What a tangle of goodness! Parsnips, carrots and shallots roasted with a glaze of olive oil, then tossed with a relish composed of green olives, parsley, mint, vinegar and oil. Delish.

When I read this recipe at a recent cooking class, I really didn’t expect a lot. Oh, was I wrong on all fronts. It was the olive relish that kind of put me off, or so I thought, and yet, once the vegetables were roasted (and they become so sweet when they’re caramelized in the oven like these were) the olive relish with it’s slight bitterness, was a perfect counterpoint to the sweet veggies. In fact, if I could have gone back for seconds – and more of the relish – I would have. But it was all gone.

Just recently I made parsnips in an orange sauce in the pressure cooker, and was reminded, as I am every time, that parsnips have so much flavor. Why don’t I cook them more often? I should, and you should! Both the carrots and parsnips were similarly shaped – there was one honkin’ parsnip in there that was cut in half lengthwise and across, which ended up on my plate – and it was cooked through and not tough. Some parsnips have a tough core – if you cut the raw parsnip in half you can tell – the center is really  hard and the core is extra firm, sometimes even slightly separating from the rest of the outer part – if so, cut out that core part. Ideally, try to select similar sized parsnips and carrots. And I’d advise ample shallots – oh are they good!

So, I made these at home and added more of the olive relish – because it was so darned good. The recipe came from Tarla Fallgatter, but I found it at Martha Stewart online. I served them at room temp, just because I was in a kind of cooking flurry so I didn’t put them back in the oven. I probably should have – I think they’re better hot, but even cold they were delish.

The veggies are slicked with olive oil, salt, pepper and some miscellaneous herbs (rosemary, thyme and Greek oregano), then are roasted for about 45 minutes. Turn the pieces over at least once so more sides of the veggies are caramelized. Meanwhile, prepare the olive relish. The original recipe calls for an olive I don’t know – cerignola – (it’s from a town in Italy – see photo at right that I found on the ‘net) but a pitted Spanish olive worked well enough. Just don’t include the pimento in the relish. Add some fresh parsley, fresh mint, some olive oil, salt, pepper and a little fruit vinegar and it’s done. Pour over the hot or warm vegetables and serve. If you want to, roast the vegetables ahead of time and at the last minute pop the pan back in the oven to reheat – just cover with foil so they don’t dry out – then toss with the relish. Serve to raves.

What’s good: every single, solitary bite. Unctuous, if you consider vegetables capable of being unctuous!
What’s not: nary a thing.

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Ever notice how flavorful butternut squash can be? And yet it’s such a nuisance to cut (sometimes I can’t even do it myself) and peel. But this soup is worth the hassle.

If you’ve visited Costco lately, then you likely have seen their package (2 pounds) of cubed, peeled butternut squash. Yippee for me! The only thing is – once you buy it, you need to cook it within a few days. Once cut, the squash doesn’t keep forever. So, given that, buy yourself one and make this tasty soup. Trader Joe’s also carries (sometimes) a similar package of butternut squash. And occasionally I see it frozen at some regular grocery stores. Or, if you’ve got some good muscles, do buy the fresher whole squash and do it yourself! This came from a cooking class I went to recently (Tarla Fallgatter) but I found the recipe online from Food and Wine, and it’s credited to Dean Fearing.

I happened to have some fennel on hand, so with the butternut squash all ready to go, this soup was very easy to make. The squash is roasted in the oven for 20-30 minutes (until tender). Meanwhile, gently sauté onion, fennel and fresh ginger in butter. Add the squash and chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you’d prefer a vegetarian soup) and cook until everything is tender. The soup is pureed (by blender or immersion blender), then gently reheated with the addition of a small amount of heavy cream. Toast some pecans, chop them, whip up just a little bit of heavy cream, add a sprinkle of cayenne pepper (yes, really) and dollop those on top. Makes for a lovely taste and a lovely presentation too.

At right is a photo I took at the class – see the difference in color? When I made it myself, I had a couple of bulbs of fennel. I like fennel. So I decided to add one whole medium-sized fennel to this soup. It calls for half of one. And when I roasted the butternut squash, I likely didn’t roast it long enough – I cooked it through, but it adds a lot of flavor if you allow the butternut squash to caramelize. So, you’ll notice from the photo at the top, mine is a much lighter color – both from the lack of caramelization and from the addition of more fennel. But as for flavor – it was wonderful both times. The ginger – I probably added a bit more than called for and it was only mildly warm. One day I ate the soup cold (because I was just lazy) – it was wonderful! That’s the photo at top – I didn’t whip the cream, I just drizzled about a teaspoon of cream on top, then added the toasted pecans.

What’s good: the additions of the fennel and ginger give it a lovely nuanced flavor. And the topping just kind of puts in a higher realm. It would make a very nice company first course, or add a sandwich or salad and it would make a nice dinner too. The fresh ginger gives this soup just a little bit of heat – I liked that part. I really liked the texture of the soup – using an immersion blender I didn’t completely puree the soup (which was fine by me) so with the addition of the pecans, there was bit of crunch and the fennel didn’t completely disintegrate either. Lovely, really.
What’s not: nothing at all. It’s good all around.

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Pork tenderloin can make a really nice company meal, if you’re willing to fancy-it-up a little by butterflying it and adding a tasty filling, and then making a quick red wine pan sauce to drizzle on top. Most of the work can be done hours ahead and just finish at the last minute.

I read the other day that the price of pork is going to go up – if it hasn’t already. Food in general, it seems to me, has gone up a whole lot more than than the inflation rate. Have you noticed that? Pork has been one of the best bargains in the meat world for a long time. Anyway, I buy those nice, big pork tenderloins at Costco. I bake one right away, then seal up the others in FoodSaver bags to freeze and defrost whenever I have the need. I’ve found that, especially if you stuff a tenderloin, these from Costco will feed at least 3 people, maybe even 4, as long as you don’t have a high school linebacker at the dinner table! And providing you have other dishes to round out the plate – like a carb and ample vegetables.

This recipe, adapted by Tarla Fallgatter at a recent class, came from a Food & Wine article way back in 2001. Tarla used a pork tenderloin instead of a roast. Whenever I go to a cooking class I assume that many of the instructors use or revise some older recipes, so I search online to find them – that way I don’t have to type the recipe from scratch into my recipe software.

Butterflying a pork tenderloin is perhaps a little tricky. However, you’re in luck, there’s a video on vimeo showing you exactly how to do it. Cutting the second side (latter part of the video) shows it better than the first half. Technically you cut open the tenderloin like a book, then you open each side further like a fold-out in a magazine. It’s really easy and once you’ve done it once you’ll have no difficulty repeating it. One of the nice things about this stuffed roast is that you can do most of the work ahead of time – even the day before.

The stuffing and crust are composed of onion cooked in butter, walnuts, panko crumbs, parsley, fresh sage and freshly grated Parmigiano cheese. Part of that filling is set aside and is used as a crust after the tenderloin is roasted. The filling is spread throughout the butterflied meat, rolled up carefully, then tied in multiple places to keep it intact through pan-browning it. Into a roasting pan it goes with a little bit of water (to keep it from drying out), then it’s covered (with foil if that’s what’s available rather than a lid) and baked for 20 minutes. Then it’s removed to yet another pan. Stay with me here . . . The pan sauce is made on the stovetop IN the roasting pan you baked the meat in). The roast has its strings removed at this point, then is topped with that saved filling (that now becomes a top crust) you set aside earlier, then it’s broiled briefly just to give that crusty topping a golden brown glow.

Meanwhile, you’ve made the red wine sauce – it’s quite simple – red wine, reduced down, chicken broth also reduced, then it’s thickened with a cornstarch slurry, seasoned, buttered and it’s done. Carve the meat and serve! Now, as for the make-ahead part . . . you can stuff it and tie it ahead – hours before or even the day before. Have all of the other ingredients measured and ready. Just before serving you’ll need to pan-brown the meat, bake it, then make the sauce. Not exactly quick, but not difficult. If one of your guests will help, have them make the pan sauce while you finish up the rest of dinner and broil the meat.

What’s good: lovely presentation, and the meat is just pink-tender. The easy pan sauce adds a nice touch for a company meal.
What’s not: nothing, really. It’s a bit of work, but you’ll master it, then you can make it again!

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Silky = smooth and almost molten. Not quite, but nearly so. You can see that this cake doesn’t ooze, but can you see how shiny it is? It’s really, really moist – it’s not at all like candy, so don’t misunderstand my description – it’s just incredibly chocolaty and smooth.

At a cooking class last week Tarla Fallgatter served this unctuous chocolate dessert. Unbelievably chocolaty and rich. Smooth and addictive. If you’re still wondering what to serve for Valentine’s Day – if you’re cooking at home that night – this is your romantic ticket. If I were doing it, I’d likely cut the recipe in half and pour the cake into 4 ramekins and bake them individually. I don’t know how long they would take to bake that way, but maybe 15 minutes or so? That’s a guess.

In any case, if you’re a chocolate freak, you’ll be moaning as you spoon this into your mouth. It’s not all that difficult to make – really it’s easy – as long as you have an 8-inch springform pan – and you have bittersweet chocolate, eggs, butter, sugar, flour and a little cream to whip for the topping. It’s a 3-dish/pan dessert (saucepan to melt butter and chocolate, bowl to mix the batter in, and the springform to bake). You do have to put the springform pan (wrapped in foil) in a larger baking pan because you add hot tap water to it and it cooks in a water bath. That’s what keeps it so tender and moist – almost like pudding, except it’s definitely a cake. You’ll find this recipe in several places on the internet. This one came from Food and Wine, back some years ago.

What’s good: no question it’s the chocolaty-ness of it. Oh yes! Very decadent. Very rich. Very festive, and surely very romantic.

What’s not: as with most tortes and things of this nature, they’re not quite so good the next day. This one has to be made within about 6 hours of serving.

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I’ve just gotten around to reading the January 2013 issue of Bon Appetit. It’s a very interesting issue with some edgy ideas I certainly found thought-provoking, so I’m sharing them with you. They call it the “The Cooking School” issue. That doesn’t mean a list of cooking schools to go to, or places that hold cooking classes. No, the subtitle is about learning to master some of the basic cooking school techniques. Particularly it’s about pan roasts, salads, braises, sauces and salted sweets. Normally I wouldn’t even give that a passing glance, other than breezing by some of the recipe titles, since I (think I) already know how to pan roast, braise, sauce and make sweets. But even I – an experienced home cook – found the articles interesting, informative, very explanatory – and the recipes are different.

After reading the issue, almost cover to cover, I tried a salted chocolate chunk cookie (I will share it in a day or two, even though it didn’t hit my CC cookie buttons particularly – but it might hit yours). Anyway, I will share another recipe from this cooking school section, but what I wanted to talk about was the section on salads. The title page of the sub-chapter on salads says:

Skip the lettuce and tomato. Instead, follow the lead of today’s hottest restaurants by making crisp, vibrant shaved-vegetable salads without a mesclun green in sight.

Next to that was a carrot salad that looked like the carrot pieces were shaved and crisp-roasted (actually they weren’t baked at all, but they were crisp-curled in ice water). Here’s the more thorough preface:

For years, you couldn’t go to a four-star restaurant without getting a forkful of mâche. Then there was a love affair with arugula. And we still have feelings for kale. But these days, the salads we really can’t resist don’t even have the very thing that used to define salads: the greens. Like many of the country’s most inventive chefs, we’re replacing them with other, less obvious vegetables (and nuts and herbs and seeds). Mandoline in hand, we’re shaving sturdy produce into ribbons and coins, adding outside-the-salad-bar complements, and dressing them lightly in simple vinaigrettes. The results are delicate, yet packed with bite – and without question, far more dynamic than any bowl of romaine and Ranch could ever be.

No, that’s not my baby picture . . . I just had to make a point here – I’m not crying buckets – yet – because I’ll still be making salads with greens no matter what the food experts or trends have to say. Not that I won’t dip my big toe into the arena of these newer salads, but I still love arugula, and kale and romaine. Ranch? Not so much.

On one of the pages of this multi-page chapter there is a chart of what to put in these new veggie-centric salads. It’s divided into 3 sections:

• Foundation (thinly slice one or two of these): fennel, cucumber, celery, beets, radishes and celery root
• Dimension (add smaller quantity of one or two of these to lend character): coarse breadcrumbs, apple, cumin seeds, red onion, Parmesan, pepitas
• Finish (a bright element – like lots of fresh herbs): parsley, celery leaves, watercress

Lastly, I’ll share one more sidebar on one of the pages. Here’s what it said:

Balsamic is not king – and other truths about vinaigrette (3 rules for dressing a 2013 salad): (1) Rethink your vinegar [no more balsamic, instead use sherry vinegar and champagne vinegar]; (2) Easy on the oil [no more 3:1 ratio of oil to vinegar; instead lean toward 2:1 which will work with the more subtle sherry and champagne vinegars since they’re much milder, less acidic; if you find them too astringent, just add a bit more oil, but not back up to the 3:1 we have been used to.]; (3) Hands, not tongs: use your hands, not tongs . . . as it’s the best way to tell if the salad is over- or under-dressed.

I’m not so sure this will work for me, although I have pretty much stopped using balsamic vinegar in salad dressings – they’re too much, too heavy and often too acidic, even though I use better balsamics (i.e., more expensive). I use it in other things, but rarely in salads anymore. I’m also not so sure I can handle the acidity of a 2:1 oil to acid ratio in a salad dressing. That’s going to be very astringent. It might depend on the brand of sherry vinegar or champagne vinegar. I’ll have to test a few salads and see what I think.

As I write this, I’m going to make a different salad from the issue – a celery salad with celery root and horseradish. Most likely I’ll post it. I happen to love celery leaves and they’re dominant in this particular salad.

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I know – this doesn’t look like much. A milky blah-looking soup. It isn’t blah. Yes, creamy – but creamy from milk, not so much cream (some half and half used). Perhaps you can vaguely see little specks of orange (carrots) and green (celery). There’s also a lot of cauliflower in it, which gives the soup a very mellow flavor and certainly a white color!

Veggie soups are a favorite of mine, and I don’t have very many that aren’t enhanced significantly with carbs – either beans, rice or potatoes. And since we do try to limit carbs around our house – when I saw this one that’s strictly veggies (except for the carrots, but there aren’t many in there), I knew I’d try it. The recipe came from The Pioneer Woman. You know, of course, that even vegetables have carbs – even ordinary ones like onions and celery. Not all that many, but some. And flour (used to thicken the soup) is pure carb, so there ARE carbs in this soup, but it’s not carb-centric. An entrée serving contains 28 grams of carbs.

Right off the bat I’m telling you this isn’t a wow kind of soup. It’s hot, it’s comforting, it’s mostly smooth (because I whizzed most of it in a blender, contrary to Ree’s recipe) and it’s filling, especially with a little open-faced toasted cheese sandwich I made on some super-thin bread. It’s tasty. But it’s not something you’re going to go raving to the world about. But yes, I’d make it again – probably with more cauliflower in it. I might add fennel to the veggie mix. Or perhaps some leeks. AND, I’d sprinkle in a bunch of grated cheese at the end and merely stir it in (no more cooking once you do that). But otherwise, it’s a fine soup. Relatively easy to make (it does require 2 pans, one for the soup and one for the creamy gravy base you add to it) too. A little bit of sour cream is added in at the end (I used Mascarpone because that’s all I had) which adds just a bit of richness. I froze half of it and will serve that later, or maybe I’ll give it to a dear friend who has just had shoulder surgery and she’ll be hard pressed to cook much in coming weeks.

What’s good: just the wholesomeness of it – simple ingredients, a good soup for a cold winter’s day. Nothing fancy, nothing difficult. Not exceptional, but it’s good.
What’s not: nothing really.

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My husband said: “Wow, this pudding is fantastic!” Now, you have to understand that he’s a Type 1 diabetic, and he steers away from desserts 95% of the time, so any time he does eat dessert he thinks he’s in heaven. But I’ll attest – this rice pudding is fabulous.

You know how it is when you read some recipe somewhere and it just plain “speaks” to you? That’s what happened when I was reading Baking Banter, the baking blog from King Arthur Flour. I subscribe to their blog through Google Reader, and the varied bakers post several times a week. And I just love how they design a recipe – how they test and change, taste and change, until they finally get it right. And this recipe is just absolutely SPOT-ON! Kuddos to Mary Jane Robbins, who developed this recipe for King Arthur.

I have another recipe for rice pudding here on my blog. And in comparing this one to the other one, they’re very similar. And yet, I think this one is better (probably because of the cream added). Much better. I liked the creamy texture of this one. The little bit of bite to the rice (particularly you don’t want to overcook the rice, because then it would be mushy). The other aspect of this pudding is its focus on the vanilla. Two different types of (King Arthur) vanilla are called for here. I used two different types I had on my pantry shelf, neither of which are King Arthur. Use your best vanilla to stir in after the pudding is cooked.

Surely, I should have taken a photo of the pudding as it was simmering away, with my handy-dandy Stirr device (now called a RoboStir – very inexpensive if you’re interested) jittering around inside the pan. Here at right is a picture I found online. I’ve written about it before, but it’s a battery-operated device that sits inside the pan, has silicone feet and once you turn it on (mine has 4 speeds), it jitters itself around the pan, turning in circles to keep the pot contents moving – stirring. It’s an automatic stirring device is all I can tell you, and it worked SO perfectly for this pudding! I also use it on the rare occasions I make risotto. It’s ideal for sauces.  Just an aside about this device – if you go online, lots of people don’t like it. Including Consumer Reports, who found it worked for very few things. A thick sauce will stop it cold. Some people think it’s a joke. Mine works well – have never used it except on the lowest speed. It doesn’t do dry ingredients (like toasting nuts) or frying onions as it just pushes the items out to the edges of the pan. It must have liquid to help it move the contents. It does require a pan with a sufficient flat surface AND the cooktop needs to be level. If it’s not level, the device will simply gravitate to the lowest spot and sit there, still jittering, but it won’t migrate around the pan as it’s designed to do. My dear hubby (DH) did level my range for me last year. I didn’t realize how “off” it was. I made this pudding in a pan with rounded edges – mine is a Caphalon nonstick pan – a saucier pan that Caphalon doesn’t make anymore, but a similar one would work because it has a gently rounded bottom edge – a Calphalon Unison Nonstick 4-Quart Pot with Lid. The key is the sloping edge – you don’t want a squared-off 90° angle as it’s very difficult to stir that corner (whether you’re using a stirring device or an ordinary spoon) and keep the pudding from burning. Or if you’re making a sauce, or a creamy soup. This particular pot is called a soup pot.

Okay, so here’s how you make it – you combine the whole milk, some of the cream, sugar (and not very much of it), some of the vanilla and Arborio rice (a short grain rice, which works best for rice pudding – you can also use sushi rice). Once you bring it to a simmer, reduce the heat and simmer very slowly, stirring very frequently, for about 30 minutes. At this point start tasting the rice – it still wants to have a little tiny bit of bite (toothsome-ness, I call it). Continue simmering until it’s just barely done. Remove, allow to cool, stirring it every so often so a skin doesn’t form on the top (or put a piece of plastic wrap directly down on the surface), and you add a little bit more cream and more vanilla. Done. Once cool you can put it into ramekins, or just store in a plastic container and dish out what you want later. I found that the pudding was still very VERY loose once I took it off the heat, but I was assured in the recipe that it would firm up. Yes, indeed it did! In fact, when I went to serve it, I needed to add milk to it to kind of thin it a bit. It was amply thick at that point.

In most respects, this pudding is made like a risotto, except you start off with all the liquid in the pan at the beginning rather than adding it now and then. It’s EASY to make – although you do have to keep your eye on it. I made this as part of a dinner we took to our pastor and his family since he’s recently had surgery. But I made a double batch and kept a little bit of it for ourselves. What a treat.

What’s good: every single solitary thing about it. A must make – if you like puddings, and especially rice pudding! The vanilla flavor predominates (in a very good way).

What’s not: well, it does take some patience and hovering (unless you have one of the stirring devices). I’ll definitely be making this again!

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Who knew a pork roast could taste so moist and flavorful, and that black beans and rice cooked underneath the pork could absorb so much flavor from the meat drippings?

My friend Cherrie gave me a cookbook called Perfect One-Dish Dinners: All You Need for Easy Get-Togethers. I hadn’t cooked anything from it, although I’d read through it and knew I wanted to. The cookbook assumes that you want to entertain occasionally, but you want to cook everything in one pot (for ease), but also have it be nice enough for guests – and tasty enough to wow them a little.

We were having Cherrie and Bud over for dinner, so it was a perfect opportunity to try something from this cookbook. I told my DH about 2 recipes – a stuffed chicken breast and a stuffed pork loin and gave him the choice. He chose the pork. He went off shopping for me (bless his heart – he loves to go grocery shopping!).

It’s kind of a long story, but my DH could not find the long, long package of boneless pork loin at Costco. He phoned me in distress – what should he do? I finally told him to buy a sirloin package he’d found instead. But truthfully, I’d never fixed a sirloin pork roast before, so didn’t know how I was going to adapt the recipe. As it turned out, it wasn’t a problem. We found an illustration of a pig (butchered), and I ended up following the directions just as if it was a boneless pork loin and it cooked the same. But instead of a longer roast in one piece, I actually cooked 2 of the sirloin roasts (way too much for 4 people – the Costco package contains 4 chubs of sirloin roast and I’d say each one easily serves 4 people).

First I made up the adobo-chorizo stuffing. I used the dry Spanish chorizo – the recipe doesn’t specify, but just called for fully-cooked chorizo. Anyway, that was cut up into chunks (after peeling off the skin). It gets whizzed up in the food processor with fresh cilantro, some garlic you’ve cooked in olive oil, some chipotle chiles in adobo, dry bread crumbs and ground cumin. I cut deep slits in the pork roast and gently opened it up to push in the stuffing.

My DH helped me tie up the roasts – you don’t want the filling to leak out. It’s a dry kind of filling, so it really shouldn’t leak, exactly.

Then you mix up some spices – also adobo style – cumin, salt, pepper, paprika, brown sugar – and gently roll the roast in those seasonings. Including the ends, which often get overlooked.  They were now ready for baking.

In the bottom photo you can see the roast is sitting on a rack and it’s in a roasting pan (mine is nonstick). It went into a 250° oven for about 1 1/2 hours – until the meat had reached about 125° (not cooked sufficiently yet). Then, you remove the meat and the rack and set it aside momentarily. Tick the oven up to 400°. Everything was all ready to go – I’d pressure cooked some black beans (11 minutes after a 1-hour water soak), measured long grain rice and opened a can of diced tomatoes. And measured out chicken broth. All that was dumped into the bottom of the pan and stirred around. There were a few – really very few drips on the pan bottom – just enough to give some flavorful Chorizo and cumin flavoring to the rice. The roast went back in with the rack, which sat just above the beans and rice below. Back into the oven it went, and the rice was done in exactly 20 minutes, just as the recipe indicated.

The pan was removed from the oven, the roast set aside for a few minutes to rest, and I covered the beans and rice with foil so it wouldn’t get cold. Meanwhile I mixed up the salad and got everything all ready. The meat was sliced and I quickly poured the beans and rice down both sides and served it. I sprinkled on some cilantro, but forgot the green onions! I didn’t make anything other than the salad.

What’s good: that it cooked all in one pan. I won’t exactly call this a cinchy, easy dish, but it’s not all that difficult, either. Much of it could be done ahead of time. The pork roast bakes untended for 90 minutes or so, and then another 20 minutes once you add the beans and rice. So the labor part can all be done at the beginning, or earlier in the day, or even the day before. It makes a lovely presentation – especially on a bright contrasting platter. And the flavor was wonderful. I’d definitely make this again and especially for guests. Next time I would probably make some kind of colorful veggie (broccoli? asparagus? red bell peppers?), although it really doesn’t need it. We just like veggies and prefer them to carbs. But oh, these carbs were delish and especially good along side the slices of pork. And even though this recipe is long and has a rather long list of directions, it’s not hard.
What’s not: absolutely nothing at all.

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A luscious salad – different – healthy, really – because it doesn’t have all that much oil in it – hard to believe it could taste so good! Dried figs give it a base, and you do add some crumbled bacon.

Having been asked to bring a salad to dinner at friends recently, I ransacked my to-try file, to find something that would complement Thomas Keller’s Roast Chicken and Vegetables, which my friend Donna was going to make. Donna reads my blog (thank you, Donna!) and is always so kind to tell me how much she likes it. Music to any blogger’s ears, I’ll tell ya!

It didn’t really take much to make this dressing – it’s an interesting one – it uses dried figs, balsamic vinegar (I used a fruit-flavored one, but you can use plain too), water, chicken broth (yes, really, chicken broth), honey, shallots and fresh thyme. All things I had on hand. The figs are simmered for

just a minute in the balsamic vinegar and allowed to “steep” or sit while you pull together the rest of the ingredients. Then it’s all whizzed up in the blender. Meanwhile, I chopped up and fried a bunch of bacon. I made this salad twice, on consecutive nights, and used different greens. I couldn’t find arugula the first day, so I substituted Romaine, leaf lettuce and microgreens. I actually think the salad needs some bitter greens to offset the fig-sweetened dressing, so the second time my DH was able to find arugula and I used Feta cheese  that time, rather than the cotija I’d tried the first time. The original recipe (from Cooking Light) called for goat cheese, but I didn’t have any. Nor did I really want to buy a log of goat cheese when I only needed a little bit for the salad. I almost always have Feta on hand, which keeps soaking in brine for many, many weeks. I did have cotija (it’s a dry, salty Mexican cheese that’s used mostly for garnish), so I used that one time.

The second night (pictured above) I had arugula, but not quite enough dressing, so I just added more EVOO and another little jot of balsamic vinegar to what I had left from the previous night, and it was plenty for a salad for 4.

What’s good: the low-calorie, low-fat aspect of the dressing. Of course, bacon kind of puts it over the top, but once you divide it among several people, no one has all that much bacon. I added pine nuts one night just because I thought the salad needed some kind of crunch to it. Since it doesn’t have any added vegetables, I really did think it needed some added texture.

What’s not: nothing at all – just know this isn’t any standard kind of vinaigrette – it’s sweet from the figs, but will complement lots of meals – pork for sure – often pork is accompanied by fruit.

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When I ponder something new to fix for dinner, I can’t say that I ever think about choosing Malaysian food! I don’t know that I’ve ever had Malaysian food, for that matter, until now!

I’d defrosted some pork – one of the few remaining packages from the 4-H Berkshire pig we bought over a year ago. I still have some bacon and ham and that’s about it. Even though the package said it was country ribs, it was a very small package, so I decided to spread out the pork wealth by making something like stew. As is my usual method, I went to Eat Your Books, where I have listed nearly all of my cookbooks. I put in “pork stew” and within seconds I had a list of the dozens and dozens of recipes contained in my own cookbooks. Well no, it doesn’t really have the recipes, it just has the title and the list of ingredients (by name, not quantity), which makes it quite simple to deduce if I have the ingredients on hand. In this particular recipe, yes, I had the pork, coconut milk, onions, white wine, ginger, tomatoes, fresh mint and cilantro. I didn’t have fresh basil, but I overlooked that one.

I just love that website – it makes finding a recipe so simple. Once I chose this recipe, I glanced at what cookbook – how funny – it’s from my mostly new-favorite book – The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century. And better yet, once I pulled out the book itself, I found that I had already flagged the recipe – but just hadn’t gotten around to making it! All serendipity – it was meant to be!

The cookbook version suggests Boston butt or pork shoulder. I assumed the cooking time wouldn’t be much different for the country ribs. It also has you make it all on the stovetop, whereas I had decided to use the pressure cooker, which worked like a charm. The preparation is the same – it’s just the difference of the cooking time (10 minutes by pressure cooker, and about 60-90 minutes on the stovetop).

The pork stew chunks are dredged in a spicy mixture of curry powder, cumin and paprika. I had a hot curry powder, so I didn’t add cayenne as listed in the recipe. (Although, I couldn’t really discern any heat in the finished dish, so it was more mild than anticipated.) They were browned well in oil, removed, then I sautéed the onions (it called for red, I only had a yellow one). Then you add in all the other ingredients, including garlic and simmer. That’s when I put on the lid and pressure cooked it for 9 minutes.  I had a bit of coconut milk left over (I made half of the recipe you see below) so I just added it in at the last, along with the fresh green beans. I simmered them just until they were barely cooked through. Because we limit white carbs, I only used about 2-3 T. of cooked rice in each bowl, ladled the soup around the outer rim (so we could see the rice), then sprinkled on the garnishes. The lime juice adds a really important taste element – be sure to add that part. I liked the flavor combination from the spices (paprika, cumin and curry). The garnish is a combo of fresh mint, fresh cilantro, basil (if you have it, I didn’t), peanuts (I didn’t have peanuts, but I did have sliced almonds so I chopped those up) and lime juice. That garnish adds a wonderful touch to the taste.

What’s good: just the overall flavor of the gravy or soup part – it’s loaded with taste. The pork was nicely cooked, although not overly so. It might have been able to take another minute or two in the pressure cooker. I’m sure this could be made the day ahead, even. Just make the garnishes at the last minute. And the left overs – they were wonderful.
What’s not: nothing, really.

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MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

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