Cheesecake w/ Cherry Crust

Better late than never, right? There are four hours left this month and year, and I'm finally posting my recipe. I had the idea a few weeks ago, but hadn't the time nor the audience to test out this recipe.

As I have before, I used a recipe from Small Batch Baking for this month's recipe. I chose a generic cheesecake recipe to get the idea on how to make it, but of course put my own twist on it.

With dried cherries the ingredient, my idea was to make a cheesecake, with crushed dried cherries as part of the crust. The easy thing to do would be to add the dried cherries to the cheesecake batter, but that just ain't me. Instead, I added it to the graham cracker crust.

Ideally, the cherries would be ground up fine, incorporated smoothly in the crust. I tried freezing the cherries and grinding them in a coffee grinder to no avail. I even went on a hunt through Erie, PA for some dry ice. No dice. So I just chopped them as fine as I could and mixed them with the crust, and it worked well!

Having never made a cheesecake before, I am pleased with the result. The chunks of cherry in the crust were noticeable enough to work well, and I'm glad I wasn't able to grind them any finer. Since I'm inexperienced, I turned the small-batch cheesecakes face down on plates and called it good enough. They certainly tasted good, and the audience (wife and in-laws) was pleased. I had planned on making a chocolate whipped cream to put on top, but time was running short. Again, there are only four hours left this month! But the dessert definitely needed a sauce of some sort. Next time.

Duck in Red Wine Cherry Sauce

Watching Julie and Julia inspired my choice of dishes for this month. I adapted a "Two Fat Ladies" recipe for duck, reducing the amount of fat they used, and adding this month's ingredient, dried cherries. This is a delectable dish, recommended for a holiday dinner. The best part is that you can make it the night before, and just heat it when ready to serve- the flavors intensify when you reheat the duck. This makes it the perfect dish for a fancy holiday dinner when you'd rather spend time with your guests than at the stove.

Ingredients:

3.5-4 lb duck, rinsed and patted dry, then cut into serving pieces

salt and freshly ground pepper

1 cup all-purpose flour

~2 tbsp olive oil

~ a handful of shallots: 1/2 cup chopped plus 8 medium shallots quartered

4 ounces of bacon (about 4-5 slices), cut into narrow strips

1.5 cups dry red wine, like merlot

14 peppercorns

1 bay leaf

6 oz. dried cherries, divided

2.5 cups chicken stock

1 tbsp unsalted butter

1 tsp sugar

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

In a small bowl or pie pan, combine flour and a good amount of salt and pepper. Dredge the duck pieces in the flour mixture. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil. Sauté the duck pieces until gold brown. Remove the duck pieces and place in a large dutch oven or casserole. Drain the fat from the skillet into a separate container.

(Note: I let the duck fat cool and the dark flour solids settle to the bottom, then poured the good duck fat into a separate container. Then I put the duck fat in the refrigerator, saving it for another delicious use later on.)

Swipe out the pan with a paper towel. Return the pan to medium heat and sauté the bacon and 1/2 cup of chopped shallots. Add the wine, bay leaf, peppercorns and 1/4 cup of the dried cherries. Simmer until the wine is reduced by half. Add the stock and again reduce by half. Strain the sauce and pour over the duck in the dutch oven, discarding the solids. Add the remaining dried cherries to the dutch oven, cover, and place in the oven. After about 20 minutes have passed, melt the butter in a small skillet, and add the quartered shallots. Add the sugar, and sauté the shallots until they are brown (about 10 minutes). Add the shallots to the duck, and stir it all up. Continue cooking another 20-30 minutes, or until the duck is cooked.

I served this with rice, broccoli, squash soup, and the rest of the Merlot. The duck was very tender, and just the perfect level of richness. The sauce was savory with just a hint o sweetness from the shallots and cherries, which become tender through the simmering. This is SOOO yummy.

December: Dried Cherries

Hello all. On Scotts and Pans' authority, I have been granted permission to set this month's challenge. Fresh fruits are difficult to find this time of year, so the ingredient of the month is dried cherries. Sweet or sour, dried cherries are readily available and offer plenty of heart-healthy nutrition. They are also a festive holiday red. (Bonus!)

Beer Pickles

While visiting Boston on Halloween weekend, I was telling Scotts and Pans about Kool-Aid Pickles and how gross they sounded. I wondered why they couldn't be made with something delicious, like beer, instead. Well, it turns out they can, but then you have to change the name to beer pickles.

Beer Pickles

1 jar of pickles

1 beer

Drain pickle juice off pickles. Slice pickles in half and return to the jar. Pour beer over them until they are all covered. Refrigerate for 2 weeks. I used Bitburger (because it was that or pumpkin ale and that actually sounds worse than kool-aid pickles).

Clearly these are very simple to make. I had a few questions going in to this like: what will happen to the carbonation? Will they taste anything like pickles at all? How gross will this be? If I can make beer pickles, surely I can make gin olives, right? (coming soon to a blog near you!)

Here are the answers! The carbonation gets absorbed by the pickles - a similar result to making jello with 7-up - and you have a tangy treat. The pickles were not as crunchy as they were in their own juice, but retained some nice pickle flavor. They aren't gross at all, but could be if paired with something non-delicious with pickles (like Kool-Aid, for example). They do take a little getting used to, though.

I decided to make a hot-dog relish from the pickles. I chopped them and mixed them with yellow mustard. A delicious hot dog topping! (and I found New England style buns in Virginia! Who knew!?! Oh, Trader Joe's, you never cease to amaze me...)

Tune in next week for Fried Green Tomato's Martini Tapenade made with Gin Olives!

November assignment: a condiment of choice, from scratch. First thing that popped into my mind was a relish with onions and cranberries. Why not? So I did. But I added other things as well and by the looks of the picture of the empty bowl, I must have hit upon a great combination. I served it to a group of friends along with a chicken casserole. When it was time to clean up, the empty bowl appeared in the kitchen from the table - a sure sign that what I had prepared was enjoyed by everyone. The second picture is a small bowl of what was left that did not fit into the larger bowl, so Jim and I were able to have some with the left over chicken casserole the next night. This recipe is a definite keeper with no changes necessary!

Not only did we have it with a chicken casserole, but Jim and I tried it on top of a slice of Brie on a butter crisp cracker. That was very good. This recipe has potential for being very versatile. I think it would also work as a topping for a cheese bruschetta using either Brie or goat cheese on a toasted piece of a French baguette.

Cranberry Sauce

1 TBSP olive oil
½ cup chopped sweet onion
1 - 12 oz. bag fresh or frozen cranberries
2/3 cup water
1/3 cup orange juice
1/4 cup raspberry jelly
1/4 tsp Saigon cinnamon
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp orange zest
1 ½ tsp of small slivers of orange peel
1/3 cup toasted, chopped slivered almonds
salt - a shake or two

Heat olive oil on medium in small frying pan. Add onions and saute until light in color. About 10-15 minutes.

In a medium saucepan, place the next 9 ingredients plus the sauted onions and bring to a boil. Turn down heat to a slow simmer and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Add almonds and salt. Let cool. Serve either at room temperature or chilled. Refrigerate the left overs.

Cranberry Parsnip Chutney

For this month's recipe, I wanted to use Fall ingredients and warm, spicy flavors. On the way home from a Habitat house build where I'd spent all day hammering outside in the cool, crisp Autumn air, I came across a roadside produce stand. I left with some beautiful parsnips, cranberries, and cider, and decided to

feature these flavors in a chutney. I kept the ingredients seasonal, opting for ground ginger instead of fresh, although I'm sure fresh ginger would also be wonderful.

When I was trying out the spices for the chutney, I started with the heat of ground ginger to complement the parsnips, and rounded it out with the allspice and nutmeg. If you stop there and add 1.5-3 more cups of chopped apples, you could have a lovely spicy cran-applesauce. But for a chutney, I found it really needed something extra. The curry powder was the solution. It added complexity and the hint of Indian cooking that is necessary for a good chutney, and brought the parsnip back into play. I'd hit the chutney trifecta: sweet, sour, and savory.

Aside from being healthier for you, the honey adds a mellowness that sugar could not provide. If you don't have that much honey, though, sugar could be substituted (note: you'll need to add more water if you use sugar). Altogether, it makes for a lovely warm, rich, tasty chutney.

Ingredients:

1.5 cups peeled and diced parsnips

1 tbsp unsalted butter

a pinch of salt

1 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp hot Indian curry powder (curry powder from an Indian store is a million times better than McCormick)

1.5 cups diced cooking apples (keep the peels on)

12 oz. (1 bag) fresh cranberries (if you're using frozen, you can use them straight out of the freezer)

1/2 cup water (add more if needed)

~3/4 cup honey (adjust to taste)

Directions:

Sauté parsnips in butter and salt until browned. Add spices and stir for about 30 seconds, until the scents are released. Add apples, cranberries, and 1/2 cup water. Simmer until soft (it will be like a lumpy applesauce). Stir in honey to taste.

I served the chutney with pork chops that were sautéed with a sprinkle of curry powder and salt. To accompany the main dish, I had honey glazed parsnips, baked sweet potato, and broccoli. Since I was out of white wine, I chose a dry hard cider (Strongbow - my favorite!) that worked very well with the dinner. I would suggest a ripe pear and piece of milk chocolate Bliss for dessert. (I had my pear before dinner, and was so happy with the dinner flavors that I never got around to chocolate afterwards, but I can imagine that it would go beautifully).

I would also recommend trying the chutney with thick slices of a butcher-made spicy pork or chicken sausage. Mm...

Red Pepper Ketchup

Two straight years for Christmas I've asked for xanthan gum, to keep in the kitchen pantry for thickening food. You know how much xanthan gum I have? None. You know what I could've used for my recipe? Xanthan gum. November's recipe, red pepper ketchup, tasted great, but was just a little too thin. I strained out the excess liquid, which was helpful. But I would rather be able to use the xanthan gum.


Overall, this worked really well as a topping for a lamb burger with feta cheese. I went so far as to grind the lamb meat myself, but if you find it already ground in your local market, that is a good route to take.


On to the recipe!

• 2 red peppers
• 3 tomatoes
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp salt

To start, preheat your oven to 375, and cut up the peppers and tomatoes into small pieces. Toss with a little olive oil and sprinkle some salt and brown sugar on them. Roast for 20 minutes, tossing a few times as they cook. Once done, put into a food processor and add brown sugar, salt and vinegar. Process the food. If it appears too thin and you want it to more closely resemble the viscosity of ketchup, strain out and discard the liquid. That's it! It's that simple. Condiments are easy. And really tasty.

What I'm happiest about is how little goes into the recipe, and how good the end result tasted. It was very similar to regular ketchup, with the noticeable-but-not-overwhelming taste of the peppers. This made leftovers, which are currently in ice cube trays in the freezer, saved for future use.

November - Condiments

This month's recipes should be made-from-scratch condiments. This can really be anything- ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickles, bbq sauce, salad dressing. Totally up to you, but it has to be made from scratch. Enjoy!

Note: It's condiments. Not mint condoms. Completely different.

Frosted Pumpkin Cookies with Dried Fruit and Nuts





I decided to try my hand at making cookies this month. I read through several recipes, recipe critiques and came up with what I thought would be a good cookie. After mixing everything together, I divided the dough into thirds. To one I added golden raisins. To another I added craisins. To another I added dates and chopped nuts. I baked a few of each and after trying them, we decided the dough needed to be altered. Each one was cakey and needed "more stuff" to give the cookie some texture. With that change in mind, I grabbed the dried apricots, dried cherries and chopped pecans. I combined what dough I had left, which was the one with the golden raisins and the one with the dates and nuts. The batch with the craisins was already in the oven baking. Those would have to stay "as is". (Jim said, "we'll eat them anyway") I chopped a handful of apricots and cherries and into the dough went the chopped fruit and chopped pecans. After baking what I had altered, I frosted them and topped them with more chopped pecans. The frosting was a variation on what I saw on the Food Network with Ellie Krieger. She took whipped cream cheese and zapped it in the microwave until soft but not bubbling. Then she added confectioners' sugar and used that to squiggle on top of a chocolate ganache. She had specific amounts she used, but I didn't like the consistency of her end product for the frosting for these cookies, so I changed the amounts of cream cheese and sugar to get what I wanted. This is the best home made cookie frosting I have ever used. Easy to make and you make as little or as much as you need for your cookies. (You could also add lemon or orange zest to take the frosting up a notch if need be.) After adding the additional fruit and nuts, we ended up with a winner. It was suggested, by a family member, that whole wheat flour might have been a good flour to use instead of the all purpose - baker's choice! Here is the recipe after it was developed and altered.


1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups packed, dark brown sugar
1 tsp orange extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
3 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp Saigon cinnamon
2 tsp chopped, candied ginger
3 cups flour
2-2 1/2 cups dried fruit (dates, raisins, apricots, craisins, cherries) - whatever you like
1 cup chopped nuts


Melt the butter in the microwave. Cream the melted butter and brown sugar for 4-5 minutes - it will change in color from very dark brown to lighter brown and you will no longer see the butter. Add the extracts, egg, egg yolk and pumpkin. Mix until well blended. Add the dry ingredients and mix until well blended. Add the dried fruit and nuts - stir into dough with a wooden spoon. Chill dough 1 hour. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Using a cookie scoop, drop dough on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 15 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for 3 minutes. Transfer to rack and frost, top with chopped nuts (optional).


Frosting: Scoop some whipped cream cheese into a small bowl and microwave on high for about 10 seconds until the cream cheese is soft but does not bubble. Add confectioners' sugar to get the consistency you want to frost your cookies. Spread on cookies and top with chopped nuts (optional).

Roasted Pumpkin Ravioli with parmesan sauce and toasted hazelnuts

I’d been planning this recipe for weeks before I knew for sure the ingredient for October was pumpkin. Thanks, Scott - it’s one of my favorite things. I love pumpkins! I really wanted to work with a whole pumpkin – no canned pumpkin for this challenge. After tasting my ravioli filling, I made the right choice! Get ready for a party in your mouth!

Roasted Pumpkin Ravioli Filling:

1 sugar pumpkin

1 sweet onion

8-10 large, fresh sage leaves, chopped

Chicken, cooked and shredded (I used 3 boneless, skinless breasts cooked with poultry seasoning, salt and white wine)

olive oil

salt

pepper

1 Tbs. brown sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 450.

Cut pumpkin in half and discard seeds

Cut the pumpkin into wedges and peel with a veggie peeler

Cube pumpkin and sweet onion.

Toss with olive oil, sage, salt and pepper

Put veggies on a single layer on a cookie sheet.

Roast for 35 minutes, stirring veggies half way through.

Remove from oven and sprinkle with brown sugar. Put pan on a wire rack for cooling.

When cool, puree in food processor. Mix with chicken.

This will yield a boatload of filling.

Parmesan sauce:

4 Tbs. butter

4 Tbs. flour

2 Cups whole milk

1 Cup parmesan-reggiano cheese, shredded

In a heavy sauce pan, melt the butter.

Add the flour and cook for 4 -5 minutes, stirring until turning golden

Slowly wisk in milk. Cook until it begins to thicken.

Stir in cheese.

To toast hazelnuts place raw nuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Roast in an oven preheated to 27

5 for 30-35 minutes. The skin will begin to crack and the meat will be starting to turn gold. Remove from oven and place nuts on a kitchen towel. Gather corners of the towel up and twist closed. Holding the towel closed with one hand, knead the bundle of nuts with your other hand. The skins will come right off. Coarsely chop nuts.

I intended to use fresh lasagna sheets from Whole Foods to make the ravioli. I pulled them out and attempted to make the ravioli. I realized, as soon as they were out of the package, that I would have to do something to get them to stick together as they were fairly heavily floured. As I was attempting to assemble the pasta I realized that the sheets I had were too thick and heavy. The weight from the top sheet was causing the filling (which wasn’t very dense or heavy at all) to seep out the sides of the pasta. I tried to make 4 and realized the dough was just not going to work.

I ended up making a basic pasta dough (the recipe) and while it was sitting, I ran to Bed, Bath and Beyond and picked up a pasta maker. When I got home, my dough was ready to be rolled out. My friend, George, was coming over for dinner and he was put to work as soon as he got here. He helped me feed the dough into the pasta maker. I rolled the pasta “whisper thin” (as my cousin Michael would say) because the filling was quite delicate.

When it was all rolled out and George and I had started in on the wine, bread, and olive oil, I put George to work. He was in charge of cooking the pasta while I made the parmesan sauce to go on the top. When it was all done and plated, it had the potential to appear very bland since it was all the same color. Plating the salad and sprinkling the hazelnuts on top helped a lot.

It was a smashing success. The ravioli was incredible. The filling was a light and a little sweet. It worked really well with the saltiness of the parmesan sauce. The hazelnuts added some texture, which the dish needed. I served it with a green salad with goat cheese and cranberries and a zinfandel. The wine paired nicely with it. I tend to enjoy zin with fall meals regardless of the meat and / or sauce color. It went quite well.

Will I make this again? YES! Will I make any adjustments to my recipe? NO – it was fabulous. George and I sounded like the old Sanka commercials that used to play when I was growing up. There was a lot of mmmmm-ing at the table. It was a fabulous fall dinner that deserves another showing soon.

Thanksgiving meatloaf with turkey, mushrooms, and pumpkin

When I learned this month’s ingredient was pumpkin, I thought about a turkey meatloaf recipe I’d seen in the October 2009 issue of Bon Appetit. The original recipe called for two kinds of ground turkey, but I thought having chunks of turkey would make for a better texture. Then I decided to add chunks of pumpkin and more stuffing-type of spices, so that it would be like having your turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin/squash all rolled into one big comfort food. The pumpkin also adds some moisture to what is typically a dry dish.

My adventures (What I learned): I bought two turkey thighs, thinking the thigh meat would be more flavorful and less expensive than breast meat. This was true, but deboneing almost two pounds of turkey thighs to get a pound of meat was labor intensive, and usually when you are making meatloaf you want easy preparation. I

would suggest looking for already boneless thighs, or spending the money on the boneless breast meat. I felt like, in an effort to avoid the connective tissue on the thighs, I left too much meat behind on the bones. When I first made this, I also had upped the salt to 3 tsp, thinking I’d need more because I had more ingredients, but it was too salty. I’d stick with the 2 tsp I wrote in the recipe, below.

Prep time: 30 min (or more if you have to debone the thighs)

Bake time: 45 minutes

Special items: 2 loaf pans or one 8x8 inch pan

Ingredients:

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for brushing

2 cups of torn, crustless, day-old bread

8 oz of sliced cremini mushrooms

3 large eggs (or 2 extra-large)

½ cup diced shallots

1½ cups peeled, cored, and diced sugar pumpkin or butternut squash

2 tbsp fresh Italian parsley

1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme

½ tsp ground sage

½ tsp poultry seasoning

2 tsp coarse kosher salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

1 lb. ground turkey (15% fat)

1 lb. boneless turkey thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Brush two loaf pans or one 8x8” pan with olive oil.

Mix together all ingredients (including two tbsp olive oil), and place in the loaf or brownie pan. Because I’m just cookin’ for me and Jesus, I used two loaf pans, so that I could freeze the extra for later. Bake until thermometer inserted into the center registers 170°F, about 45 minutes. Let rest for 10-15 minutes before serving.

Conclusion: I served the meatloaf with glazed baby carrots, sautéed purple beans (which turn green when cooked – hence their mottled look in the photo), and cranberry sauce.

With the appropriate adjustments (using 2 tsps of salt, not 3, and finding either boneless thighs or breast meat), I would definitely make this again. I would also consider doubling the amount of pumpkin, because it worked well with the meatloaf and could have played a stronger role.



Apple Brandy Pork with Pumpkin Risotto

This is a comfort-food winner. Right up there with mac and cheese or meatloaf, the apple brandy pork tenderloin with pumpkin/gruyere/bacon/fried sage risotto on a cold rainy night was just about perfect.

I learned a few things along the way, too. I thought that the recipes this month would be a good way to use up the leftover jack-o-lantern flesh at the end of the month. Wrong. Those pumpkins aren't good for eatin'. Sugar pumpkins are the way to go. I also learned how awesome fried sage is. I mean, truly awesome. If you have some sage, by all means fry it.

You'll need about 75 minutes to complete this (ten of which were devoted to cutting the pumpkin), but it's totally worth it.

On to the recipe:

Pumpkin:

Preheat oven to 425.

Cut one small sugar pumpkin in half. Place cut-side down in a shallow dish with about 1/2 c. of water. Roast for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Once cool, the flesh should separate from the shell easily.

Pork Tenderloin:

• 1/4 c. soy sauce
• 1/4 c. brown sugar
• 2 tbsp. apple brandy
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 pork tenderloins (because that's how they're packaged at the store)

Marinate the pork in the above mixture for at least two hours before cooking. Let the meat come to room temperature before baking at 425 degrees for 28 minutes (medium) or 30 minutes (medium-well). Let it rest upon removal, just before serving.

Sage:

• Ten or so sage leaves
• Vegetable oil

Heat oil over medium heat. Toss in a few sage leaves at a time, fry for about 20-30 seconds. Remove to a paper towel.

Risotto:

• 1 c. pumpkin (about half of what was cooked above), cut into small chunks
• 1/3 c. gruyere, broken into small pieces
• 2 strips pre-cooked bacon, cut into small pieces
• Fried sage leaves
• 1 c. arborio rice
• 3.5 c. chicken broth
• 1 tsp. chopped garlic
• 2 tbsp. olive oil or butter

A note about the chicken broth: I use a bouillon mixture for this, which has salt in it. You'll notice that there isn't salt anywhere else in this recipe. If you're going to use broth, you'll need to add salt to taste. Also, you may not need all of the broth, but prepare it just in case. You'll definitely need three cups, maybe not 3.5.

In a saucepan, boil the chicken broth. In a skillet, heat up olive oil and butter over medium heat, and add garlic, sauteeing for a few minutes. Add the rice for a few minutes, stirring constantly. Ladle in a cup or so of broth at a time, stirring constantly, until most of the water is absorbed by the rice. Keep adding more as you go- the process should take about 20 minutes. I may have mentioned this before, but Stir Constantly. Is it a lot of work? Yes. It is worth it? Yes.

Once the rice is to your liking (al dente for me), add the gruyere until melted. Then add the pumpkin chunks, the bacon, and few of the sage leaves, broken up.

Serve the pork and risotto, with an extra sage leaf or two for garnish. Tasty, tasty garnish.

Results:

Make this. Tonight. It's 9:30 on Sunday morning, which means you have plenty of time to go to the grocery store, marinate the pork, cook and eat. Trust me. All of the flavors worked perfectly together- the fried sage really made it delicious. The one thing I would change is adding some brown sugar to the pumpkin when roasting it. Otherwise, this was great. "And I would change 'great' to 'awesome'" - Annie.

October: Pumpkin

By the end of the month, we'll all have leftover pumpkins on our front porch, the inside singed from candle flames. We'll need to have a plan for what to do with the pumpkin once trick-or-treating is over, thus the inspiration for this month. Go!

Main Course

Pork Tenderloin with a JOLT



The assignment of coffee for September was going to be interesting for me. I don't like the taste of and, therefore, don't drink coffee. I love the smell of it brewing but that's as far as my like of coffee goes. That being the case, I needed to figure out what to do. I went on a mission to see what I could do with coffee that would satisfy me and hopefully satisfy my taste buds. I knew about adding coffee to chocolate to enhance its flavor, but I didn't want to make a dessert since I had made one last month. With my research, I learned cooks were now using coffee in dry rubs and marinades for meat. That idea intrigued me and I decided that was my route - a dry rub for pork tenderloin. I found that most anything was put with the coffee to make a rub, so I was good to go with anything I wanted. I also decided that the pork needed a sauce. That would be an apricot sauce since I LOVE apricots. Jim suggested couscous with coffee being the liquid. I was up for that as well. Here is what I prepared and then my critique:



Port Tenderloin with a JOLT

A 1 to 2 pound pork tenderloin

1/4 cup instant coffee
1 TBSP Hungarian hot paprika
1 TBSP brown sugar
1 TBSP chopped fresh parsley
3/4 TBSP chopped fresh oregano
1/8 tsp Vietnamese cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper



Mix above ingredients and let sit for several hours. Rub entire pork tenderloin with marinade and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 8 hours. Sear on a hot grill. Place meat on the cool side of the grill and continue cooking on indirect heat for 15-20 minutes, turning once. Let rest for 5 minutes. Slice and serve with apricot sauce.



Apricot Sauce
1 - 12 ounce can Solo Apricot filling used for pastries, caskes and desserts
chopped, dried apricots (as much or as little as you would like)
salt - a dash to cut the sweetness a little
water to thin

Heat above ingredients. Place some on a platter, place sliced meat on sauce and drizzle additional sauce over meat.



Couscous
1 cup brewed coffee
3/4 cup whole grain couscous
chopped, fresh mint
toasted, slivered almonds



Bring coffee to a boil. Add couscous. Let sit 5 minutes. Stir with a fork. Add mint and almonds. Stir. Serve with additional fresh mint leaves.



Critique: The meat was incredibly tender and juicy. Due to the amount of instant coffee that was used, Jim thinks it would be good to cut back on the amount of coffee and use decaf. I never thought of the fact it was "high test" instant - which is why we called the recipe "Pork Tenderloin with a JOLT". The instant was concentrated and there was a bit too much used. You definitely needed the apricot sauce to cut the intensity of the rub. The couscous was wonderful. No changes with that at all. Anything else in the couscous would have been too much due to, again, the intensity of the rub on the meat. All in all, everything went together very well. The entire meal was well balanced in flavors. I will tweak the rub a bit with the coffee and go for it again.

Smack Yo Mama Chili

When I saw coffee as our ingredient I immediately did NOT want to make a drink and started thinking about a savory dish with coffee as an ingredient. Two things popped into my head right away - mole and chili. I'm glad I decided to focus on chili since Scotts and Pans worked on mole.

Ingredients:

1 lb. lean ground beef

1 lb. hot sausage

1 can crushed tomatoes

1 can HOT RoTel (diced tomatoes with habenero pepper)

1 sweet onion, chopped

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 TBS. Hot Mexican chili powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. oregano

1 clove garlic, sliced (or pressed for a stronger garlic flavor)

1 bay leaf

1 cup strong coffee

1 bottle dark beer (I used a brown ale)

salt to taste

For ease of clean up, I decided to use the crock pot for the simmering. I browned the beef and put it in the crock-pot with the tomatoes, Rotel, and beans. I browned the sausage and added the onion part way through the browning. I allowed lots of dark brown bits on my sausage to add flavor and the onions soaked up all the fat, so there was no draining involved. I added this to the

crock pot with the spices, beer and coffee. I made the coffee double strength.

My house smelled delicious as it was simmering away and I couldn't help but try it a few times while all the flavors were melding together. I initially thought that I had put too much cinnamon in, but after four hours of the flavors marrying, the cinnamon was a nice compliment rather than the offense I had previously thought. Next time I make it (because there will certainly be a next time - this was delicious!) I'll add a bit more oregano. I found I couldn't taste it at all and would like it have the chance to compliment the other flavors a bit more.

I decided at the 11th hour to make a corn bread to go with it and I'm glad I did. While not overly spicy, the chili has a nice kick to it. The corn bread and dollop of sour cream cooled it nicely. All in all, a great hit that I'll be making again and again and again. I'm already looking forward left overs at tomorrow's lunch.

Coffee-brined chicken w/ a coffee mole sauce

So September's recipe was a deep drive down the left-field line that. just. curved. foul. Not a home run, but pretty close. Another swing with better timing and we have a winner.

I used coffee two ways in this recipe- in a brine for chicken, and as part of a mole sauce. The chicken was served with black beans and grilled corn. Here's how:

Chicken and brine:

1 cup brewed coffee

1/4 cup salt

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp peppercorns

3 cups water

1 orange

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Mole:

1 14 oz. can stewed tomatoes

1 tbsp adobo sauce from a can of chipotles

1 square dark chocolate

1/2 cup brewed coffee

1 tsp minced garlic (or one clove, smashed, if you have it)

1 can black beans (not rinsed. I'm a dummy.)

4 ears of corn

I mixed the dry brining ingredients all together with hot coffee until everything was dissolved, and then added the water. The most fun part of this dish, and any dish that calls for it, is using the mortar and pestle to mash up the coriander and peppercorns. Wicked cool. Four slices of orange and the brine went into a big bowl with the chicken very early in the morning- I also added the juice from the rest of the orange (why waste it, right?). Pete was awake, so I was awake too. C'est la vie. Periodically during the day, I turned the chicken to make sure it all got brined properly. As I've never brined anything before, I don't know that this was necessary, but it made sense.

Dinner time was about 6:30 or so, and the Cavanaughs were coming over, so this had to be special. At about 5:00 I started on the mole sauce, blending the tomatoes, coffee, adobo and garlic.

Let's take a timeout here. Is there a good way to buy a small amount of adobo sauce so it's not wasteful? I know it's only like a four ounce can, but I only used one tbsp, so the rest goes to the fridge with the hope that we use it for something else. Of course we don't. So if you have any suggestions on a better way to do this, please post in the comments section at the end.

Ok. Time in.

So it's now about 5:15 and the mole is blended but not cooked yet. As you can imagine, it's a bit watery at this point, and needs to thicken. I've got about an hour until the Cavs come over, so I start simmering it to reduce now, which was a good idea in theory. I also added the chocolate when I put it on the burner. Big mistake. Huge. Why? Chocolate melts quickly, and then burns. This is the reason the dish wasn't a Great Success, but instead just outside the foul pole. Oops!

Anyway, over the course of the next hour it simmers to reduce, but twice I add more chocolate to cover up the slightly burnt taste of the original chocolate. I also shuck the corn and boil it for about five minutes- I love the taste of grilled corn, but cooking it all the way on the grill takes way too long. Par-boiling is the way to go.

Doorbell rings, guests are here. Chicken goes on the grill, black beans (not rinsed. I'm a dummy.) go into the pot with the mole, corn goes on the grill. Dinner is served.

The results:

The chicken was awesome. Really really great. We didn't eat it all, and it made great leftovers for the next few days. It never dried out, which is good considering it was frozen when I started, and chicken loses a lot of water during the thawing process. The coffee taste was faint, so maybe I'll use either stronger coffee or more of it next time. But the big winners here were the orange and coriander. Any time I brine something (Thanksgiving is coming up!), I'm using orange and coriander. Oh man was it good.

The black beans in mole was good. Could've been great. Coffee wasn't the star here, either- it really was the chocolate. The downside was that some of the chocolate was burned, and the mixture was REALLY salty, because I didn't rinse the black beans. I'm a dummy. With some more forethought, I would just buy dry beans and soak them overnight, but this recipe was thrown together with a mid-day trip to the grocery store, so that wasn't possible.

I'll try this again later this month and do it right, so look for more results later. I really think this could be a winner if I just think through everything. Maybe sauteed greens instead of corn as it's getting colder, we'll see.

Comments?

September: Coffee

Wake me up when September ends? No! Stay awake the whole month on a caffeine buzz! This month's ingredient is coffee, inspired by the absolutely terrible coffee available here in San Jose, CA. I'm out here for work, and the most prevalent option where I am is Peet's, which is just awful. Too strong, too bitter, it tastes burned. There has to be a better way, which I leave up to you to create a recipe. Enjoy!

Jalapeno Poppers with Goat Cheese and Raspberry

This months recipe is one of my own design and it should be noted that I rarely pay attention to exact measurements of ingredients or times or processes.  Le Singe does not bother with such trivial bits of information which is perhaps why he is such a terrible baker.  But I did my best to keep track of what I was doing for your sakes, dear readers.  What originally started out as a craving for some raspberry-chipotle glazed chicken, evolved into this experimental popper.  Now, I've never actually made poppers before but the idea seemed simple enough; stuff small and reasonably spicy peppers with tasty cheesy fillings and deep fry.  Simple, no?  Well, this took some doing and it was, as I said, an experiment and a challenge to venture into new culinary directions.  For the peppers I knew ahead of time I wanted to try them both fresh and pickled.  If you opt for the latter, I suggest starting the day before to leave time for a pickling process.  And so I present to you recipe, method, and confessed mistakes.

Jalapeno Poppers with Goat Cheese and Raspberry:

Makes about 16 poppers

Filling:

4 oz Cream Cheese

5 oz Goat Cheese

Salt 

Pepper

Seedless Raspberry Jam

Pickled Peppers:

5 Tbls Kosher Salt

3 Tbsp Sugar

3/4 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1 cup cold water

16 cored and seeded jalapenos

For breading and frying:

2 beaten eggs

1/4 cup flour

1 cup breadcrumbs

Vegetable oil 

For the pickled version, mix all of the ingredients listed above in a plastic container with a tight fitting lid.  I find that the kind a quart of wonton soup comes in does the job nicely.  Let sit in the fridge at least overnight.  I let mine go for about 2 days and they were great.

If you are not a big vinegar fan (which I can't imagine anyone not being), you can just core and seed fresh jalapenos and skip the pickling step.

Now, once the peppers are cored and seeded it's time to fill.  I discovered that cheaping out and using a sandwich baggie with a corner cut off, was not adequately strong enough for the extruding of cheese filling (read: exploded baggie) so I recommend the use of the pastry bag.  However, this method worked well for the raspberry filling, so go ahead with that route.  Fill each popper with about a teaspoon worth of raspberry.  I tried to leave a line of it laid down the inside of the pepper.  Next, fill the pepper with the cheese mixture.  When you've finished you'll have something that looks like these.  Once all the peppers are filled, put them into an airtight container and refrigerate for an hour or two to allow the filling to set up.

Now you'll need your breading stations: eggs beaten in a bowl, flour in the bowl next to that, and breadcrumbs in a bowl next to that.  Take the filled peppers out of the fridge and begin the breading process by first dipping each pepper into the beaten egg, then roll it in the flour, dip once again into the egg, and finally roll in the breadcrumbs.  If you are lucky to have such dedicated friends as LaGar

lique and Jamesicles, this process can be sped along into one great breading and frying assembly line.

You will need about an inch of vegetable oil in whatever vessel you choose to fry in. 

 I used a pot.  I regret that at the time of this writing I do not own a thermometer to 

check the temp on the oil.  I recommend that you use one and keep the oil at around 275 or 300.  I had to kind of guess this and wound up with some well done poppers on the first few tests.  Anyway, using a pair of tongs, because oil burns suck, gently place two or three poppers into the hot oil, being careful not to crowd them.  Fry until they reach a golden brown and then remove to a plate lined with paper towels or a cooling rack placed on top of a cookie sheet.

Let these cool for a few minutes because the insides, for those of you fortunate enough to not know this from first hand experience, are molten lava hot!  Enjoy!

Now, I have to tell you that there are a few things I learned from this.  One is that using raspberry jam straight from the jar seems to have too high of a water content when deep fried and got way too liquid-y inside the poppers.  It just did not stand up well and the flavor was lost due to the dripping of it onto the plate at first bite.  I would recommend cooking about 3/4 of a cup of this stuff down to about a 1/3 of a cup and cooling it before you attempt to fill the poppers.  I already mentioned the part where you should use a pastry bag for the cheese filling because of exploding baggie, and the fact that using ones fingers just does not get the cheese sufficiently stuffed into the poppers.  Then you're left with just a bite or two of cheesy goodness and then you run out!  Unacceptable!  Please see photos below for final product shots including illustration of above two mistakes.  Other than that, I feel like this recipe warrants another try. My brave taste testers discovered that some home grown peppers that I got from Scotts and Pans were really effing spicy as compared to the supermarket peppers.  Also they were divided on the pickled versus fresh debate but both seemed to enjoy the goat cheese/vaguely raspberry/jalapeno flavor combination.

Raspberry Streusel Bars

One of my prized possessions is a cookbook of family recipes that was given to me when I got married. The cool thing is that it was put in a photo album so that I could keep adding recipes as I developed my own cooking style. Truth be told my repertoire in the kitchen hasn't drifted far from the lessons I learned from the many southern women in my life who wrote those church cookbooks that contain recipes that feed an army. So, it's only fitting that I found this raspberry recipe in my family photo album and kid you not, it's a recipe found on the box of Fleischmann's Margarine!

Raspberry Streusel Bars

1-1/4 cups quick oats, uncooked

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1-3/4 sticks Fleischmann's margarine, melted

1 cup raspberry jam or preserves

3/4 cup white chocolate chips, divided

1/4 toasted chopped almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine oats, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt in large bowl. Stir in Fleischmann's margarine until mixture is crumbly. Reserve 1 cup crumb mixture; set aside. Press remaining crumb mixture onto bottom of an 8 inch square pan. Bake 10 minutes.

Spread raspberry fruit evenly over baked crust to within 1/4 inch of edges. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips. Combine reserved crumb mixture with remaining 1/4 cup white chocolate chips and almonds. Sprinkle over fruit mixture, pressing lightly into fruit. Bake 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely on wire rack. Cut into squares and serve. Makes 16 servings.

Things I tried with this recipe...

I had a little extra brown sugar, so I added more than the recipe called for and yes, I did stay true and buy Fleischmann's margarine! I purchased Smuckers' seedless red raspberry jam and 1 cup was the whole jar, I thought it would be too much, but it was a good balance with the crumb mixture. I did not include almonds - I just didn't feel like adding them and I don't think the recipe missed them at all.

The mistakes I made were thinking I could make a white chocolate raspberry sauce (do not melt white chocolate chips in the microwave - always use a double-broiler) or that I thought I had the time to make jam/preserves on my own...I entertained the idea for a few brief moments.

Overall, this was a yummy dessert made even better when warm and topped with Vanilla Haagen-Dazs ice cream and a couple of fresh raspberries. I displayed this dessert on a "American" patterned salad plate by Fostoria - a set of plates given to me by one of those southern ladies in my life.

Raspberry Vodka Fizz

When presented with raspberries as the ingredient for the month, I instantly thought of a refreshing drink.  Here's the recipe!

6-8 raspberries, muddled

1 Tbs. simple syrup

2 oz. vodka

1 oz. Cointreau

Club soda

Muddle raspberries and simple syrup together in a tumbler.  Fill with ice.  Pour vodka and Cointreau in, stir, and top with club soda.

Love the flavor - it's very refreshing.  I would make one small change - I would decrease the Cointreau to 1 Tbs. rather than a whole ounce - especially for someone who doesn't like sweet drinks.  Another option would be to strain it through a tea strainer to get the seeds out.  In that case, I'd use more raspberries, make the entire drink, and strain the entire thing.  I wouldn't recommend using a martini strainer because the pulp and seeds would easily get trapped in the strainer and be difficult to clean.

I also tried making it with gin (and no Cointreau).  I did not like it.  It was not good.

Fresh Fruit Pie with Peaches, Blueberries and Raspberries

Several years ago I developed a peach/blueberry pie. I decided to take that recipe and alter it using our assigned ingredient of raspberries. My original recipe called for 2 Tbsp of lemon juice which is what I use when working with blueberries, as the lemon juice brings out the flavor of the blueberries. However, in the new recipe, I didn't want to use lemon juice because of the acidity of the raspberries. Having the lemon juice AND the raspberries would have been a bit much in the amount of acid in the pie. Therefore, I decided to try raspberry schnapps in place of the lemon juice. Not knowing exactly how flavorful the raspberries were and the fact they were being combined with peaches and blueberries, I thought the raspberry schnapps would add to the raspberry flavor and take it up a notch without adding acid to the entire pie.


Below in the recipe I developed and then my critique of the end result.


Fresh Fruit Pie

2 Tbsp. raspberry schnapps
3 cups sliced peaches
2 cups fresh blueberries
1 1/4 cups fresh raspberries
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 Pillsbury pie crust
Crumb topping (recipe belore)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Sprinkle the raspberry schnapps over fruit in large bowl. Combine sugar, flour and salt. Add to fruit, tossing lightly to combine. Let stand 15 minutes. Line a 9-inch pie plate with the Pillsbury pie crust, trim to fit pie plate. Turn fruit mixture into pastry-lined pie plate and mound in center. Top with crumb topping and bake 30-35 minutes or until fruit bubbles and topping is lightly browned.

Crumb Topping

1 stick margarine softened
1 cup flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark)
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
a slight shake of salt

Blend above ingredients until crumbly. Top pie and bake. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.




In my original recipe I used 3 cups of peaches and 1 cup of blueberries for a total amount of 4 cups of fruit. In this recipe I used a total amount of 6 1/4 cups of fruit. I did not increase the flour for the filling and found I should have increased the flour proportionately with the increase of the fruit. The next time I make this pie, I will use 3 Tbsp of flour in the filling. I will not change the amount of the sugar due to the addition of the schnapps which took care of the need for any additional sugar. The first piece of pie stayed together fairly well, as you can see by the picture, but the rest of the pie ended up juicy. I also think the weather during the growing season for the fruit has some relevance to the amount of water in the fruit. It is really the chance you take when making a fresh fruit pie - we don't know the water content in the fruit as it varies each season, so you never know if your pie will be set up or juicy.

The flavor was AWESOME! I refrigerated it and served it again - heating it in the microwave. It was just as good. I will definitely make this again with the adjustment of the flour.

Raspberries with two cakes and a whole lot of lemon

For the first experiment on this blog, I decided on the following general idea: cake soaked in limoncello, raspberry sauce, whipped cream, fresh raspberries. Sounds pretty good, huh? Feeling adventurous, I decided to make two versions. The first was with a pound cake recipe (picture below) and the second with angel food cake (picture at left).

The recipes for the cakes aren't original, but from a great source. Annie and I have used this book often- it's a great way to make small desserts for 1-3 people. I made one recipe of each cake, and split each in half for one serving.





For the actual dessert recipe, though, here are the ingredients and the steps:

• 1/2 oz. Limoncello for each serving of cake

• 6 oz. container of fresh raspberries
• 4 tsp. sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• Juice from 1/4 of a lemon
  

• 1 pint whipping cream
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

• Zest from aforementioned 1/4 lemon for garnish
  
• Additional raspberries for garnish
  

I poured the Limoncello on each serving of cake and let it sit while I assembled everything else. In a saucepan, I combined the package of raspberries, water, sugar and lemon juice and let simmer for 5-10 minutes, stirring to break down the raspberries. Once it looked like it was broken down, I strained out the seeds and discarded them, then returned the sauce to the saucepan to reduce to a good syrup-like consistency.

Meanwhile, I made the whipped cream, with the cream, vanilla and sugar. This was WAY too much whipped cream for this experiment, but the container I had was the smallest I could find at Hannaford's, and what else am I going to do with a container of heavy cream? Shave? No.

Once the sauce and whipped cream were done, I assembled. For the purposes of taking pictures, I put the pound cake version in martini glasses, and the angel food cake on dessert plates we have.

After putting Pete to bed, we finally ate them. My pre-conceived notion was that the angel food cake version would be better because it's lighter, fluffier, and that usually works better with fruity desserts. Not this time. It was a unanimous decision that the pound cake is the way to go, mostly because the richness of the cake is better at sopping up the liqueur, and goes better with the whipped cream. Fortunately, when you're working with small batches of cake, it's really a quarter-pound cake, so the guilt factor is mitigated (slightly).

I think this recipe could be altered pretty easily, especially deciding what liqueur to use instead of Limoncello- Grand Marnier comes to mind pretty quickly. If you have any other suggestions, or general feedback on this post, please click the "Comments" link below. I'm hoping this will be as interactive as possible.

Fabulous idea

Great idea, Scott...

Of course, the only idea I can think of for raspberries right now is to slice up some peeled mangos, slap some raspberries on top, add a touch of chopped fresh mint if you want, and eat. Oh, and go a la mode if you're feeling adventurous.

...Something tells me I'm not going to win Iron Chef this weekend, if this is all I can come up with for recipes....

:-)

August's Ingredient: Raspberries

Good choice, Mike.

Recipes and thoughts to follow!

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog. Here's the deal:

Every month, we'll select a theme ingredient, and post some made-up recipes featuring it. We'll try to keep the ingredient seasonal, and we'll post the recipes we created, as well as a description of what worked and what didn't. When they're posted, we invite others to comment on it and/or offer suggestions and improvements.

If you're interested in coming up with a recipe and posting for a month, let the admin (Scott) know.

Thanks!