Last Night’s Dinner

Barbecue and Iron Man with friends on Friday, a trip to the farmers’ market and the newest Farmstead outpost on Saturday, wandering Federal Hill on Sunday… yeah, despite the cold and rain, we had another great weekend in our new city.

We’re trying to be frugal these days, but I couldn’t resist picking up a package of lobster tortelloni at Venda Ravioli yesterday. Tossed with thinly sliced asparagus, a bit of creme fraiche, and the remainder of the spring onion pesto I made last week, it was sinfully good (and totally worth the splurge).

I don’t usually talk about breakfast here, but this morning’s meal was worth mentioning. I had some Black Valentine beans left in the fridge from a previous dinner, which I reheated and mashed with a little bit of bacon fat until creamy. Add to that a couple of fried tortillas, chipotle salsa, cheese and chopped radish and cilantro left over from that same dinner, top with fried egg, and voila - huevos rancheros.

Not a bad way to kick off another week of good eating, I’d say.

Whew! I am bruised, scraped, and generally banged up from packing and shifting boxes around the apartment. I think I broke every fingernail (not that they were long to begin with). We accomplished a lot over the weekend, but we also made time to eat well. Here are a few photos:

So did I mention I sent my husband to a butchering demo at the Brooklyn Kitchen last week? And that he got to bring home some amazing pork?

Oh, yes. (You can read his thoughts on it here.)

We spent a nice block of time on Saturday enjoying the 76 degree weather, hanging out with the outdoor kitties and slow smoking the beautiful pork shoulder he brought home. We ate a good chunk of it for dinner that night, simply sliced and served with my first potato salad of the season.

I turned the rest of it into Sunday brunch, browning it in our cast iron skillet with onions, potatoes and red bell peppers, and serving this smoky pork hash with a couple of fried eggs alongside.

We went for a lighter dinner on Sunday night to balance out our rich morning meal: wild Alaskan salmon, quickly seared in a hot pan and served over a salad of mixed baby greens and thinly sliced cucumbers and radishes. I had the rest of a container of Greek yogurt in the fridge, as well as more fresh dill, so I combined them with some minced shallot, lemon juice and zest to make a tangy sauce for the fish.

As much as we got done over the weekend, we still have a lot to do, and I’m trying hard not to feel overwhelmed. I can’t promise consistent posting until after the move, but I’ll do my best. Cheers!

Last week I received an email from the lovely Sarah of The Brooklyn Nester inviting me to participate in her celebration of National Pie Day. I’m not such a big fan of the sweet stuff, so once I confirmed that a savory submission was okay, I readily agreed.

Generally I rely on good quality all-butter puff pastry or prepared piecrust when I make savory pies, but since the addition of Robo McGee to our family, Mike and I have both been anxious to give homemade pastry dough a spin. Since he’s a little more patient with things like measuring things precisely, we decided that Mike would be in charge of making the dough, while I’d handle the filling.

As it turns out, I had spent some time on Monday making a batch of chicken stock, so I used a pint of that along with a couple of cups of pulled roasted chicken (left over from our last roast bird, which I had frozen and then thawed). A quick inspection of our countertop baskets and refrigerator produce bins turned up a few small potatoes, a leek and a carrot which I needed to use up, so I chopped them and sautéed them in a few tablespoons of butter until soft. I sprinkled a couple of tablespoons of flour over the veggies, stirred it through and let it cook for a few moments to get rid of any raw flour taste, then I added the chicken, stock, a couple of hits of Tabasco and some freshly ground black pepper. When the sauce was thick and the chicken very shreddy, I tasted it to adjust the seasoning, then tossed in a good handful of chopped fresh dill, some chopped chives, and a cup of green peas I had shelled and frozen last summer. With the filling done, I stepped aside and let Mike get to the pastry-making.

I had bookmarked Deb’s “pie crust 101” post in November, and after comparing it with a few others we found online and elsewhere, he decided to give it a try. He substituted an equal amount of butter for the shortening the recipe called for, and omitted the sugar since we wanted a savory crust, but other than that he followed the recipe to the letter. The result: silky dough that was incredibly easy to work with, and which baked up brown and incredibly flaky. It had a rich buttery flavor, but wasn’t at all greasy as some crusts I’ve tried have been.

In a nutshell, this recipe is a winner – easy to prepare, and absolutely delicious. We spent the rest of the evening brainstorming other things we could put into pies or tarts or bake “en croute.” I guess you could say we’re smitten.

I’m trying to stay upbeat about the fact that winter is staring me square in the face, really I am, but it’s getting mighty difficult. First off is the fact that Mike and I both seem to be fighting colds, our second colds of this young season. My head is stuffy, my sense of taste is dulled, and gosh it’s hard to get excited about putting together a meal that we will likely neither smell nor taste fully. I’ve got a case of the blahs, and is it just me or did I cook nothing but a week of brown-ish dinners? Yeah. Blah.

Dinner last night was neither colorful nor particularly inspired; in fact, it was a result of pulling a bag of this and a container of that and another container of some such out of our fridge and freezer, adding a boatload of veggies and tossing it all together. Those veggies came first, a combination of chopped leek, a few multicolored carrots and a parsnip, all cut into about 1/2 inch chunks. I sautéed them in a bit of butter, seasoned them with salt, and then covered them with a quart of our most recent batch of homemade chicken stock. We had some shredded cooked chicken in the freezer which I had thawed earlier, and I added that to the pot as well, then I lidded up the pot and let it come to a boil.

I wanted to thicken the stock a bit, but I didn’t want to go with something as rich as cream, so I decided to make a slurry of one part flour to about one and a half parts buttermilk, which I shook up in an old jam jar and then whisked into the boiling liquid. At this point I could have added some rice or pasta or beans to the pot, but I had decided I wanted dumplings, and rather than make a fresh batch, I thought I’d try using something we already had on hand: ricotta gnudi left over from the batch I made for Valentine’s Day, which had been individually frozen on a cookie sheet and stashed in a freezer bag (and which I had pulled out to thaw the night before along with the aforementioned chicken). I added the gnudi to the still-boiling broth, turning them gently with a spoon as they cooked. After a few minutes, I ladled some of the chicken and creamy broth into our bowls, then carefully nestled a couple of dumplings in the center of each.

I hate to even call this a recipe, because honestly, all I really did here was remix some odds and ends, but you know, it worked. I’d even go so far as to say it was quite good, satisfying our craving for something comforting without being super rich or heavy, and I really do believe that a good dumpling can chase the doldrums right away.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I generally plan our meals for the week in advance, sketching out which meal I want to serve on which night, but leaving a little wiggle room in case we need to switch things up. I had a porktastic duo scheduled for last night, utilizing some of the leftover roast pork I made over the weekend, as well as some delicious baked ham from a previous meal, which I had pulled from the freezer and thawed. I’m not kidding you when I say I was excited for this dinner – I thought about it all day and my mouth was watering. I Could. Not. Wait.

So you can imagine how disappointed I was when I got home from work, headed into the kitchen, flung open the refrigerator door to get started and realized that at some point over the last few days, I had put the remaining pork roast into the freezer.

Say it with me, people: “GAAAAAAH!”

My beautiful leftover roast pork was solid as a rock, and with no good way to defrost it quickly, the dinner I had been craving all day would have to wait. And I needed to come up with a Plan B, fast.

We didn’t have anything else thawed that I could prepare instead. I didn’t want to do yet another risotto. I’ve got a pasta dish scheduled for tonight, and while Mike and I both love the stuff, having pasta two nights in a row wasn’t really appealing to us. The takeout options in our little corner of Bushwick aren’t great, and to go out to eat would require us to get on a bus or train for 20 minutes or more. It was late, I was tired, and I just didn’t want to deal with it.

Mike mixed us each a Jack Rose and we sat and thought about what to do. We had enough ham that I could use some of it tonight and still have enough left over for future use. We had potatoes. We had plenty of dairy – butter and cream, and we’ve always got cheese. Why not make a gratin?

I pulled out my deep baking dish, buttered it, set the oven temp to 400, and started chopping, ending up with about 2 cups of ham, cut into about 1/2 inch cubes, and about 4 cups of small Yukon Golds, sliced into 1/4 inch thick rounds. I placed one layer of potato slices in the bottom of the baking dish, sprinkled the ham on top, and then scattered about a cup of grated gruyere over that. I topped it with a layer of the remaining potato slices. I whisked together 12 oz. of half and half, 1/2 cup of crème fraiche, salt, black pepper and a teaspoon of Colman’s mustard powder, added a cup of little green peas I had blanched and frozen over the summer, and poured it over the potatoes and ham. I sealed the baking dish with foil, and put it in the oven for 40 minutes, then pulled it out, removed the foil, added another layer of grated gruyere, some grated parmesan and fresh thyme, and placed it back in the oven for about 15 minutes until the top was golden and bubbly.

I wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out, and I have to say the next time I make a gratin I will take the extra step of making an actual Mornay sauce for it, but despite the rather “broken” cream sauce I ended up with here and the fact that it’s not the prettiest thing I’ve made, our dinner was a tasty, filling, and satisfying meal – not at all bad for a last minute substitution.

So an American, an Italian and a Mexican walk into a pork store…

Okay, lame joke, but seriously, isn’t it amazing how the same piece of pork can yield three very different meals? I think Mike and I were both surprised that we haven’t felt like we were eating leftovers all week, though we really were. A little creative remixing works wonders.

The third and final embodiment of our pork shoulder was a savory Mexican stew called posole (or pozole, depending on who you ask). I think the most important components of the dish are a good, rich stock and flavorful chile powder, and I was happy that we had both – chicken stock left over from the batch I made Sunday, plus Mike’s take on Alton Brown’s chile powder (which he generally makes with whatever varieties of dried chiles we have in the pantry, so each batch is a bit different).

I began by softening about a cup and a half of diced onion in olive oil, and added three fat garlic cloves which I had peeled and smashed. I seasoned them with salt and allowed the onion and garlic to cook until the garlic was fragrant, then I added a tablespoon or so of tomato paste to a hot spot and allowed it to cook for a few moments before stirring it through. I then added two generous tablespoons of the chile powder to the onion mixture and stirred so the onions were coated. The pork went in next – the shoulder bone along with all the meat still clinging to it, plus the fat I had trimmed off after the initial braising. I added two cups of our chicken stock plus two cups of water, covered the pot and let it come to a boil, then reduced the heat and let it simmer for about half an hour.

The pork that had been left on the bone had mostly fallen off in big chunks at that point, so I removed the meat and bone from the pot and set them aside for a moment. I added two cans of white hominy, drained and rinsed, to the broth, chopped the pork into chunks and returned the meat to the pot. I added the juice of one lime, adjusted the salt, and let the pozole cook for about 10 more minutes before serving. For garnish, I used lime wedges and thinly sliced radishes; you can also use diced avocado, tomato, fresh cilantro or grated cheese.

Mike said that this was by far my best posole yet, and I have to agree with him, though I can’t take all the credit since his chile powder played a major part. But the way the pork bone and especially the pork fat enriched the stock was really something special – using those parts that I might have otherwise discarded or used another way added a wonderful richness to the broth. Our pork shoulder is now gone, but we got three great dinners out of it (four if you count the remaining ragu in the freezer), and I think this cycle was a big success.

The next couple of weeks are going to be all about frugality at Chez Dietschyblossom. We have a short trip ahead, and we want to save up so we can splurge a bit while we’re away. As others have pointed out, one great method of doing this is to prepare one big piece of protein and give it new life in a variety of ways, so that’s just what I’ve planned to do for many of our meals this week.

The protein we started with for this round of dinners was a beautiful bone-in pork shoulder from Flying Pigs Farm. I braised it for several hours on Sunday, and served some of the meat with a pan reduction that night for the first meal of the cycle. The pork shoulder was just shy of 4 lbs. at the start, so we had quite a bit of meat left over to use in other ways.

For our meal last night, I decided to make a pork ragu to serve with strozzapreti pasta. I started with a couple of diced shallots, seasoned with salt and sautéed in olive oil, and then I added about 2 cups of diced pork to the pan. I added a tablespoon of tomato paste and allowed it to caramelize a bit before stirring it through. I had softened about a 1/4 cup of dried porcinis in hot water, so the coarsely chopped, softened mushrooms went into the pan next along with the strained porcini liquid and some dried marjoram. I added a splash of red wine and a cup of my homemade basic tomato sauce, and then let it all simmer, uncovered, while the pasta water boiled.

When the ragu was reduced to the consistency I wanted (the meat soft and shredding apart, the sauce juicy but not soupy), I spooned about half of it into a separate bowl – I ended up with a lot more ragu than I had expected, so I decided rather than make a huge amount of dressed pasta, I’d freeze half of the par-cooked pasta and half of the sauce separately, and combine them later for another meal. I finished cooking the remaining half pound of my strozzapreti in the ragu with a splash or two of the pasta water as I usually do, added some finely grated Parmagiano Reggiano cheese off the heat, and spooned it into our bowls.

We ended up with four good-sized servings of pasta (one of which Mike is having for lunch today), and if you didn’t know any better, you’d have no idea this was a meal based on leftovers.

As expected, the hectic pace I’ve been keeping over the last few weeks at the office in in preparation for our party last weekend caught up with me. Wednesday night I got home from work and was too exhausted to do much of anything; dinner that night was a platter of cured meats and cheeses left over from the party, along with cherry tomatoes, crackers, and a very quaffable red Mike brought home. I was still very stiff and achy when I woke yesterday morning, so I stayed home and spent most of the day in bed with the cats watching a fine selection of food shows on the DVR.

I often worry about dinner on sick days, but yesterday, I didn’t have to - I could smell it cooking all day long. Before he left for work in the morning, Mike seasoned a bone-in pork shoulder and put it in the crock pot, bathing it in a mixture of water, applejack, cider vinegar, chopped fresh figs (left over from the party) and chipotles in adobo. The aroma was heavenly.

By the time we were ready to eat, I was feeling well enough to put together a couple of sides - cannellini beans cooked with tomato and fresh sage, and Tuscan kale sauteed with a bit of garlic, chile flakes and lemon zest. The pork was so tender it was falling apart, so I carefully transferred it to a baking sheet and kept it warm in a 200 degree oven while I reduced the strained cooking liquid. I let it bubble away until it was reduced down to about 1/2 cup, whisked in some cold butter and plated everything up. We opened a lovely Sangiovese which highlighted the flavors of both the pork and the figgy pan sauce, and toasted to a great team effort.

While this dish helped me to use up three party leftovers (3/4 lb. chicken and red pepper sausage, a pint of cherry tomatoes and a pint of fresh mozzarella bocconcini), I wasn’t entirely pleased with the end result. I mixed these ingredients into a bread pudding, made with cubes of ciabatta and my basic custard recipe, but the end result was a little bland. I definitely under-salted the dish, and while the addition of a handful of shredded fresh basil leaves in the custard was nice, it needed a little more oomph – perhaps a stronger herb or some red chile flakes would have done the trick. Still, this wasn’t a bad meal – it was easy and filling, and it helped me clear some space in the fridge for other things.

You may notice a theme this week, as I’m trying to use up some of the leftover odds and ends from our party. The mushroom filling I stuffed into puff pastry rolls uses a mix of dried and fresh mushrooms, and while the dried ones will keep just fine in the cupboard, the fresh ones (shiitake and crimini, in this case) have a far shorter shelf life.

I often use my mushroom filling as a topping for pasta or gnocchi, enriching it with a bit of cream, but I wanted to do something a little lighter. I did a quick search of foodandwine.com and found a recipe for Spaghetti with Shiitakes, Parmesan and Pepper, which really appealed to me, and since I could get it ready in plenty of time for us to watch Heroes, it sounded perfect.

I ended up following the recipe pretty closely, though I did add a generous amount of fresh thyme and a tablespoon of sherry vinegar to the sauce, which I think added a little more complexity to the dish. The earthiness of the mushrooms and the bite of black pepper were delicious together, and the Dolcetto we drank with our meal complemented the flavors really nicely.