Brats!

No, I'm not talking about the children, I would never call them that.* I'm talking about dinner! Delicious, humongous bratwursts from U.S. Wellness Meats, to be exact.
I was really tired tonight, after a long afternoon at our weekly homeschool park day, so I made the Grill Geek ply his trade for dinner. I chopped up some veggies for Sidedish (this time it was red potatoes, a small sweet potato, a lot of mushrooms, and half a red onion) and he did all the rest. A large scoop of real sauerkraut (with all it's lovely probiotics intact) and a dollop of coarse mustard were all that was needed to complete the meal.

Now, those brats probably look pretty big to you... and you're probably sitting there thinking "how on earth could she eat TWO of those things? She must be a pig!" Well, first of all, Smarty Pants, pigs don't eat pig, and these were pork brats. So. There you go. And secondly... I was really darn hungry after a light pre-park lunch and no snacks. And third... well... see for yourself.



I didn't eat all of it. Almost. But not quite.

* I prefer to refer to them as pirates, or perhaps "scallywags" on a bad day.

Kung Hei Fat Choi

What could this possibly portend? (Other than the fact that I'm probably PMS-ing...)

Chinese New Year. We like to celebrate it because it's another chance at a new start. Plus, it's an excuse to make something deliciously Asian other than stir-fry. A reason to stretch past our usual culinary comfort zones.

And this year we had the benefit of a guest, my mother. It's amazing what one more dinner plate can do for a menu. Normally I have to cut out many things I'd love to make, because there aren't enough people to eat all that food.

So, to summarize, I was extra excited about this holiday. And all that extra enthusiasm translated into extra disaster. Especially with the aforementioned PMS. (I didn't know I was under it's cloud until the kitchen catastrophes started piling up and I overreacted like a hormonal teenage Scorpio.*)

My biggest mistake was probably not taking the time to write out an Order of Events. I'm a listmaker. I dig lists. I like planning and had plenty of time to do it before dinnertime. My comfort zone generally is to have just one Major Headache recipe involved in a meal. By that I mean something fussy and/or unfamiliar. This time I had two, and it ended up breaking me.

I've thought about including recipes... but I really followed the ones I googled. So, I'll simply include links.

Lion's Head Meatballs
Vietnamese Spring Rolls (with instructions on how to roll here)
Noodles (mainly for the sake of our rather finicky daughter, but they ended up working well)

Everything was humming along very nicely. I actually consciously thought to myself several times how wonderfully it was all going. I got started prepping things early. I noticed... actually noticed that I was in a really good mood. Not feeling stressed like I usually do before special "feasts." Yeah. That should have scared me. Next time I'll know.

Countdown of Catastrophes:

1) My new timer just didn't work. I set it for 16 minutes, for the rice spaghetti. Who-knows-how-many minutes later, I glanced at it to check how much time I had left. It was off. That's really what started everything falling apart.
2) The pan I'd gotten out to soak my spring roll wrappers in was too small. But I tried to stick with it anyway.
3) Rolling spring rolls is really, really hard. Especially if you have no idea what you're doing. They are sticky. And hard to roll tightly. And I had no idea what to try different. My brain actually snapped while rolling the fourth one. I felt it snap. I lost all grip. It was rather scary.
4) I checked my lion meatballs and it looked distinctly like my greens were not cooking fast enough. Oh, goody! I love it when the main course is late!
5) I suddenly realized I had made an entire package of noodles, instead of just what my daughter would want to eat, and had no idea what to DO with them to make them... Asiany.
6) I suddenly realized I was almost out of time and hadn't bothered to make any sort of dipping sauce for the spring rolls.
7) I suddenly realized I wanted to throw the spring rolls against a wall, to see if they'd stick.
8) The timer (that I'd reset for a guessed amount of time) went off for the pasta. Oh, goody, nothing else was done yet... the noodles will get cold and everyone hates cold noodles!
9) Crap, I hadn't stirred the noodles enough and some had clumped together. Everyone hates clumpy noodles!
10) In my rush to get the spring rolls ready, I used my Silpat as a cutting board... because my cutting board was full... and completely f-ing killed it.

Wow. I need another piece of chocolate, just from recounting all of that. Whew. And they say that whatever happens on New Year's Day (regular or Chinese) is auspicious for the year to come. Yikes!

So, in the end... it was all pretty tasty and not deserving of all the drama. I served the Lion's Head Meatballs on the noodles, instead of on the greens. I'd made 8 meatballs instead of 4, since 8 is a luckier number for the new year. So, instead of looking like lion's heads, it looked like eyeballs. I wonder if that's considered lucky?





*Apology to any Scorpios... but really... you've gotta remember what you were like. I've got a 10-year-old Scorp just beginning her journey into painful irrationality... I think I know of what I speak.

"Vietnamese seduction"

That's what my recipe book, Basic Asian, calls it. And, I'll give 'em credit... I've definitely been wooed into wanting to try more Vietnamese cuisine!

It all started at the commissary this afternoon... with discount pork. Normally, that would dissuade a person. "Discount" and "pork" should not be used together in the same sentence. Bad things can happen. But I trust my commissary, so when I see "fajita strips" for less than 2 bucks a pound, I pounce.

But I also know I should cook them up right away.

I quickly decided against fajitas. I'm fresh out of corn tortillas, not in the mood to make some myself, and... it just wasn't that vibe tonight.

So... stir-fry. I consulted my go-to Asian cookbook. Rice Noodles with Spicy Pork. I followed the recipe as best I could, but... didn't have all the stuff needed, and can't follow a recipe anyway.

So, here's what I made and it was really, really tasty.

About 1 pound dark and light meat pork strips
1/8 cup sugar (I used turbinado)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/4 cup sake
3/4 cup fresh mint sprigs
3/4 cup fresh cilantro sprigs
(3/4 cup fresh basil sprigs were in the recipe, too, but I didn't have any)
1 incredibly huge cucumber
rice vinegar
salt & pepper
3 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 yellow onion, sliced thin
1/2 green bell pepper, sliced thin
Sauce:
1 Mystery Hot Pepper (do jalapenos ever get red?)
4 cloves garlic, pressed
3 T tamari
2 T fish sauce (we agreed this was a bit much)
3 T fresh key lime juice
Noodles of your choosing, I used Tinkyada, of course

Mix pork with sugar and fish sauce. Add sake and stir to coat. Stick in the fridge while you do everything else.
Pick leaves off herbs, cut up if you want (I sliced the mint because it was so big). Set aside.

Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds with a spoon, and slice into thin sticks. Put in a largish bowl. Sprinkle with rice vinegar, and add salt and pepper to taste. Eat all of them while cooking, making loud munching noises. Revel in crunchy sour saltiness. *

For the dip/sauce: chop the Mystery Pepper finely, being careful to remove the scary seeds and membranes. Embrace your Yankee Gringo spice-fearing glory. Mix together the chile pepper, garlic, tamari, fish sauce, and key lime juice. Distribute in 4 small bowls.
Heat oil in a large pan or wok, over pretty darn high heat (I think I used "7"), and cook onion and bell pepper until beginning to soften. Drain as much of the sake off the pork as you can. Add half the pork (so you don't crowd the pan), and cook a few minutes, until done. Remove all that from the pan, add the rest of the pork and cook it. Toss it all back in to reheat a minute, add a splash of tamari if you just can't resist.
Serve everything kind of on it's own on the plate, so people can mix together at their whim. After we tasted every possible combination, we decided to mix it all together in a big pile. It was nummy.

* Apparently, the plain, un-vinegared cucumber sticks were supposed to be served alongside the noodles and pork. Hmph. There were also supposed to be bean sprouts, green onions, and salty peanuts. Oh, well.

Iron Chef Mom Returns!

It's been a while, but, I finally got to do another "episode" of Iron Chef Mom. This time the Secret Ingredient was boneless pork sirloin roast. Once again it seemed impossible to do anything good with it in just an hour. Then I got the idea of chopping it up for kebabs!

Dinner was kebabs with red bell pepper and spring onions atop cabbage slaw, calabacitas salad, and plain rice. I would have loved to make Mexican rice, but there just wasn't time for anything else, and I ended up appreciating the plainness, actually... it was a bit soothing with all the spicy stuff!

I was amazed to get done with 1 minute left on the clock. The key is figuring out the "order of events" ahead of time.

First thing- start the rice cooker. I know a lot of people think rice cookers are silly, but I love mine. I just toss stuff in and forget it. If it's done before the rest of dinner... no worries... it stays warm. The rest went like this:
Slice cabbage thinly, salt, and leave in a colander to drain.
Make marinade
Cube pork, marinate in fridge (reserve some marinade to brush on while grilling)
Chop veggies, slice squash for grilling
Grill squash
Cook bacon
Wring out cabbage and toss with dressing
Chop grilled squash and assemble salad
Assemble kebabs
Grill stuff

Marinade for pork

1/2 cup salsa verde
1/4 red onion, sliced and quickly browned in bacon fat
3 cloves garlic (toss in with the onion at the end, to brown a bit)
1/4 cup spiced rum
1 very small chipotle pepper

Whizz it all together in a blender.
I didn't try it, but after tasting it, I really think I should have... pineapple would have been awesome here. About 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup fresh pineapple, with about 1/2 teaspoon salt added. Would have been fabulous.
I only had time to marinate for about 30 minutes. Longer would have been nice, but 30 really was enough. It was a fairly tender cut of meat, and brushing the reserved marinade/sauce on while grilling added plenty of flavor.

Cabbage Slaw

¼ head, each, red and green cabbage, very-thinly sliced
1 tsp salt
Juice from one lime
1 T. ACV
1 T olive oil

Place cabbage in a large bowl, tossing it with salt. Press it down firmly with hands, to help it break down a bit. Place in a colander in the sink, allowing 20 minutes to drain.

Wring it out with paper towels and put back in a bowl. Toss with juice, vinegar, and oil.

Let sit at room temp 15 minutes before serving.

Calabacitas Salad

2-4 zucchini and yellow squash, sliced in half lengthwise
2 slices bacon, chopped and browned
2 tablespoons orange juice
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
½ tsp dried cilantro (fresh would be much better- 1 tablespoon, perhaps?)
about ¼ cup fresh goat cheese

Brush the squash with olive oil on the cut side and sprinkle with salt. Grill.

Chop into small pieces, toss with juice and oil, sprinkle with cilantro, and top with bacon and cheese.

Cinco de Yummo

Cheesy, I know... sometimes I run out of ideas for the titles of my blog posts.

Cinco de Mayo in South Texas... I really ought to be having more of a feast. Oh, well, we are a small family, and didn't invite anyone over because I'm still getting over a cold. I'm 90% there, but... want to make sure I don't share my germs.

Saucy bits

On the menu tonight:
Rice, pork, chips and guacamole, saucy bits, watermelon. And, of course, margaritas. But not the blender kind.

I sautéed the rice in olive oil before tossing it in the rice cooker this time... a step in the direction of more-authentically Mexican. I didn't add in the onion and garlic and such that are common south of the border, because I wanted the kids to eat it. And I wanted to be able to tell what, if anything, the extra step adds to the final flavor. I was rather disappointed. Maybe I should have toasted it a bit longer... but it didn't seem worth the effort. Luckily, I could reuse the pan for the saucy bits.

Saucy Bits
Sauté half an onion, sliced thinly, in about a tablespoon of bacon fat. Add three crushed garlic cloves, stirring quickly to prevent burning, and then pour in about a cup of chopped tomatoes. Add more tomatoes, if needed, to make a pretty thick sauce. Plop in a small dried pepper (I think mine are chipotle, but they weren't labeled at the store.) Cook for a while, adding more tomato or a splash of wine. Add salt to taste.

Pork loin strips, a flambé

The Grill Geek made a quick rub for the loin strips (I've never seen this cut of pork before... very fatty, hence the leaping flames) consisting of equal parts cumin and salt. Then he grilled 'em and chopped them into bite-size pieces. We piled the pieces on top of rice with sauce, added a little marinated lettuce for crunch, and served it up with toasted (toaster ovens are a godsend) and guacamole.

Easter Dinner

I love the idea of "dinner" being in the middle of the day. That way it's not hanging over my head all day, nor do I have a giant bunch of food to digest while I'm sleeping. Which I guess is good.

I've spent too long already getting distracted from posting this. So, without further attempt at wit... some before and after pics, with necessary description.

To the right, a sort of Sidedish, but with leeks, to be fancy. And because we got them in our weekly Greenling delivery.


Menu:
Appetizers: Spicy Pecans, olives, cute little gummy berries
Bacon Wrapped Asparagus
That potato-and-leek thing
Grilled lamb chops
And, because they were so itty bitty, grilled pork chops as well.
Dessert was Even More Candy

Yeah... I'll eat that.

The potatoes and leeks got charry-caramelized, the pork chops were juicy, the lamb was silky, and the bacon-wrapped asparagus is now on my menu for Last Meal Ever. And I barely did any work at all, because I made the Grill-Geek cook it outside. Fabulous.

75% Local

How local can you get?

Ok, I realize most of you can't reasonably answer that until spring hits. Spring is here, already, and I'm not sure autumn ever left. That's one really big reason why I love South Texas. I am not a Four Seasons kind of girl. Although I wouldn't mind one nice big snow, complete with sledding. 6-8 inches, with three or four days afterward where the temp hovers around 30, with clear skies.

Anyway, I'm certainly not going to get that here. But what I can get here is lots of great local produce and meat. Tonight's dinner could have been 100% local, excluding the salt, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. But I haven't yet opted for the local potatoes and mushrooms.

And, um... I have to confess to once again not taking pictures. Um... I was hungry. Didn't even think of it. We had lovely grilled pork chops, from pastured, local pigs. Our Sidedish was a little different, with a very large green onion standing in for a regular yellow one. We tossed some chopped mushrooms in there, as well. And then we had more balsamic-roasted Brussels sprouts. We love them. Even the Little Guy loves them. They are crazy delicious. Has anyone on the face of the planet ever described Brussels sprouts as "crazy delicious???"

As usual, I only got about half my pork chop. We grill hot dogs for the kids (instead of steak or pork chops or smoked whatever), basing our habits on our exceptionally-selective Fairy Child. We tend to forget that our Little Guy is more adventurous. And carnivorous.

Very carnivorous.

Presidents Day fun

We like to play with our food. And we think Presidents Day should be no exception. So, our dinner tonight reflects the respect we have toward that most-powerful office... or at least the people who have held it.

Duck and Pork Sausage (Lame duck, get it? The pork part should be obvious.)
Grilled imPeaches (hee hee)
Waffles (har har)
Fresh-roasted Peanuts (tip o' the hat to Jimmy)

NO cherries! We adamantly refuse to have cherries. It's too cliche... I would have loved to have a sweet potato custard, straight from one of Jefferson's personal recipes, but no one else here would have eaten any.


The sausages were out-of-this world delicious, and the whole meal had a very French feel. Appropriately, since we wouldn't have won our independence without help from the French. We piled the grilled peaches on top of the waffles, tossed on some peanuts, drizzled with a dark sugar and rum sauce, and then sprinkled with a touch of salt (since the peanuts were unsalted.)
It was surprisingly savory, and really good.

Beets Take-out!

I love holiday-colored food. Ok, not really. I've never even had green beer for Irish Heritage Day (I refuse to credit St. Patfuck with anything beyond genocide.) But when I just-so-happened to stumble across a recipe today for a viciously-red sidedish, I had to try it. The recipe came from Coconut & Lime, and I can't really explain why mine are SO much redder than hers. My beets never really got tender enough to mash with the potatoes, so I put it all in my food processor. (And it looks like I killed it... I got sticky, sugary-beety goodness in nooks and crannies I didn't know existed on that thing. Oops.) I didn't use the sour cream called for, because I can't have dairy. I think the creaminess would have been nice, but any extra "sour" would not. Maybe that explains the difference in hue?

The rest of dinner consisted of thick, grilled pork chops and a broccoli dish loosely taken from my new fabulous Jamie Oliver cookbook. Oh, and I topped the beets with microgreens... cuz it was pretty, and because the leaves are vaguely heart-shaped. I like cheesy Valentiney goodness. 10 years ago today I became a mother (didn't know it until about three weeks later), so it's a big holiday for me.

Iron Chef Mom 2

KYO NO TEMA... butaniku.

Or, more-accurately (and wordily): pork shoulder butt blade steak.

I kid you not.

Why does anything need so many names? Oh, well, it was cheap and looked really good, so the Grill Geek bought it. And I spent about 3 hours with my eyes glazed, chin-on-hand, searching the internet for recipes that I could do in just 80 minutes with the things I had on hand.

See... pork shoulder butt blade steak (PSBBS?) is known for being very flavorful, favored by Korean and South Carolinian cuisines, and yet can be quite tough. So it needs to be braised. Which takes a lot of time. Iron Chef Mom is not about lots of time. That's part of the challenge. No matter! Stand back, mere mortals! After rejecting a few ideas (which will be made some other time... they were good ideas) I settled on this one.

Asian Pork Lettuce Bowls

• 1 pound PSBBS, cut into thin slices

• 3 tablespoons coconut oil

  Braising liquid:

• 1 cup chicken stock

• 4-6 cloves garlic, minced
  

• 1/2 teaspoon gingerroot powder

• ¼ cup tamari (wheat-free soy sauce)

• ¼ cup rice wine

• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire

• 1 tablespoon brown sugar

• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

  Other stuff:

• 1 onion, thinly sliced

• 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced

• 1 carrot, thinly sliced

• ½ inch of ginger, grated

• Romaine leaves, separated

• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

• ½ tablespoon cornstarch

Directions:

1. Thinly slice pork and quickly fry half at a time, over high heat.

2. Mix together braising liquid and pour over. Return first batch of pork to the pan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in another skillet, stir-fry onion about 3 minutes, until beginning to soften. Add pepper and carrots, stir-fry about 3 more minutes, until crisp-tender.

4. Stir in grated ginger, and steal some braising liquid (about ¼ cup?)... heat to boiling.

5. Remove pork from braising liquid, raise heat to high, and boil to reduce down.

6. Chop cooked pork, then add about ¾ cup braising liquid to the pan with vegetables. Stir in about ½ tablespoon cornstarch, mixed with 1 tablespoon water, to thicken. Add the chopped pork, and stir to combine.

7. Make bowls of lettuce leaves, fill with spoon of rice, shredded pork, and stir-fried vegetables.

8. Transfer to plates and serve immediately, garnishing with sesame seeds.

And remember, one of the rules states that you must accept help from ALL sous-chefs... even if said help is them wanting to "wash dishes" and is thoroughly in your way.

Serve with a nice, cheap sham-pagne like Cook's. Yes, I'm serious. Delicate flavors and nuances will be lost against the spicy food, but the sparkles and sweetness are nice.