While cooking something last weekend, Giada and Jade cooking show came on and tonight we are recreating one of the dishes they made. Again, the theme for this week is simple. Took a break while working to butterfly and stuff the pork so that all we had to do at dinner time was cook the pasta, sear the meat and throw in some bottled sauce with the meat to stew for about 20 minutes. Always good to be able to do things quickly on a Wednesday. For the pork:
1 pork tenderloin, cut in half then butterflied
1/2 C panko
2 handfuls pecirino romano
handful parsley, finely chopped
zest of a lemon
olive oil to bring it together
In a bowl combine all but the pork. Put mixture on pork and roll. Tie each roll in about 3 places. Sear the meat over medium-high heat on all sides. Throw in a bottle of tomato sauce, we used the store brand marinara. Cook some orrechiette. Serve it all together.
Busy Tuesday finishing a report and trying to keep other work going so yet again a simple Midwestern dinner. Nothing special just clean, simple food. As is usual in our house, I get up early and try to not wake anyone up. So making a marinade had to be quiet, so I decided to do a simple miso, soy, and garlic powder. No chopped, no noise. Simple coat the beef in a thin layer of miso then add a bit of mirin, soy, and garlic powder while it sits in a large Tupperware. Put in fridge and let it get flavorful all day while working.
For the potatoes
8 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 4-8 pieces depending on size
glug of olive oil
salt and pepper
garlic powder
Roast in 375 degree oven for 30-45 minutes or until a knife pierces easily.
For the asparagus, simply cut of the woody ends and saute in olive oil, salt and pepper. Make sure you err on the side of under cooking rather than over cooking.
Simple meal with a little help from Sunday prep while we were doing other things. Roasted the spaghetti squash on Sunday and was able to have dinner on the table in 15 minutes from start to finish. Sometimes you need a simple, healthy, easy meal on a Monday. For the spaghetti squash:
1 spaghetti squash, cut in half with seeds removed
couple glugs of olive oil
salt and pepper
dried oregano and basil
Rub down the squash inside and out with oil then sprinkle the inside with the other ingredients. Roast skin side up in 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes or until easily pierced with a paring knife. Once cooled use fork to remove insides.
For the char:
1 lbish arctic char
salt and pepper
glug of olive oil
Sprinkle char with salt and pepper. Heat pan to medium and add oil. Place char in skin side down and cook, covered for about 7 minutes. Turn off heat and let finish cooking for the next 5 minutes or until slightly firm to the touch.
To bring it all together, heat a pan super hot and add some olive oil and a quart of cherry tomatoes and cook until blistered. Add the spaghetti squash and some basil. Cook until warmed, finish with salt and pepper.
With it snowing outside, I wanted to push what I could possibly make. I have always wanted to make soup dumplings so today was the day (actually I started it yesterday). And as a backup, some vegetable egg rolls just in case it fails miserably. Also, it gave me a chance to go to the Asian grocery store to see what I could find in terms of pig parts to make a broth and turn it into gel. Make a little stuffing with pork, figure out a dumpling wrapper, and steam it all up.
To make the broth:
2 lbs. pigs feet
2 lbs. ham bones
2 inch ginger roughly chopped
handful cilantro
5 whole clove garlic
Put everything together in a big pot of water making sure everything is covered to start. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 2 hours. Remove the solids and simmer until there is only about 1-2 cups left (took another couple hours). Strain into 9×13 pan and put in the fridge to firm up (overnight).
For the filling:
1 lb ground pork
1 tbsp garlic, minced
1 tbsp ginger, minced
Sweet soy sauce
Soy sauce
3 green onions
1 Tbsp mirin
1 tsp sesame oil
Mix everything together until blended. Take the gel out of the fridge and cut into little squares. Add to mix and blend again.
For the dumpling:
3 C. flour
glug of canola oil
1 C. hot water
Put flour in bowl and mix in water until mixed together. Let set for about 30 minutes. Add oil and knead for about 10 minutes to get a nice dough. Let rest for another hour before making dumplings. Divide dough into 4 pieces. Roll out a quarter into a log and cut into 1 inch pieces. Roll each piece out into about 4-5 inch rounds. Put round in hand and add a dollop of pork mix to center and some how bring everything together to form a pseudo-ball or go to youtube and figure out how to do it right (I did the first).
Place some cabbage in steamer and coat with spray oil. Steam for about 10 minutes per batch and serve immediately.
For the egg rolls:
1/2 red cabbage, thinly sliced
1/2 green cabbage, thinly sliced
3 carrots, thinly sliced
1 onion thinly slice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp ginger, minced
canola oil
soy sauce
1 package eggroll wrappers
Quickly stir fry the vegetables with the garlic and ginger. Add soy sauce and continue cooking until soft. Wrap in egg roll wrappers and fry in canola oil.
It was one of those Saturdays that everyone wanted fried chicken and French fries for dinner. Happy to oblige but they need to have there veggies too. Tried a new approach to the chicken tenders and they turned out pretty good. We are trying to freeze the other half of the chicken and fries to see if we can heat them up for lunch some weekend. To try to put our health foot forward, we cut up carrots, celery, and cucumber and served the with a dip that everyone snacked on all afternoon. For the dip:
handful dill, finely cut
handful cilantro, finely cut
handful Italian parsley, finely cut
10ish mint leaves
couple big shakes garlic powder
salt
16 oz container of sour cream
Just mix it all up and makes a great dip of veg, chicken, or fries.
For the fries:
7 russet potatoes cut in fry shape
Par boil the potatoes in water and let air dry for about 30 minutes to get the water out. Fry in 350 degree oil for about 10 minutes per batch making sure not to crowd. Put in 200 degree oven while you do the rest of the batches and chicken to make sure they stay crisp. Or just have fries for appetizer.
For the chicken:
2 lb chicken tenders with the tendon removed and cut in half length-wise
1 C flour
1 C corn starch
garlic powder
salt and pepper
2 eggs
glug of milk
Whisk together the flour, corn starch, garlic powder, salt and pepper in one pie pan. In another, whisk the eggs and milk. Dredge tenders in egg mixture then in flour/corn starch mixture and into 350 degree oil and fry for about 5ish minutes or until golden brown.
Serve everything in real time or keep warm in 200 degree oven. Go for a run after dinner or the next morning.
Simple but hearty Friday night dinner. We had a lot of potatoes this week and even though I wanted to try to have a successful potatoes au gratin, sweet potatoes were what we needed to eat. Just a nice Friday evening cook that was not stressful nor creative. Good ol’ Midwestern comfort food. To start with, roasted sweet potatoes with garlic and herbs:
3 medium sweet potatoes cut in half length-wise then cut into 1 inch chunks
glugs of olive oil
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
few shakes of dried oregano
salt and pepper
Throw everything in a bowl and mix by hand. Spread on a parchment lined baking sheet into a single layer and put into a 400 degree preheat oven. Cook for about 30 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are nice and soft.
For the Brussels sprouts, our go to recipe of shaved Brussels sprouts with garlic. Shave the Brussels sprouts and crush 4 cloves of garlic. Saute in olive oil until cook but still crisp.
For the pork tenderloin
1 lb pork tenderloin cut into 3ish inch chunks and then smushed into nice medallions with your palm
Salt and pepper.
Simply saute in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes on each side until nicely browned but not over cooked.
I had to go to the market today to get ingredients for dinner. My wife said she wanted clam chowder and she’s allergic to cow milk so Manhattan it is. I made sure I had a bag of clams, all the vegetables that I needed, some clam juice, and tomatoes. One thing I forgot, she specifically asked for oyster crackers. I wasn’t about to head out again so we made homemade oyster crackers as our fun addition. As usual for things like this, I go to Serious Eats. It has become my online Betty Crocker cookbook. Just follow the recipe (and double it, my wife had a few comments about that not being enough). Here’s how they turned out.
For the clam chowder
Glug of olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 green pepper, finely diced
6 cloves of garlic, smashed
3 small sticks of celery, cut into 1/8 inch pieces
5 small Yukon gold potatoes, finely diced
1 small can tomato paste
1 large can whole peeled tomatoes
2 cups clam juice
1 bag little neck clams, shucked making sure to get the juice
Few sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper
Saute onion, pepper, garlic, and celery in olive oil until soft but not brown. Add tomato paste and cook for a couple minutes to bring out the flavor. Add herbs, potatoes, 1 C. water, and clam juice and saute for 10ish minutes until potatoes are soft. Add the tomatoes and clams with juice and simmer covered until everything has melded. Remove the herbs and season
Simple dinner just a little sauteed chicken with a side. For the chicken:
4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
glug of olive oil
few sprigs of thyme
salt
Saute the chicken in olive oil, turning occasionally until done.
Meanwhile, bring 2 cups of water to boil and add salt and olive oil. Add 1 cup of couscous and boil for about 8 minutes. In the last few minutes, add 1/2 lb of fresh peas.
Tonight was another throw back to the 1980’s: protein with two sides (mixed together this time). We seem to be doing more of these meals with another downturn in the temperature.
I had originally planned on making blini with smoked salmon and veggies and dip. After a day of finishing up a couple writing projects, I needed a bit more substance but still healthy. My wife suggested quiche and salad and I picked up the ingredients on the way home. For the quiche:
2 frozen pie crusts (I accidentally grabbed gluten free, don’t do that unless you have to)
8 eggs
1/2 C. whole milk
1/2 lb Black Forest ham steak cut into small dice
1/4 lb grated goat Gouda
5 green onions
salt and pepper
Mix all the ingredients together and put in the pie crust. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake for about 45 minutes or until eggs have set.
This is one of those meals that I could only make because of the short ribs we made last night. Although we ate all the meat and peas and most of the potatoes, there was still a ton of sauce that had 3 hours of flavor worked into it. How about turning it into a pasta sauce with a little sausage and make a baked rigatoni. Super happy with the re-purpose. Here’s what we did:
Left over braising sauce with the mashed potatoes added
1 28.5 oz can of tomato puree
salt and pepper
Some basil ripped up
garlic powder
4 links of Tuscan sausage
Remove the casings from the sausage and pinch off in about 1/2 inch dollops into a preheated large saute pan over medium heat. Brown on all sides. Then add the rest of the ingredients and let simmer while you make the noodles
Boil 1 lb rigatoni noodles in salted water 2 minutes less than box instructions. Oil a dutch oven with canola oil and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add noodles and sauce and top with:
hunk of smoked mozzarella
hunk of goat gouda
Sprinkle of pecorino romano
Yes, I know, you probably don’t know how much a hunk is but we just threw a couple cheeses we had in the fridge, grated on top. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the cheese has done some decent goldening.
Working Dad Cooks 