We now return to your regularly scheduled Dinner Blog...
With the rain outside and having the apartment to myself tonight, I had a great opportunity to cook. Finally! I made my own version of three different recipes, all centered around my winter obsession brussels sprouts. The recipe I took this method from is Pasta with Shaved Brussels Sprouts and Pancetta. I had never thought of pairing this vegetable with pasta, but it looked delicious and colorful.
I made some simple tweaks to this recipe to make it my own, based on two other brussels sprouts recipe that I love. The first was to add a handful of raisins, inspired by Barefoot Contessa's Brussels Sprouts Lardons. The second was to splash the entire dish with balsamic vinegar at the way end, then letting it cook down a bit, the idea for which came from Mark Bittman's Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Figs. Finally, I used less pasta than the original recipe asked for, so that there was about an even amount of shaved sprouts as there was pasta. There is no need to weigh this dish down with extra starch.
I absolutely loved the result. The sprouts were tender, the pancetta was crispy, and the raisins and vinegar added a sweetness to balance the saltiness. It was hearty and filling. Next time I would up the amount of garlic and use golden raisins if I happened to have them around. I think they get plumper when you cook them in some liquid. Here's the real recipe...
Shaved Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta and Pasta
Serves 2.
2 tbsp. olive oil
4 oz. diced pancetta
1/2 yellow onion or 2 shallots, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 lb. angel hair pasta
1/2 lb. brussels sprouts, sliced thin
1/3 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup golden raisins
3 splashes balsamic vinegar
1. Boil water for pasta in a large pot.
2. Heat olive oil is a large skillet. Add pancetta and saute until starting to get crispy, about 4 minutes. Add onion or shallot and garlic, and saute until onions begin to brown. Add brussels sprouts, raisins, and chicken stock, and salt and pepper to taste. Turn heat to low and cook until stock is reduced.
3. Cook pasta until al dente. Add pasta to brussels sprouts mixture and balsamic vinegar, toss. Cook together on low for 2 minutes. Serve hot.
I am shocked at how long it has been since I've written! December has been quite the busy month, interrupted by an extended period of being sidelined with a nasty cold. Now the holidays have passed, quickly, and I finally have a moment to update! I have been crazed but that doesn't mean I haven't had the chance to cook. Here's a bit of what I did in food on my vacation...
First, I helped my mom with our Christmas dinner, which for us Jews more more like a Hanukkah dinner on Christmas Day. Every year, my mom makes her special brisket. She cooks it the night before submerged in this sweet and sour sauce that has things like ketchup, orange juice, and Worcester sauce in it. She then makes my dad slice it and the sliced meat marinates in the sauce all night. It is so delicious. Everyone who's ever had it has liked it. The sauce is the best part. Then it makes an amazing sandwich on crusty bread the next day.
On the side we tried this absolutely decadent twice baked potato casserole. It's everything you love about baked potatoes in one dish. Potatoes are essentially mashed with butter, cream, shredded cheddar cheese, bacon crumbles, and scallions. The mixture is spread into a baking dish, then topped with yes, more cheddar cheese. I don't think I need to say any more.
My dad isn't really a potato fan (rare, I know) so we made him a special request - farfel with mushrooms. This recipe is a very traditional Jewish dish and the recipe comes from a Jewish cook book I got for my bat mitzvah. Farfel is a small round pasta, sort of like pearl couscous or pastina. In fact, since my mom couldn't find farfel at the local market, we used pastina. This is one of those dishes that is so simple you assume it will be bland, and then its so very not. The farfel is mixed with sauteed mushrooms and onions, parsley, and just salt and pepper. It's very wholesome and especially good when soaking up stray brisket juices.
This was just the first of my holiday meals. We hosted our very first dinner party on New Year's Eve! Stay tuned...
Giada De Laurentiis' Chicken Stew is one my absolute favorite comfort foods. It's simple, but delicious, filling, and warm. It's perfect for a winter night...except that it happened to be a day of record heat here in New England. Who cares?
I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying my new dutch oven. This stew was another example of a dish that was both easier and better tasting when cooked in the correct pot. With this stew, the chicken is cooked on the bone submerged in the stew's broth of diced tomatoes, aromatics, and chicken stock. The chicken breasts cooked much more evenly and quickly than when I'd been preparing the stew in a stock pot. I make only a few adjustments to the recipe - I add a can of chickpeas and use oregano instead of dried thyme. I find the dried thyme too overbearing.
The best way to eat chicken stew is with a dusting of Parmesan cheese and a big hunk of warm, crusty bread. Eat one bowl of this dish and I promise you won't be hungry for quite a while. It also freezes well for an easy future dinner.
First, Thanksgiving. It was amazing. Perfectly roasted turkey, my grandma's stuffing, Brussels sprouts with bacon and figs, sweet corn pudding, glazed onions, and homemade gravy. Plus berry crisp and pumpkin pie for dessert. Not to mention wonderful company. There were too many pictures to post here, so this is a link to my photo album on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39930838@N06/sets/72157622791866185/
I made sure to take home some leftovers too. I must have at least one turkey sandwich after Thanksgiving. I made some turkey salad on Sunday before football, which I had in a sandwich on wheat toast. I used some diced extra celery from the stuffing and some red onion, then just mayo and a dash of mustard.
For dinner last night, I made another smaller batch of the dish I'd made Thursday - Brussels with bacon and figs. I overbought on sprouts and hadn't needed the entire packages of either bacon or the dried figs. It is utterly delicious and very rich. Bacon, figs, balsamic? Yes, please! I also had one large piece of turkey breast left over, so I decided to make a turkey and bacon melt! I melted swiss cheese over the turkey on a soft roll, then topped it with a couple pieces of bacon. How bad can that be?
I made a great impromptu dinner tonight - grilled mustard pork chops and brown rice with peas and onions. I hadn't made pork chops in ages, but I picked some up on a huge grocery shopping trip last weekend. In anticipation of Thanksgiving and the coming cold month, I grabbed the car my sister and I share in order to do a massive grocery order. I made a list of ingredients for several recipes that could be easily made midweek, and tried to buy a few simple dinner staples like a pack of 4 boneless pork chops and 2 for $5 boxes of brown rice.
I ate out all weekend so I was craving something healthy, light, and homemade. The pork chops were my first idea because of how quickly I knew they would cook. I know mustard goes well with pork, so I decided to whip up a marinade with Dijon mustard, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and some thyme that I had left over from my apricot balsamic chicken. I mixed it up in my mini food processor in no time. I covered the pork chops in the rub and let them sit for about 10 minutes. I then grilled them for just a few minutes.
On the side, I decided to whip up some brown rice. That sounded boring, though, so I checked out the fridge and freezer for things I could add to it. I saw half an onion so I chopped that up and sauteed it in some butter and olive oil. Then Ken helped me add the rice, getting it coated in the onion and butter, and water. Toward the end, I threw in some peas. The problem was, as always, I have a rice problem. I can never make it right. It's so simple but I mess it up. At first it was too hard and there wasn't enough liquid. So I added some, but really too much. We saved it by stirring it over high heat to absorb the water. It was a little mushier than anticipated, but it kind of turned into a risotto. It made the whole thing kind of creamy.
Everything was delicious. The meat in particular was fabulous - you could really taste the mustard, the garlic, and particularly the thyme. It was tender but a little crispy on the edge. It was so simple but so good. Even better, it was super-healthy with lean meat, barely any oil, whole grains, and a little bit of veggie. The cost wasn't bad either, in fact, it was downright cheap!
It is really fun sometimes to make something again. I like figuring out what I can do better on the second time around, and analyzing what I liked and didn't like about a recipe. The second time making a dish is where you perfect it. And luckily, I can go back now and see what I thought before! Tonight I decided to make Apricot Chicken with Balsamic Vinegar. This dish was one of the first recipes I wrote about on The Dinner Blog! I really enjoyed it, but one thing in particular that struck me was that it needed to be cooked in a bigger pot, more appropriate for browning meat and braising. Now I have my dutch oven.
As I expected, the chicken (I used boneless skinless chicken thighs instead of tenderloins, its cheaper and more flavorful) browned much more evenly than it had before. Wider shallow shape allowed for all of the chicken to be braised completely covered in sauce, and that in turn, thickened the sauce more as well. I also used about a 1/4 cup more of balsamic vinegar, remembering that I'd felt the sauce could have been more tart last time. It all worked beautifully and the dish produced this evening was much deeper in flavor. The sauce was so rich and the chicken was tender. I served it again over multigrain pilaf that I get at TJ's, but this would also be good over any sort of rice, couscous, or pasta. My only wish is that I'd had some crusty bread to mop up the extra sauce. Next time...
