Paris, Pork Chops & House Guests

I love everything about food.  Learning about, shopping for it, experimenting with it, peeling it, chopping it, braising it....you get the idea.  I love the textures, tastes, smells, colors - my very own nightly "Moveable Feast, minus the fact I'm not slurping delicious metallic oysters with extremely creative people in 1920's Paris, but I digress.  Of all the reasons to be connected to your food, I think human interaction is one of the most satisfying.  Food brings people together in a way that caters to our basic need to sustain life, and most of the time if you have good friends and good food in a room, you'll have a memorable time.   I cooked this recipe from the Les Halles cookbook (with a few modifications of course) for my friend who was visiting from New York City, and I hope she flew back the East coast with fond memories of our shared meals and catching up on old times.

The original recipe "Palette de porc a la biere" is from Les Halles, which is a phenomenal cookbook (and I'm not saying this just because I have a huge crush on Anthony Bourdain) for classic French bistro fare, but it's also a great place to get tips and tricks to improve your technique. 

Season pork (the recipe calls for a 4lb shoulder, but I used pork loin chops I already had in the fridge) with salt and pepper.  Heat a couple tbs olive oil and 1 tbs butter in dutch oven.  Once it's hot, sear both sides of your pork until sides are brown.  Remove from pan.  Add some fresh oil to the pan, and cook 2 small chopped carrots, 1 small diced onion, and 4 garlic cloves until soft.  

Stir in 1/4 cup of cider vinegar and 12 oz beer, scraping the bits off the bottom of the pan, and cook until the liquid is reduced well past half.  Add 1 cup chicken broth, bring to a boil, and return the pork to the pot.  Cook covered on low for 2 hours (for a large shoulder) or about 20 minutes (for loin chops).

Preheat oven to 450 degrees, remove finished pork from the pot and brush with 2 tbs mustard.  Then press flaxseed meal (or finely ground walnuts) into mustard covered pork.  Place in the oven until tops are browned.  While that is on the oven, reduce the liquid/veggies in the pot and whisk in 1 tbs mustard.  

Serve pork with sauce, grilled apples, and mashed turnips. 

Weekday Breakfast Out

There's something great about going out to breakfast.  It's usually eaten much more leisurely than the quick frittata we shove in our mouths as we get dressed and rush out the door for work  It's a time to visit with friends, enjoy someone topping off your coffee - as well as doing the cooking and the cleaning - and possibly even eat something more adventurous and complicated than what normally comes out of your own kitchen.  One our favorite local restaurants is a little converted house in Newport called Alta, where while they're known for their baked goods, they also have some paleo friendly omelettes and egg dishes.  They also give you a random coffee mug, and today, it seemed they wanted me to imagine I was in Hawaii. 

This is the South of the Border omelette - but in full disclosure, I got it with the cheese.

Barramundi & Coconut Vegetable Chowder

I have a bunch of cookbooks and get a few food magazines (I cry a little every time I think about my beloved Gourmet), and I really enjoy the challenge of taking recipes that sound delicious, but don't necessarily fit in with our style of eating, and turning them into paleo-friendly dishes.  I channel my favorite chefs, put on one of my many aprons, crank the iPod and have my own little test kitchen session.  Sometimes it works...other times, it's pretty apparent my modifications were less than stellar and our dog Brody gets a nice meal, but in any case it's an adventure.  This recipe came out better than I could have imagined, and there were no leftovers to be had.

I adapted this recipe from the October Bon Appetit magazine, where they took it from Happy Restaurant in Boulder. 

For the chowder:

Heat 1 tbs oil in a large pot - add 1 cup diced onion, 3 kaffir lime leaves (if you can't find them, you can use the zest and juice frPublish Postom 1 lime), 3 large fresh basil leaves, 1 tbs minced fresh ginger, 1 chopped jalapeno with seeds, 2 smashed garlic cloves.  Stir occasionally for 4-5 minutes, then add 3 cups canned coconut milk, 2 cups vegetable broth, 2 tbs salt, 1-2 tsp chili oil, and 1 15oz bottle fresh carrot juice.  Reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for 1 hour.  Strain out the solids - pressing them to get all the liquid out - and return liquid to pot.

Peel and cube (removing the seeds) of 1 small acorn or delicata squash, then boil until soft.  Add the squash cubes, 1 carrot peeled and cut into matchsticks, 1 red bell pepper cubed, 1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts, 1 small head of grated cauliflower and 2 cups chopped sugar snap peas to the broth.  Simmer for about 5 minutes, or until the vegetables are just soft.

For the fish:

Rinse and pat dry 4 small fillets (I used Barramundi, but you can use any fish really).  Add salt and pepper, and 1 tbs flax seed meal to each fillet, pressing the flax seed meal into the flesh.  Heat up 4 tbs coconut oil in a saucepan, and place fish skin side up*/flax seed side down into the pan.  Cook approx 4 minutes each side.

Serve with avocado slices, lime wedges and fresh basil

*note on cooking fish, the skin side attracts the heat, so if you're broiling fish, skin goes down, if you're grilling/frying, skin goes up! 

Rainy Days & Butternut Squash

I woke up to gray.  Not marine layer gray, which always feels like a billowy curtain ready to break up at any moment, but a deeper, heavier gray.  The gray that makes you want to stay home in a hoodie and socks and watch movies and drink tea. We just had a heat wave, what was this??  Summer really never arrived, much to my chagrin, and the oven blasting type of heat we'd been having the past week had set my spirits on such a high...so what the eff was this?  And then it rained.  And I'm not talking the normal sprinkle we usually get - which sends all of us running for cover, a laughable action to most other climates - this was RAIN.  Rain that would make even a Seattle native pull out an umbrella, and they never do that.  So from elevating heat, to dark and stormy seas, the kitchen had to make a change...

I must capitalize on this soup weather.

Fall is one of my favorite seasons for one reason - squash.  When I start seeing squash at the market I get excited for fall.  Granted, I'm usually still in shorts and sandals, but there's a chill in the air!  I can eat squash any way but this (in my opinion) the most delicious, simple dish there is.  Butternut squash has such great no-fuss flavor, and you can make this dish in a flash.  There's something about warm soup that is very comforting to me, and during the cold months - well cold for coastal California - I eat soup most days of the week.  Another thing I love about this is the ingredient list:  butternut squash, onion, salt, pepper, chicken broth.  A few simple, wholesome items can make a big bowl of comfort on a chilly night.

Peel the butternut squash and cube it, removing the seeds.  Put the squash cubes, 1 large diced yellow onion, a little olive oil or butter, and a couple tbs of the chicken stock in a pan and simmer.  Let everything get soft, and the onions get sweet.  Transfer to a food processor or blender* and pulse while adding chicken stock until you get your desired texture.  My favorite garnishes are crumbled turkey bacon and green onions. I also like my soup pretty hot, so I usually put it back in the pot to simmer for a bit.

*if using a blender you may have to batch it, and be careful as the steam can cause the top to pop off and that will equal a major mess