Perfect fall supper

Tonight's Menu

• cider-braised pork with onions
• baked sweet potatoes
• warm apple-pear sauce
  

Hot damn, I love me some fall food, y'all. I don't know why I associate pork with fall -- maybe because it goes so well with apples? Whatever, this dinner definitely put me in a fall mood!

My sucky supermarket has pork loin on special for $1/pound from time to time, and when they do I buy a HUGE one and portion it out to freeze for later. So, this was a pork loin roast, cut down from a huge loin. Here's a recipe of sorts, based on what I did to it:

1 boneless pork loin roast (about 2-3 lbs.)
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
olive oil
1 sweet yellow onion, chopped
1 to 1.5 cups apple cider (I didn't measure it)
1 sprig fresh sage
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme

Season the roast with salt and pepper and, in large pot or dutch oven, brown it on all sides in olive oil. Remove pork from pan and add onion, sauteing until it barely starts to go translucent. Add pork and any accumulated drippings back to pan, along with apple cider. Tie the herbs into a bundle with kitchen twine and tuck them into the pan alongside the pork. Cover and simmer for about 2 hours, turning the pork halfway through cooking time.

When pork is done, remove from pan and tent with foil. Remove herb bundle, turn heat to medium high and cook cider-onion mixture until reduced by at least half (watch so it doesn't burn). Slice pork and serve with cider-onion sauce.

The sweet potatoes were just baked in the microwave, then topped with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Or scooped up plain, if you're the boy child. He says they taste like candy even without the added sugar. What is WRONG with this kid? Heh.

The apple-pear sauce was SUPER easy. The hardest part was peeling the pears and apples and cutting them into chunks. I used some teensy pears ("sugar pears", I think they were called?) that I bought at Sam's the other day. They are SO sweet and delicious and almost at the point of being overripe now, so I wanted to use them up. I peeled and chunked maybe six of them (again, they were TINY -- the size of small plums!) along with two small-ish Granny Smith apples. I just plopped them into a pan with a little bit of water and let them simmer, covered, for about an hour. Then I went at them with my immersion blender to break them down just a bit (I left them a little bit chunky but you could do a totally smooth sauce by pushing them through a sieve). I tasted to see how sweet they were and added sugar as needed. And that's it!

I don't have a timeline for you per se, but I can tell you that I started the pork first since it had to cook for two hours. After it had been going for half an hour, I started prepping the apples and pears and I put those on for the last hour of the pork's cooking time. Since the sweet potatoes were cooked in the microwave, I put them in about half an hour before everything else was done and then wrapped them in foil and let them sit until serving time.

You all know I love to grill, but I'm so excited that fall is here and I can starting braising and stewing and roasting again. Yay, fall!

Memorial Day "picnic"

Tonight's Menu

• bbq pork spareribs
  
• grilled garlic toast
  
• potato-artichoke salad
• coleslaw
  

Okay, so it was too hot to eat outside. But I grilled a lot of stuff! Does that count?

The spareribs were my usual, finished on the grill (meat side down over medium heat for 4 minutes, meat side up and slathered in Carolina-style barbecue sauce for 4 minutes, rest before cutting into riblets).

I grill everything from meat to veggies to fruit, but I think this might have been my first time grilling bread! We had some leftover boule (yes, from the book -- I SWEAR I don't have any relationship with the authors/publisher) so I cut that into half-inch slices, brushed it on both sides with olive oil (LIGHTLY -- you don't want to soak it), and grilled it over high heat until it picked up some grill marks, which didn't take long at all. Then I rubbed a cut garlic clove over both sides of each slice of bread. So easy, yummy and fresh tasting! The girl particulary loved this bread. Of course, she lives on bread, so take that with a grain of salt, maybe.

The salad was my favorite summer salad. It's finally summery enough to serve this again, yay!

And the coleslaw was my usual, except I used savoy cabbage because that's what I had.

Here's the timeline:

• Three and a half hours before serving, rub the ribs with spices and put them in the oven at 325 degrees F, TIGHTLY covered with foil.
• Make potato salad and coleslaw after putting ribs in oven; put both salads in fridge.
• Thirty minutes before serving, light grill and pull ribs out of oven.
• Grill ribs as described above.
• Remove ribs from grill; cover with foil and let rest.
• Grill bread and remove.
• Cut ribs into riblets.
• Pull salads out of fridge.
• Serve it up!

Timing is everything

Tonight's Menu

• grilled garlicky pork tenderloin
  
• whole-wheat couscous
  
• garlic-kissed carrots and peas
  

Hey, everyone! Sorry for the long break in posting there. I haven't been making much of anything new, and it seems boring to write about the same meals over and over when all of the recipes are already available on the right-hand sidebar there. I didn't make much of anything new tonight either, but ... well, I kind of missed the ol' blog! What can I say?

So, the tenderloin! All I did was mash up some garlic cloves, kosher salt, fresh oregano (from my herb patch), freshly ground pepper, fresh lemon juice and EVOO in my mortar and pestle, then pour it over a couple of pork tenderloins in a plastic zipper bag. These only marinated for about an hour, but you could certainly do them much longer than that. I grilled them over high heat for a total of 20-23 minutes or so, turning every few minutes to brown them all over. Then I sliced them into 1/2-inch slices before serving. Yummy!

The couscous was just done according to the package directions. I far prefer quinoa to couscous and think it tends to pack more of a nutritional punch, but DH and the boy child like couscous. I compromise by buying the whole-wheat variety, which I can only find at, of all places, my local liquor store! They sell specialty foods there, too. (Spec's, for those of you in Texas.)

The carrot dish was the only relatively "new" thing I cooked tonight. I peeled a bunch of carrots and cut them into chunks, then steamed them in the microwave until they were tender. Then I sauteed them in a bit of butter, along with some fresh green peas from my garden (I picked and shelled them while the pork was grilling) and one tiny minced garlic clove. Season with salt and pepper and you're done! The boy had thirds of this dish! It was really yummy -- I will definitely make this again.

I don't know if I've ever talked about this before on the blog, but I am kind of anal about my meal prep and making sure everything is done at more or less the same time. This can be a HUGE challenge for the home cook when making an entire meal from scratch and it was a real source of frustration for me when I first started cooking whole meals for my family of four. I don't know if this will help anyone, but here were the steps I took to get this meal on the table:

1. Prepare marinade for pork (at least an hour ahead of time; can do this the night before if you want) and stick pork in the fridge.
2. Light grill about 40 minutes before you want to serve the meal (for gas; if you're using charcoal then adjust your time accordingly).
3. While grill is heating, peel and cut carrots and steam them in the microwave (do not remove from microwave until ready to saute).
4. Put water on to boil for couscous.
5. While water is boiling, mince a clove of garlic for the carrots and set aside.
6. Put couscous in boiling water, cover and take off the heat (this can sit for quite a while).
7. Make a gin & tonic to take outside with you. Hee! What?
   
8. Put pork on grill.
9. Pick peas.
10. Turn pork.
11. Shell peas.
12. Remove pork from grill, tent with foil and let rest.
13. While pork is resting, saute carrots and peas with garlic. Remove from heat and cover.
14. Slice pork and put on serving platter.
15. Fluff couscous with a fork and put in serving bowl.
16. Dump veggies into serving bowl.
17. Soup's on!

It doesn't seem like that many steps when you're doing it, I swear. Or ... that might be the gin & tonic talking.

Do you guys want me to do this for all the meals I post? Would it be helpful at all, or is it information overload? Let me know!

One of the few meals everyone will eat

Tonight's Menu

• pork spare ribs, spiced & sauced
  
• homemade cornbread
• coleslaw
  

Seriously, this is one of the few meals I make that everyone in the family will happily eat (with no substitutions of cheese for meat or mundane vegetables for the coleslaw). It's one of those meals that require a bit of advance preparation, but then very little actual work at mealtime. Everyone's happy!

The spare ribs (which are cheap at my local grocery, and very few meats are these days) were rubbed with a mixture of brown sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, smoked paprika, dried oregano and garam masala. Then I stuck them in the oven, in a pan tightly covered with heavy-duty foil, for about 3 hours at 300 degrees F. I usually cook them longer on a lower heat with a bit of liquid, but they tend to fall off the bone when I do that and I wanted these to have some structural integrity so I could finish them on the grill. Which I did! I put them flesh-side down over high heat for about 4 minutes, then bone-side down over low heat for maybe 7 minutes, slathered on both sides with bottled Carolina-style (think mustard-based) barbecue sauce. They came out tender and extremely delicious, if I do say so myself!

I've already given you the recipe for the cornbread. I swear this isn't much more trouble than those "just add water" mixes. This particular cornbread was leftover from last week. It freezes really well! To reheat, I drizzled it with a bit of water and then stuck it in the oven, tightly covered, for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees F. It tasted freshly baked! Honest!

The coleslaw was my usual -- half a head of green cabbage, shredded, tossed with a mixture of mayonnaise, white vinegar, sugar and celery seed. Even the girl will eat this, and she doesn't like ANYTHING.

Cookbooks to the rescue!

Tonight's Menu

• mustardy pork chops w/gnocchi
  
• green salad "bar"
  

Whoops! Didn't mean to disappear on you for a couple of weeks there. Would you believe I got sick AGAIN? This time with some nasty fever virus thing that mutated into a sinus infection. Fun! So yeah, there's been a whole lot of takeout pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches happening around here.

HOWEVER, tonight I did something different. I have a metric ton of cookbooks but I've realized lately that I hardly ever actually cook from them! Determined to remedy that, I was flipping through Nigella Express looking for something that would use ingredients I already had on hand and came up with this one. It wasn't bad -- I don't usually cook bone-in chops in a skillet without braising them because they always end up tough and dry, and these did, but the sauce made up for it somewhat. The gnocchi were just packaged (I DID have to go out and buy those, and the cream), boiled quickly and then tossed in the mustard cream sauce.

Tonight's salad was just green leaf lettuce, wedged tomatoes (greenhouse-grown, from our last CSA box) and sliced carrots (from my garden!).

Did I tell you all we let our CSA subscription expire? We picked up our last box last week. We just weren't keeping up with the supply of vegetables, and I HATED wasting them. I've decided to redouble my efforts to feed us from my backyard garden, along with making more frequent trips to our local farmer's market(s) and food co-op. We'll still be eating local food as much as possible, never fear!

Typical weeknight meal

Tonight's Menu

• spiced pork tenderloin
  
• whole-wheat couscous
• sweet and sour red cabbage
  

I'm feeling MUCH better today so tonight I made what is pretty much a typical meal for us.

The pork tenderloin recipe is here. It's pretty easy and a nice "bridge" entree between cold-weather oven meals and warm-weather grilling meals.

The couscous was just made according to the package directions. The final vote is in for our family on the couscous: the boys prefer it to quinoa, while the girls have the opposite preference. Go figure!

The sweet and sour cabbage is a favorite of mine, but it's been ages since I've made it. It's really pretty easy, though it does require some babysitting while it cooks.

Sweet & Sour Red Cabbage

1 small onion, halved lengthwise then sliced cross-wise
1 Tbs canola or other vegetable oil
1/2 head red cabbage, shredded (ours was from the CSA)
1/2 cup water
2 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs red wine vinegar
1 Tbs fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

In a large skillet, saute onion in oil until soft, about 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, cover pan and simmer, stirring occasionally, until cabbage is tender. Uncover pan, turn heat up to high until all liquid has evaporated.

Chili!

Tonight's Menu

• chili con carne
  
• cornbread
  

I actually made this chili last night but forgot to tell you about it! Well, we ate it tonight too so it still counts, right?

I used Martha's recipe, as usual. This time I pretty much followed it exactly except mine was about half pork and half beef. And I used Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes. SO good, y'all. We love this chili!

The cornbread was also my usual.

And it's true, we ARE pretty much eating nothing but soup this week! I'm in a soup mood, I guess. I've suddenly come down with a rotten cold so that's not likely to change anytime soon, either!

Using up the CSA veggies (again!)

Tonight's Menu

• oven-roasted pork chops and sweet potatoes
  
• buttery cabbage
  

We only get a CSA share every other week (our choice) and we end up using most of it pretty quickly, but there are always a couple of long-storing items left over right before the next pickup day. Tonight we still had a lovely head of plain green cabbage and a couple of sweet potatoes in the fridge, so I threw together this meal.

What I did was take a couple of sweet potatoes and cut them into lengthwise wedges. I didn't bother to peel them first or anything, just cut them up and chucked them into a foil-lined roasting pan. Then I threw in four nice, thick boneless pork chops. I drizzled everything with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, then snipped some fresh rosemary onto the chops. The pan went into the oven uncovered at 400 degrees for about an hour, until the potatoes were tender and the chops were cooked through (with crispy fat around the edges -- unhealthy, but SO YUMMY).

For the cabbage, I cored a small head and cut it into wedges (it yielded about 8). I melted a couple of tablespoons of butter over medium-high heat in a heavy skillet and carefully laid the cabbage wedges in cut-side down, not moving them until they had browned on the bottom. At that point I flipped them so the OTHER cut side was down and let them get nice and brown on that side, too. (Don't sweat it if they fall apart a little bit -- they'll still taste good!) Then I reduced the heat to low, added a couple of tablespoons of water, covered the pan and let them simmer for just a minute or two before turning off the heat altogether. They sat, covered, until the chops and potatoes were done, and I seasoned them with salt and pepper before serving.

This was a super easy but delicious meal, and a great way to use up some winter veggies!

Happy 2009!

Tonight's Menu

• pork and sauerkraut
  
• mashed potatoes
  
• mixed greens w/black-eyed peas
  

Hey, everyone! Happy New Year! This is our traditional New Year's Day dinner, more or less. When I was growing up in the midwest, everyone ate pork and sauerkraut (or cabbage in some other form) on New Year's Day. But down here in Tejas, they are all about the greens and black-eyed peas. So, I combine them, just to make sure we're covered.

The pork was a big Boston Butt roast that was labeled bone-in but turned out not to have a bone at all. I seasoned it liberally with salt and pepper, browned it on all sides in a big enameled cast-iron dutch oven on the stovetop, then removed it from the heat and made sure the roast was turned fat-side up.

Then I opened a big jar of sauerkraut (I like the jar kind better than the canned kind; I don't know why) and drained off most of the liquid before distributing the sauerkraut around the pork roast in the pan. I poured on a bit of apple cider and then sprinkled on some brown sugar and tossed it with the sauerkraut, leaving the meat more or less uncovered. Then I popped a lid on the dutch oven and threw the whole thing in the ACTUAL oven at 225 degrees F for about 5.5 hours. For the last 20 minutes of cooking time, I uncovered the pan and cranked the heat up to 400 to crisp up the roast. The pork was falling-apart tender and delicious! And the sauerkraut was awesome, too. I was worried it would get mushy from cooking that long but it didn't, whew!

The mashed potatoes were from scratch. I know! It's a new thing for me! (I used to use Ore-Ida's frozen mashed potatoes religiously, but they discontinued them. Bastards!) I guess I should tell you how I make them, though it's really not exciting and I'm betting your mashed potatoes are way better than mine! I just peel some russet potatoes, cut them into chunks, simmer them in water until they're tender, then whomp them in a mixing bowl with some butter, milk, salt and pepper and go at them with the electric hand mixer. I know some people add cream cheese or sour cream or roasted garlic or whatever, but to me mashed potatoes are just a vehicle for the gravy (or sauerkraut and pan juices, in this case) so I like to keep them fairly plain. I dunno. I'm weird.

Anyway, the greens in our beans 'n' greens were from this week's CSA box. They gave us a bag of something they call "braising mix", which is really just some baby greens that you would want to cook rather than eat raw. I recognized rainbow chard, beet greens and mustard, but I'm really not sure what all was in there. No matter, though -- it's all good!

So, what I did was chop up some bacon (Pederson's Apple Smoked -- I have become addicted to this bacon!) and half an onion and toss them in a skillet until the bacon was nearly crisp and the onions had a bit of color. Then I added the greens (which I had washed, drained, and given a whirl in the salad spinner) and let them wilt down just a bit. I added a small amount of water to the pan, then covered it and just let the greens steam/braise down until they were nice and tender. Most of the liquid cooked off, and at that point I added one can of black-eyed peas that had been rinsed and drained.

After I'd tossed the beans and greens around enough that the beans were heated through, I sprinkled on just a wee bit of apple cider vinegar and some brown sugar and stirred until it was all incorporated. This is my favorite treatment for cooked greens -- well, the kind that don't have to be cooked very long, anyway. It has kind of a sweet-sour effect that plays nicely with the smokiness of the bacon and the earthiness of the greens. I added a bit of sriracha to my portion at the table and it was FANTASTIC!

Anyhoo, there you have it! The last of our decadent holiday feast meals for the next couple of months, anyway. Now it's back to quinoa and tilapia and other healthy crappe like that! (Just kidding.)(But only a little.)

Fall supper

Tonight's Menu

• pork chops with apples & onions
  
• steamed potatoes with brown butter
  
• green salad "bar"
  

It finally looks and feels like late fall around here, what with the brown leaves and the chilly dampness and whatnot. I am all about pork, onions and apples in the fall.

What I did was season some boneless pork chops with salt and pepper and then brown them in a skillet with just a wee bit of EVOO. I removed the chops and set them aside, then added sliced Granny Smith apples and onion slivers to the pan, tossing until they had picked up a bit of color. Then I poured in maybe half a cup of water (you could use cider, white wine, stock, whatever) and added some fresh thyme and thinly sliced fresh sage leaves. I laid the chops on top of the apple/onion mixture, covered the pan, and let everything simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. SO yummy!

For the potatoes, I cut some small red-skinned potatoes (you could use any waxy potato) into quarters and steamed them in the microwave. While they were steaming I put a couple of tablespoons of butter into a small pan on the stovetop over medium heat, swirling the pan every so often until the butter had melted and JUST started to turn a golden brown. You'll need to watch it really closely so the butter doesn't burn -- you want to catch it just at the point where it starts to turn golden. I sprinkled some chopped fresh parsley over the potatoes, drizzled them with the brown butter, sprinkled on some salt and then tossed everything to coat. These were really good and a nice change from our usual chuffed potatoes.

Tonight's salad bar was butter lettuce from the CSA, grated carrots, sliced cucumber and fresh snow peas. Easy!

Can you tell I'm making an effort to cook with more herbs from my herb garden lately? This time of year I tend to rely on rosemary and thyme exclusively, forgetting that I have a bunch of other stuff out there that isn't dead yet! The sage was a nice accompaniment to the apples, onions and pork; and the parsley really brightened up the potatoes. Now I need to find something to do with fennel tops -- mine are going nuts!

Pork roast redux

Tonight's Menu

• BBQ pork sandwiches
  
• tangy apple coleslaw
  

It was leftovers night here at Chez Badger, y'all. We have a TON of pork roast left from last night, so I took a bit of that, heated it in the microwave with some bottled Carolina-style barbecue sauce, and served it on buns with sliced onions. Yummy and fast!

The coleslaw recipe is here. I used savoy cabbage because that's what I had (half a head left over from last night's saute).

I probably should have rustled up some chips or pickles or something to go with this, but I couldn't be bothered. Leftovers night = lazy night, yo.

Pork roast

Tonight's Menu

• cider-braised pork roast
  
• mashed potatoes
  
• sauteed cabbage w/mustard
  

Oh, people. If you're wondering where I've been the past couple of weeks, I'll tell you: I've been hobbling around with a sprained ankle! It hasn't been much fun, to say the least. DH has been taking dinner duty while I've been recuperating, and while he certainly made a good effort, he ... well, he doesn't really cook. So, er, there hasn't been much to report as far as our dinners go. But FINALLY I'm off the crutches and able to be up and around long enough to cook a decent dinner, so that's what I did tonight!

The pork roast was a ginormous bone-in pork butt. You could also use shoulder or something of that nature -- basically a big ol' hunk of well-marbled pork. I seasoned it with salt and pepper and then browned it on the stovetop in an enameled cast-iron dutch oven. Once it was browned on all sides I took it off the heat, poured in a 12-ounce bottle of hard cider (Hornsby's Draft) and just a bit of water, then arranged the following around the roast: four big sprigs of fresh rosemary, several sprigs of fresh thyme, a couple of bay leaves (all from my herb garden), a chopped onion and a handful of whole peppercorns. Then I covered the pot and stuck the whole thing in the oven at 225 degrees F for about six hours. The house smelled AMAZING while it cooked and it was soooo tender!

When the roast was done I removed it from the pan (in pieces; it was falling apart!), shredded it and set it aside. Then I poured the pan juices through a mesh strainer to remove all the herbs and whatnot, poured the juices back into the dutch oven, and used flour to thicken it all into a delicious gravy on the stovetop. SO good! It didn't even need added seasoning thanks to all those herbs.

For the cabbage, I just chopped half a head of savoy cabbage (that's the crinkly one) into chunks, then sauteed it in a skillet with a couple tablespoons of butter until it was nice and wilted. Then I seasoned with salt and pepper and stirred in maybe a teaspoon of whole-grain mustard. Easy and delicious!

Okay, can we talk about mashed potatoes for a minute, y'all? Longtime readers know that I tend to skimp when it comes to this dish. I don't like the nasty powdered kind, but I LOVE Ore-Ida's frozen mashed potatoes that you heat in the microwave and then season to taste. Well, suddenly I can't find them anymore! All the store had this week were these new "steamers", which are just cubed, peeled potatoes that steam in a bag in the microwave. You still have to add milk, butter, seasonings, etc., and actually mash them yourself. I went ahead and bought them anyway, but it was hardly worth it. They were tasty, but didn't save me much in the way of work. I guess I'll be making mine from scratch from here on out. Curses!

Oh well, I guess I'll deal. I'm just SO GLAD to be back in the kitchen!

Using up the CSA veggies

Tonight's Menu

• sausage and vegetable stew
  

This might better be called Kitchen Sink Stew, because I'm pretty sure I threw everything but that into the pot! I am determined not to let any of our CSA veggies go to waste and a stew seemed like the best solution, particularly since I knew the leftovers would freeze well.

So here's what I did. First I chopped up a pooload of veggies: onions, garlic, celery, sweet bell peppers, zucchini, pattypan squash, and a variety of mixed eggplants (ichiban, rosa bianca, some skinny white ones and some skinny green ones). Plus we had a tomato that didn't travel well in the CSA box, so I chopped that up as well, along with some unidentified greens (some variety of chard, maybe?).

Then I browned off a chub of bulk pork sausage (Pederson's breakfast sausage, in this case) in a big heavy pot, breaking it up as it cooked. I was all set to drain off some of the fat, but this particular sausage didn't render much out at all -- I actually had to add some olive oil to moisten everything up! With the sausage still in the pan, I added the onions and garlic and stirred everything around really well until the onions had gone just a tiny bit translucent. Then I added the peppers and celery and stirred those around a bit until I could smell them.

Once the sausage, onions and peppers were all happy in there, I dumped in my mixed squashes and eggplants, along with my chopped tomato and greens, about a tablespoon of tomato paste, one small can of crushed tomatoes (Muir Glen Fire Roasted, in my case), two cans of water, and maybe half a cup of dry white wine. Then I sprinkled on a good teaspoon or so of dried oregano, a healthy pinch of salt, and several grinds of fresh black pepper. Stir, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for about an hour or until the veggies are nice and tender. Taste it and adjust your seasonings before serving.

I thought this was absolutely delicious! So fresh-tasting from all the veggies, and the sausage and tomatoes made it nice and hearty. If I had it to do over again, I would have peeled the rosa bianca eggplant -- the skin is a little tough on that one, even though the flesh came out nice and tender.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that the kids wouldn't even touch the stuff, and DH didn't much care for it. But then, he doesn't like squash, peppers OR eggplant and this stew was chock-full of all of them. Oh well. I froze a bunch of it and will look forward to having fresh vegetable stew all winter when those yummy summer vegetables are gone!

More ribs!

Tonight's Menu

• baby back ribs
  
• chili potatoes
  
• tangy apple coleslaw
  

Why yes, ribs ARE all we ever eat around here! Thank you for asking! (Hee!)

These were pork baby back ribs; I'm not sure of the weight but it was a rack of 14 ribs. I rubbed them on both sides with a mixture of brown sugar, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, dry mustard, dried oregano, salt, pepper and a wee bit of garam masala. Then I stuck them on a rack in a roasting pan (I had to cut the rack of ribs in half to make them fit) with a bit of water on the bottom, covered the pan tightly with heavy-duty foil, and popped them in the oven at 300 degrees F for two hours. I finished them on the grill like this: meat-side down over high heat for about five minutes, then flipped to meat-side up and basted with bottled Memphis-style barbecue sauce. As soon as I basted them, I turned off one of the burners on my grill, turned the other two burners to low, and put the ribs on the unlit burner for about 10-15 minutes, just to bake the sauce onto the ribs. They were tender and delicious, and honestly, they probably would have been fine without the sauce. What can I say, I like messy ribs!

For the potatoes, I just cut some unpeeled baking potatoes into chunks, tossed them in a foil-lined pan with some EVOO, and sprinkled them with salt, pepper, chili powder and garlic powder. I popped those in the oven at 450 degrees F for 30-35 minutes (this was after the ribs came out), stirring every 10 minutes or so, until they were nice and crispy. Yum!

The coleslaw was kind of an experiment. I wasn't in the mood for my usual creamy coleslaw, so I went the vinegar route instead. I actually paid attention to what the heck I was doing so I could write this one in recipe form for a change! Yay, me!

Badger's Tangy Apple Coleslaw

1/2 head green cabbage, shredded
1-2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and shredded
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. celery seed
2 tsp. canola or other mild vegetable oil

Toss the shredded cabbage and apples together in a medium bowl. Whisk the remaining ingredients together in a small bowl or glass measuring cup and pour over the cabbage mixture; toss to coat. Chill for at least 2-4 hours. Can be made the night before. Serves about 4-6 people.

This was way yummy and made a nice change from my usual coleslaw. The vinegary dressing was a great complement to the richness of the ribs!

A lovely night to grill

Tonight's Menu

• grilled pork chops
  
• crispy potatoes and onions
  
• garlicky grilled zucchini
  
• green salad "bar"
  

It's been SO NICE in the evenings here lately. Temperatures in the upper 70s or low 80s, no humidity, and now that the sun has moved south, my back patio and grill are once again in the shade for the later part of the day. Heaven!

Soo, I have been grilling. These were pork loin chops on the bone, which I just sprinkled with Jane's Krazy Salt and garlic pepper, then grilled over high heat for about 4 minutes per side. SO yummy!

The potatoes were a variation on my "chuffed" potatoes, but with onions added. I get a lot of requests for detailed instructions on the chuffed potatoes, so here is exactly what I did. First, I cut several small red-skinned potatoes in half. You could also cut them in quarters or eighths depending on how big they are. Put them in a pot and add enough water to cover the potatoes by about an inch. Then put them on the stove, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer them for about 15 or 20 minutes before draining off the water. You want them pretty tender, but not mushy.

Then melt a couple of tablespoons of butter in a skillet and add the drained potatoes. (I also added half of an onion, cut into slivers, this time but you could leave that out.) Toss the potatoes around in the butter over medium-high heat until a nice brown crust forms on the outside. The more violently you toss them around, the more crust you'll get. Once they've gone nice and golden brown on the outside, season with salt and pepper and serve! They should be soft on the inside -- if not, then you didn't simmer them long enough in the first step. Of course, you can adjust that to your liking if you prefer a firmer potato.

That's all there is to chuffed potatoes!

For the zucchini, I bashed up a couple of garlic cloves in my mortar and pestle, along with a little kosher salt. This acts as an abrasive and makes it easier to really smush the garlic into a pulverized paste. Then I mixed a bit of EVOO in with that to make a really garlicky oil. I cut a couple of zucchini into quarter-inch slices lengthwise, brushed them on both sides with the garlicky oil, then sprinkled with a bit of pepper. Grill them off for maybe 2 minutes per side over high heat and they're done! The boy LOVED these and I don't think I've ever seen him eat zucchini before except in quinoa pilaf!

Tonight's salad bar was torn green leaf lettuce, sliced celery, shredded carrots and wedges of tomato from the CSA. My kids STILL stubbornly refuse to eat salad since I switched from the pre-bagged greens. But DH and I are loving our salads lately!

Mystery beans

Tonight's Menu

• spiced pork tenderloin
  
• toasted rice
  
• okra and beans with bacon and onions
• green salad "bar"
  

Today was CSA pickup day, hooray! In addition to loads of other goodies, our box today contained a bag of unidentified shelled beans. I have no idea what they are! They're shaped exactly like a lima bean but are a bit larger and they're brown instead of green. They're not mottled brown, either -- just a uniform brown. They don't look like pinto or fava beans but I have no idea what they could be -- maybe some bizarre variety of a lima or butter bean? Who knows?!

Anyway, I decided to treat them like lima beans and put them in a pan with water to cover, then brought them to a boil and simmered them for a good 30-40 minutes until they were tender. Then I set them aside while I got to work on the rest of the dish.

We got a nice bunch of okra (both green and purple) in the box so I cut that into maybe 3/4-inch chunks. Then I chopped some red onion and bacon (Pederson's apple smoked, which is local to my area, uncured, and certified humane). I put the bacon in a large skillet and cooked it over medium heat until it was almost, but not quite, crisp. Then I added the onion and okra and let them cook for a bit, stirring occasionally, until they were tender and had picked up a wee bit of caramelization. Then I drained the beans and dumped those in, stirring to heat through. Finally I added equal parts (maybe a tablespoon each) of brown sugar and red wine vinegar. I stirred this around until it formed a sweet-sour glaze on the veggies and bacon, then seasoned with salt and pepper and served.

This was SOOOO GOOD, y'all. I have used that same brown sugar-vinegar-bacon combo before with other veggies and it's always awesome, so I was glad to find that it worked great with the okra and beans as well. Even DH liked this and he's a little bit veggie-phobic. I am totally eating the rest of it tomorrow for lunch!

The spiced pork tenderloin and toasted rice were left over from last night, as was the salad (green leaf lettuce, tomato wedges, sliced red onion and shredded carrots).

Rushing the season

Tonight's Menu

• pork chops with apples & onions in a cider mustard cream sauce
  
• mashed potatoes
  
• sauteed cabbage with bacon
  

Oh people, it's not even quite September yet and I am SO ready for fall! I can't help it; it's been a loooong summer here in central Texas. I was in the mood for fall food tonight, and nothing says fall to me like pork, apples and cabbage.

So, the pork! I had some really large but thin bone-in chops that I just seasoned with salt and pepper and then browned on both sides in a heavy skillet with a little bit of oil. I removed the chops to a plate and covered them with foil to keep warm, then dumped half a Granny Smith apple (peeled and sliced relatively thin) and half a sweet yellow onion (also sliced thin, lengthwise) into the skillet. I tossed them around to pick up some color, then briefly removed the pan from the heat so I could pour in about 10 ounces of hard cider. (You could also use regular non-alcoholic apple cider, in which case there's no danger of a flareup and thus no need to take the pan off the heat.)

I put the pan back on the heat and left it to simmer away, uncovered, until the onions and apples were tender and the cider had evaporated by about half. Then I stirred in one tablespoon of whole-grain mustard (because I like the seeds) and slowly added about half a cup of heavy cream. I let it bubble away for just a minute before taking it off the heat.

The idea is to serve the apple-onion sauce over the chops, but I put it on the side because I knew the kids would never eat it that way. And yes, they are still free to Make (Their) Own Damn Dinner(s) if they don't like what I'm serving, but they both DO like pork chops and it's no skin off my nose to put the sauce on the side.

The mashed potatoes were my usual frozen Ore-Ida, jazzed up with milk, butter, salt and pepper. I KNOW! But for a processed food this one doesn't contain too much scary crap, and I just HATE making mashed potatoes from scratch.

For the cabbage, I just browned off some chopped bacon in a skillet and then dumped in a bunch of chopped cabbage. Stir, stir, stir until the cabbage is tender, then season with salt and pepper to taste. Easy!

Plan B sausages

Tonight's Menu

• mild Italian sausages with onions
• buttered noodles
  
• green salad "bar"

We had kind of a crazy dinnertime tonight, y'all. The girl child has been doing a theater camp all summer and tonight was their performance, with a dress rehearsal beforehand. So she wasn't home for dinner, and the rest of us had to wolf ours down so we could get to the show on time.

I put the sausages on the stove to simmer as usual and had planned to finish them on the grill, but while they were simmering away this freak rain/wind storm popped up from out of nowhere. We are talking black skies, wind that nearly bent our trees in half, and giant pounding raindrops. Welcome to Texas weather, y'all! Sooo, yeah, I was not going out to grill in that! Instead I browned the simmered sausages in a skillet on the stovetop (say that three times fast!) and decided to drop in a chopped onion along with them. I added just a tiny bit of EVOO to the pan because the sausages were fairly lean, and just flipped everything around for 10 minutes or so until the sausages were nice and brown and the onions were tender. Not as good as grilled, but really yummy nonetheless!

The noodles were just plain old egg noodles, cooked according to package directions and tossed with a little butter.

Tonight's salad was torn green leaf lettuce, sliced cucumbers, shredded carrots and wedged tomatoes. The boy is NOT happy about my decision to stop buying bagged lettuce. Apparently he didn't get the memo that I am no longer catering to his whims. Since, oh, about two years ago!

We DID make it to the play in time, by the way. And it was SO cute!

Strange meats

Tonight's Menu

• grilled cross-cut baby back ribs
• chips
  
• coleslaw
• sliced tomatoes
• freezer pickles

My grocery store has had some unusual cuts of meat lately. I usually go for spareribs if I'm going to do ribs, but these cross-cut baby back ribs were WAY cheap. We'd had some at a neighborhood potluck not too long ago and they were yummy, so I decided to try something different for a change.

I had purchased a locally produced molasses-garlic marinade for the ribs but upon getting it home, I discovered that soy sauce was the second ingredient on the label. Argh! DH and the girl are allergic to soy, so that meant I couldn't use it. (I have GOT to learn to read those labels a little more closely in the store! I never dreamed a molasses-garlic marinade would be soy-based. Stupid!) So I had to cobble together a marinade from what I had in the pantry/fridge. I ended up whisking together some bourbon, brown sugar, orange juice & zest, minced garlic (I actually grated a large clove on my microplane), garam masala, salt & pepper, onion powder and cayenne. I marinated the ribs in a big plastic zipper bag for about 3-4 hours.

After the ribs had marinated I grilled them over medium heat for just a couple of minutes per side to get some nice grill marks/browning on them. Then I moved them to an unlit burner for a good 45 minutes. They weren't QUITE as tender as I would have liked, but they weren't too terribly chewy, and they were super flavorful! If I made these again, I'd leave them a bit longer over the unlit burner to really render out all that fat and get them nice and tender.

Coleslaw was the usual, left over from last night when we had fish tacos.

We're still eating the freezer pickles I made a few weeks ago from the CSA cucumbers. Yum!

Indoor picnic

Tonight's Menu

• oven-cooked pork spare ribs
  
• chuffed potatoes
  
• coleslaw
• freezer pickles
  

We were expecting rain today courtesy of Hurricane Dolly, but not much materialized. I planned an indoor dinner just in case, though!

I bought a HUGE rack of pork spare ribs at the grocery store. These are cheaper per pound than baby back ribs, at least where I live, and I think they're tastier (probably because they have a lot more fat). I cut the rack in half so it would fit in my roasting pan, then rubbed it all over with a mixture of brown sugar, garam masala, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and cayenne. I put the ribs on a rack in the roasting pan, added a bit of water to the bottom of the pan, covered it tightly with heavy-duty foil and stuck it in the oven for about three hours at 300 degrees F. Then I uncovered the ribs, boosted the heat up to 425 degrees F, and let them get nice and brown for 20-30 minutes. I didn't bother basting them with sauce; just served some on the side (bottled). They were falling-apart delicious and the girl had seconds!

Chuffed potatoes were the usual, as was the coleslaw.

The freezer pickles were sort of an experiment. Our CSA has given us quite a few pickling cucumbers lately and I wasn't sure what to do with them because I have NO desire to get into the whole canning thing. My mom used to can stuff and it seemed like a huge pain in the ass. I just don't want to mess with it at all. So I tried my hand at freezer pickles instead, and it was way easy! I used the top recipe on this page for this batch of pickles. I think they're pretty darn tasty -- kind of sweet/tangy. I'll probably try a more ambitious recipe for my next batch, but if you're new to freezer pickles like I am/was, that's a pretty good recipe to get you started!