Easter Dinner

Easter Dinner was awesome this year. I loved it and would totally make it again in a heart beat and eat twice as much, until I explode!

I made a big ol' pork roast. It was about a 4 lb pork roast (bone-in) that I seasoned with salt & pepper and Krakow Night's Seasoning from Penzey's. I seared the roast for about 5 minutes per side to give it a nice brown crust. Then I set it aside for a minute and drained out some of the fat and sauted one diced shallot and 1/2 a teaspoon of caraway seeds. I deglazed the pan with 1 cup of Riesling. I added 1/4 cup of apple cider. For a little richness, I added 1/2 of a beef bouillon cube. Let that simmer for a minute. Let the roast settle into the pan. Add 1 pound of sauerkraut. Drop in 4 allspice berries and 1 bay leaf. Cover and braise in the oven for 4-5 hours until it's fall apart tender.

To accompany the pork and sauerkraut, I made potato pancakes. Serve with sour cream and apple sauce.

When the roast is done, break it apart into large pieces and remove any excessively large pieces of remaining fat, tendons and the bone.

The sauerkraut was awesome. It mixed in and soaked up all the pork fat, wine and apple cider flavors. Nothing bitter or sour about it. It was a great, juicy pairing with the tender pork. This is hearby my favorite sauerkraut, period!

Plate up and enjoy!

And of course, for desser I made that bad-ass cheesecake!

1000th Post

Happy 1,000th Post Day!

Woo hoo.

I wanted to something big and fancy and exciting...but instead of big and fancy, we're going to have easy, delicious and sort of healthy!

There are two parts here. The salad/veggies and the chicken. Both came from the recent issue of Everyday Food. Both are simple and anyone can do them!!!

To start, we have the salad, an Asian Cabbage Slaw:

The non-cabbage components; lime juice, rice vinegar, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, pepper, cilantro, scallions, carrot and jalapeno.

We then prep half of a head of cabbage. Slice thinly.

Toss them all together, taste and adjust seasoning if needed; keep in the fridge until you're ready to serve.

Part two of the dinner is chicken. Honey-Teriyaki Chicken:

Start with the sauce/marinade/glaze; honey, rice vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, salt & pepper. Coat the chicken, marinade it if you have the time.

I had boneless, skinless thighs, so they didn't get the crispy skin and awesome color that we saw in the photo in the magazine. But the flavor!!! Dang. Also, make sure to line your rimmed baking pan with foil, so you don't have to scrub that burnt sugar mess.

Serve together! Bosom Buddies! An Asian-style BBQ dinner. You have the slaw, you have the sticky, sweet chicken. I came very close to actually grilling the chicken, but I'm avoiding the outside until the pollen washes away. But next time I make this, they chicken will be grilled.

Honey-Teriyaki Chicken
1/2 cup honey
2 TB rice vinegar
2 TB soy sauce
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 TB peeled and grated fresh ginger
Salt/Pepper
8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (or use what you have!)

1) Preheat the oven to 475. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. In a large bowl, mix honey, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, 1 TB salt and 1/2 tsp of pepper. Add chicken and toss to coat. Transfer chicken and sauce to a baking sheet.

2) Bake chicken, skin sude up, basting occasionally with pan juices, until well browned and cooked through, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve chicken drizzled with pan juices.

Note: I allowed my chicken to sit for an hour in the marinade. It was great. I would say you could soak the chicken up to overnight if you like. I wouldn't do it much longer than that.


Asian Cabbage Slaw
2 TB fresh lime juice
2 TB rice vinegar
1 TB vegetable oil (I think you can skip this if you want, I will next time)
2 tsp sugar
Salt/Pepper
1/2 small head of Savoy or Green cabbage, shredded
1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, roughly chopped.
4 scallions, cut into matchsticks
1 carrot, grated
1/2 jalapeno, minced

Mix the first five ingredients until blended. Toss the remaining ingredients until coated. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Chill briefly before serving.



Both recipes serve four. I said in the beginning that these are sort of healthy. There's no additional fat in the chicken, so if you were to sub in boneless/skinless chicken breasts, you'd have a very lean protein. There is a small bit of oil in the salad, but I'm going to skip that next time. Plenty of good veg and fiber in the salad. And then there is the honey. At least it's honey, a natural sugar! I wouldn't skip the little sugar in the salad though, it helps sweeten an otherwise tart/little bitter salad. So in my eyes, there's very little fat, no butter, no cream, a tiny bit of processed sugar; kind of healthy!



And thanks for indulging me for all these 1,000 posts!

salad days

Last night I made a version of the Millionaire Chicken Salad I've made once before. The MCS should be made with a napa cabbage, but the last few times I"ve been to my store they haven't carried the napa cabbage. So last night I threw together this "temple food" salad with a bag of shredded cabbage. Tossed in some thin sliced carrots and bell peppers, poached chicken and the dressing. Done and done. It was good. It wasn't great, but it was good and filling. The dressing is tasty and could be used as a sauce for some grilled chicken, rice and steamed veg for a healthy meal.



I wasn't having the best of evenings, so it was just icing on the cake when I was serving the salad and the spoons slipped and sent sloppy cabbage all over the counter and floor. Nice. Here's hoping today is a better day.

After that weekend you need veggies

After we returned from our amazing NYC weekend and all the great food, it's time for something related to veggies. While vegetating in the chair and playing couch potato, we caught this Sunday's episode of Nigella and she was making Temple Food...food to make your body feel like the temple that it is. And a weekend of foodie indulgence requires some temple renovations.

This dish was oddly appealing to me on TV and I had no idea what I would think of it in person...let's see...


Vietnamese Mint Salad
Recipe from Nigella Lawson
Yield: 2 to 4 servings

1 Thai chile, seeded and minced
1 large garlic clove, peeled, minced
1 TB sugar
1 1/2 tsp rice vinegar
1 1/2 TB lime juice
1 1/2 TB fish sauce
1 1/2 TB vegetable oil
1/2 medium red onion, finely sliced
Freshly grated black pepper
7 to 8 oz white cabbage, shredded
2 medium carrot, shredded, julienned, or grated
1 large cooked chicken breast, shredded, or cut into fine strips (optional)
1 bunch mint, plus extra for garnish, leaves roughly chopped
1-2 TB toasted sesame seeds
Salt

In a medium bowl, stirring with spoon, combine the chile, garlic, sugar, vinegar, lime juice, fish sauce, oil, onion, and black pepper, set aside for 1/2 hour. In a large bowl combine cabbage, carrot, chicken breast, and mint, tossing with tongs. Pour cabbage mixture over the dressing, tossing with tongs, slowly and patiently so everything is coated. Add salt, to taste. Serve on a flat plate with sesame seeds and mint for garnish.


So there you have it. I ate a plate of vegetables. Nigella's recipe is actually Vietnamese Chicken and Mint Salad, for the purpose of this blog and to give some more vegetal variety, I'm going to just call this Vietnamese Mint Salad, putting the chicken as an optional ingredient. You can see there was a little chicken in there. We really enjoyed this salad. I prefer this more as a side salad instead of as an entree salad which we did tonight. I added the sesame seeds at the last minute. I used red onion instead of a yellow onion. Little color and a more palatable onion. I also added a second carrot. I might add a third carrot next time, I like carrots. And maybe...maybe use napa cabbage next time? Of course Giant didn't have Thai chiles, so one jalapeno worked for us. And PS, if you don't have fresh mint...don't bother!!! Vital!!!