Pork Ragu Improvisation

As I continue to make my way through the winter meat order, I have been searching for new ways to use the beef chuck roasts and pork shoulders of which we have an abundance. I was thrilled to find this amazing recipe by Andy on Dinner A Love Story for Pork Ragu. The idea is that you braise a pork shoulder in tomatoes and red wine, shred the meat and serve over pasta. This dish is so easy to make, so delicious, and it turns out so easy to riff off of to make another yummy meal.

The first time I made this dish I followed Andy's recipe to the letter. But after I removed the meat and shredded it up, I was concerned that there wasn't enough sauce for the six other people who were joining us for dinner. So chopped up some peppers, mushrooms and onions and added them plus another 2 cups or so of diced tomatoes and some more wine to the pot. The result: a rich and hearty sauce to go with the tender pork and pasta. It was amazingly delicious.

When I made this dish last week, I tried it a different way to see if I could achieve a similar result with fewer steps. Turns out, I could and I did. Here is the new and adjusted recipe for a more veggie filled pork ragu.

-Preheat the oven to 325.
-Pat dry a 3lb or so pork shoulder (also called Boston butt) and cover with salt and pepper.
-Chop up one large onion, 2 bell peppers, 3 carrots, 3 stalks of celery and a good handful of mushrooms.
-Heat a large Dutch oven on the stove and cover bottom with olive oil and one good pat of butter. Sear the pork on all sides.
-Remove meat and set aside.
-Add all of the chopped veggies except the mushrooms to the pot and saute for a few minutes. Add about a cup of red wine. (A healthy pour in to the pot. Don't bother measuring.)
-Nestle the pork into the veggies. Pour about 3 cups of diced tomatoes over and around the meat. You want the liquid to be 1/2 to 2/3 up the meat.

-Cover the pot and put it in the oven for 3 to 4 hours. Check every once in a while to make sure you don't need to add a little liquid. The meat should be falling off the bone. 
-Remove meat and shred with two forks. Set aside.
-Return pot to stove top over medium heat. Add mushrooms and another 2-3 cups of tomatoes and/or tomato sauce.
-Cook for 15 minutes or so. Season to your taste.
-Serve pork and sauce over pasta, rice, cous cous, etc...

PS: My children who can be a tad picky loved this meal. They barely noticed all of the meat and veggies covering their noodles.

Who are these children?

For the first time in several weeks, our weekend wasn't completely crammed with activity. In celebration, I cooked a steak dinner. Now, I have a theory that there is an inverse relationship between how much energy/enjoyment I put into a meal and how much my kids will eat of it. Despite this firmly held and well tested theory, I forged ahead and steamed some asparagus and topped it with lemon butter, mixed sauteed mushrooms, onions and currants into the quinoa and grilled up three of the Delmonico steaks from our winter meat order. It all looked and smelled delicious. I sat down at the table with a lovely looking plate and nice glass of wine completely convinced that my kids would spend their 15 minutes at the table whining and complaining.

Amazingly my children had been replaced by two cute little aliens who thoroughly enjoyed the repast I had thoroughly enjoyed preparing. The little girl martian ate three helpings of steak, and the toddler spaceboy couldn't shovel in the quinoa fast enough.

Dave and I, clearly the only Earthlings at the table, spent the whole meal in a state of slack-jawed shock at this bizarre outcome. After "Kara" asked for her second helping of steak, I turned to Dave and asked, "What the hell is going on here?"

I have  no idea how to account for this strange turn of events, but it will go down as one of the best dinners ever. Best ever!

Rice and Eggs - The Classic Brinner

When I was growing up, one of my mother's classic breakfast, and sometimes dinner, dishes was rice and eggs. Using the left over rice from Chinese take-out, my mom could whip up a delicious meal. (I realize as I am writing this that I don't know what the origin of this meal was - Mom, if you are reading, fill us in.)

Now that I am a mom,  I come back to this "recipe" time and again. Not only does it taste great, it reminds me of my mom and how much I loved when she made this for me as a little girl. Beyond nostalgic reasons to love rice and eggs, I also love that it is easy, healthy and my kids will eat it. In fact, when Jamie was about a year old, he would eat rice and eggs, with some vegetable thrown in, just about every day for lunch.

Last night Dave was out for dinner, so of course Kara requested brinner for dinner. I was happy to oblige. The kids had waffles and eggs and I had a delicious plate of rice and eggs. In this iteration of the meal, I added some red peppers, chopped spinach and green onions. And though left-over Chinese restaurant rice works best, I had to settle for the brown rice hiding in the back of our refrigerator.

Here is the "recipe" - a term I apply loosely. I generally use 2 eggs per adult and 1 per child. You do the math.

• Beat eggs with a little milk/water. Set aside.
• If you are going to add veggies or meat, get them ready. I recommend finely chopping any additions.
• Get the rice out. If it is really dry, like the kind in a take-out container, microwave it for a minute to soften it up.
• In a frying pan melt enough butter to thoroughly coat the pan. Don't be shy. If using veggies, saute for a few minutes. Add the rice. I use about 1/4 cup per egg. Saute for a few minutes until rice is warmed through.
• Add eggs and scramble. 
• You can throw in some cheese at the end if you are in to that kind of thing. 
• Serve alone or with anything that you might put with eggs: ketchup, salsa, hot sauce, bbq sauce. Personally, I love it with mango chutney. But I am a freak.

Apple Butter

Looking at the last couple of weeks, it would appear that I am obsessed with apples. What can I tell you? They are in season. They are cheap. They are super easy to transform into all kinds of other delicious foods. Finally, I always seem to have some around that need to get used up.

You see, I am not especially picky about my apples. When I taught at a school in Maryland, I enjoyed the red delicious apples that were from the cafeteria. I think I read somewhere that red delicious are the best selling apples in the US. Now to my husband, my daughter and my friends Katie, Susan and Tim, eating a red delicious is a sin against all truly good apples like honey crisps or pink ladies. Apparently, I know several people who are pretty persnickety when it comes to their apples.

In our house, this picky apple eating, or should I more generously call it "selectivity," often leads to apples languishing in the back of the refrigerator because they have been deemed not quite up to snuff. When I find these poor guys, I channel my irritation, or self-righteousness as Dave might call it, into making apple sauce. In the end, this works out well for everyone since it uses up the apples and results in homemade apple sauce for us all to enjoy.

This year, we went above and beyond and canned a ton of apple sauce to enjoy for the rest of the year. It was in my search for directions on how best to preserve apples, that I came across several apple butter recipes. It turns out that apple butter is just apple sauce that has been sweetened, spiced and cooked way down.

So last week, I make a huge pot of apple sauce and over the course of a day on the stove it transformed into apple butter. I basically used the recipe I found on Food In Jars. Pick Your Own has a good recipe as well. But unlike most other canning applications, this one doesn't really require a recipe. Just make apple sauce, puree until it is very smooth, cook over low heat and add sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, ginger or any other spices that sound good to you. Cook slowly and stir frequently. Beware of apple butter bubbles that will splatter all over the place. If you don't have the time, energy or inclination to leave a pot of apple sauce on your stove all day, I have read that you can use a slow cooker to achieve the same effect. A large  Dutch oven of sauce made 3 pint and 2 half pint jars of butter. And it is so good.

You might be thinking, "That's a lot of apple butter. What the heck would I do with all that?" Some ideas:
-Obviously it is delicious on warm toast.
-Try an apple butter cream cheese sandwich
-Spread it in a warm tortilla with a little butter for a delicious roll-up
-Put it on pancakes, waffles or French toast
-Use it as a filing for crepes. Add a little marscapone cheese for a super rich roll-up.
-Add it to oatmeal
-Put it in your homemade granola bars
-Add it to a favorite banana, zucchini or pumpkin bread recipe
-Make apple butter bread (Google it - there are a gillion recipes out there.)
-Use as a base for sweet marinade for pork
-Give it away as a holiday or hostess gift. Never underestimate how much people like to get homemade food. 

So the next time you make apple sauce, consider turning into apple butter. You wont be disappointed.

Super Easy Spaghetti Pie = Dinner Victory!

 I love pie. Really any kind of pie. Cherry, apple, rhubarb, chicken pot, shepherds. You put it in a pie dish, and I bet I will like it. Given this predilection for pies, it is no surprise that spaghetti pie has been one of my go-to meals for years.

I would like to say that my children, really my eldest, shared my enthusiasm for all things pie. But unless it's a cherry pie, Kara's not interested. Yesterday while the baby was napping, I  whipped up a spaghetti pie using the leftovers from the weekend. I tutor on Tuesday nights, so I miss the dinner and bedtime routine. And since Dave is usually running in as I am running out, I try to make something that he can just heat up for everyone. I rarely succeed in these attempts, however.  So I was feeling extra proud of myself for getting a meal ready ahead of time. And I flattered myself that this would be a dinner everyone would like and eat without complaint. It's really just spaghetti is a pie plate, for goodness sakes. What's not to like, right?

As I was about to leave, Kara shouted from the living room, "What's for dinner?"

To which I replied, "Something delicious!" She greeted this answer with a look that communicated her full knowledge that I was trying to put one over on her.

Apparently, it went downhill from there. After I left, Dave had the privilege of listening to Kara complain in advance about her dinner. And when it was actually dinner time, Dave had to "practically drag her to the table by her pigtails" (His words, not mine. I would never get that frustrated by our child...)

But it was all worthwhile because once our little one tasted the pie in question, she couldn't even pretend to hate it. In fact, she loved it. Ate two helpings. Dave, basking in this dinner victory, got to actually enjoy his dinner, too: a delicious plate of spaghetti pie without a side order of whining and drama. I imagine him thinking, "I love the smell of spaghetti pie in the evening...smells like victory."

. There are a lot of spaghetti pie recipes out there. This one is a variation on the dish my stepmother made. I have simplified it quite a bit. Spaghetti pie is a good way to use up all kinds of leftover vegetables, cheese, meat and of course pasta. This recipe is easily made meat-free and/or gluten free too. Get creative - you wont be disappointed.

-Combine about 1/2 lb of cooked spaghetti with 2 eggs beaten and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese. If the pasta is cold, just run a little hot water on it to warm it up. This will make it easier to coat with the egg and cheese. On the other hand, if the pasta is fresh out of the pot, let it cool off before you pour egg into it, otherwise you will get scrambled egg in you noodles.
-Pour coated pasta in to a pie dish or a 9 inch baking dish. Set aside.
-Chop up one medium onion, one bell pepper and about 1 cup mushrooms. I used baby bellas, but white work too.

-Saute one link of Italian sausage in a large pan. After about 5 minutes, move sausage to the side, add a little olive oil and cook the veggies.
-Saute until veggies are soft. Remove sausage and set aside.
-Take pan off of heat and add about a 1/2 cup sour cream and stir into veggies.You could also use ricotta or some marscapone here. I bet chevre would be yummy too.
-To assemble the pie - Pour the creamy vegetable mix onto the spaghetti "crust." Next cut up the sausage and place a layer of  pieces on the vegetables. Cover it all with a layer of spaghetti sauce and then a layer of shredded mozzarella.
-Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.
*This dish is also great for freezing ahead of time. It will keep for months - then just defrost a bit and bake.

Potato Dinner

Thursday was cold, rainy and all around icky here. My morning activity with Jamie? Going to the mall so he could run around and therefore be more likely to nap, something he had refused to do for the previous three days. In a disturbing display of the effects of marketing on toddlers, Jamie spent much of the time running around pointing at stores shouting, "Pettsel!" This is toddler talk for "Pretzel" which we typically buy at Auntie Anne's (or is it Aunt Annie's - I can never remember) on our mall trips. Now that I think of it, maybe this behavior raises fewer questions about marketing and more questions about what exactly goes into those pretzels that an 18 month old knows they are a mall food.Yikes.

In any case, my plan worked and Jamie finally napped. Thank goodness! So I actually had some time to get things done without the soundtrack of an alternately chatting and crying toddler in the background. I could have used this time to cook up a delicious dinner for my family, but I didn't go that route. I decided to write in this blog, read the paper, fold laundry so I didn't have to do it after the bedtimes were done.

While this "me time" was lovely, it left me without a dinner plan. Then I opened a cabinet and saw the bag of russet potatoes that I bought at Trader Joe's yesterday. This discovery reminded me that I had seen a post on Dinner, A Love Story about a potato dinner. Don't you love the way my internet addled mind works?

Since I had potatoes, cheese, sour cream, cooked bacon left from last week's brinner, I had a dinner plan. And as a bonus, I would get to turn on the oven for at least an hour and warm up our kitchen on such a damp and dreary day.

Here is what we came up with: Kara and Jamie went traditional. Kara had sour cream on her 1/2 of a potato and Jamie went with some American cheese melted on top. I found a pack of shredded Swiss & Gruyere cheese, another Trader Joe's purchase, and smothered the grown ups' potatoes in this combo, plus some caramelized onions. A word about carmelized onions: Is there any food they do not improve? I had never considered them as a potato topping, but let me tell you, it was unbelievably good. If you are going to bother caramelizing onions, you might as well do a whole pans worth. They keep for many days and, again, are excellent on just about anything you can think of. I put some on our salads as well.  

Lest you think this dinner was a smashing success just because is was delicious, fast, mostly meat-free and pretty darn healthy, I will inject a little reality. Here is a picture of Jamie's plate after her finished his dinner.

That's right. After he "ate." Yes, my children were not quite as excited about the potato bar idea as I was. Kara ate more than Jamie, but only because I nagged her into it. But there is no nagging a toddler. Just keeping it real.

That being said, I would do it all again anyway. I think the wisdom is you have to present foods to kids up to 20 times before they may actually eat them. I am absolutely willing to give the potato dinner 19 more tries - especially if that means I get to have 19 more excuses to cover a vegetable with cheese and caramelized onions.

 

Picky Eaters

One of my favorite foodie blogs is Dinner, A Love Story. Not only does the blogger, Jenny Rosenstrach, include excellent recipes, she has a wonderful sense of humor. She never lets us forget that she is a real mom with real, often persnickity kids. Her husband, Andy, often posts too. Much like his wife, Andy is funny, wise and cuts right to heart of what its like to try to raise "good eaters." (Full disclosure: both Andy and Jenny went to my college alma mater -- but I liked the blog even before I realized this connection.)

This most recent post, A Picky Eater Taxonomy,by Andy, came at just the right moment since both of my children pretty much rejected the dinner I made tonight. (More on that tomorrow.)

This one goes out to all the picky eaters, and the parents who put up with them...I mean love them.

Not So Fancy Sunday Dinner

I love Sunday dinner. When I was growing up, I spent most Sundays at my dad's house where my stepmother, building on her own childhood experience I suspect, made pretty elaborate Sunday dinners. By "elaborate" I mean substantial main course, several side dishes, bread, salad and a delicious, often homemade, dessert. Dave, too, lived in a house where Sunday dinner was often more than the run of the mill weeknight meal. I am happy to say that we have kept this tradition alive in our newer family. When we were younger and without kids, we would often use Sunday as an excuse to grill up a thick steak or roast a big, stuffed chicken, open a bottle of nice wine and even make some kind of appetizer to enjoy while watching the football games and drinking the aforementioned wine.

Now,  our current version of Sundays may not allow for sipping wine while reading the Times and watching the game, but they are still a respite from the weekly sprint of getting dinner on the table before someone, and I am as likely a suspect as either of my kids,  starts crying. Our meals are not typically fancy, and I have not taken to making a dessert on Sundays, but they are more thought-out, more relaxed, more complete somehow.

Yesterday was a good example. I finally made it to the farmers' market on Thursday and was able to buy some freshly ground turkey from "the chicken guy," as I like to call him.(I am sure he has an actual name, but everyone I know calls him "chicken guy.") Using my newly purchased ground meat, I made bleu cheese stuffed turkey burgers. We learned this trick years ago when we were on vacation and one of Dave's sister's college friends, Danielle, joined us for a few days. This was in the way back time before marriage and kids -- when vacation meant a week at the shore hanging out, eating, lots of drinking and even more lounging on the beach all day. Good times...but I digress... Danielle's husband, Lee, made turkey burgers one night and his squished blue cheese into the middle of each one. He also coated them in ketchup which was delicious. Anyway, Danielle has long since divorced Lee, but his legacy of delicious burgers lives on in our house.

And because I was feeling super motivated and energized by the lack of stress on a Sunday, I broke out the mandoline and made fries. Then, because I am crazy, I made an actual sauce for our green beans. And let me say that the sauce was apparently magic because my kids ate every bean on their plates.  Here are the basic "recipes" for your eating pleasure.

Turkey Burgers: 

Yep - I served my kids hot dogs. Keepin' it real.

• Combine ground turkey with spices of your choosing - I used garlic powder, worcester, cajun spice mix - and a handful or so of bread crumbs to help them hold together.
• Scoop out enough to make a small burger and flatten on your work surface. Spoon out 1-2 tbsp of crumbled blue cheese, add some additional burger on top to cover the cheese. Shape appropriately.
• These can be cooked on the grill, but I find they do better in a skillet so they get super seared and don't fall apart.

Fries:

• Cut potatoes into strips, wedges, chunks or whatever shape you like your fries. If you want them to look like "real" fries I recommend using a mandoline -- but be careful. I have nearly sliced my finger on several occasions.
• Let the potatoes drain and then dry them off before tossing with oil and spices or your choosing.
• Cook at 450 for 20 minutes or longer on a sheet pan. Don't skimp on the oil or they will stick.

Magic Sauce:

• Combine a spoonful or two of apricot jam, or use a few packets of duck sauce from your Chinese takeout, with some sesame oil, rice wine vinegar and mirin if you have it. Mirin is an amazing  sweet rice wine that is used in Asian cooking. It is excellent in all manner of vinaigrette and marinades.
• Just adjust the ingredients to get the taste you are looking for. You could also add something spicy like chili paste/powder, sriracha, ginger. Or some soy sauce or fish sauce to give it a little more punch. 

Kara had milk, not beer, with her dinner.

• This sauce is great as a salad dressing, on noodles, dumplings, chicken or shrimp, pretty much any vegetable. Plus it is a great way to use up those take out packets floating around one of your kitchen drawers.