The recipe came from a December, 2008 issue of Bon Appetit, in an article about the foods from the Fairmont le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec. I’m sure that’s why I stopped to read this recipe, because it came from that hotel – le Chateau Frontenac.

I remember, oh so well, the first time I saw that beautiful hotel, standing right above the river, the St. Lawrence. I was about 15 and my parents and I were on a long weekend trip from where we lived for a couple of years in Newport, Rhode Island. We didn’t stay in the hotel in Quebec– oh my goodness, no – way beyond our budget, but we were properly impressed with the place. (Back then it wasn’t owned by the Fairmont.) I never forgot seeing the hotel. I wrote a story for my English class some time after that, with a little history of Quebec and the hotel. That I remember too, plus the slight markdown I got on my report because I failed to put the le in front of the Frontenac. I remember that, and other humiliating things like losing a spelling bee in 7th grade because I didn’t know how to spell chrysanthemum. You can bet your bottom dollar I never forgot how to spell it after that! 

Sorry, I got sidetracked there. Anyway, this very French-style meat pie just sounded interesting, with an Italian twist perhaps, using Italian sausage instead of deer meat or elk or whatever would be appropriate for a wintertime meat pie. But mostly it’s chicken thigh meat, mushrooms, shallots, and garlic in a nicely thickened flavorsome brown gravy with some Madeira wine in it. I do think the Madeira makes this dish – it adds a background character to the sauce that you just can’t quite identify. Browning the mushrooms and shallots also provides a real flavor depth too. Not just cooking them, but browning them.

This made a very impressive company dinner – it’s way too much work to make for a weeknight family meal. It will serve more people than the original recipe suggested ( I think 8, rather than 6) too. It was delicious. Next time I think I’d just use puff pastry on top – a whole lot easier. I didn’t care for the pastry crust – maybe it was too thick for my taste. Am not sure, but it wasn’t as light and flaky as I would have hoped. But even with that, the entire dish was special. Deeply flavorful – kind of like a chicken & sausage stew – really that’s all it is – but with a pastry top crust. And definitely don’t eliminate the Madeira – it’s essential!

A year ago: Roasted Stone Fruit Olive Oil Madeleines
Two years ago: Marinated, Grilled Provolone

The day I made this soup it rained nearly all day. Last Saturday. A kind of day when we lit the fireplace, turned the thermostat up, and kept watching the drain lines around our house. We managed to get by without any flooding in the house, but we stayed on top of it all day. And I stayed close to the kitchen nearly all day too, working on this soup.

A hearty meat-laden and vegetable soup was what appealed to me. With a big chunk of pork shoulder from the freezer and cabbage as the mainstays, it wasn’t hard to make this, although it does take some chopping and mincing. And some slicing and sautéing. The recipe started from James Peterson’s book, Splendid Soups: Recipes and Master Techniques for Making the World’s Best Soups. Really making this began with the fact that I had not one, but two cabbage heads in the refrigerator. I had onions, celery, carrots and sauerkraut. From that, though, I weaved a bit off track with a few extra additions.

The pork (actually the original recipe called for beef, but Peterson said in his after-notes that he often makes it with pork instead) I cooked up in the crockpot for about 5 hours, until it was fall-apart tender. Once that was done I used the broth from the pork (strained of all its now spent vegetables) to start the soup. It comes together in a jiffy – you just have to chop everything (mushrooms, more onion, celery, carrots, turnips, and the cabbage). And at the end you add in some fresh sauerkraut, the cubed pork and some spicy sausage of some kind. I happened to have some imported Spanish dry (salami-type) chorizo which I cubed up to add flavor. But you do NOT want to put the sausage in earlier because it will give up all of its flavor to the soup and not have any taste.

The recipe is based on an old-world everyday soup from Russia. It’s called shchi in Russian. I went online hunting for how to pronounce the word. Some say it’s something like she, others sh-chi. But any way you want to say it, it’s a cabbage soup. With sauerkraut added in at the end too. And full of flavor. And healthy with all the veggies. It is mostly veggies. The pork I used was very lean and produced almost no fat whatsoever. You can see some of it in the photo, but I probably didn’t have 2 1/2 pounds as I’ve indicated in the recipe. Probably more like 1 1/2 pounds. But, you know, soup is very forgiving that way. I needed to add more liquid to the soup, so I added water and a dollop of Penzey’s pork soup base (a broth concentrate). You may remember that I’m a big fan of Penzey’s soup bases (I have small jars of beef, chicken, turkey, pork, ham, seafood and vegetable) that I use very frequently. You could substitute chicken broth granules or canned broth too. The soup can be made ahead – maybe even tastes better the next day.

What I will tell you – beyond the fact that the soup is downright scrumptious -  is that you don’t want to omit the sour cream (I used light) and fresh dill for the garnish. As good as the soup was, it made it over-the-top, as far as I’m concerned, with the dollop of sour cream and a bit of dill in every bite. Eventually, as we ate the soup, the sour cream dissipated throughout the broth, and the dill floated on top. So, for me, just remember the sour cream and dill, okay?  I think this likely serves more than 10 people – more like 12 – in 2-cup servings. I froze dinner-size portions (two of them), gave away another two-portion container, and still had enough for us for another 2 meals. So, however you pronounce shchi, just make this, okay? Hearty, healthy and comforting.

A year ago: Chicken a l’Orange
Two years ago: Borscht with Andouille Sausage

If you’re looking for a low calorie, but special kind of dinner, this is it. Pork tenderloin is a very low-fat meat – do note that there’s only 6 grams of fat per serving. And some of that comes from a single slice of bacon. But do read on. This was from a Phillis Carey cooking class for lighter and healthier meals. Phillis hit the mark here. I don’t know about you, but when I’m really trying to cut fat and calories, what often is lacking is flavor. But this dish has plenty of flavor. And is certainly colorful and tasty enough to serve to guests. And they’d never know it’s healthy. You don’t need to tell anybody about that part.

You may note in the photo above that the meat is still just slightly pink. It was perfect – baked to about 155, and was absolutely tender and still juicy when served. You could make this with traditional succotash (lima beans and corn). The above, and Phillis’ recipe calls for the Trader Joe’s edamame succotash frozen mixture (edamame beans and corn) which was delish. Either one is fine. The one slice of bacon has a double-use: (1) you cook/render the bacon all by itself in a big skillet and the meat is sautéed in the fat, to brown it only; and (2) the bacon is crumbled up and put into the succotash at the end. But really, one slice of bacon for 4 servings – great for flavor, and very low on the fat scale.

The meat – the pork tenderloin – does need to be slit down the middle (but not all the way through) and flattened into a thin, flat single piece (oh, about 6” x 13” is a guess). That provides a perfect bed for the red bell pepper, chipotle and cheese filling. It’s rolled up, tied, browned, baked, and meanwhile you make the edamame succotash side and add a bit of cilantro, red onion and jalapeno chile and a little bit of white wine. The meat is sliced into wide coins (one pork tenderloin serves 4) and placed on or alongside the veggies. With a salad this would make a complete meal. Delicious.

A year ago: Ginger Crème Brule
Two years ago: Wild Rice Salad

As you can see, we’re using our Spode Christmas china. I keep those dishes stored in a closet and they’re all part of the Christmas decoration boxes (too many to number), so when I haul out the decorations, those dishes are unboxed and begin their 30 days of use per year. And in those 30 days they’re used a lot – every day. Even for breakfast. We’ll be long gone and those dishes will live on in the home of one of our children, so why not use them every day? Place settings for 8.

I finally got the dining room table decorated. But for the last few days we haven’t been able to eat in the dining room because I had decorations strewn everywhere. We eat in the dining room most nights, except in the summer when we eat outside on our patio. The other night I really felt like cooking. Not some throw-together thing (yes, I do that too), but a nice meal. I’d purchased a rack of pork ribs at Costco. Did you know they only carry the long roasts in December? So if you want some, now’s the time to get them. They’re amazingly inexpensive – about $17 for 8 ribs. I cut the ribs into 4 small mini-roasts. Two ribs per “roast.” Froze 3 of them, and ate one. I prepared the ribs as a roast, and only when it was done did we slice it into two pieces, so each of us had a rib. As I’m writing this post, we had a big storm yesterday. It was gosh-darned cold, for us. The thermometer registered 39° on our patio at dinnertime. Our mountains are covered with snow. We had the family room fireplace going for many hours yesterday. Even though we had on winter types of clothing, seemed like we couldn’t quite keep warm, even with the thermostat turned up. Anyway, back to pork.

First I brined it. I have a jar of seasoned brining salt (not specifically for poultry, but for anything). So I soaked the roast in the brine (in a Ziploc plastic bag) in the refrigerator for about 5 hours. Drained it, allowed it to sit out for about half an hour, then seasoned it up. I turned to one of my barbecue cookbooks, The Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen, and after looking at numerous different seasoning mixes and rubs, I settled on the Memphis Rub. A bit of sugar, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, dry mustard, celery salt, cayenne among other things. No herbs, just spices. There you can see the combo in the picture at left.

After drying off the roast with paper towels, I packed that rub all over the roast. Every place I could put it. I didn’t quite use all the rub, but it will keep for a month or so. You know, of course, that once spices are combined, they tend to lose their flavor much more quickly than if stored individually. That’s why a month or so and you need to use it up. Anyway, then I browned the roast in olive oil. Because of the sugar in the rub, it blackens quickly, so be careful of the heat level. You can see the photo right – the redness is from the rub, not from the inherent red color of the meat.

A meat thermometer went into the roast and into a 400° oven it went. Took about 15 minutes, I think. Maybe 20, for it to reach 150°. Once removed from the oven it rested, tented with foil, while I finished up the dinner. Next time I want to take it out at about 145° I think. Any bad bugs in the meat are zapped at 138°, so you’re perfectly safe at 145°. If you like your pork medium, then the 150 is just right.

The aioli was part of the risotto cakes I made to go with the pork. If you want that recipe, click over to my post about those.

The meat was tender, juicy and very tasty. I liked the aioli with it, although I don’t suppose that’s very traditional. The Memphis Rub was just right in its degree of heat. Raichlen suggested a range of heat (cayenne) and I chose the lesser amount. I didn’t want to overwhelm the nice roast with too much chile pepper heat – it would have masked the flavor.

Two years ago: Chocolate Steamed Pudding

Lately I’m sounding like a broken record – seems like every recipe is a winner. Five star. This one is no exception. And it’s another one of those recipes that has nothing but ordinary food in it. Italian sausage, onion, garlic, canned tomatoes, broth, canned cannellini beans, orzo, then some fresh basil and Parmesan cheese. With the exception of the beans and orzo, it’s a lot like spaghetti sauce. But don’t forget that anything you make is only as good as the ingredients that go into it. That means, in this case, using good quality Italian sausage. Fresh garlic. Oh yes, there’s a bit of bacon in this too.

It doesn’t take all that long to prepare this soup, either. The recipe is yet another Phillis Carey one. Wow, that gal is one stupendously good cook. I liked this at the cooking class, and liked it almost more so when I made it myself. I used Niman Ranch no-nitrate/nitrite bacon. I used Italian specialty meat market sausage. I used high quality frozen beef broth and some of Penzey’s concentrated pork broth. Trader Joe’s canned beans. Muir Glen fire-roasted canned tomatoes. Real Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Fresh basil leaves. I made a double batch – made enough for entertaining friends, and two portions for freezing, and some for another meal this week. If you make this as a main course, you probably won’t get 8 servings. You’ll have no trouble getting rid of it, I guarantee.

A year ago: Chicken Hamburgese
Two years ago: Heavenly Cream Cheese Brownies (yum, makes my mouth water, guess I need to make these again soon)

Pork tenderloin is a favorite of ours. It’s lean. Tender. Quick to cook. Not as much flavor as some of the more fatty cuts of the pig, but good if prepared correctly (read: not overcooked) and usually with some kind of sauce on top or a salsa/relish on the side.  Phillis Carey prepares it often in her cooking classes. This recipe is a keeper. It meets all the criteria – lean, quick, flavorful, and has a sauce/gravy to go with it. An easy pan sauce using apple cider vinegar and maple syrup.

Soooo, here’s what you do: rub a bunch of Dijon mustard on the pork tenderloin, along with some salt and pepper. Into a hot pan it goes – to brown on as many sides as the tenderloin seems to have. Here’s a picture of that step.

Once browned, insert a meat thermometer in it, kind of angled in so the tip of the point is – hopefully – in the center of the thickest part of the meat. It goes into a very hot (425) oven to roast for a very short time – like 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile get the ingredients together for the sauce – some cider vinegar, more Dijon and some good (real) maple syrup. You remove the pork when it reaches 150 (for pink). If you like it cooked more, then continue until it reaches 155. The meat rests briefly (tented with foil) while you deglaze the pan with the vinegar. Then you add the mustard and maple syrup. Be SURE to use a whisk to break up the mustard – if you don’t you’ll have bunches of cooked clumps of mustard in the sauce. Not good! Slice the meat and drizzle the sauce on top.

My friend Cherrie prepared this dish a few nights ago and she made a couple of changes to the sauce – she added a bit of cream to the sauce and also a touch of arrowroot, which thickened it. I also think that when I make it again – which I will – I’ll make half again more sauce. There wasn’t quite enough, I thought, so I increased it in the recipe below.

A year ago: Dinner at Bistro 33 near Folsom
Two years ago: Pumpkin Cake in a Mold (pumpkin shape)

I’m SO ready for fall weather. We’ve had a few days of cooler weather – very welcomed since October is often a warm month for us here in Southern California. As soon as I heard we were going to have a day with a high of 69 degrees, well, it needed to be a soup day. We’d offered to take dinner to our son’s home, and it needed to get cooked and finished by about 4pm, so I wasted no time at all getting this soup cookin’. I had a pork shoulder in the freezer, so that defrosted in the morning, and into the crockpot this went. No browning of the meat or onions. Just pile in all the stewing ingredients and let it burble away for a few hours.

You can see some of the nice ciabatta bread sopping up the juice.

This soup was very easy. Pork, onion, some prosciutto, some bacon, broth (I used Penzey’s pork broth, which is VERY flavorful, although you can use canned beef broth), later some rutabaga and kale or Swiss chard, and some cannellini beans.  Served over a thick slice of country bread that was  toasted under the broiler. See? Easy. You do need to remove the pork shoulder at some point (once it’s cooked) and shred it in coarse pieces. It gets added back in at the end just to heat through. And you do need to clean the Swiss chard, remove the center ribs, then chop it up coarsely. I used canned beans, just because they’re easier. I bought a nice loaf of sourdough bread (whole) and cut thick pieces, broiled those just to get them brown, then they went into the soup bowl. Then you just ladle the soup over the bread. The thick pieces of bread, although they soaked up the broth big time, the crispy edges still had some texture, which I liked a lot. We all thought this soup was a winner. A keeper. It should freeze well, although I don’t have enough hardly to freeze since I gave half the leftovers to our kids. We have enough for another dinner. I added some Parmesan cheese on top the 2nd time I served it (the pictures are from those seconds), although the cheese is not in the recipe.

The recipe was out of a soup cookbook I have, but I’ve changed the recipe so much, it’s not really James Patterson’s recipe anymore. But the concept is. His recipe called for beef brisket. I didn’t want to use beef, but pork. So I improvised some. Whether the Spanish really make a soup with pork shoulder, I’m not certain, but I decided to give them the credit for it – it’s called Caldo Gallego in that country. The recipe below is for stovetop cooking, but am sure you can figure out easily enough how to adapt it to a crock pot, as I did. My crock pot insert will go right on the stove, which is what I did to cook the rutabaga and the Swiss chard at the end. Otherwise in a crock pot you’d want to add those ingredients about 30-45 minutes earlier, maybe longer. So anyway, go get yourself some pork shoulder, some chard and make a soup. I’m going to be making this again soon, with fresh pork, then I’ll divide it up for freezing. For those cooler winter nights when I don’t feel like cooking. You probably think I never have those kinds of nights, but I DO.

A year ago: Traveling near Mt. Shasta
Two years ago: Anise Pound Cake (a specialty of the American Southwest)

A happy camper am I. Last week, mother nature provided us with a few days of temps only in the low 80’s. Hallelujah. And the nights have been cooler too, which makes for better sleeping. My mind had been turning to soup already even with the summer temps. So when this recipe appeared in our local paper recently, credited to Karen Collard of Anaheim, CA, it sounded so easy. And tasty. In fact, it’s so easy I almost didn’t clip out the recipe. But, I’m telling you, as simple as it is, the flavor is really good.

The other thing – this soup may not look like much, but appearance doesn’t matter. Trust me on this one. The original recipe was intended to be very low fat – just cabbage, onions, chicken broth, and a packaged gravy mix mixed with some milk. I decided to ramp it up a little by adding some spicy Italian sausage and some parsley for garnish. Otherwise the recipe is essentially the same. You could substitute turkey sausage (although I wouldn’t advise it as the pork/sausage provides a ton of good flavor), or eliminate it. I added a bit of olive oil too, to caramelize the onions just a little bit. This doesn’t cook a long time – in fact I think it’s better if it’s NOT cooked for hours. You still want just a bit of texture to the cabbage. But what it is, is EASY. Trust me on this. You’ll have dinner on the table in about 45 minutes.

It’s a rare day when I use any packaged mix for anything. I had to shop at a couple of grocery stores to even FIND the McCormick sausage flavored country gravy mix. Look in the big grocery stores for it. It just made the preparation so simple. It’s mixed with more liquid (milk and chicken broth instead of water) to give it a soupy consistency. So, go make this, okay? We just LUVVVVED it. I had a hard time keeping my tasting spoon out of the pot as it simmered at the end. We had leftovers two nights later and it was just as good, maybe better, the way soups often are. I gave the recipe to my friend Cherrie, who made it a night or two later. She and her husband slurped up two bowls of it the first night. More testimony that this is a keeper.

Two years ago: Drop Biscuits (delicious, rich and easy)

Some of this recipe is a repeat from yesterday. The original came from an article in Gourmet Magazine in September, 2006. Yesterday I separated the sweet and sour cabbage from the pork and gave it it’s own posting – so you (and I) can make it on its own. But if you want to make this recipe in total (it’s easy, really), then this is the one. The bacon was fried up, crumbled and drained. Then the onions were cooked, the cabbage added. While it simmered away, the pork chops were seasoned and pan fried, to get a good brown crust on them. Then they went into a 450 oven for just a few minutes (about 5, I’d say) to finish up. Really, they could have been completed right on the stovetop in the frying pan. What you DON’T want to do is overcook these. Once ordinary pork reaches its peak of cooked-ness, at 145 F. it is DONE. Past that, and it begins to dry out and become more like shoe leather. I used a meat thermometer to make sure these expensive chops didn’t even approach shoes.

These chops look huge,  I know. I didn’t weigh them, but they’re not very thick – less than an inch. The pork is mildly seasoned (salt, pepper) but I wanted something more, so I seasoned them with Italian herb seasonings. The steaks were dried off well before I did that. Then they went into a hot, hot sauté pan (one that can go into a hot oven) to brown on both sides. Once they were browned, into the oven they went. Once out, I sprinkled them with some of the reserved bacon, and I added some minced Italian parsley. Ideally you put the pork chop ON the cabbage, or partly on it anyway. They go great together. An easy weeknight dinner. This was all we had for dinner and it came together in about 45 minutes if I include all the dicing and chopping. We loved the cabbage – that part of it is a real keeper. And the pork chops were very nice too.

A year ago: Tiramisu

Sorry I don’t have the full-blown crown roast photograph for you. But this was from a cooking class; I was seated at the back of the classroom kitchen, and couldn’t very well make a scene by telling them to stop the production so I could take a picture! I do that enough at home, and my DH never fails to tease me in front of anyone who will listen, about how I fix this great meal and then whisk it all over to my photo area and delay the meal by a minute or so.

At the pork-centered class early this week, the chef prepared a crown roast – half of it was made up of “commodity” pork (ordinary grocery store variety), and the other half was from Berkshire pigs. He wouldn’t tell us which was which. He knew, and told us eventually, but he made us raise our hands on which one we liked better. With only a show of 1 or 2 hands in the entire class for one type, you can guess that most of us could tell the difference. The Berkshire is just more tender (less chewy) and more tasty. The meat is better marbled, so it makes for a better taste. To the left is a web photo I found from Reader’s Digest. Really? Yup. Found it at rd.com. That’s a very fancy one, stuffed. Below is a photo of the raw racks. This photo I found online from Edgemont meats.

As for the preparation – I won’t say this recipe is off the charts particularly, but it was good. Very good, actually. I liked the pan gravy, although I might spice it up a bit more with some herbs. But I’m going to give you the recipe as given to us in the class, flavored with shallots, apple juice and caramelized apples. This would make a beautiful Christmas dinner, I think. Or Easter, perhaps. Or any other special occasion. It does serve a lot of people – I’d think at least 10. Maybe more, depending on how meaty the pork racks are. The crown roast is comprised of two full racks of rib loin chops (bone-in, standing with rib ends up). Usually they’re already prepped for you – standing up, the top ribs cleaned off (wrap them in foil, please during baking) and firmly bound in cooking twine. If you’re lucky enough to find a Berkshire crown roast of pork, by all means GO FOR IT!

This recipe is a bit more work than some – there are several steps to making the pan gravy, and you’ll have more than a few dirty pots and pans. But it’s very tasty and worth the effort.

A year ago: A travel story, about chicken liver spaghetti in Hong Kong, 1965