Pork Lo Mein

So what to do with all that super tender pork butt you made the other night?  This time around I decided to go in an Asian direction.  With no Chinese restaurants in my town, I often get that craving for some MSG (oops! I mean umami).  Pork Lo mein to the rescue!  This is a great recipe to use with chicken, beef or tofu as well.  So get your woks out and let's begin!

Smothered Pork Chops

Thank you, Summer! We've had a great one - we camped, went to the beach on Cape Cod, played tennis, canoed and fished, took long weekends and trips, got tan, grilled alot, and generally enjoyed Summer. But, as of this Sunday, you bid us adieu and we welcome in your long-lost cousin, Autumn.

Perhaps our favorite time of the year here in New England, we love all things Autumn... the weather turns cool and crisp (no more humidity!), the maple and oak leaves turn brilliant colors and the leaves eventually fall (and we get to rake them), we visit the pumpkin farm and pick out some nice ones to carve into jack-o-lanterns for Halloween (and we get to watch cheesy horror movies!), we get to enjoy the last days before the harsh New England winter rolls in and shutters us up until April, and we get to make comfort food!

And what could be more "comfort food" than gravy-smothered pork chops? This idea popped into our heads and - after a little research, this easy recipe was new for us - we were ready to get comfortable... Along with some leftover yellow tomatoes and some long grain/wild rice, this was a very easy meal to make on a cool, late-summer night.

We helped some frozen ~3/4" thick, bone-in pork chops dethaw by adding them to a brine (after sitting in the fridge overnight) of water, salt, sugar, bay leaves, worchestershire, and hot sauce and letting them hang out for most of the day. When ready, we took these out and rinsed and dried them thoroughly, then added them one-at-a-time to a big freezerbag that was full of all-purpose flour seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

When all were rinsed, dried, and seasoned/floured we got our big enamled-cast-iron pan nice and hot and added a good amount of olive oil to the bottom of the pan, then browned each of the pork chops for maybe 3 minutes per side. We took those out and added a little more oil to the pan, and then added a tablespoon or so of all-purpose flour (a little goes a long way) and stirred the flour into the oil until we had something like a roux. Then, we stirred in about a cup of chicken broth and scraped up all the burnt bits from the bottom with a wooden spoon, just like we're told to do! Finally, we added some chopped (from a can!) buttom mushrooms for an additional touch.


Not the prettiest picture...

We gave that gravy about 5 minutes of simmer time before adding the pork chops back in and letting them go for 4-5 more minutes. We chopped up some tomatoes and plated our rice, then a nice, big pork chop, and then smothered everything in that delicious gravy... came out great - the perfect comfort food to kick off Autumn!

Tomato!

If you plant it... suprisingly it will grow, albeit at an extremely slow pace. We planted a brandywine tomato plant in a 5 gallon bucket and set her on our back deck – plenty of sun. The plant itself grew extremely fast - and to huge proportion - with plenty of flowers and big, sticky leaves. But then the flowers died off soon after and nothing happened. So we waited... And waited. We wondered if we would ever see a tomato – what could we be doing wrong? Perhaps it was the fairly mild summer we were having in Boston – although one day it could be 65 degrees, and the next 90, so perhaps it was the temperature swings that we stunting our pretty little tomato plant.

Then suddenly, there was one tiny little green tomato making its way into the world. It took maybe 2 weeks for it to get up to size and then another 1.5 weeks for it to ripen on the vine. We took it off and let it ripen a bit more on the kitchen counter. And then last night, we could wait no longer. Whatever we were having with dinner, we were going to have a tomato to go along with it!



Obviously, the star of the show is Brandywine herself with a touch of kosher salt. Her backup singers were Miss Parmesan Couscous and Mr. Oregano-tarragon Chicken Thighs who happened to be lounging in a red wine mushroom sauce. The dinner was magnificent! We can only wait for the other little green tomatoes to come up – they seem to all be growing faster than our first!

The Good Shepherd

Another casserole-type dish?!? Two in a row - you ask? You bet. And you’ll see why in a sec! It’s been cold here in Boston – demonically so, and therefore we wanted comfort food that'll keep your insides warm. We decided on a kicked up version of shepherd's pie that would be topped off by mashed sweet potatoes and sharp cheddar cheese.

We browned up some “meatloaf mix” in some olive oil. This is just ground veal, pork and beef to give a nice depth to our pie. Once browned, we removed from the pan and started sautéing diced carrots and onions. After 10 minutes we added a couple cloves of chopped garlic and some chopped mushrooms. The spicing for this dish consisted of salt, thyme and lots of freshly ground Tellicherry black pepper.



At this point we boiled up 2 diced sweet potatoes, and once tender, we mashed them with S&P, 1.5 TBS Promise, and ¼ cup milk. Returning to the veggies: we deglazed with ¼ cup red wine and 2 cups of beef stock. We returned the browned meat to the pan and added a cup each of frozen peas and chopped spinach.



After most of the liquid had cooked off, we turned off the heat and spread the mashed sweet potatoes over the top of the veggies and meat, topped that with a sharp cheddar and threw the cast iron pan under the broiler for about 5 minutes.

This pie was so delicious, it made great leftovers for days! As you can tell, we LOVE one pot dishes – so if anyone has some fantastic one pot suggestions, let us know!

Chicken Eggplant Casserole

I spied some nice shiny aubergines aka beautiful Italian eggplants at the store the other day, so I scooped them up immediately. The poor things sat in the fridge for a couple of days before I remembered them, but they were good to go when M and I came up with a crazy-off-the-cuff-I-hope-this-is-edible-recipe.

We browned some ground chicken with some olive oil, sage, basil and S&P. Once browned, we removed from the pan and sautéed some onion, garlic and diced green pepper for about 10 minutes and then we added the star – half moon slices of our eggplants. We let that go another 5 minutes and added some sliced baby bella mushrooms to the pan. After deglazing with about a cup of chardonnay, we added a 32 oz can of diced tomatoes, some cream and we returned the chicken to the pan.



After reducing the sauce for about 15 minutes, we topped it with some mozzarella cheese and some bread crumbs and set it under the broiler for about 8 minutes. Came out with a great crust on top and tasting delicious! Real comfort food... this tasted like Eggplant Parmesean, but without all the lenghty process that goes into making Egg Parm... made excellent leftovers, too. This recipe is a keeper!

Beef and Vegetable Stew

What can you say about a meal of meat and veggies that is cooked on a cool New England Sunday and allowed to simmer for hours... other than DELICIOUS!?!?



We've never taken on beef stew, and we felt that it should be in our arsenal of recipes, so Stacey made it her mission yesterday to deliver.

I coated about 3lbs stew meat in a light coating of seasoned (salt and pepper) flour and seared them in canola oil in our Dutch Oven. I worked in about 4 batches so as not to crowd, and I also added more oil when needed.

After they were browned, they were set aside, and I deglzed the yummy brown bits with 1/2 cup cabernet and then removed the deglaze-juice for later use. Now time for the veggies! I cut up all the veggies in at least 1 inch cubes b/c I didn't want them to disintegrate while simmering for so long!



This time in the Dutch Oven, I used olive oil and threw in 1 onion, 4 ribs of celery and about 6 medium carrots, seasoning with S&P. After 6-7 minutes, I threw in about 12 baby bella mushrooms. A couple minutes more cooking time, then I removed those veggies and set them aside.

Next come the yellow turnips or rutabegas! These are a GREAT subsitution for potatoes to cut down on some of the carbs - and I swear when the dish is finished you can't tell the difference! Saute about 2 cups worth for about 10 minutes and then put the beef in with the turnips.

Let those get to simmerin' and add 4 cups low-sodium beef broth (I like to control the salt myself), a couple tablespoons of tomato paste for "structure" (as Emeril likes to say), the reserved wine and yummy brown bits, another 1/2cup cabernet and a couple splashes of red wine vinegar.

I let that come up to a boil, returned the veggies back to the pan with a bunch of fresh thyme sprigs, a couple bay leaves, and some final S&P seasoning. I covered the pot and set on simmer for 2.5 hours while we watched the Pats game (big win!!!). Towards the end, I noticed it wasn't as thick as I wanted so I dissolved a tbsp of flour in a little water and poured that it, bringing it back to a low boil and then simmering for the last 30 minutes with the cover off. Finally, at that point in the cooking process, I added a cup of thawed frozen peas and a cup of thawed lima beans.

The stew came out really tasty... very tender beef, all the different veggies, and wonderful, subtle flavor. This would definitely serve 6-8 people easily, and because of the volume we froze enough for the 2 of us for another night. Oh and we'll eat the leftovers again tonight!!!!

Shepherd's Pie

Shepherd's pie with ground turkey and mashed sweet potatoes

• Cut two large sweet potatoes into 2" chunks and boil until tender, about 15 minutes.
• Drain and mash with butter, salt, and a little milk to make mashed potatoes. Set aside.
• Brown 1.3 lbs of ground turkey. Drain and remove and wipe out pan with paper towel.
• Cut up 1 medium yellow onion and begin sauteing. After three minutes, add two garlic cloves, finely chopped.
• Add sliced mushrooms and eason veggie mixture with salt, pepper, and sage.
• After another minute add shredded carrots and frozen mixed veggies (corn, peas, lima beans).
• Add the turkey back in and combine.
• Add 1/2 can of cream of mushroom soup.
• Spoon mixture into a 9x11" baking dish.
• Top evenly with mashed potatoes.
• Spread some shredded cheddar cheese on the top (optional).
• Bake in preheated 375-degree oven for 30 minutes.
• Remove and let cool for a couple minutes.
• Eat.

Shrimp Stir Fry

TOLD you we'd use the wok! We whipped up a very tasty shrimp stir fry last night... easy-peel shrimps were on sale for just $5.99/lb at S&S so we grabbed 2/3lb of those guys, a bunch of veggies, started some water and we were on our way!

Meat: shrimps!

Veggies: red pepper, scallions, green beans, mushrooms, bean sprouts

Rice: brown

The rice takes about and hour to cook - 5 cups of chicken stock and 2 cups of rice to a boil, then cover and simmer for 50 minutes - so that gets going as we set to peeling the shrimp.

We made a "rub" of crushed red pepper flakes, salt, and chinese 5-spice. The Chinese 5-Spice has a great asian flavor... just what ARE those five spices? Why ground cinnamon, fennel, star anise, cloves, and Szechwan pepper! Great combo.

Rice cooking, wok out, rub made, shrimp peeled, veggies chopped - ready to go!

Ingredients:


The whole set-up:


We tossed the shrimp in some of the rub (saving some for the veggies and for the final sauce that the entire combo will be finished with) and set to cooking them. We kept the wok over nice high/medium-high heat and cooked with Can-oil... stirring most of the time. Probably 4 minutes, shrimp come out!


We did the veggies in stages to make sure they had enough coverage in the wok. We par boiled the green beans to give them a head-start in a little pan, probably about 10 minutes in boiling water. Red peppers went in to the now-nicely seasoned (from the shrimp) wok with a little rub over the top - toss toss cook cook done! Remove to a big glass bowl. Then the green beans (previously par boiled) - same procedure! Then the scallions and mushrooms... and the bean sprouts. Toss toss cook cook awesome!



Throw the reserved veggies and the shrimp back in. Using the remainder of the rub to make a sauce, we added a little flour, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar and stirred furiously until it was a nice consitency. Pour that in (only a couple tbls) and toss toss cook cook DONE!

Rice on plate, stir fry on rice, dinner is ready! Delicious!


SCORE: Stir fry - we're going with an 8.5 out of a 10 on this one... the shrimp were so plump and delicious and the veggie combo is perfect. A LITTLE too much salt ended up going in and the rice stayed in the water about 3 minutes too long, preventing the 10.

Tonight we'll take the leftover rice that we made (that's why we made so much!) and some chinese bbq pork and make Pork Fried Rice! Stay tuned for that one next...

Our Meat Sauce

There is really no other name for it - tomato-based (pasta) sauce with sausage, bacon, onions, garlic, squash, mushrooms, and fennel and other spices... Ragu, Red Sauce, Meat Sauce, whatever! You get it together and you cook it a while and you take it and pour it over the object of your desire - making pasta, bread, even lawn clippings taste fantastic! (Don't eat grass.) Let's do this - photoblog style!

Meat:
* Hot Italian Sausage (we got Perri) stripped of it's casing
* Bacon cut into one-inch pieces, we had some extra lying around that woulda gone bad before the weekend. Let's use it for the fat (and smokey flavor) in this sauce

Veggies:
onion in little 3/4 inch pieces, diced garlic, yellow summer squash in 1/4 round cubes, sliced mushrooms

Tomatoes:
two cans diced tomoatoes, two small cans tomato sauce

Spices:
freshly ground fennel, salt, pepper, oregano, basil

Pasta:
whole wheat Penne and Rigatoni to fill out the amount we need.

Liquid:
Red wine (cabernet sauvignon) to deglaze (about 1/3 cup)

LET'S GO!

Bacon goes in first to start rendering the fat, while this is going on take the sausage out of it's casing - just make a long, shallow slice lengthwise and turn that sucker out.



Also, get that water going for your pasta!

Add the sausage to the bacon/bacon fat and brown. As it cooks be sure to break it up along the way. As you can see here, we use a splatter screen to - what else? - try and minimize splatter all over the cooktop.



Browned and removed, drain most of the fat, leaving the burny bits from the sausage and bacon at the bottom. Refresh with a little olive oil if you wish and get the onions going. After a minute or so, add the garlic. After a few more minutes the yellow squash is ready to go in. Not long after that, the sliced mushrooms go in.


This is a good time to deglaze, although we could have (should have?) done it sooner, too. Add red wine and scrape the pan with a wooden spoon to incorporate the burny stuff at the bottom.

Allow the red wine to get nice and bubblin' to burn off the alcohol and really pull the flavors out of the Cabernet (use whatever you like!)

Cook and gently stir all this for maybe 4 or 5 minutes. With that veggie mixture in place, let's season:

We like adding freshly ground fennel seeds that go great with the sausage. We got this great grinder for our wedding from our friends Trish and Brooks - just throw the seeds in and twist. Voila! Ground fennel. We added fresh ground black pepper, coarse sea salt, and dried oregano and basil. (The tomoatoes we're about to add aren't seasoned at all.)

Spice Grinder w/Fennel:



Mix that together and we're ready to...

Add the tomatoes - throw them all in. Because we're not adding alot of liquid, the sauce will provide that liquidy texture and allow some time to cook all the flavors together. Once the tomatoes are up to temperature, go ahead and add the meat back in and combine. Set to low, cover with splatter screen, take a deep breath, and simmer.

At this point, a glass of that same cabernet is in order. After as long as you can take - 10-20 minutes, you're ready to go.


Drop your pasta in when you are about 10 minutes away from being ready. We use whole wheat penne and rigatoni tonight, as we had the ends of those two boxes. Boiling, salted water - 10 minutes til al dente!

The final product after some grated parmesan. That is a BIG plate... plenty of leftovers from this dish. We only boil enough pasta for one night, for leftovers we'll boil new pasta and reheat this sauce in the microwave and combine.


SCORE:
* Pasta Sauce Dinner - 9 out of 10. - Gold star - Super Duper - Grade A - Splendid!
The smokey flavor from the bacon and the fennel-y sausage and deglazed veggies are fantastic. We forgot the green pepper - maybe that woulda gave it that last point!

DELICIOUS! See you next time!

The Boston Chef