Sauté pork chops and garlic until a touch of golden color appears. Deglaze the pan with a splash of wine. Cover (just barely) with a simple base tomato sauce. Add a few tablespoons of freshly chopped herbs like basil and oregano. Then, simmer over low heat until tender.
No recipe is needed.
But, if you’d like a checklist:
Pork chops, thin
Olive oil
Garlic, minced
splash or 1/2 wine glass of your favorite wine
Base tomato sauce
Basil, oregano, or marjoram
Salt & pepper, to taste
Are you feelin’ fancy? Garnish with a chiffonade of basil.
Serve with baby greens dressed lightly with vinaigrette and a hunk of Italian bread.
Very little olive oil is needed to get a nice color on these ‘shrooms.
Stir Fried Mushrooms
makes 1 large bowl
1 large onion, diced
1-2 TBSP olive oil
3-4 cups crimini mushrooms
1/4- 1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
fine sea salt, to taste
Heat olive oil in a wok, add onion. Stir fry over moderate to high heat until golden brown. Add mushrooms, salt and pepper. Continue to cook until mushrooms take on a dark golden brown at the edges. Lower heat, if needed.
Serve with grilled chicken, steak, or pork chops.
(For a nice weekend brunch, top a small mound of the mushroom mixture with a fried chicken, duck, or quail egg.)
Notice the touch of color beginning to appear at the bottom right corner? High heat and low moisture create a rich, meaty flavor in your mushrooms.
For cranberry sauce, I like to use a 1/2 cup of sugar in this recipe. But, for this jam, I deliberately add what I consider to be a lot of sugar. This will create a lovely, chunky jam that you won’t want to stop eating. And, it might just have you stock piling bags of cranberries in the freezer… like I do.
Cranberry Jam
makes 2 heaping cups
1 12oz. bag fresh cranberries
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 Tablespoons candied orange peel, minced
1/4 cup orange juice, or water
Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring liquid to a boil. Then, reduce to a simmer and continue cooking until the jam reaches your desired consistency. This should take 5-10 minutes.
(…Depending how chunky you like your sauce to be)
How long will this last in the fridge? No clue, it disappears too quickly for me to say.
Blueberry Pancakes With Wild Blueberry Syrup
They’re mmm …Mmm good.
Sure, you can make pancakes without buttermilk. But, why would you? One taste will convince you to take that little bit of extra time needed to face the dreaded journey to the grocery store on a cold winter’s day.
The BEST Blueberry Pancakes
1 1/4 cups AP flour
3 TBSP sugar
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 cups buttermilk, shaken
3 TBSP butter, melted
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
Sift dry ingredients. (Or, stir vigorously with a spoon.) Add buttermilk, melted butter, eggs and vanilla. Stir gently until just barely combined. Let batter sit for approximately 10 minutes. Start preheating a cast iron griddle at the 9 minute mark. (If using a frying pan, wait until you’re ready to start frying.) Griddle fry each pancake until bubbles form. The pancake should appear slightly dry around the edges. And, the edges should be light gold.
Lumps are perfectly normal.
They might look a bit flat at first.
But, as they cook, they’ll fluff up and dry out a bit around the edges.
When you see a touch of gold around the edges… it’s time to flip.
Breakfast time!
What if you overcook one? No worries, make another!
The funny looking ones are tasty, too!
No, it’s not more cornbread!
This is a quick bread that I made with fufu flour. Fufu flour is a very fine powdery grind of plantain, cassava, and potato. Be careful. Not all fufu flours are created equal. The ratio of plantain to cassava to potato may vary. As a matter of fact, there are fufu flours that are made of cassava exclusively. And, there are fufu flours made of oat and rice, too. Take this into consideration. The differences in that ratio will effect the bitterness (or lack thereof) in your finished product.
Even though this bread has a fairly healthy dose of sugar, there was a distinctively noticeable bitterness from the dried ground unripe plantain.
Fufu Bread
makes 1 8×8 inch baking dish
1 1/3 cups fufu flour (with plantain, cassava, and potato)
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
1/4 cup peanut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Butter baking dish. Set aside. When oven is fully heated, combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir vigorously and make a well. Add buttermilk, eggs, 1/4 cup peanut oil, and vanilla extract. Stir gently to combine. Pour into buttered baking dish and place in the oven.
Bake for approximately 35 minutes.
This was perfect with Jamaican Brown Stew Chicken.
Enjoy it while it’s still warm!
Baking at a high heat gives this deep golden brown crust.
Traditional Cornbread
makes 1 8×8 inch baking dish
2 cups cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 Tablespoons finely ground sugar
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
2 large eggs
1/4 cup light and fruity olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
(Or, Substitute the scrapings of 1/4 of a vanilla bean.)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
As the oven preheats, combine all dry ingredients. Stir vigorously. Set aside. Generously butter baking dish.
When the oven is fully heated, make a well in the dry ingredients and add buttermilk, eggs, 1/4 cup olive oil and vanilla. Stir gently to combine. Pour into buttered baking dish and gently tap on the counter to spread out the batter. Bake at 425 degrees F for 35-40 minutes. (Or, until deep golden brown and center is firm to the touch and a toothpick comes cleanly out of the center.)
Bourbon Madagascar & Tahitian Vanilla Beans
Tahitian on the Right, Bourbon Madagascar on the Left
The Tahitian beans have a distinctively floral quality that is downright perfume-y. The smell is addictive. But, at first scent, it seems the floral characteristics might not mingle as easily with other flavors. The Bourbon Madagascar are lighter and fruitier. There is the scent of raisins and other deep dark dried fruit scents lingering in the background. And, they’re super fresh, soft, and very plump.
It will be fun experimenting with these.
My Gorgeous New Solid Oak Bookshelves
Before (Oct-Nov 2011)
Cookbooks, Cookbooks, Everywhere
…and not a place to step
After & Cleaning Up
Roasted Chicken with Carrots, Onion, Celery, Potato, & Garlic
New year, busy year…. who has time for recipes?
This is an easy way to prepare a generous meal for 4 with only a bare minimum of effort. Just wash the vegetables, cut them into rustic (sloppy) pieces and toss them in a baking dish. Add chicken and broth and bake.
Roasted Chicken in Broth
makes 4 generous servings
1 chicken, cut into pieces
4 carrots, sliced
4 potatoes, diced
4 stalks of celery, sliced
4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
2 small onions, sliced
1 small carton of crimini mushrooms, sliced
fine sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
red pepper flakes
3-4 cups freshly made chicken stock
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Mound the vegetables in the center. Place chicken pieces in the corners and along the edges. Sprinkle with sea salt, black pepper and red pepper. Add enough chicken stock to cover the baking dish to a depth of about 1 inch. Bake for 45-55 minutes.
Serve in a shallow bowl with a ladle full of broth and a good hunk of crusty Italian bread.
((If the chicken and veggies don’t get enough color by the 40 minute mark… turn up the heat to 425 degrees F and cook for another 10-15 minutes))
New Favorite Treat?
Discard all of that nasty red syrup in a standard maraschino cherry jar and fill with Luxardo. These make a deliciously decadent topping for a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.
And, for the adults out there, here’s our first house cocktail for 2012. The original recipe on the Luxardo website is listed in awkward percentages. I’ve decide to do a loose adaptation. And, I’ve added a cherry garnish.
An Italian In Manhattan
makes 2
4 ounces bourbon
1 ounce Amaretto
a splash of Luxardo Maraschino
2 cherries, soaked in Luxardo Maraschino
In a shaker filled with ice, add bourbon, Amaretto and a generous splash of Luxardo Maraschino. Stir. Strain and divide between two martini glasses. Garnish each glass with a Luxardo soaked cherry.
Here’s to a bright, shiny new year!!
Cheers!
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