Latest Addiction

The season is changing, the clocks are turned back, and my mood disorder is rearing its ugly head. One of the things this means is that I'm craving crazy foods. Most recently, apart from wanting to inhale chocolate, pizza, and ice cream (ironic, given that it's cold out), I have been on a deviled ham & ramen noodle kick.

It's odd.

And it's not cheap! The ramen is cheap, but canned ham is not. At LOGS, it's $2.99/can. At Safeway, I got a can on sale for $2.49. During my cross border shopping excursion the other week, I found canned ham for about $1.80/can. WTF? That's highway robbery for frickin' ham IMHO!

Anyway, the deviled ham sandwich is such a throwback to church teas and church potlucks, and I was inspired to make a batch of deviled ham after my work put on a tea for the seniors. And I have been hooked ever since.

For those of you not familiar with the bliss that is deviled ham, it's very simple: a can of ham, flaked; some mayo; some sweet pickle relish. That's it. I spread my bread or bun with cream cheese and have a nice dill pickle with my sandwich. It's awesome.

Ramen is ramen. Rarely do I crave this stuff because it's so bad for you, but I seem to be unable to do without it nowadays.

None of this is good for my weight loss goals!

Magazine Monday #71 (Yes, a day late): Asian Pork Burgers with Hoisin Mayo

I really am enjoying the subscription to Food Network Magazine my mom got me for my birthday. I've been craving a burgers lately, and a recipe in the most recent issue of FNM caught my eye. It's actually a recipe for Asian meatball subs, but because I'm not in the mood these days to putz around making finicky things like meatballs (or at least making meatballs seems like a rather finicky activity to me right now) I decided to turn these into burgers. I think ground pork makes such excellent burgers - moist, juicy, and the flavour of the meat is mild & neutral enough to add all kinds of flavourings to it that work very well. You might recall the Curried Pork Burgers I made a while back; they have become a favourite of my brother & SIL. They might like this pork burger, too, as might you!

The recipe is here.

Frakking fantastic! Now, I made some adjustments. I didn't use any bread or milk or eggs as filler in my burger meat; I have moved away from doing that after reading Bobby Flay's burger book, and quite frankly, I think the burgers are better without all that stuff in them. I've never had a burger fall apart or crumble during cooking so I don't think it's necessary to add eggs & bread crumbs etc. I also didn't use the Asian chili sauce, and I broiled my burgers instead of frying them.

I loved these burgers so much I totally indulged and ate two! The Asian flavourings were wonderful, and I loved the crunch of the chopped chestnuts in them. I loved the bean sprout topping, too - also crunchy and tasty. As for the hoisin mayo...OMG...AMAZING! It was one incredible burger for sure, and that mayo was the cherry on the proverbial sundae.

Definitely give these a try if you're looking for a change in your same old, same old burger repertoire!

Magazine Monday (yes, on a Saturday!) #67: Pulled Pork

Long have I wanted to make pulled pork, but alas, the availability of the proper cut of pork - the butt, which is the shoulder - and the cost of said cut, has always put me off. Enter cross border shopping! On a recent trip across the border to get some good deals on all kinds of things, I found a 1.5lb pork picnic roast for a few bucks. Perfect size for one person!

The recipe I used came from Canadian Living's December 2005 issue, found here. It's a slow cooker recipe, which was perfect because this past week was seriously busy for me and I needed a no-brainer kind of meal.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed, which rarely happens with Canadian Living recipes. I didn't care for the sauce at all; it was not zippy or tangy, and it was way too thick for my liking. Also, I found the pork difficult to shred. The roast came with one of those handy-dandy blue dot devices that pops out when the meat is done, and so I took the roast out when I saw that happen. Apparently, according to my SIL, I needed to overcook the roast in order to facilitate easy shredding. I didn't know that; the recipe only said cook until pork is tender.

Anyway, I am eating this still - it's provided me with at least four meals. I served it with a tomato-y rice and black bean side dish and some nice creamy coleslaw.

Next time, I'll be trying a different recipe, though.

Cooking with Kylie: Pork Fried Rice

Yes, two Kylie recipes in a row! This is because I made two Kylie recipes this week!

There is just something so comforting about fried rice, and I have tried Kylie's Chicken Fried Rice and her Prawn Fried Rice. I'm not a huge fan of pork, but I was feeling like I wanted to try something new, so I got some nice pork loin for a decent price and made this dish.

Hoisin sauce and pork are just made for each other, I think. And again, malt vinegar makes an appearance! I actually think this sauce would make a nice glaze for BBQ pork loin, which I might try over the summer since I'll be babysitting my brother's BBQ for a while.

Pork Fried Rice, from Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking, page 260

400g pork fillets (I used pork tenderloin)
1/2 cup vegetable oil (OK, I never use the amount of oil Kylie calls for! I used about 2 tbsp in total for this recipe)
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 small red onion, finely sliced
1 tbsp chopped ginger (I never remember to buy this so, um, I used dried)
2 tsp white sugar
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp malt vinegar
1/4 tsp sesame oil
4 cups steamed rice
a few finely sliced green onions

1. Slice pork into strips and set aside.

2. Heat half the oil in wok until the surface begins to shimmer slightly. Pour eggs in and scramble; remove.

3. Heat remaining oil in wok and stirfry onion & ginger for 30 seconds. Add sugar and stirfry for 30 seconds. Add pork and stirfry for another 30 seconds. Stir in hoisin sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil, stirring for one minute. Toss in rice and reserved eggs and stirfry, using a spatula to break up egg & any rice clumps. Lastly, add spring onions and stirfry another 30 seconds until well-combined and rice is heated through. Serve.

I loved this! I chose well with the pork, too, because it was so nice & tender. Another great recipe from Kylie!

Magazine Monday #60: Curried Pork Burgers

Canadian Living strikes again! When I got the new issue last week, I knew I had to make this recipe. I really like using ground pork for burgers because the burgers are always so nice and juicy, and the mean it a neutral enough flavour that you can do what you want with it seasoning-wise.

I made these last night for my family and they were a huge hit! The grilled red onions were a perfect accompaniment. I will definitely make these again!

The recipe is not up on the site yet, but I'll post it for you here.

Curried Pork Burgers

1lb lean ground pork
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 tbsp curry paste (I used Patak's mild curry paste, which I always have on hand)
2 tsp minced gingerroot (I used about 1 tsp dried ground ginger)
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded & minced (which I skipped because I don't like them)
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp each salt & pepper

1 red onion sliced, drizzled in some vegetable oil

buns, lettuce, etc.

Simple instructions: mix all the meat, the feta, and all the seasonings together & form burgers. Grill. Grill onions until nice & soft. Serve on buns. Bob's your uncle.

Delicious!

Solstice Dinner 2009 - Part One

Simply put, last night was fabulous. I was worried I wouldn't have enough food, but that was ridiculous because I came home with a crapload of leftovers. I'll be feeding myself this meal for the rest of the week! There were 8 of us altogether, and the company was great.

My organization paid off and cooking the actual meal went very smoothly and almost seemed too easy.

So, let's start off with the main star of the show, the spiral cut, sausage-stuffed, bacon latticed pork loin roast.

I had made the stuffing the night before, and here is what I used:

6 mild Italian sausages, casings removed (it payed to ask the butcher at LOGS exactly what was in the sausage as flavouring, and it turned out that it was just salt, pepper, and garlic - perfect)
1 onion, finely diced
about a cup of whole cranberries
about a cup of maple pecans (thanks to Jodi's parcel!)

I boiled the sausage meat and drained off all the liquid in a colander. Then I sauteed the onion, added the sausage to brown it, then added the nuts & cranberries.

I have a TON of this left over. I made way too much and only used about 1/3 of the amount for my one pork loin roast. Not sure what I'm going to do with the rest. I'll freeze it for sure, and I thought of stuffing a whole chicken with it...

The next morning, I assembled the pork loin roast. Spiral cutting this sucker wasn't fun, mainly because of the odd shape of the roast: it was kind of oblong. Dave's blog said to keep the knife parallel with the counter and slice as if you were peeling an apple. This seemed simple enough in my mind, but the reality was a bit different. It was quite tricky and I think I really bungled it up. You can see the result in the upper right photo in the collage. At one point, I even cut through the roast to the outside, and I though that would be disastrous when it came to stuffing that sucker, but the cut was in the right place and wound up on top in the end. So, once it was as flat as I could get it, I put the stuffing at one end and topped that with sliced mozzarella cheese.

The trickiness wasn't over yet! Now I had to roll this up and that wasn't easy as the stuffing kept falling out. I eventually just folded the flap of mean over the filling and tucking it under. That worked fine, and then it was time to truss, truss baby.

This was also tricky. I am not an expert trusser by any stretch of the imagination. The roast was too big for my silicone trussing thingies, so I had to use butcher's twine.After that, I seasoned the roast with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Next came the really fun stuff: the bacon lattice! This was fiddly, but luckily not too difficult as I've made lattice top pies. Same principle applies when making a bacon lattice. This took one and a half pounds of bacon and wasn't big enough to cover the entire roast. The spots that remained uncovered I just wound with bacon, not doing more lattice work, and decided that that wouldn't be my presentation side. But the top of the roast looked quite impressive when I was done. I secured the lattice at both ends with toothpicks. Then I wrapped the whole shabang in plastic wrap, put it in a pan, and threw it in the fridge until I was ready to take it to Jem & Shan's to roast for dinner (the dinner was at their place; I don't have enough room to entertain a group of 8).

So, at Jem & Shan's, I got out a roasting pan, oiled it, and threw the roast into it, then into a 350F oven. Shan & I estimated it would take at least an hour and a half. After an hour it was looking and smelling really good, at that point, I put in my electronic probe thermometer with alert on to dingle when it reached an internal temperature of 170F. I let it rest for 20 minutes while I finished up other things that were on the go at the same time.

Here it is - finished!
And here it is on a platter, after I sliced it:
The meat was tender and juicy and perfectly cooked. It was well seasoned and the flavours were excellent. Everyone was thrilled with the results. The previous night, Jem & Shan had had a friend come over and cook a meal for them, too, and coincidentally enough, this friend had also made a stuffed pork loin roast. He had made a really nice sauce for it that was pan drippings, white wine, pureed shallots and pureed apples...It was so good. We just added my pan drippings to that and a bit more wine and served it my pork loin! It was perfect. Incredible, actually.

Thanks to both Dave and Chris for inspiring this dish! You guys are awesome! While I couldn't BBQ this, I will have to try that when BBQ season is back, because that would definitely have taken this to the next level!

Here is the entire meal on my plate:Tomorrow, I'll post about my side dishes and dessert!

Full Flickr set here.

Pork Tenderloin, Starring....Huckleberries!

So this is my first kick at the can using my lovely huckleberry bounty, locally picked by yours truly. I wanted to do something different; muffins are so pedestrian! I whipped this pork tenderloin idea up on my own...divine inspiration out in the berry patch or something... My dad donated the tenderloins, of which there were two, and initially four were supposed to partake in the meal, but then plans fell apart, as they do once in a while. So, I knew there would be a ton of leftovers, I just didn't yet know if that was a good thing or not. Here's how it went.

For the rub:

1/3 cup brown sugar
ginger, cinnamon, allspice, garlic powder, salt & pepper - all to taste (I didn't measure)

For the filling:

1 package (140g) unripened goat's cheese (i.e. not feta), softened
a whole bunch of huckleberries
4 cups of spinach
3 cloves garlic
1tsp or so of the rub mixture

I was going to just put the spinach in raw, but decided against it. In fact, I wasn't going to put any spinach in at all, but I had so much left over from a salad I made that I decided what the hell. When my SIL does pork loin, she usually puts spinach in the stuffing and it's always awesome. Anyhoo, I sauteed the spinach because I wanted to cook the water out of it first. It was worth it to spend the extra few minutes to do this, I think. I sauteed the spinach in olive oil and the garlic.After the spinach was wilted, I added it to the goat's cheese & huckleberries. What I got was not particularly appetizing...But this was an experiment after all, right?Yeah, great colour, eh? At this point I was thinking, Hmmm...was this a good idea? But I soldiered on, and stuffed the tenderloins, after making a cut along the length in order to flatten them out and create a pocket for the filling.After that came the rub...I realized too late I should have rubbed first and filled second, but we live and learn, don't we?

Then, truss truss baby. You can see my blue silicone trussing thingies in this picture. Very cool gadget.Then into a 375F oven, covered with foil for about half an hour, then off with the foil and continue baking until an internal temperature of 180F was reached. And voila...While my meat rested (it took about an hour to cook, and I set my fancy-wancy thermometer with probe 180F so it would beep when the temp was reached) I made a sauce, using, what else? Well, yes, huckleberries, but also POM! The last of my POM (I have one coupon left). This was the one with blueberry juice in it as well.

Pomegranate Huckleberry Sauce

juices from the roasted pork loin
about 1/2 cup POM juice
2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 cup brown sugar
a whole bunch of huckleberries

I dissolved the cornstarch in the POM as the drippings, brown sugar, and ginger came to a boil in a small saucepan. Once the drippings boiled, I added the huckleberries and the POM. I simmered for a few minutes... And forgot to take a pic of the sauce. Sorry. It looked like...blueberry syrup. Use your imagination.

Slicing the tenderloin proved difficult - it was very delicate and the filling so soft that it squished out the sides. This is what I got:Yeah...presentation-wise, I don't think this is a winner.The overall verdict, however: a hit! I loved it right away. Everything went really well together, from the rub on down. The sauce was great. The spinach, however, I could have lived without. It didn't really add any flavour and made the presentation less than stellar. I'd leave it out next time. Additionally, I would use feta cheese the next time, for a couple of reasons. A) I think the flavour contrast between saltiness of the feta and tart-sweet of the berries would be killer. B) It's a firmer cheese and would probably slice & present better than this goat's cheese.

My dad took a bit more convincing. He's not used to having sweet things mixed with his otherwise savoury dishes, and I get that. It's not everyone's cup of tea. He did, however, have seconds, and by the end of the meal, he was converted! He has half of the second loin we didn't even touch for leftovers, as do I. (I served this meal, by the way, with a barley & bean salad that will be the subject of an upcoming Magazine Monday post.)

Definitely a successful experiment! With a bit of tweaking, I might just make this my signature dish! And - I still have a ton of huckleberries frozen for future kitchen experiments!

Enjoy!

Stuffed Pork Loin

It's great when we make enough food ourselves to have as leftovers, but it's even better when you get someone else's leftovers - especially when those leftovers come from your SIL's catering gigs. Last Friday, my SIL and her mom, C, catered a curling event and served this terrific pork loin dish at it. There was enough leftover that my SIL gave me about half of a whole roast! They do a lot of stuffed meats for their jobs, and this one is really great. The recipe comes from C's cookbook, Tried and True, previously blogged about here.

Stuffed Pork Loin

one 5 - 6lb pork loin roast

For the rub:
1 tsp each: cumin, coriander, oregano, brown sugar
1/2 tsp each: garlic powder, salt, pepper
1/4 tsp ground ginger

For the stuffing:
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp oil
1/2 cup sliced onion
1 small red pepper
3 cloves garlic
1 cup fresh spinach
1/4 cup each feta & ricotta cheese
1/2 tsp oregano
salt & pepper to taste

Method.

1. For the rub, mix all spices together & set aside.

2. Butterfly the pork loin by cutting it half way through lenght-wise, then cut from the bottom of the incision sideways almost to the outside of the loin.

3. For the stuffing, cut the top off the pepper and clean out the seeds. Peel the garlic. Coat the outside of the pepper and garlic with 1 tbsp oil. Place the pepper skin side on a baking pan with the garlic, and bake for about 20 minutes at 375F or until skin is lifting off pepper and has black areas. Remove. Peel skin from the pepper. Dice garlic & pepper & set aside.

4. Caramelize the onion with 1 tbsp oil , sugar, and the vinegar.

5. Combine all stuffing ingredients in a bowl and season with salt & pepper to taste.

6. Stuff the pork, fold it closed and truss with string to keep it closed during cooking process. Rub the pork with spice mixture. Place the roast in an open roaster and bake for about 2 1/2 hours or until done.

7. Remove string, slice, and serve.

I served mine with roasted potatoes and some roasted asparagus. Yum! Thanks for the leftovers, Shan!

Aromatic Pork Burgers

I dreamed this recipe up after being inspired by two things: a burger feature in an issue of Canadian Living last summer that had a nice-looking pork burger in it, and the recipe for Aromatic Lemongrass Patties from the Hot Sour Salty Sweet meal I made for my family last month. Those patties were fantastic and at the time I thought they'd make great burgers. So, I created these. They were delish! I served them with Monday's failed Hush Puppies and a lemon garlic mayonnaise I made by mixing some low fat mayo with a few drops of lemon juice and half a clove of garlic, grated.

Aromatic Pork Burgers

1/2 lb ground pork
1 1/2 tsp lemon grass powder
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 green onions, finely chopped
1 tsp soy sauce

Combine all ingredients well, form into two patties, and grill. It's not quite BBQ season here, but until it arrives I made do with my roommate's mini George Foreman grill. It works.

Lemongrass powder is my new favourite thing. As I wrote in the HSSS post, our local overpriced grocery store sells it in the bulk bins, and though I'm sure it's not as punchy as real lemongrass, it's still very tasty - and it's much easier to work with.

These burgers were lovely, as I said, and the flavoured mayo was an excellent accompaniment.

Enjoy!