Meat + Dutch Oven: A Long Term Vision Is Realized

a Mark post

I had a dream, that one day we would take a piece of meat, and cook it in the cast-iron dutch oven.

That's it. And, full disclosure, we have done that before. However, this craving for meat to be cooked in the dutch oven could not be denied, and I finally talked Wendy into the idea. Of course, she made it a more complete thought than my primordial "meat in pot... make good", and so we decided on a pulled pork sandwich from Simply Recipes.

What appealed to us about this particular recipe is that we make a sauce for the meat to marinate overnight, which later mixes with the juices of the meat while it cooks and becomes the sauce for the final product. And the vision played out as I expected: we simply put the meat in the dutch oven with the marinade over night, pulled it out the next day and cooked it on the stove eye, removed the meat to pull it, then added it back to the pot after letting the sauce reduce.

Pull that meat!


Add it back to the reduced sauce.

We served the BBQ on those little Hawaiian rolls, like sliders. We also made some great collard greens and mustard slaw.


A complete plate.


Gnocci thinks she wants some.


Seasoning for the greens.


Greens close up.

Condiments, Cookies, & Cats

We thoroughly cleaned out our fridge a couple of weeks ago. That is, we threw out the squirt bottle of caramel ice cream topping we moved from Murfreesboro with three years ago...that is to say it was a thorough cleaning. The fridge is so clean that every time I open it, I holler out, "Mark, we got a show fridge."

I like grocery lists because I think they're succinct little character sketches. I've recently seen a few folks posting pictures of their fridges in a similar sort of spirit.

When I look at this photo I realize just how much I've cut back on the recreational mustard collection I strove to cultivate. Ah me...getting old already.


Highlights include Pea Soup (to be discussed at a later date), homemade chicken broth, Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper (sweet chemicals needed for survival), several tubs of TJ's hummus/dips, and some homemade cookies and Parmesan crisps chillin' in sleeves of parchment paper.

The cookies were for my niece, Kelley, as we weren't able to attend her 11th B-day party. They were a lovely recipe from Dorie Greenspan: Coconut-Lime Shortbread.

I opted for pistachios.

& obligatory cat shots:

Xena = a Nautilus


You can't really tell in this picture, but she's hugged up to a catnip filled cat cigar. Mark kinda staged this, I think. This is his cat/squirrel, after all.

At-Home Indian Food, Part I

Vegetarian Times inspired us to finally try and create some Indian cuisine that went beyond microwave papadum and homemade naan.

We actually made the entire magazine spread minus the chutneys. As I've mentioned before, we're fortunate enough to live next door to an Indian grocery. Usually, I go alone and peruse the aisles as mere entertainment. But since I had a recipe in mind, I brought Mark along to help me find everything. However, another shopper, with his young son in tow, (almost excitedly, actually) stopped his shopping to help us find many of the ingredients.

Mark was immediately drawn to the lentil pancakes, so we prepped those first as they needed to stay in the fridge overnight. I was so surprised that we were able to puree the lentil and rice mixture without cooking it at all.

Here are the lovely toppings:

Peas, jalapeno, red onion, and cilantro

We cooked them up on our cast iron griddle:


My favorite dish of the night was the Lemon Rasam soup:

not the best picture in the world, but it'll do.


Chiles, curry leaves, mustard seeds in ghee

We made a vegetable curry as well, but it didn't rock my socks or anything. I've proven not to be the biggest coconut milk fan, sadly.

We made this spread more than a month ago. I'm still playing catch up. This second student teaching placement is less hectic, but I'm knee deep in a job search as well as a newly initiated house search. We're hoping to find a nice cheap house so that we have enough money leftover for a tandoori oven...not really. I guess it'd be a little silly to make a clay oven top priority these days.

Bonus India-related tid-bit: my lovely little sister-in-law is studying in India this semester and she's learned how to dance the Kuchipudi. We're real proud of this little gal. She's the one in the red (not fuchsia) on the right. (It takes the video a minute to start up.)

Hey Stranger

We've cooked minimally in the last couple of months. I've been playing a teacher, which has worked out well for me, I'd say...though I cannot go into specifics right now. I have been sad to have to relinquish my cooking habit, but the payoff may be worth it. Generally, I cook for therapy, but it is possible, I'm now convinced, that teaching is my new therapy. It's a calling, that's for sure.

For now, I cook on Saturdays, if I have the energy to look something up.

On a lazy Hills-soaked Saturday night a month or so ago, we made this:

Chicken Sausage Farro Soup

We got the Cilantro Chicken Sausage from Trader Joe's. This soup was good, better on the reheat if you ask me (as you know, most soups are). I loved the texture of the farro: chewy goodness. The collard spines were crunchy and delectable as I like them. I would recommend this soup if you're into sausage + curry. The flavor and textures were too much for me, though.

We also made a tomato soup, which was good, but not remarkable.

I made the croutons with some Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Sourdough cut into cubes, tossed with olive oil, and a good shake of Sicilian oregano (from Lazzaroli's).



Shameless Self-Promotion: please do check out my Middle School Blog as I'm really intrigued by my thought processes those days as I'm now working with kids of this age group.

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Smitten Kitchen has been sweet reading for me since I found it about a year ago. Deb's writing is great and her photos are just lovely. As you might know, we grew tomatoes last summer and sometimes ran out of ideas for how to use them...Deb helped us out.

Here's her recipe for Slow Roasted Tomatoes. Check out her post here.

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Cherry, grape or small Roma tomatoes
Whole gloves of garlic, unpeeled
Olive oil
Herbs such as thyme or rosemary (optional)

Preheat oven to 225°F. Halve each cherry or grape tomato crosswise, or Roma tomato lengthwise and arrange on a parchment-lined baking sheet along with the cloves of garlic. Drizzle with olive oil, just enough to make the tomatoes glisten. Sprinkle herbs on, if you are using them, and salt and pepper, though go easily on these because the finished product will be so flavorful you’ll need very little to help it along.

Bake the tomatoes in the oven for about three hours. You want the tomatoes to be shriveled and dry, but with a little juice left inside–this could take more or less time depending on the size of your tomatoes.

Either use them right away or let them cool, cover them with some extra olive oil and keep them in the fridge for the best summer condiment, ever. And for snacking.

Here are our specimens from last August:




Good on sammiches:


The natural sweetness of the tomato is astounding. They're like candy.

Well, as you may know, tomato season is far behind us at this point. I stop buying tomatoes completely in the winter minus the occasional carton of cherry tomatoes. I mean, those pale pink mealy things you find at this time of year are offensive! It's not that I think we should have tomatoes year round, but I miss them terribly. Tomatoes and watermelon: the only two reasons I endure the Tennessee summer. I'm rambling here, but this past week I was really craving some candied tomatoes, so I took a carton of cherry maters and slow roasted them with some garlic. They've been very tasty in the quesadillas we've been subsisting on since I started student teaching.

Pork & Apples

When we made Anna Laura's Meatloaf over Christmas break, Mark was struck with inspiration for a curried pork loaf. Saturday night that pork loaf became a reality. We based it loosely on Alton's recipe which can be found here. Here's our rendition:

Curried Ground Pork with Apples

1.5 lbs of ground pork
4.5 oz. bag of garlic and cheese croutons
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons curry powder
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
1 finely minced onions
6 whole cloves garlic
1 red bell pepper
1/4 cup of crushed pineapples, well drained
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 egg
1 bottle of pre-made apple curry chutney

Heat oven to 325 degrees F.

In a food processor bowl, combine croutons and spices. Pulse until the mixture is of a fine texture. Place this mixture into a large bowl. Combine the onion, garlic, and red pepper in the food processor bowl. Pulse until the mixture is finely chopped, but not pureed. Combine the vegetable mixture and ground pork with the bread crumb mixture. Season the meat mixture with the kosher salt. Add the egg and use your freshly washed hands to toss together, but avoid squeezing the meat.

Shape into a loaf and put in cast iron skillet or on lined baking sheet. Cook until the pork reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees.

I coated the pork with the chutney and some minced onion before I baked it, but I definitely wouldn't do that if we made this again. As I suspected, it burned off into nothingness.

We surrounded the pork "loaf" (I certainly hate that word!) with two seeded and chopped granny smith apples that were coated in the chutney.

We had leftover collard greens as a side along with some garlic cheddar biscuits I threw together at the last minute. I've been craving Red Lobster biscuits for a bit now and I can't bring myself to go there, so I thought I'd do my own rendition. We had some Bisquick from a snow day breakfast we had last year, so I put it to good use:
Stupidly Simple Cheddar Garlic Biscuits
2 c. Bisquick mix (mine was heart-healthy, mind you)
2/3 c. milk
small block of white cheddar grated
few spoonfuls of garlic out of the big jar

Mix well with wooden spoon, drop onto baking sheet, brush with butter or butter substitute and cook at 425 for 8-10 minutes.

I added a ton of garlic and it had a lovely crystallized texture.

We ate this meal as we watched the first season of This American Life. We had just finished our meal when a story about pig farming came on. Yep, I'm not eating the leftovers, but Mark doesn't seem to mind.

Weeknight Curry, etc.

As mentioned in my previous blog, Mark and I resolved to each cook through a cookbook this year. I didn't choose the most ambitious of books, but it's full of helpful techniques that will enable me to bring more improv into our kitchen.

Sweet Yams in Ginger-Stick Curry from How To Eat Supper

Yams
4 quarts salted water
2 large Garnet or Jewel yams (about 1 3/4 pounds), peeled, halved lengthwise, and cut into 1/4-inch-thick half-rounds.

Curry
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
One 1 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into paper-thin matchsticks (Rachel Ray told me a long time ago...buy a big hunk of ginger, bring it home, peel it, cut it into chunks, and put it in a ziplock in the freezer. Otherwise, it dries out and doesn't last very long. It even slices better in its semi-frozen state)
4 large garlic cloves, sliced paper thin
1 jalepeño, sliced very thin
2 whole scallions, cut into 1-inch lengths
2 large shallots, sliced thin
Salt and Pepper
1/2 light-packed cup fresh basil leaves, course chopped (I was craving Thai basil, searched high and low for it, but even the huge World Market beside our house was out...regular basil was okay)
Juice of 1 lime
(I added a package of fresh snow peas to this mix)

1. Bring water to boil.
2. Once water is bubbling fiercely, drop in the yams and cook them at a hard bubble for 10 minutes, or until tender. Drain in a colander and turn into a serving dish. Set the pot back on the stove.
3. Generously film the pot with oil. Set it over medium-high heat and add the snow peas, ginger, garlic, jalepeño, scallions, shallots, and generous sprinklings of salt and pepper (I used the mandoline for all the veg). Saute for two minutes, stirring often. Then cover the pot tightly, reduce the heat to medium low, and cook for 5-8 minutes, or until the ginger has softened.

Do take note, Lynne says:

Cutting the ginger into paper-thin matchsticks may seem fussy, but there is method to what seems to be madness. That shape changes how you taste the ginger in this dish. Crushed or chopped ginger would taste different - an interesting thing to remember when you see very specific instructions like these in Chinese recipes. There's always a reason.

4. Stir in the basil and cook, uncovered, for no more than 30 seconds. Spoon curry over yams, and squeeze lime juice over the finished dish.

We served this atop Mark's project, Veganomicon's Easy Stir-Fried Leafy Greens


Mark:
I started with the simplest recipe I could find, not because I wanted it to be simple, but because I wanted to make greens. I love greens! The book I chose was Veganomicon, from which we had made a few recipes already that all turned out well (please see Acorn Squash Empanadas with Chilantro "Sour Cream" and Chick Pea cutlets from previous posts).

The recipe is simple - 1 pound of greens, garlic and ginger, stir-fried, with some asian sauces. I used mirin and shoyu (in place of soy sauce. These are some of the great things we picked up during Wendy's readings of macrobiotic literature), and sesame oil. I thought it was going pretty well, but I decided to use the two pounds of collard greens we already had and doulbed the recipe. When the recipe had run its course it turns out the greens kind of sucked, not because of the recipe, but because collard greens are naturally bitter and much better at stewing in a pot with some form of pork belly for 2 hours.

So what could possibly dominate these failed greens into tasty submission?

Wendy interceded with a heavy hand, adding about a tablespoon of lemon juice and many many many squirts of Tabasco's smokey chipotle flavor - greens saved!

Wendy here...the greens didn't really suck, they were just blander than we're used to. I'm convinced that I've burned off most of my taste buds, so that's why I have to cover everything in sauces!

On another night this week, we made this quick, simple soup from Everyday Food

Soba Soup with Spinach

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 12 ounces shiitake mushrooms (stems removed), caps thinly sliced
• 4 scallions, white and green parts separated and thinly sliced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger
• Coarse salt
• 2 cans (14.5 ounces each) reduced-sodium chicken broth (I used a carton of veg broth, but use what you have)
  
• 1/2 package (4.4 ounces) soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles)
• 1 bunch flat-leaf spinach, torn
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce (again, we don't keep soy sauce, so I did a mix of mirin and shoyu)

1. In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium. Add mushrooms, scallion whites, garlic, and ginger; season with salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are tender, 6 minutes.
2. Add broth and 3 cups water; bring to a boil. Add soba; reduce to a simmer, and cook 5 minutes. Add spinach; cook just until tender, about 1 minute. Add lime juice and soy sauce. Serve topped with scallion greens.

It was a light, super quick, lovely meal. I, of course, added chili paste to my bowl. I can't help myself.