Chicken With Juniper Berries Recipe - Italian Food

Chicken With Juniper Berries Recipe - Italian Food

I made this with Tilapia instead of chicken breasts,left out the chicken stock and just used wine. Added a little diced carrot to the onions. Served with baked akorn squash, with sauce from the fish over it. Good.

Pork Roast Stuffed with Chorizo and Collards

This is kind of a casual recipe because (a) I'm not sure what the pork roast I used is called, and (b) It didn't really come out like I had planned... but it was good anyway. The roast was boneless but wasn't a loin, it was bigger around than that, it looked like a rib roast that had been cut from the bone. My idea was to stuff it, I had some chorizo,and I had seen some kale recipes. But Carol accidently brought home collards. Anyways...

Saute a coarsely chopped onion in olive oil, after maybe five minutes add the meat from two chorizo sausages removed from casing, maybe half a pound. Break up and brown. Season, it won't need much because the sausage is salty and spicy. Chop one bag of cut and washed collards coarsely, add to the pan with half a cup of water and cover until they wilt completely.

Slice the pork roast about half way down, the length of the roast, leaving an inch on either end so it forms a pocket. There should be much more filling than will fit, and besides it doesn't really have a stuffing consistency, it is more of a sauteed vegeteble feel. Make a bed with half the collard mixtute in a roasting pan just large enough for the roast. Place the roast on top of it and fill the cavity with more collards, letting them spill over. Pour the juice from the pan over the roast.

Roast in a 375 oven until a meat thermometer registers 160-170, maybe 45 minutes. My top layer of collards got crunchy and were very delicious. Remove the meet from the oven, let it cool a little, and cut into thick slices. Serve with collards on the side. I also served black beans and Rotel tomatoes, I think I already have that up.

Chanukah Pot Roast and Latkes

I made this in hurry for a just-us family Chanukah party. Manning said afterword that I cook best when I don't have time to think about it.... that's true.

Pot Roast. I forget exactly what kind of cut this was. Small, standard supermarket boneless, maybe 2 pounds. I dredged it in flour, then browned it on all sides in a heavy cast iron dutch oven. This takes high heat and a decent vent hood. I poured half a bottle of red wine over it (don't let the fancy recipes fool you-- if you don't scrape the bottom of the barrel it doesn't matter) added a 12 ounce can of Hunt's tomato sauce, two quartered onions and four carrots scraped and quartered. Seasoned with dried basil and oregano, and a handful of fresh herbs that are suriviving in my garden: rosemary, sage and thyme. Brought it to a low boil, put the top on and set it in a 325 oven. The secret is to cook it for a long time, I left this in there for 3-4 hours, by which time the sauce had reduced, the top of the meat had dried off a little, and the meat was falling apart tender, I cut portions with a spoon.

Latkes. Three good size baking potatoes and one small onion. Peel, and shred on largest holes of a hand grater, onion first. Transfer to a bowl by the handful, wringing them out into a separate container as you go, by squeezing HARD. When you are done you should have a good amount of water. Let it settle for five minutes, pour off the water and add the starch back to the potatoes. Add an egg, salt and pepper, mix with your bare hands.

Heat a half-inch of vegetable oil in a big iron skillet, hot but not smoking. Make 1.5 inch patties and drop them in the oil. Turn with a slotted spatula when brown. When nice and brown remove to a cookie sheet lined with paper towel, and place in oven with pot roast while you do the next batch or two. By this time I had the oven all the way turned down, the pot roast had cooked plenty.

Serve with sour cream or applesauce.....

Honey Beef Stew

I bought a big sirloin tip roast at Sam's and had a ton left over, cooked rare. I cut it into half to one inch chunks. Browned an onion and a couple of cloves in garlic until it was light brown. Added the beef and browned quickly. I had maybe half a pound of carrots from the garden, and 3/4 pound of little Yukon potatoes. Then a good half-bottle of leftover red wine, and a large can of crushed tomatoes. Actually I used a big bag of frozen garden tomatoes. A handful of herbs from the garden, especially sage and rosemary. Then a LOT of honey, maybe half a cup at least, the whole thing is very acid from the wine and the tomatoes, the honey gets it sweet and sour.... simmer in a dutch oven for a couple of hours covered, then uncover, and a couple of squeezes of ketchup and simmer for a while longer while it thickens.

Lomi

Part of the same dinner as the green chile stew. the whole business was definitely an example of my cooking better when I am in a hurry and don't have time to overdo it. Like the green chile, this probably isn't exactly how they do it in Hawaii, but it was good anyway.

I smoked a 1 1/4 pound salmon filet in with the pork for about 2 hours, took it off, wrapped it in foil and left it. Before putting it in the smoker I coated it with a little vegetable oil and ground plenty of black pepper on it.

I chopped eight ripe to a little overripe garden tomatoes, mixed with the juice of a lime, a handful of chopped cilantro, a third of a red onion, a handful of chopped chive, and three chopped red thai chiles which actually weren't particularly hot, and a little maybe 1/4 cup of vegetable oil. I mixed everything but the salmon and left in the frig for a few hours, then at the last second broke the salmon into little pieces, sprinkled some Kosher salt, and tossed. Way good.

Smoked Pork Green Chile Stew

After a visit to Albuquerque. Not exactly how they do it out there, but good. I started with a home-smoked pork butt, pulled. This one came out particularly well. I'd had it smoking all day, and when I rebuilt the fire before I went to the football game, turned out it was done. So I just wrapped it in foil, turned to air way down and left it there. By the time I came back it was falling apart, soft and smoky. By this time guests were arriving in an hour. I mixed the pulled pork with three cans of Hatch green chile enchilada sauce, cuz I was in a hurry. Home made green chile would definitely have been better, though for company I would have to watch the heat. Then I added two cans of posole, which they call hominy around here. You could also boil your own posole, of course, though I'm not really convinced that it would make much difference in the finished dish. I kept it moist with brown ale and heated it slowly in a dutch oven on the stove for a couple of hours while guests arrived. Really good.

Bill Pollard's Indoor Barbecue

From a picnic scheduled for Tropical Storm Ernesto. this couldn't be easier. Take a pork butt, place in a slow cooker, cover, set on 275, and leave for 12 hours. At this point it will be falling apart. Remove it from the accumulated fat, trim off the big chunks of remaining fat, and pull into pieces with two forks. Make a sauce out of one cup of cider vinegar, one cup of brown sugar, and a half a cup of ketchup, red pepper flakes as you like. Pour over and stir. return to slow-cooker, you can serve it hot from there.

Black Bean Chile

This is a standard of mine. The kids love it, I love it, Carol is sick of it. I make it when I have leftover beef.

Saute a chopped medium oven and a few cloves of garlic in olive oil until soft. Add two regular cans of black beans, a can of Rotel tomatoes with chiles, a couple of T of ketchup. and half a cup of coffee. Season with 1/2 t of cumin, a tiny pinch of cinnamon, a bay leaf, and good chile powder to taste. Add the diced leftover roast beef or steak, maybe 1 1/2 cups. I use a variety of Penzey's brand chile powsers: Northwood Fire, Chipotle, and Cajun. Obviously, it is supposed to be hot.

Bring to a simmer, set fire to low, and let cook until it thickens. If it starts to get too thick, thin it with a little beer. Some beer at the start is a good idea if you have the time to cook it down.

Serve over steamed rice.

Scalloped Potatoes

A problem with a slow oven roast beef recipe is that it makes it hard to get anything else in the oven. If you don't have a double oven, how can you cook anything else? I tried the following.

Eight medium potatoes, sliced thin in a mandoline. Butter a 9 x 12 baking pan, and lay down a layer of potatoes. Salt and pepper, and sprinkle in a thin layer of shredded swiss or gruyere cheese, then another layer of potatoes, etc, going on to three layers of potatoes, ending with cheese on top. Heat two cups of cream and half a stick of butter for four minutes in the nuke, and pour over the potatoes.

Next, it ought to say, place in a 350 oven and bake for an hour, but when can we do that? I put it in the oven with the beef for the 45 minute last cooking period, but it wasn't close when the beef came out, so I cranked the oven to 425 and waited.... truth it it wasn't really done when it was dinner time. Good, but not quite done. Next time, maybe I'll try precooking them with the beef, and then finishing them in the 300 oven later, though that's a lot of cream to be sitting around warm all aftenoon. Maybe I'll just get that double oven.

Roast Beef II

Well, after the debacle at Christmas, I have been eager to try one of the slow oven roast beef recipes. I bought a small, 2 rib, 4 pound prime roast at Sam's Club, which for some reason has pretty good beef. Their hamburgers (the premade patties in the meat section, the frozen ones in the case are awful) are the some of the best hamburgers I have ever bought.

Borrowing from a couple of recipes, I did the following. Brought the meat up to room temperature all morning, seasoned it with some spice rub, put in a rack in a roaster in a preheated 350 oven for one hour, and turned the oven off. Left it there most of the afternoon. Before dinner, I turned the oven up to 300 and let it cook for 45 minutes, took it out and let it rest for another 30, while I tried to get the potatoes to cook, which turned out to be a problem (see next post).

And.... It worked, pretty much. The meat was rare, perhaps a little better done than we would have liked, but that just makes me realize a lot of us like our beef VERY rare rather than just rare. If I did it again I might cut that last phase down to 40 minutes... even 35. I wonder if it really works for ANY size piece of beef? Potatoes next post.

Honeyed Apples and Mustard Greens

Peel core and slice eight apples. I decided to do this because the apples weren't very good, actually. They were a little too mushy to eat fresh (I'm fussy about apples), but it seemed fine to use them for cooking. I sauteed them in butter until they started to soften, then added 2 cups of finely chopped fresh mustard greens. I added a little water and covered until the greens wilted, then stirred them in and added a quarter cup of honey and 2T of soy sauce. It gave off a little water aqt this point, and so I simmered it slowly for 20 minutes or so to cook it down. Right before serving I thickened it with a T of cornstarch in half a cup of water.

Roast Pork Dinner

The grocery had a good sale on pork loin rib roasts, I got a five rib roast, which wasn't very large. Rubbed it with a commercial meat rub, let it sit for an hour, then roasted it on a rack at 375 until it reached about 160 internally, about 1 and a half hours. Carved it between the ribs...

Served it with baked dish, and

Honeyed Apples and Mustard Greens

Pot Roast Sauce for Pasta

A little different from the usual. I got a 4 pound rolled pot roast, not the blade kind, I forget the exact cut. I cooked it for seven hours in a crock pot in a cup of red wine, a large can of crushed tomatoes (they were very thick, which helped), a quatered yellow onion, a couple of garlic cloves, a little red pepper flake, dried basil and oregano. At the end of the cooking time the meat was falling apart, I shredded it with two forks and returned it to the sauce, which had stayed thick. If it thinned out you'd want to cook it down a little first. The final consistency was a thick meat sauce, perfect over pasta, much hartier that the typical ground beef kind. Good grated Parmesan, of course.