Christmas Dinner!

The main event! Slow-Roasted Glazed Pork Shoulder

Sauteed Cherry Tomatoes with Parmesan Garlic Bread Crumbs and Basil (recipe below)

I hosted Christmas dinner at our house this yea. My mom and brother flew in, since the day after Christmas is my mom's 60th birthday. We had twelve people over and I cooked a big, fabulous dinner, heavy with things I know my mom really likes. I made a glazed roast pork shoulder, which I've made a bunch of times, always to rave reviews. Then a bunch of delicious vegetable sides: braised red cabbage, sauteed cherry tomatoes with parmesan-garlic bread crumbs, fresh corn grits, and steamed green beans tossed with garlic, ginger and lemon.
And for dessert, I made my mom's favorite--creme brulee!

Creme Brulee! Also a great make-ahead party dish--just sprinkle with sugar and place under the broiler for a minute right before serving. 

From the right--tomatoes with bread crumbs, braised cabbage, roast pork, ginger-garlic green beans, fresh corn grits, green salad. 

I love cooking for a big crowd. There is only one thing to remember if you want to host a big dinner party and have a great time yourself:

Make everything you possibly can ahead of time. You do not want to be stuck in the kitchen, getting your cocktail dress smudged while your family drinks and enjoys themselves without you. I always make sure I have 20 minutes or less of work left to get dinner on the table, so I get to participate in cocktails and fun. 

For this dinner, I made the braised cabbage and grits ahead of time--they only needed to be rewarmed. The pork roasted all day--I just needed to make the glaze. I made the breadcrumbs for the tomatoes ahead, and the garlic-ginger-lemon sauce for the green beans. 

So 20 minutes before dinner, I put down my Manhattan and rewarmed the grits and cabbage, sauteed the tomatoes, steamed the green beans, made the glaze for the pork and assembled everything. I missed none of the fun and everything was hot and ready all at once. 

Me not missing the fun! Dinner is already basically done, so I can relax and get my drink on. 

I've put the pork recipe on the blog before, and here is a link to the original, which I first saw in Bonappit.

So I thought I would include two recipes for sides which were huge hits--the fresh corn grits and sauteed cherry tomatoes with parmesan-garlic breadcrumbs.

My goal with the grit recipe was to make grits that tasted more like fresh corn.
Fresh Corn Grits (makes enough for a dozen people or so)

Ingredients 
3 cups frozen sweet corn
1 can creamed corn
2 cups of coarse corn meal
several cups (? don't know exactly how much I used) or reduced fat milk
salt to taste

What to do 
Place the frozen corn in a food processor. Blitz into little corn crumbs. This is a cool trick--you have just made corn meal out of frozen corn instead of dried.
Put the frozen meal into your big pot and add the creamed corn and coarse corn meal. Cover with milk and simmer, stirring regularly. Add more milk if looks dry. This should be creamy and about the consistency of a thick pudding.
Season with salt.


Sauteed Cherry Tomatoes with Parmesan-Garlic Breadcrumbs and Basil 

Ingredients
1 3-inch piece of Parmesan cheese
2 fat garlic cloves
2 cups panko breadcrumbs
6 clam shell packs of cherry tomatoes (try to get different colors)\
Large handful of fresh basil, chopped
Dash olive oil, salt, pepper

What to do
Put the garlic in the food processor and pulse into tiny specks. Then add the cheese and pulse a few more times, creating a coarse grind.
Mix the garlic-cheese mix with the panko crumbs and place into a dry nonstick pan. Toast over a medium flame, tossing frequently, until golden brown. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large nonstick saute pan. Add the tomatoes and saute until the tomatoes are hot and cooked, but not mushy. You will notice the skins start to wrinkle, but the tomatoes should keep their shape. You may need to work in batches. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.
Place the tomatoes in a casserole dish. Top with toasted bread crumbs and chopped basil. Serve immediately! 

Roasted Tomato, Pepper and Carrot Soup with Spicy Herb Yogurt

I distinctly remember the very first time I had tomato-garlic soup--it was back when my parents were still married, so I must have been somewhere around 3rd or 4th grade. We went out to dinner as a family to this restaurant in Chico called Basque Norte (just googled them--apparently they just sell marinade now), and I ordered the tomato-garlic soup and lamb chops and INSTANTLY REALIZED I LOVE TOMATO GARLIC SOUP.

Ultimately, the night went sour because my Dad was being a dick. (A few years hence we'd be unable to afford dinner out at a nice restaurant, but much happier because my Dad wasn't invited). 

Plus, who needs dinner out? In elementary school I developed my first tomato-garlic soup recipe. Here it is: 

Stir together:

2 cans of Campbell's tomato soup, diluted with water according to whatever the can says

A few vigorous shakes of garlic powder or garlic salt

Boil and serve in bowls or coffee mugs. Sprinkle with Cheez Its as croutons. 

That was great! And my first copy-of-a-restaurant meal recipe.

But in the years since, I've made a far more delicious, complex and wonderful tomato soup recipe. It's a lot more work, though. I start by roasting about 3 lbs of veggies with some balsamic, olive oil, garlic, and a sprinkle of salt. Then, I blend the roasted veggies and add some stock--that's it! This is more a template than a recipe--you could make any kind of vegetable soup by following this basic routine. 

Tonight I made a spicy, herb-y yogurt topping, too.

Ingredients 

For soup

2 lbs Roma tomatoes 

1 package cherry tomatoes 

4 carrots

2 red bell peppers

1 head garlic

2 TB olive oil

2 TB balsamic vinegar

sprinkle salt 

2 white onions

2 cups white wine

2 TB butter

1 piece of bread (anything is fine--sourdough, wheat, white, etc)

6 cups of vegetable stock (I like to make my own--recipe below. But canned or boxed is fine. You could also use chicken stock)

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 

Cut the veggies other than the onions. Quarter the Roma tomatoes, chop carrots and peppers into large chunks. Leave the cherry tomatoes whole. Peel a head of garlic. Toss everything together in a large roasting pan. Drizzle with the olive oil and balsamic, and sprinkle with a teaspoon or so of salt. 

Veggies before roasting. 

Place into the 400 degree oven and roast, uncovered, for an hour.

An hour later--the veggies are fragrant, concentrated and soft. 

Remove the vegetables from the oven and set aside to cool.

Melt the butter in a large soup pot. 

Put the two onions in a food processor and blend into a paste. Put them into the melted butter and saute for about five minutes.

Pour the wine into the pot and simmer for about five minutes. 

I used this classy vintage. 

Meanwhile, scoop the roasted veggies and slice of bread into the food processor and blend. You may need to work in batches. 

Roasted Vegetable Puree. 

Add the pureed vegetables to the onions /wine/ butter in your pot. Stir to mix. 

Add vegetable stock and stir--bring to a boil, then turn the heat off. Taste--does it need a teaspoon of sugar to temper the tomatoes? A dash of lemon or some more salt???

Serve with toast, grilled cheese, or anything! 

Spicy Herb Yogurt Sauce

Blend together:

1 large container (32 oz) of 2% Greek yogurt

2 jalapenos, with seeds (remove seeds if you want it less spicy)

1 bunch parsley

handful of basil 

1 bunch scallions 

juice and zest of 1 lemon 

Yogurt sauce--bubbly as a result of recent blending. 

How to Make Veggie Stock

Add--carrots (3?) 2 heads of garlic, 2 quartered onions, then stems of your parley and the ends of your scallions to the bottom of a pot. Sprinkle lightly with salt.  Cover with 8 cups of water and boil, covered, for an hour. The veggies will become tasteless mush while the broths becomes fragrant and delicious. 

(Look in the veggie drawer of your fridge--anything about to go bad? Throw it in the stock)

Veggie stock ingredients. 

I toasted some bread with cheddar to dunk in the soup--YUM.

This was a great winter dinner--warm, flavorful and delicious. It's a bit time consuming, but worth the effort--though, if you're in a hurry, my original tomato-garlic soup recipe is pretty great, too. 

Enjoy!

Thai Squash Soup

Crockpot of goodness.

Thai Squash Soup with  sriracha-lime yogurt. 

I made this for my and my sister's birthday party. I baked tons of beer-yeast french bread, then made stuff that goes well with bread--bleu cheese butter, melted tomatoes, and soup! 

This was super delicious---spicy and warm and toasty-tasting. Winter squash is so yummy in any preparation, even just roasted plain--but this soup made it just fantastic. The cayenne and ginger gave it a lot of heat and the coconut milk made it rich and creamy. This soup also made me feel smugly healthy and all through the party I bragged to people like "have you tried this soup? It's a flavorful play on seasonal vegetables. I love vegetables, don't you?" Then I would smile condescendingly. Then I ate some deep-fried turkey. 

                                                        

Ingredients 

2 large yellow onions, diced 

1 4 inch piece of ginger, minced or grated 

2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste 

2 butternut or acorn squashes 

1 tablespoon olive oil 

1 can coconut milk (not the light kind) 

3 cups vegetable stock 

2 tablespoons soy sauce 

2 tablespoons fish sauce 

juice of 2 limes 

2 tsp cayenne pepper 

I have enough red curry for the next several years. 

What to do 

Cut the squashes in half and remove the seeds. Roast at 350 for about 45 minutes, or until entirely cooked and soft. Remove and allow to cool. 

Cover the bottom of a soup pot with olive oil and saute the onions and ginger until barely browned, about 15 minutes. Then scoop the onions and ginger into a food processor and blitz them into a smooth paste. 

Add a tablespoon more of olive oil and heat the pot back up. Cook the curry paste in the oil for about a minute. 

Add the onions and ginger back in and mix everything up. Turn heat to the lowest setting. 

Peel the roasted squashes and put the flesh into the food processor. Blend up! Add the squash to the onion-ginger-curry mixture. 

Add the vegetable stock, fish sauce, cayenne, lime juice, and coconut milk. Stir everything together and bring to a boil. You are done!

I put mine in a crockpot to keep warm at the party. 

I suggest serving with chopped cilantro, or sriracha lime yogurt (mix some greek yogurt with sriracha and lime).

Homemade sourdough to go with!

Melted Tomatoes

These taste AMAZING.

Melted tomatoes and ricotta on beer yeast bread. 

This summer was my first experience with home gardening--and it was fabulous. I have a year's worth of pesto in my freezer and am a master of no less than seven zucchini recipes (bread, latkes, crisps, pasta ribbons, ratatouille, nut muffins, fritters, strata). We love having a garden--a great way to shake the work-day out of your head is to come home and putz around out there for awhile, inspecting the plants, weeding, rearranging branches, etc.

Our tomatoes have been developmentally delayed--early squirrel attacks set them back a month--so ours are only maturing now--when there's already snow in Summit county! But better late than never. 

the garden

Tomatoes! 

Now that the tomatoes are coming alive, I've been making tons of tomato salad, one of our all-time favorites. But I wanted to try something new, and I've been reading recipes here and there for "melted tomatoes" for years. 

And holy shit--these were UNREAL. Absolutely delicious. Fresh tomato x 100. Fruit-jammy and tangy and rich and deep.
The perfect dinner or lunch is to toast some good bread, spread with a thin layer of ricotta, and top with melted tomatoes and maybe a scattering of crunchy salt. Drink with wine.

How to Make Melted Tomatoes 
Chop some tomatoes into big chunks. Quarter big tomatoes or slice smaller ones in half. Spread into the bottom of a roasting pan, pie pan, or casserole. I don;t think the amount of tomatoes particularly matters--enough to cover the bottom of the pan, but if they fill the pan, that's fine.
Mince several (5?) fat cloves of garlic. Scatter over the tomatoes.
Add two tablespoons of olive oil and two tablespoons of balsamic. Toss everything together.
Place in a 210 degree oven for 8 hour, or a 225 degree oven for 5 hours. You could cook these overnight at 210.
Eat however you want! As a condiment on sandwiches, on salads, on top of meat, by itself.

Chopped tomatoes 

Ready for the oven 

Yummmm. Many hours later...

Put the finished tomatoes and all their juice into a tupperware or jar and refrigerate. Should last quite awhile. 

Melted tomato toasts. 

Enjoy! 

Spicy, Smoky Veggie Tacos with Cilantro-Cumin "Crema"

Spicy, smoky, creamy, tangy. 

If you read this blog or interact with me in real life, you know I adore consuming excellent meat.
But--this is not how I eat all day, every day. I don't like having meat during the work day--something about it seems weird and unappetizing. Maybe it's the way meat looks under florescent lights. And it's impossible to pair your meaty lunch with a nice glass of wine or beer, which ruins it. Microwaving braised short ribs in tupperware and pairing them with tap water is disrespectful. Not to mention un-tasty. Stupid teaching job, preventing me from drinking all day.
So I made some yummy veggie taco filling to bring as lunch during the week. I made it SUPER spicy, because I love heat. Then I made a tangy, cooling yogurt sauce to cool it down. The paprika and chipotles lend a rich smokiness. Very strong flavors for a vegetarian meal.

These were delish! Somewhat sloppy, but totally tasty. Plus my students are totally used to seeing food dripped all over my clothes.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 chipotles, chopped
1 can of diced tomatoes
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 red onion, diced
7 carrots, chopped
2 jalapenos, chopped (I left the seeds in for more heat)
6 Anaheim peppers, sliced into strips
1 can of black beans, drained
salt, pepper, sugar

What to do
Saute the onion in the olive oil for a couple of minutes. Add the tablespoon of paprika and the chipotles and mix around for a minute or so. Add the can of tomatoes (with juice) and bring to a boil. Add about a teaspoon of sugar. Put the carrots in, cover the pot, and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes to cook the carrots. Open the pot and add the rest of the ingredients--garlic, peppers, and black beans. Mix everything in and allow to cook for about 10 more minutes, until the peppers are just barely done.
Season with salt.
Serve with warmed corn tortillas and whatever sides you'd like (I like lime wedges, avocado, and cilantro-cumin crema).

Taco filling!

To make Cilanto-Cumin "Crema":

Blend 2 cups of lowfat plain yogurt with a bunch of cilantro, juice and zest of 2 limes, and a teaspoon of cumin.

Ingredients 

Finished "creama" 

Enjoy!

Seared Scallops with Thai-Scented Pea Puree

I have been making this for years, and it's one of our all-time favorite dinners. I originally found this recipe on Nigella Lawson's website.
It is utterly, fabulously delicious--the tender, sweet seared scallops; the creamy, tangy, curry-scented pea puree; the rich, bright lime-butter sauce. An incredibly impressive, civilized meal, especially accompanied by a cold glass of white wine--but one that can be put together in 20 minutes at the end of a long work day. There are only 7 ingredients (not counting salt), most of which can be kept in the freezer.
Make immediately--totally, utterly fabulous.

Ingredients (serves 2) 

8-10 large scallops
1 bag of frozen baby peas
1 TB Thai green curry paste
2 TB full-fat plain Greek yogurt
3 TB butter
juice of 2 limes
chopped basil and cilantro (tastes best when you mix both--but either on its own is also fine)

What to do
Your scallops should be completely defrosted. The secret to a well-seared scallop is to get your scallops AS DRY AS POSSIBLY. This is especially important with previously frozen scallops, which are usually injected with extra liquid to make them freeze better.
To dry them, lay them out on a few layers of paper towels, then lay a few more layers on top. Let them dry this way for at least ten minutes (you may need to replace the towels if they get soaked through).

While the scallops are drying, make the pea puree! Boil a bag of baby peas.

After the peas are boiling, drain them and put into a blender. Add the Greek yogurt and green curry paste. Blend!

I have enough curry paste for the next five years. 

Leave in the blender until ready to serve.
Now it's time to sear your scallops. Melt three tablespoons of butter in a skillet. When the butter is totally melted and nearly smoking, place the scallops into the pan. Place them so they DON'T TOUCH and DON'T wiggle the pan around--you want them to stay in one place. Sear for about a minute and a half on each side, turning with tongs.

Pour some of the puree onto both plates and place the scallops on top.

Turn the heat off and pour the lime juice into the leftover butter. Stir it around, scraping up any bits on the bottom. Pour the sauce over the scallops and peas. 

Sprinkle with herbs!

You're done!

Yum.

Enjoy!

Grilled Zucchini with Anchovy Vinaigrette

The garden has come a long way since I tricked my buff sister into clearing it out for me. 

The garden when we bought the house. 

Today! 

Some things have gone better than other. Squirrels ravaged our watermelon and peppers, and the mint we planted--supposed to be an almost weed-like, easy thing to grow--is a sickly yellow and barely produced enough leaves to support a lonely mojito. 

But: the zucchini, unsurprisingly, is going gangbusters! From a single plant, we are well past our 20th zucchini. Several new ones mature every day. 

The vegetable crisper, overrun with zukes!

I've made zucchini bread, zucchini latkes, and put zucchini in pad thai and green curry. And we've been grilling zucchini frequently as a side, with whatever happens to be for dinner. 

But zucchini is undeniably bland. With a simple preparation like grilling, you need something to put on it--pesto, romesco sauce, balsamic--something like that. So, to go with grilled zukes, today I made my all-time favorite salad dressing: anchovy vinaigrette. 

World's simplest, most delicious salad is crispy torn romaine, Italian parsley, and green onions--all lightly dressed with this vinaigrette. This alongside a roast chicken and a glass of red wine may be world's most perfect homemade dinner. 

Anchovy vinaigrette tastes nothing like the nasty anchovies you get on pizza--it's rich, complex, salty, and totally delicious. Even an un-adventurous eater like my mom liked it on salad last time she came to visit (the woman loathes even hypothetical fishiness in food--she's never tried sushi because she thinks it will maybe taste fishy. Alas.) 

Here is how you make it:

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons or more good red or white wine vinegar
• Salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
• 1 heaping teaspoon Dijon mustard, (optional)
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tsp white sugar
• juice of one lemon
• 4 anchovy fillets, or more to taste, with some of their oil ( I prefer the rolled ones with capers!)
• 1 large shallot (about 1 ounce), peeled and cut into chunks

What to do

1.

Combine all ingredients except shallot in a blender, and turn the machine on. A creamy emulsion will form within 30 seconds. Taste, and add more vinegar if necessary, about a teaspoon at a time, until the balance tastes right.

2.

Add shallot, and turn machine on and off a few times, until shallot is minced within the dressing. Taste, adjust seasoning and serve. (This vinaigrette is best made fresh but will keep refrigerated for a few days. Before using, bring it back to room temperature, and whisk briefly.

Finished vinaigrette! I made a week's worth. This keeps great in the fridge. 

I grilled some zucchinis and drizzled the vinaigrette on top--delicious! 

I made a gigantic tupperware full of grilled zukes, along with some of our patty pan squash, and a leftover red pepper from the last time I made romesco. It's school again, so having this on hand will ensure veggies find their way into our lunches this week. 

Enjoy!