A Sinful Breakfast!

First, I just have to post these pictures of a sinful breakfast. I'll follow with a post with a recipe. But check out these potatoes frying in bacon grease. Yum!

Then look at these beautiful cinnamon rolls. My husband is the culprit in both these tasty sinful treats.

For the cinnamon rolls he uses a basic dinner roll recipe, rolls it out, spreads a cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter mixture over the dough, rolls it up, and slices it into rolls. Then he places them in a buttered dish, covers them and lets them rise near the warm oven. And then he bakes them at 450 for 10-15 minutes.

Yumminess!

Spare ribs, roasted root veggies, gravy, and kale chips!

I haven't had the chance to detail many of my husband's cooking adventures on this blog. He does a lot of the cooking in our house, particularly in the winter. But I don't usually know much of what has happened during the creation process and so I hesitate to post about the food without much of a recipe to include. But tonight he suggested that we blog about the meal! So here goes...

Have I told you about our winter CSA share and the pork share? We have signed up for a 1/4 hog over the course of 12 weeks this winter. We've gotten pork chops, ribs, sausages, deli ham, bacon, and some amazing pates! This week we got spare ribs.

First, the fat was trimmed (and fried up it was a sinful treat!) and the ribs were rubbed: Penzey's jerk seasoning (~2T), coriander (2-3t), cumin (1t), oregano (1/2t), black pepper (2-3t), and salt (1t). The ribs sat in this rub for a few hours and then they cooked covered in about 1/2-3/4C of apple cider at 300 degrees for 1 1/2 hours and then 270 degrees for 15 minutes. They need to be basted every 1/2 hour while cooking. They can be finished immediately or after everything else cooks at 425 for 5-7 minutes uncovered to brown them nicely.

Along with this my husband roasted root veggies. He chopped carrots, parsnips, potatoes, and onions and sprayed them with oil. They were sprinkled with hot curry powder, oregano, salt and pepper. They cooked at 425 for 20-30 minutes.

And then there was the mushroom gravy! Saute diced red onions in the grease rendered from the fat trimmed off the spare ribs. Then saute the sliced mushrooms for a few minutes. Add 1/4C red wine and reduce for 5 minutes. Add 2T flour and mix until well blended. Add 2C water, reduce until thickened while stirring constantly.

And kale chips to boot! Trim the thickest parts of the stem off the kale and cut it into fairly uniform pieces. Spray or toss with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook at 425 for 10-12 minutes until crispy but not burnt.

What a delicious dinner!

Leeky Mashed Potatoes

In this experiment I was trying to recreate a dish my aunt brought to our Thanksgiving feast. Mashed potatoes with leeks or as I fondly call them Leeky Mashed Potatoes. I peeled and chopped the potatoes and boiled them as I normally would for mashers. I sliced, rinsed, and diced the leeks. I then sauteed the leeks in bacon grease (there was a pan on the stove from breakfast and I couldn't resist!) although obviously butter or oil would too!

Now is the part that needs further refinement.

I wanted to puree the leeks but I didn't think that would work well with just them in the processor. So I warmed my milk and butter as I usually would and poured that into the processor too. Well, that created a bit of an explosion as the warmed milk seemed to seal the processor and then when I pulsed the milk came frothing out the top. I recommend adding something to ease the pureeing part but maybe some potatoes would work better!

Finally, I mashed together the cooked potatoes, pureed leeks, warm milk, and butter. In total, I believe I had about 2.5 lbs. of potatoes, two leeks, 1/3C milk, and 2-3T butter.

Sides dishes for steak!

I love steak but I don't think I had ever bought myself a steak at the grocery store to cook at home. It just seems decadent, I guess. But yesterday was the day. Steaks on the grill for dinner and they were yummy. Plus, our dinner guest made a darn good imitation of A-1 sauce by combining ketchup, worcestershire sauce, and Heinz 57 chili sauce. However, I thought it would be more interesting to post about our sides. I opted for potatoes and spinach, which seemed like the classics.

I was tempted to make creamed spinach but it seemed way too rich.

We often saute spinach with feta cheese and pine nuts, but with no feta I used goat cheese instead.

First, I toasted about 1/4C of pine nuts in a dry pan over med-high heat. I am really good at forgetting about toasting nuts and letting them go too far. It is very easy because they go quickly from perfect to burnt.

This time I stayed close to the stove, shook the pan often, and turned off the heat when they started to smell toasty and delicious. The smell even rivaled the grill just outside on the deck.

Next I cooked 2 cloves of minced garlic in about 1T olive oil.

Once fragrant but not browned, I added the spinach. I covered it for a few minutes and then stirred it to combine the oil, garlic, and spinach.

Once it was all wilted, I added the pine nuts and about 2 ounces of goat cheese. I drained a little of the water out of the pan because I was worried that the cheese would mix with the water and lose its richness. It did melt all over the spinach but did not lose the creaminess.

For our potato side dish, we grilled tiny red potatoes in foil. I wrapped up the spuds in three layers of foil with 1T olive oil, salt, pepper, and several sprigs of fresh rosemary.

We wrapped up the package and let it cook on the edge of the grill. It is good to rotate the foil package around from side to side and to flip it over from top to bottom. The potatoes were on the grill for about 30-35 minutes total. Yum!

Tortes and Pies, yum yum!

This week in our farm share we got something that wasn't green: yellow squash! It is still early in the season here for yellow squash so we were asked to only take 2. I used one in a delicious torte based on a recipe from smitten kitchen: herbed summer squash and potato torte. Without any careful measurements, I halved the recipe to make one torte. I used 1 yellow squash and 3 red potatoes (the recipe calls for yukon golds), each about the size of a baseball. This worked about to be about two layers of each potatoes and squash and the top layer was a mix of the two. After each layer of squash and potatoes I drizzled olive oil and added the cheese mixture from the recipe (parmesan, flour, fresh thyme, black pepper, salt, and fresh green onions also from the farm share). I baked this covered at only 350 (because my pie was in the oven too) for about 20 minutes and then upped the temperature to the called for 375 for another 20 minutes and then let it cook uncovered for about 15 additional minutes. I also added a touch more cheese before that final 15 minutes: it was looking a little bare on top. What a tasty treat, especially with the farm fresh squash and scallions! (And as a side note, the piece I just ate reheated for breakfast was good too!)

And on to the pie. I hope you weren't getting too excited about another desert. We still have blackberry cake left from the other night.

This pie was a savory pie. I used a spinach and ricotta recipe, but I substituted swiss chard for the spinach.

I use a store brand refrigerated pie shell, though obviously this would be all the tastier if you made a homemade shell.

Cook 10 oz. frozen spinach, cool, and drain.

Mix with 1 lb. ricotta cheese (I use skim, low fat ricotta.)

Add 1 large egg

1/4C parmesan, grated (powdery works better than strands)

1/3C flour

1/2t nutmeg

Fill the pie shell with the mixture and top with an additional 1/4C parmesan and dot with about 2T butter.

Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes until the top is starting to brown. (If you use swiss chard and put a torte in the oven halfway through, it'll take an extra 10 minutes at 375 to brown!)

Instead of spinach, I used the fresh swiss chard from our farm share. The taste of the chard in the pie was richer and more interesting that the spinach usually is; however, the chard must retain so much more moisture than the spinach because it altered the texture of the pie. I steamed the swiss chard nearly to death, or so it seemed, and yet, it was still moist enough to make the pie less dense than usual. The taste was worth it, though, and as the pie cooled it solidified nicely. So maybe swiss chard and ricotta pie is really designed to be eaten for lunch for the next two days, which is exactly what my husband has done. 1/4 of a swiss chard and ricotta pie + 1 piece of blackberry cake = lunch!