Another Pork Roast Dinner

mmm...

 I know, I know, it seems like I just posted about a pork roast.  The truth is, they're really cheap! When I find one on sale, I can't help but to grab it up, even if I'm not exactly sure what to do with the cut.  This particular cut was a pork sirloin roast, and was very easy to make. I just followed this simple recipe on Epicurious.com for Honey, Mustard, and Rosemary Glazed Pork Roast.

marinating 

So, to change things up, I'm not going to focus this post on the pork.  Instead, I want to showcase the beautiful acorn squash I picked up at the Farmer's Market this week.

I wasn't too sure what I wanted to do with these

I've really wanted to experiment with squash recently, but Brandon gets a little finicky when I mention the idea.  Upon my continual prying, he finally admitted that he doesn't really like sweet preparations (brown sugar, marshmallows, etc.). Which makes me kind of sad. But, alas, you can't always get everything you want, so I set out to find a savory recipe. I finally found a recipe that I deemed acceptable for both of us on Allrecipes.com, which I used as a base for this recipe:

Savory Roasted Acorn Squash

 

 
2 medium acorn squash

3 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 onions, thinly sliced (the original recipe called for 2 onions, which seemed like just a little too much in the end)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced

1 teaspoon ground coriander seed

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 cup chicken stock (use your judgment here)

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce (here as well)

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  

Cut acorn squash in half. Roast them cut side up on a baking sheet for 50 minutes or until the flesh is just tender.  Let the squash cool for 20 minutes. 

Going into the oven

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter; saute the onions.  Stirring occasionally, cook the onions for 10 minutes, or until they begin to brown at the edges. Mix in the garlic, ginger, coriander, and nutmeg. Cook the mixture 2 minutes more, then remove the pan from heat.

Spoon the seeds and stringy middle out of the squash, and discard these. Spoon out the flesh, chop it and add it to the onion mixture. Discard the skins.  Heat and stir the squash-onion mixture.  Add chicken stock and applesauce to moisten the mixture, as it may seem a bit dry.  Gently mix the ingredients, adding more stock and applesauce if the mixture still seems dry.  Season with salt and pepper, and serve hot. 

Finishing up the squash, sauce, and brussels sprouts.

To round out the dinner, I made some easy Brussels sprouts.  I washed and trimmed them, taking off all bitter outer leaves.  Then, I boiled them until they were tender.  I cooled the Brussels sprouts and roughly chopped them while the squash was roasting. When I was starting to finish up the squash and the pork sauce, I browned some chopped bacon with a little garlic, and added the Brussels sprouts to the pan.  Finished with a little salt, pepper, and dried thyme, and it was as easy as that. 

The final product

 All in all, this was a pretty easy dinner to make.  Roasting the pork and squash took a little time (I roasted the pork first, then the squash. Probably could have done them at the same time, but I was happy doing it this way), but it gave me time to get everything cleaned up.  I was also able to enjoy a couple of leisurely glasses of wine with Brandon.  Who, by the way, enjoyed the not-so-sweet squash.   

A Rare Sunday Morning

The pampered and the pauper

Rare because I usually have to work the dreaded brunch shift.  Indeed, I was scheduled to work a double (as usual), cocktailing tonight.  When I came in though, we had too many servers on and I was asked if I wanted the morning off. Which, of course, I did.

So, what to do?

I visited my favorite coffee shop right down the road, Alchemy Coffee. Got their signature coffee, The Alchemist, which is a mocha sprinkled with a bit of cayenne pepper.  The cayenne adds a nice spicy complexity to the cocoa/coffee flavor.

Picked up a Sunday paper (which I never do) and read the entire thing, front to back. 

Spied on Bam Bam spying on the black kitty outside.

And.. made a big batch of breakfast hash.  I had a leftover baked potato from lunch the other day ( I always bake one extra with this very breakfast in mind) (Mom gets props for teaching me to do this) that I chopped up.  To start, I sauteed the onions and garlic until they softened.  In the meantime, I cooked a couple boneless chicken breasts (one for the hash, and one to have in the fridge for the next random meal) (are you seeing the trend?) and steamed a bunch of broccoli florets.  Add the potatoes to the onions, brown, and add the chicken.  In goes the broccoli, some frozen corn, salt, pepper, chili powder, dried thyme, and it looks like this:

This is one of my dad's favorite breakfasts

Then, cook an egg.

Still trying to perfect this art

 You know what to do next.

Breakfast!

Now that I'm fat and happy, I have to go back in for the night shift. Boo. At least I had a nice morning :)

Halloween Sugar Cookies

Sprinkling a bat

This is my Halloween post, part II.  I really felt the need to make these cookies, even though they were pretty tedious and time consuming.  I recruited Caroline to help me with the decorations. I took my recipe from The Joy of Cooking, doubling both the cookie batter recipe and the frosting recipe:
 

Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup white or brown sugar (I used white)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla (I used half almond extract because I love the flavor)

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in remaining ingredients.  Chill the dough 3 to 4 hours before rolling.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Roll out, cut, and place cookies on a greased or lined cookie sheet. Bake 7 to 12 minutes.

Ready to be decorated

 

 I also took the frosting recipe from The Joy of Cooking:

1 lb (4 cups) confectioner's sugar

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

2 to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy or light cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Site confectioner's sugar into a large bowl.  Add and mix the remaining ingredients and mix well with an electric mixer.  Continue beating until frosting is smooth.  It will be slightly stiff.  Add more liquid to reach the proper consistency.

I didn't know they sold black food coloring!

The frosting actually tasted really good. We separated the frosting and made three different colors: black, orange, and white. For white, I read that one or two drops of blue food coloring helps the color stay bright.

Ready to play

Then came the fun part. We had a blast decorating these special cookies.  We had a few tubes of decorative gels as well as some colored sugars. 

 

Feeling silly

 

So...many...cookies

So, we took these into work on Halloween and everyone  enjoyed them. However, there were a lot of bats left over. For some reason, no one seemed to want them (black frosting not appealing?). I was supposed to work a double and actually ended up getting cut... kind of think the cookies helped me get the night off!

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

...and the story of the pumpkin that they came from!

 
I got myself a pumpkin

Gutted and carved said pumpkin

Bam Bam was a big helper...

Now the pumpkin is a freaked out Jack-o-Lantern!

Now, what to do with all those seeds?

I tossed them with 3 tablespoons of melted butter, some sugar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, powdered ginger, nutmeg, chili powder, and cayenne. Baked them on a cookie sheet at 300 degrees for about an hour (stir every now and then).  And..

Ta da! Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds!

Daily Life Lately

I haven't been doing a lot of extravagant cooking lately. Honestly, I've been working all the time and haven't had the time or motivation. I am also desperately in need of a grocery shopping trip, but again, have been putting it off. So, I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of my day-to-day eats that I haven't (until now) felt were worthy of a mention.

  This is the kind of salad I like to make for lunch on work days. I'll season a chicken breast with whatever strikes me (this particular breast has dried tarragon, salt, pepper, and lemon juice) and cook it in my grill pan. I'll make a salad with whatever I have on hand.  This salad has arugula, cucumber, tomato, carrot, black olives, cheddar, croutons, and hard-boiled egg. I threw together a dressing with olive oil, tarragon vinegar, dijon mustard, honey, salt and pepper. It's healthy, and the chicken keeps me full all night at work.

I made this orzo tonight.  I'm really at the point where I have no groceries whatsoever, so I had to get creative. I was craving some veggies, so I steamed some broccoli that I had laying around in the fridge.  I added it into the cooked orzo with some crumbled bacon, halved grape tomatoes, and some arugula that needed to be used.  Splash of chicken stock, white wine, and fresh Parmesan.  The heat of the pasta wilted the arugula and tomatoes, and even though it was nothing spectacular, it was pretty good. I felt like I got some much-needed veggies as well. 

Not too much else is going on in my daily life right now. I did get my acceptance letter to the Trident Tech culinary program this week.  Even though I wasn't worried about whether or not I would get in, I still felt proud of myself.  I also completed my FAFSA this week, all by myself.  Now, I just have to do a bunch of paperwork to prove myself as an in-state student.  Go to orientation and get all registered. I'm pretty excited about going back to school, and will keep updates posted :)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

A classic combo

Recently, I felt like baking something without having to go to the grocery store for ingredients.  I had two half-full bags of chocolate chips in the fridge that I decided I would turn into cookies. One bag was your standard Nestlé semi-sweet morsels, and the other was Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips, which are noticeably bigger than your standard chips.  I thought they might be nice used together in a cookie.  A traditionalist when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, I used the classic (easy!) recipe on the back of the Nestlé bag.  And so, the recipe:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar *I used half dark and half light, because I had the end of 2 boxes*

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups (12 oz. package) chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts *I used walnuts*

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. 

Mmm.. cookie dough..

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

 

Ready to be baked

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. *I like soft cookies, so I usually aim to have them out of the oven sooner rather than later.* Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.  

~

They turned out great! I took them in to work, and everyone seemed to love the big chips along with the little ones.  The only complaint I have is that the recipe said it makes 5 dozen cookies, and I barely came out with 2.5 dozen. They weren't huge cookies or anything - I dropped by tablespoonfuls like the recipe told me to. So, keep this in mind next time you're trying to make enough for, say, an entire restaurant staff. And the boyfriend was a little sad that there weren't any left at the house.

The Feast

The lineup

The idea for the feast started when I found a 5 lb. pork shoulder roast on sale at the grocery store. I threw it in the freezer and saved it for a night I could share it with some friends. When the feast was decided for this week, I defrosted it, packed it up with some equipment, a recipe, and Brandon, and headed to Tim's house. Once we got there, we figured out what else we wanted to make, and went out to get wine and groceries.

For crudités, we cut up some veggies and Tim poached some local shrimp in a court bouillon (Brandon and Justin were big helpers and peeled and de-veined the shrimp).  I made some Green Goddess dressing (and as a result became thoroughly jealous of Tim's awesome food processor).

Mmm . . .Green Goddess

For the pork, I followed a recipe I've been saving out of the September '09 issue of Gourmet magazine.  It was actually pretty simple, besides the fact that I called six places before I could find pink peppercorns. Finally, I was able to place a hold on the last tin at Caviar & Bananas downtown.  Here is the recipe:

Peppercorn Roasted Pork with Vermouth Pan Sauce

6 Tbsp pink peppercorns, divided

2 Tbsp black peppercorns

1 1/2 Tbsp fennel seeds

7 garlic cloves, minced

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 (5-lb) boneless pork shoulder roast (butt end)

1/2 cup dry vermouth

2 cups chicken broth  (that's right, I used my homemade stuff)

1 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened

1 Tbsp all-purpose flour

Grind 1/4 cup (4 Tbsp) pink peppercorns with black peppercorns and fennel seeds in electric spice grinder, then stir together with garlic, oil, and 1 Tbsp salt.  

Pat pork dry and use a paring knife to make about 16 (1-inch deep) slits all over roast.  Stuff slits with all but 1 Tbsp garlic-peppercorn paste, then rub remaining Tbsp all over roast.  Put in a small (13 x 9 inch) flameproof roasting pan and marinate, chilled, 8 to 24 hours.

All rubbed down and ready to roast

Let pork stand at room temperature 1 hour.  Preheat oven to 350 with rack in middle. 

Roast pork, fat side up, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into center of meat registers 150 degrees,  1 1/2 to 2 hours. (Mine took a full 2 hours.)  Transfer pork to a cutting board and let rest 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, pour off all but about 1 Tbsp fat from roasting pan.  Add vermouth to pan and boil, scraping up brown bits, 2 minutes.  Stir in broth, any meat juices from cutting board, and remaining 2 Tbsp pink peppercorns and boil until reduced to about 1 1/2 cups, about 5 minutes.  

Working on the sauce

Knead together butter and flour, then whisk into sauce and boil, whisking constantly, until just slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Serve pork with sauce.

~

While all this pork roasting was happening, Tim was working on the sides.  He had already made some collards earlier in the week, and we decided to doctor them with a little mustard and brown sugar.  I have only recently been teaching myself to enjoy collards, and I thought these were great. He threw together a really delicious risotto, which had red wine, crimini mushrooms, and Parmesan cheese folded into it. He also carved the pork, because it had a very small little bone running through it, and I couldn't figure how to work around it (yes, I was also about 5 glasses of wine deep at that point). That bone is also probably why the pork took a little longer to roast. 

The outcome

In the end, it all tasted fabulous. The pork was still nicely pink and juicy, the risotto was really creamy and flavorful, and I loved the collards.  

Tim, Brandon, Morgan, Justin

We all had a blast. And yes, I found myself hanging out with four boys for most of the night.  Morgan's girlfriend Carlie did show up later to keep me company, and to enjoy some nice leftovers. All in all, a very enjoyable feast :)