably moist. If the fillets have gaps between muscle tissues, are dry, or have a strong scent, then pass it up.

I've grilled salmon, poached it in wine, roasted it, pan-fried it, and baked it. I tend to prefer grilled or roasted salmon, but I'll eat it nearly any way I can get it. Several restaurants along the Pacific coast batter dip it and deep-fry it -- oh that's heavenly!

Roasted Salmon

1 large salmon fillet (I prefer fillets to steaks in large part because there are fewer bones)
1 orange
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1 cup of white wine
2 tablespoons of canola oil

Preheat oven to 425°F (230°C).

Clean the salmon; you will likely have to descale it. Coat pan with canola oil and place salmon on the pan skin down. Place in hot oven. Roast until salmon is done -- between 15 and 20 minutes, depending on how done you want it. The salmon will be light pink. If you want a brown crust, lightly oil the top.

Grate the zest from the orange. Squeeze the orange for its juice.

Put soy sauce, juice, wine, and zest into a sauce pan. Reduce by half or so. Drizzle over salmon.

As my house guest a few weeks ago said, "Pacific salmon is much more delicate than Atlantic." The fat isn't cloying as it can be in Atlantic salmon, the flavor is much less fishy, and the texture is quite a bit finer. Add an acidic sauce to brighten the flavors and you will have an amazingly succulent fish.

Modem fail

Sorry about this guys. We just got the modem fixed (actually replaced) today, so I should have a post up soon.

Big fail -- modem issues and rough weekend

Sorry I've missed this week. I went for a quick weekend trip last weekend and came back barely able to move. While I love doing this blog, I've needed to reserve all the energy I've had for my real job.

In addition, I need to get a new modem. I'm getting very sporadic connection with the one we have. I suspect getting its antenna chewed on by a kitten that thinks it's a puppy -- at least he chews like one. You should see what he does to card board and paper towels. If I thought it was at all nutritious, I'd save a fortune on cat food.

Creamy Mushroom Chicken

I love making a dish that is so good you don't mind having it for several meals in a row (i.e. dinners in a row). It's even better if the dish is relatively quick and easy to make. This is one of those dishes.

And *gasp* it doesn't even have garlic!

Creamy Mushroom Chicken

2 - 3 pounds of chicken cut into large cubes
1 pound crimini mushrooms sliced
2 oz dried porcini mushrooms
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 cup white wine (preferably sparkling or champagne)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 1/2 cups water

Chop dried porcinis into very small pieces so they need less time to soak and don't have to be chopped while wet. Soak porcini mushrooms in two cups of boiling water for 10-20 minutes (about as long as it takes you to cut up the chicken and mushrooms and brown them).

Sprinkle salt over chicken chunks and let sit for five minutes.

Heat olive oil in large skillet or everyday pan until olive oil is hot and leggy. Brown chicken and remove from pan. Brown mushrooms and remove from pan.

Deglaze pan with wine. Add mushroom soup one can at a time and whisk thoroughly to combine before adding the next can. Rinse cans out with 4-5 ounces of water. Add porcini fluid and porcinis. Add chicken and mushrooms. Cook until chicken is done.

Serve over rice or noodles.

I used cream of mushroom soup as the base because I didn't want to spend huge amounts of time cooking a sauce down. Between the mushrooms in the soup, the mushrooms I added, and the porcinis, the sauce turned out amazingly rich and full of mushroom-y goodness.

I will confess I used a sparkling white wine because I had some left from dinner the night before. It was nicely crisp and dry without being sour and supported the mushroom flavor wonderfully. I think it also helped the sauce be a bit lighter, though I suspect that was mostly in my mind.

Peas work really nicely as a vegetable to serve with the sauce -- I thawed the peas and mixed them into the sauce on my plate. They gave wonderful little bursts of fresh sweetness in the sauce.

Enjoy!

Chicken in Milk and Honey

After the weekend I had, I needed to take yesterday really easy. So this is a recipe I developed years ago.

Chicken in Milk and Honey

1 lb chicken cut into serving sizes
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon honey (clover works well)
1 pinch mace
dash of salt

Dissolve honey in milk in a crock pot on medium. Add chicken and spices and simmer in crock pot for several hours. Serve over baked potatoes or noodles.

This is a really easy recipe to prep. The chicken and sauce are mildly sweet, but not overly so. Last time I made it, I served it to 150 people and had absolutely no leftovers. People wandered into the kitchen looking for more!

This recipe works better with lighter honeys. Buckwheat will be far too strong and will overwhelm the chicken. I initially used clover because it's readily available and not overly strong.

It's been a while since I've made this recipe; I think I'll remedy that this week.
When I do, I want to make some tweaks, like browning the chicken before putting in the crock pot and deglazing the pan. I also think it would be lovely with an orange blossom honey.

Oatcakes

I first made oatcakes over a decade ago. When I presented them to friends during a Ceilidh, I was met with some skepticism. People tried one rather dubiously. By the time they finished their first one, they had a handful they jealously guarded from everyone else!

Best of all, they are dreadfully simple.

Oatcakes

8 oz oats (by weight)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lard or bacon fat (melted)
3 ounces hot water

Grind oats in a food processor until they are coarsely chopped. Mix all ingredients in a bowl; the dough will be sticky.

Sprinkle some flour on a flat surface to prevent the dough from sticking. Roll out walnut-sized pieces until they are palm-sized disks.

Bake at 325°F (190°C) on an ungreased baking pan for 30 minutes or until dry and crisp.

Oatcakes store wonderfully in a cookie tin, so you can make up a bunch and store for later use. Spread a little butter or jam on the oatcake (though I prefer them plain) and your off on a taste and texture sensation.

Pancakes with Fiber - but don't tell anyone

I like pancakes for breakfast on weekend mornings. Not the banal, overly leavened things you get from certain mixes, but a nice, fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth pancake. Unfortunately, they tend not to be so good for you -- lots of sugar and not much fiber.

Why can't something that tastes so good have fiber that is so good for you? It can!

Sneaky Pancakes

1-1/2 cups white all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
4 tablespoons sugar
1-3/4 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon (add up to a second if you prefer heavier cinnamon flavor)
2 eggs
3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
1-1/4 to 1-1/2 cup milk

Mix the dry ingredients together. Beat eggs and milk together, then add butter (mix well while adding to prevent the butter from lumping). Add wet ingredients to dry, stirring to combine. A few small lumps should remain. Let rest for 1/2 hour or so.

Heat griddle. Pour 1/4 to 1/3 cup of batter on the griddle and let cook until bubbles form and pop on the top surface. Carefully lift the edge to check how brown the underside is. If the underside is brown, flip and let finish cooking until the bottom browns.

This recipe should make about 8 - 10 small pancakes.

When I make the pancakes, I preheat my oven to about 170°F (77°C) so I can keep them warm until they are all done. Then we can sit down and eat breakfast together instead of one person eating while the other cooks (and then eats alone).

The wheat bran I use is 8 grams of dietary fiber per 1/3 cup (not really great, but think how bad it is without the bran). Split between two servings, that's not great, but it's a little better than most US cereals.

This recipe uses a bit more fluid than most recipes, but that is because bran is often somewhat dry, which is why it gets compared to cardboard. The eggs in particular add a richness that offsets the coarseness of the bran, providing a much more luxurious mouth-feel and tenderness.

I like how the cinnamon comes out in this recipes. I think it helps distract you from thinking about how "healthy" the pancakes are. Then again, I really like cinnamon.

Pork Fajitas?

Last week, my partner decided she wanted pork. Then she discovered that avocados were on sale, so she decided we should make pork fajitas.

The more common meats for fajitas are, of course, beef, chicken, and shrimp, but there's no reason pork couldn't work, so I was game. Of course, we were out of lettuce and sour cream, but we don't let little things like that stop us.

Pork Fajitas

1 large pork steak
1/2 large onion
1 red pepper
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
dash of cayenne pepper
2 tablespoon canola oil

Slice onion and pepper into narrow slices and place in separate bowls. Sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon salt into each bowl and mix.

Mix all the spices together.

Cut the pork into strips. Sprinkle half of the spice mixture on the top and let sit for 5 to 10 minutes. Flip the pork and sprinkle remaining spices. Let sit again for 5 to 10 minutes.

Heat canola oil in a medium-hot pan. Saut&233; the onions until they are translucent and start browning, then add the peppers. Once the peppers soften, remove from pan.

Place the pork strips in the pan and brown on each side. Add the onions and peppers and saut&233; until pork is done. Remove from heat and serve over tortillas with your favorite toppings.

I wasn't confident how well the pork was likely to turn out, but it was really, really good. I was concerned that the pork would dry out, but adding the vegetables to the pan while I was finishing the pork kept the pork tender and moist.

Green peppers would work in this recipe, but I think the red is better. The sweetness of the red pepper brings out the sweetness and savoriness of the pork in a way green peppers can't. Green peppers are a little too bitter to do so.

Normally, I prefer corn tortillas over flour, but getting fresh corn tortillas can be a real challenge. With the pork fajitas, I think flour would work better as they are milder in flavor and really let the pork shine.

So now I know that the meat I use in fajitas is only limited by my imagination!

Not your mama's potato casserole!

Sorry about last night -- I went to a photography discussion and it ran way over time.

So, about that title. I had an enjoyable weekend with a couple friends coming over to help sort through some stuff that we are sending off in a couple of weeks. Anyway, that presented a rather interesting conundrum for dinner. One friend is a lactovegetarian and the other is allergic to most grains, including rice. So what do you feed them?

Did I also mention that it was wet and chilly? I wanted to get the oven going to drive off some of that chill.

Potato-Leek Casserole

4 large potatoes
1 leek
1/2 to 3/4 pound crimini mushrooms
30 oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese
16 oz sliced American cheese
3 tablespoons fresh chopped garlic
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground tumeric
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
~1 cup 2% milk
1 tablespoon butter

Slice the potatoes about 1/4 inch thick. Parboil them until they are about halfway done.

Slice the leek into coins. Saut&233; leek and garlic until leek is soft.

Slice the mushrooms. I prefer thick and meaty, but others like thin and melt-in-your-mouth.

Put cheese (reserve 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar), spices, and milk in a large microwavable bowl. Microwave in 1 minute increments, stirring after each time period, until somewhat smooth and creamy.

Layer cheese sauce, potatoes, mushrooms, and leeks in a large casserole dish. Sprinkle reserved cheese over the top of the casserole. Bake at 350°F (177°C) for half an hour or until the potatoes are done and the cheese on top has browned.

Let me start by saying, I cheated on the cheese sauce. I use the American cheese to help make the cheese sauce smooth and creamy without spending huge amounts of time over the stove stirring and stirring and stirring.

I will also admit that my measurements of the milk and spices are approximations. I made the casserole by the seat of my pants, adding stuff until I got the spicy scent I wanted and the cheese texture. I started with about 1/2 cup of milk and added more to the cheese sauce until it was creamy. So you may not need as much milk as I said or you may need more. Also, it depends on how hard your cheddar is.

However, the end result is so totally worth it! I believe potatoes, leeks, and cheese are an amazing flavor team, but when I added in the curry-ish spices, I took it so far beyond the next level, it was unbelievable. Serve it with broccoli (you need a veggie, c'mon!) and it's a well-balanced vegetarian meal with a variety of textures.