Orzo with Caramelized Vegetables & Ginger

This recipe is really not too difficult, if you cut everything up before you start cooking. I didn’t really do that but I did read ahead enough to stay out of danger! The first bit of advice is to use the largest pan you have or the ingredients will not all fit! I had a bit of trouble finding orzo pasta (thanks Trader Joes) but I think any small pasta would do. While the orzo cooked I peeled the sweet potato. I haven’t really cooked sweet potatoes before so I was unsure how to select one. It looked and peeled like a potato does but it felt woody, which I am not sure is normal. It did cook up okay, so I stumbled my way into it!

Warning though, as you toss sweet potatoes into hot oil they splatter something fierce! I had to wipe down the stove, the microwave above the stove, the surrounding countertops and the floor after I finished cooking. I diced the onions while the sweet potatoes cooked and added them to the pan after moving the sweet potatoes to one side. The recipe didn’t say exactly when to add the garlic and ginger so I added them two minutes after the onions. I mixed up the soy, vinegar and oil while the onions were cooking. This probably explains how I missed the “remove stems and dice the caps” instructions adjacent to the mushrooms.

I did wash the mushrooms and added them to the pan. Since I am not a fan of mushrooms I thought about skipping them, but I wasn’t sure if eliminating them would throw off the recipe. In retrospect, I think if I left the onions and sweet potatoes in the pan for a couple of minutes on the side without the mushrooms it would be fine. It would keep me from picking them out later! While the mushrooms were cooking I got out the chard. I used red chard since it looked good in the grocery store. I used about 4 leaves and took the green portion off of the red stalks. I should’ve chopped it up a little more but it was fine.

I added the sauce and mixed everything together. I knew I was on the right track because it smelled awesome! I turned up the heat and added the orzo. I scraped the bottom of the pan as it cooked, and I was pretty careful so the contents of the pan didn’t spill over onto the stove. I added the chard and when it began to wilt I took it off of the stove. I added salt and pepper to mine and parmesan cheese to my two-year-olds plate. We both had seconds ( and she ate my mushrooms, isn’t she nice?) Leftovers went to school and work for a couple of days where they were polished off. I have already been asked for more so this will definitely be made at our house again!

Onion Tart with Bacon

I can guarantee, you would not expect the outcome below, unless you are familiar with my tendency to improvise without a clue. This may highlight how I classify myself as a challenged chef. The recipe was clipped (as usual) from the Virginian Pilot newspaper.

I started with the dough. I managed to get a couple of bubbles in my yeast mixture and added all of the ingredients for the dough. I may have gotten tired kneading the dough after a couple of minutes and called it good. I set it aside in a bowl covered with a dish towel and let it rise. While the dough was rising, I re-read the rest of the recipe. This is where things started to go south. I realized I had not been able to find caraway seeds or crème fraiche at the grocery store. I looked up substitutes on Google and cumin came up. I had ground cumin at home so I decided that I’d use that in lieu of caraway seeds. The substitute for crème fraiche is sour cream, but I don’t particularly care for sour cream so I didn’t have any of that either. Since we had time before the dough was ready, my two year old and I set of for the grocery store.

We got to the grocery store and went to the dairy section. Nothing. We asked a guy working in the dairy section and after showing him what we were looking for on our phone, he consulted in the back and sent me to the fancy cheese section. After reviewing their selection and asking the manager, it was revealed that they don’t carry crème fraiche. Since this was the third major grocery store in the area and the previous two didn’t carry this either (I checked earlier in the week) it was time to make a substitution call. Since I don’t love sour cream, I went with mascarpone as my game time decision.

We got back to the house (after a melt down tantrum over not buying the yellow cheese and a two for one deal on 12 packs of canned soda that makes my pantry look like I am hoarding soda for an apocalyptic event) and checked on the dough. It had approximately doubled in size so I got moving on the topping. I started cutting up the onions. 3 large onions results in enough onions to fill my largest skillet. I cooked them until they began to brown and added the cumin. It still seemed like a lot of onion.

I took the bacon and put it under water and simmered. This is kind of gross. The bacon exudes an odd foam onto the water’s surface. I drained the bacon and cut it up into one inch pieces. I got the dough rolled out and onto a baking sheet, which I then rolled a bit more to get the approximate diameter, although mine was more round than oval. I mixed the ricotta with the mascarpone and spread it on the dough, which worked just fine. I started piling up the onions and after getting about ¾ of them on the pile, abandoned the rest. There were just too many. I topped the onions with the bacon and added some mascarpone on top. I tried drizzling over the top like the recipe said, but it isn’t a liquid so glopped is more accurate. In the oven it went for 33 minutes.

The results: mediocre. There were still too many onions (which seems strange given it’s an onion tart) and the onions were kind of bland. I used white onions since the recipe didn’t specify but perhaps yellow would have been an improvement. The bacon wasn’t crisp so I think frying the bacon instead of giving it a bath would have been a better option. The mascarpone worked fine though and there was plenty leftover. It said on the package that it makes a great bread spread and I had never had it so I gave it a try. HELLO! My new favorite obsession! It is so delicious. Forget the onion tart, I just want mascarpone and bread. My two year old didn’t love the tart, and doesn’t like the mascarpone on the bread, but thinks it tastes good by itself. Smart girl.

Roast Pork with Pan Sauce

Roast Pork with Pan Sauce

This recipe was a winner and an epic fail all at the same time! Things started off without too much drama. I have a roasting pan and I oiled the bottom with olive oil. I don’t own a food processor so I put the oil, rosemary, fennel, garlic, salt and pepper in the blender and tried to make a paste. I am attempting to grow rosemary at home so I used some fresh from our “garden” (pots on the back porch) and some dried, since I didn’t want to take too much off our plant. Making a paste in the blender turned out to be a bit of an issue since the volume of material in the blender was not enough to really get the garlic chopped up as much as I needed. If I had chopped up the garlic before I put it in the blender this might not have been an issue but hey, I am kind of lazy at times!

The good news is the paste smelled delicious! I used a knife and scored the meat/fat (it was not an even layer, and I am not sure if that was due to the quality of the shoulder I chose or if it is just the variety of nature) and then paused to contemplate how much I felt like a serial killer, even though the pig was already dead. This made my mind wander to Dexter, then to movies with serial killers, then movies with string to tie up food, which led me to Bridget Jones’s Diary. Yes, my mind works in mysterious ways. Bridget Jones used blue string to tie up leeks and ended up dyeing her soup blue. I did not want blue meat so I managed to find white string (two extra light bulbs, a cell phone battery and the allen wrenches I had misplaced) in the back closet. I tied up the pork shoulder even though it seemed like it would hold together without it. I popped it in the oven and let the roasting begin! It should be noted that it takes forever (three hours) to cook this, so if you are hungry this recipe should be saved for another time.

I set the timer, adjusted the heat down to 300 degrees after 30 minutes and let it roast for 2 hours and 20 minutes. When I checked on it at that time it was done so I got it out of the oven and transferred the pork to a plate to rest. Rest is what the recipe says. I prefer to think of it as cooling down so I don’t burn myself trying to cut into it! After the pork was out of the pan, things started to go way south. The recipe says to pour all of the drippings into a bowl and skim the fat. I don’t think I understand these directions completely. Isn’t it all fat? There wasn’t anything floating at the top, but I think all of the “juice” was oil, which is fat. Since I didn’t know what to do with it I left it as is on the side. I put the roasting pan over the oven burner and added the wine. Since the pan is pretty large I wasn’t sure if I should use one burner or two, but two seemed dangerous so I settled on one. It was pretty difficult to maneuver the pan so that it would stay steady while I scraped the bottom. I added the flour to the reduced wine and it clumped up. I tried whisking it with one hand while holding the pan steady with the other. Thank God for the Ove-Glove! I added the drippings and broth and continued to whisk. For about 5 minutes. All that resulted is something that looked like chicken soup and had chicken soup consistency. I added some more flour, but it was of no avail. I called time of death on the pan sauce and went back to the pork.

I sliced the pork and served it, after I cut off the string which seemed to do little anyways! The rubbing had made a crust on top that was delicious. Since I was lazy there were larger chunks of garlic that roasted and were excellent bits on top. The meat was good too, although the shoulder had a lot of fat throughout. I think next time I will use the rub on a tenderloin of pork for a better cut of meat. I had leftovers for three days and some got thrown out. If you make this recipe, invite a bunch of people over and skip the pan sauce, unless you know something I don’t!

Honey Glazed Carrots with Cilantro

So, this recipe is good and the results were unexpectedly pleasant, but there are a couple of things I’d do differently. The first is, I’d skip the big carrots and just split a bunch of baby carrots in half. It would cut the prep time. But I managed to peel the big carrots with a knife (please remind me to purchase a peeler) and get them in the pan. I added the water and oil and cooked them until the water evaporated, which was closer to 20 minutes. I continued to cook them another two minutes and they weren’t golden, they were still orange. I added the honey and the water (I would prefer the wine, but we were out!) I cooked them another two minutes stirring continuously with a wooden spoon as directed. Unfortunately, my wooden spoons are white so the carrots turned it orange. (This mostly came off in the dishwasher, but not completely!) Finally, I squeezed in some cilantro from a tube since I have difficulty using an entire bunch of fresh cilantro from the grocery store and the cilantro I am “growing” on my porch is on life support. The results were surprisingly good. My two year approved too! Next time though, I may just microwave the carrots, water and oil to cut some time, and then transfer into a hot pan to caramelize. Overall though, a winner!

Pinecone Bird Feeder

Normally, I'd write about people food but my two year old loved this so I thought I'd share. The Aquarium in VIrginia Beach gave us this idea. We found the pinecone while out at the park.  After tying a string to it, we took peanut butter and spread it on the ponecone.Then we put it in a plastic bag with birdseed and shook it to coat the peanut butter with the birdseed. We hung it from a tree outside and sat to watch the birds eat. A simple but fun activity for a toddler!

Warm Potato Salad

There is something that I don’t think I have mentioned yet. I don’t like eggs unless they are an ingredient in a baked goods batter. Seriously, I can’t stand them. They smell terrible and have a variety of repulsive textures that I find nauseating. So it may seem a little surprising that I selected the warm potato salad recipe. I did so with the thought of egg substitution in mind. The thought of a potato salad that was not sullied by the presence of those vile chunks of egg I still find appealing. However, this is not my greatest culinary triumph. In fact, several things about it equaled a barely edible result!

Of course, I decided to substitute the eggs (wretched) with an avocado (delightful). I started off with the potatoes. I don’t have a steamer basket so I decided to microwave the potato chunks. This worked just fine but I think the two potatoes resulted in vastly more potato chunks than are required for this recipe, which is where things started to go wrong. I mixed up the oil, vinegar and Dijon mustard. I didn’t have any red wine vinegar so I used balsamic. I have Dijon mustard but it is Dijon honey mustard, so I increased this to two teaspoons in order to give it some kick. I don’t think these two ingredients really go together, but I pressed on.

Once the potatoes were out of the microwave I added them to the oil/vinegar/mustard mixed and stirred them up to coat. At this point, I thought there might not be enough sauce for the potatoes but wasn’t sure. I cut up half the red onion and the avocado and added them to the mix. Since the balsamic vinegar is brownish, it gave the avocado a brown tinge. I added salt and pepper and stepped back. This is not something you will see plated in a restaurant.  I crossed my fingers and served it to my Mom. My poor Mom, she really doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment.

It wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t good. For one thing, there was way too much onion in this mix, which means if I used the correct ratio of potatoes it would’ve been even more overpowering. I think they made my Mom’s eyes water (sorry Mom)! As always, she tried to be supportive and said it was alright. I ate some. Ew. Somehow the fact that the potatoes were warm made it worse. To top it off, except for the onion, it was bland. My two year old ate two bites and then refused the rest. At least she shows signs of good taste and good sense! I saved the considerable leftovers and tried them cold the next day. Normally I do not like to waste food, but this went in the trash. Ah failure, I am so familiar with you! It was truly tragic to waste a perfectly good avocado.

Oven Mexican Quinoa

Quinoa has listed as a “super food” for the last few years now. I never had it growing up and have never cooked it before. Of course in my mind my first thought was “how hard can it be?”! Not too difficult as it turns out, although I have a couple of adjustments I will make next time.

Right out of the gate I needed to make a change to the instructions. I don’t own a food processor and I can’t justify the expense of one for the little use it would provide me. So, I decided I could chop up the onion, tomatoes, garli and jalapeno and use a blender to mix them. This worked out just fine (thank god you can take apart the pitcher and put it in the dishwasher!). I did reduce the jalapeno for the vegetable mixture to one from two so it wouldn’t be as spicy for my two year old!

I decided ahead of time that I’d substitute for the walnut oil since I don’t have other anticipated needs for walnut oil and didn’t want to waste the rest. The alternates at the end of the recipe suggest using nonstick cooking spray, so I used a bit of this approximately two teaspoons of olive oil so the quinoa wouldn’t burn in the pan. I cooked it for 8 minutes, although I didn’t see much happen. I am not sure what would’ve happened if I had skipped this step. I am open to comments on this! I did add the other jalapeno and cook for another minute and then added the broth, salt, cumin and tomato paste. I spent some time trying to stir up the tomato paste so it wasn’t a big clump. I am not sure this ingredient was needed either!

So, I put all of this into a casserole dish and covered it with tinfoil. At this point it looked like soup. A sinking feeling settled into my already rumbling stomach as I put it into the oven. I checked on it to stir it at 15 minutes and it still looked like soup. Oh boy. I checked on it at 30 minutes and decided it still seemed too soupy. My solution to this was to remove the tinfoil and hope it evaporated some. When the timer buzzed I removed the dish from the oven and….. still a bit soupy but not terrible. It needed a bowl not a plate though! I dished it into bowls, added cilantro and lime juice and a bit of cheese, because let’s face it, cheese is delicious. The cheese melted on top and it tasted pretty good. A direct quote from my Mom “it’s different but it tastes alright”. Maybe not a rave review, but she was willing to let me test this out on her. She did use half the onion next go-around so it wouldn’t overpower the other ingredients and I agree. My two year old liked that I would add cheese at her request (multiple requests actually).

Overall, I’ll make it again. The leftovers heated up quite well and it all got eaten. Now if only I can figure out what to do with the rest of the tomato paste………