Month 7 day 18: Pozole

Today I made:
Superfast Chicken Posole, Cooking Light August 2010

Wellll my parents would be quite surprised at this one. When I was growing up they made pork posole for most of their/their friends' birthday parties, and I *hated* it. I usually ended up making myself some nice nachos with all of the add-ins that were set up as a serve-yourself-bar, but not until I had made it quite clear how unsatisfied I was. I think I disapproved of the hominy, but also most of all the pork, which I thought was too gristley. ACTually, I might point out here that this is the *second* time I have cooked posole for myself. The other time was 3 years ago, and it was Chile-Chicken Posole (Food Network Magazine, January/February 2010), which contains 3 6-oz cans of green chiles and a jalapeño for 4 servings. It was so spicy that I could barely eat it. The only way I could was by throwing in a ton of yogurt to cool it down, and even then it was kind of painful, but I made my way through it anyway (strangely, the comments do not indicate that it is spicy-- one even says it's not spicy enough. Are there different kinds of canned chiles?) I think I will just paste this recipe over that one in my recipe book. I'm not sure why I saved that recipe, but I guess I figured as long as I didn't put so many chiles in it it would be better next time.
This one is fast, because it starts with rotisserie chicken breast and some other canned things. The only thing I couldn't find was canned tomatillos. I had some extra pico de gallo, so I threw in a bit of that instead. The rotisserie chicken I had left over in the freezer from earlier this week was more than 2 cups, but it was frozen together as a block so I just put it all in... whomp. Makes for a very filling soup.

Tomorrow is "Open Doors Night," a dorm tradition where ~20 people volunteer to host mini parties in their rooms and anyone can come by. So I made some ganache to roll into truffles tomorrow. I made a batch of orange and a batch of Earl+Lady Grey. I hope they come out well! Other than that I will just go low-key and do a cheese spread like we did in the spring. Classy.

That's it for August! This month's best recipes (it's too hard to pick one, so here is a 3-course meal):

• Eggplant Crostini
• Pulled Chicken Sliders
• Citrus Shortcake

Month 7 day 17: Tortas and tomato soup

Today I made:

Seared Pork Tortas, Cooking Light August 2010
Tomato Soup with Roasted Chickpeas, Cooking Light August 2011

These tortas are super-easy, since only the pork gets cooked (and if you cut it 1/4 inch thick as recommended, it can cook quickly). The canned beans and salsa just get mashed together.  Everything else is fresh, so I think this would be a good recipe for the hot summer when you don't want to heat up your house. I got impatient trying to mash the pinto beans with a fork, so I just threw it into the blender after mixing up the soup.

This soup is not a great dish for hot summers if you pay for air conditioning, but I don't so no worries! I love a tomato soup recipe I have already from my aunt. It also has parsley and gets its creaminess from cream cheese! So while I was eating this soup I was kind of comparing it to that one. This one lost. It has some weird aftertaste... I'm not sure what it was from. I think the topping was sort of strange, as it didn't really cook together in any sort of meaningful way (chickpeas weren't crispy or anything like that), so I kind of didn't understand what it was supposed to be like. It probably didn't help that the store didn't have "country ham." I'm not entirely sure what that is, but anyway I used a honey-baked ham steak because it was either that, spam, or deli meat :-P I also used pumpkin seeds instead of almonds, because I realized too late that my big bag of almonds is at work for snacks. Oh, and I dropped like a third of the topping on the ground when I was having difficulty closing the tupperware. (>_<)

I will definitely keep the tortas recipe, and I will see how the soup tastes tomorrow to make a final judgement on it.

Month 7 day 16: Leftovers reworked

Today I made:
Chicken and Glass Noodle Salad, Cooking Light August 2010

(no picture of my own, so enjoy the official picture instead)

Yesterday when I was filing away the extra August recipes I noticed this one, with ingredients uncannily similar to yesterday's meal: cellophane noodles, rotisserie chicken, carrot, bell pepper, cilantro, and mint. Since I had extras of all of this already (ok, with some lettuce and mung beans too), I decided to add some onion, peanuts, and the dressing from this recipe and liven up the leftovers as a new salad.

Yeah, it's kind of similar to yesterday's food, but it's got vinegar and more lime juice, so it gets a little flavor boost from that. This would be a good recipe for a hot summer day when you don't want to turn on the stove. G doesn't like these noodles though I think :(

Month 7 day 15: Asian-inspired sandwiches and spring rolls

Today I wanted to make Saveur's Jiyou Jun Bao Ji. But Shaw's didn't have four of the ingredients, so I realized that was a no go (ok, so they did have dried chanterelle mushrooms, but 1 lb fresh ~ 3 oz dried which would have cost over $20. So, no).

Instead, today I made:
Asian-style veggie rolls, Cooking Light August 2010
Peanut-sauced chicken pitas, Cooking Light August 2011

These two recipes go well together, because they both contain a lot of the same fresh vegetables. So it takes a while to wash and cut everything, but once you do it's just mixing-and-matching, and no cooking.

When I was in Japan, a few of my friends and I made the "Shimizu Cooking Club." If I recall correctly, it was because our friend Mark was hopeless in the kitchen, and we wanted to help him learn a thing or two. Basically, we each took turns planning a 3-course menu, and then we'd gather at someone's house and make it and eat it together. It was a lot of fun. One of the members can make some great, authentic Vietnamese food, so among other things she taught us how to make spring rolls, with either shrimp or boiled pork in them. Spring rolls are great, but they're always so expensive to buy, so I thought I would make them again.

But Linna would be so disappointed in these...

I think I got a little too greedy with the amount of stuffing. The wrappers ripped and the ends couldn't even fold in to contain everything!

Halfway through, these rolls decided they would become a salad instead.

 Fine, have it your way. Tomorrow I guess I will have the leftovers as a salad too, since I don't think a premade one would hold up overnight and it might be a little obnoxious to be rolling spring rolls in the lunch room :-P

These were fine, but I do think spring rolls are better with some shrimp or pork in them! Or I needed to be a little more heavy-handed with the dipping sauce. As it was, there wasn't a whole lot of flavor, just the mint and cilantro basically. But still, they are very fresh and have good crunch.

These pitas were easy to make, as they started with precooked rotisserie chicken and are flavored by jarred peanut satay sauce. Other than that, they essentially have the same cut vegetables as the spring rolls.
This was good, but the peanut satay sauce jar costs like $4 and apparently is only good for 3 days after opening! I guess I will try to freeze it or something.

Month 7 day 14: Pesto, tomato, and pine nuts... as a dessert?!

Today I made some haute cuisine:
Pesto Panna Cotta, Saveur August/September 2012
(with candied pine nuts and tomato sorbet)

This is sort of an Italian pasta sauce deconstructed and reworked into a dessert. It's more of a basil panna cotta than a pesto one, because the pine nuts are candied on the side instead of blended in with the basil, and there isn't garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese, or any of the other things you normally put in a pesto. In fact, it tastes basically identical to the basil ice cream from the mango-basil vacherin I made in April.

Which made me realize-- I really wish this panna cotta was next to some mango sorbet instead of tomato sorbet. Although the sorbet starts with fresh summer tomatoes, they get simmered (with a bit of sugar), so the sorbet really just tastes like a sweetened, cold can of stewed tomatoes. Not that great. Then again, I don't like V8 juice either.

The pine nuts were fine, but nothing that I would get a craving for.

My blender didn't do a good job at liquefying the basil. Perhaps an immersion blender would have worked better. In both this and the vacherin's basil ice cream, I felt like the basil didn't taste as fresh after being blanched. I wonder what would happen if it was only partially blanched and then the rest was put in the blender fresh.

I'm glad I made this, but I won't save the recipe. It's an interesting concept but isn't that pleasing of a flavor combination. Actually, this is why I don't like to go to expensive, high-class restaurants. They do serve things like this. Once we went to a place during Restaurant Week that had a cigar-and-whiskey flavored ice cream pairing. The last time we went to Craigie on Main we were served popcorn ice cream. These things all seem best suited for a House Cup competition at our dorm, where dishes are judged equally for creativity as they are for palatableness... which allows for some bizarre submissions. I just want food to taste good.

Month 7 day 13: Grilled, brined pork with summer fruit

Today I made:
Maple-Brined Pork, Cooking Light August 2011

This is a quick recipe, and it's in Cooking Light's budget cooking section too ($2.50/serving, it says. I'm not sure if that is what it came out to for me but probably not too far off). The only tricky part is thinking ahead to brine it. I sometimes get frustrated with recipes that require long preps in the morning (slow-cooker recipes are notorious for this). I have enough trouble getting out the door at a reasonable hour as it is! To get around this, I made the brine last night and put it in the refrigerator to cool down. That way, all I needed to do was to quickly add the pork in the morning. 

In the evening then, it's simply grilling the pork 3 minutes per side and grilling the fruit for 3 minutes. I left the pork in the grill pan at the end while the fruit took the center stage to make sure it was cooked all the way through, and partially covered the pan so that the fruit would cook through better (after 3 minutes, it was still pretty hard. Shaw's doesn't have the ripest fruit to begin with).

I didn't really need to eat dinner after eating too much sushi at Invertebrate Social Hour, but I made this anyway so that I would have lunch for tomorrow. And of course I just had to try a little bit to see how it was:

It was very good! The pork was juicy despite me giving it an extra few minutes on the grill pan. The fruit got juicy despite starting out hard as a rock. The maple syrup flavor is too subtle, but I dunno, maybe it's there in the background. The pork is salty though from all of that brining. I've no idea why it calls for more salt on the fruit and pork. It doesn't need anything more. I feel like this would be good over some orzo. I will eat it with the leftover baguette from the sandwiches I've been having.

Month 7 day 12: Pork kebabs and lavender potatoes

Today I made:
Spiedies, Saveur August/September 2011
Roasted Potatoes with Lavender, Saveur August/September 2011

These were both good recipes. Both were easy and pretty hands-off too, but don't count as quick because the spiedies needed to marinate for a long time and the potatoes roasted for a while.
The spiedies recipe calls for 1.5 lbs of pork loin, 3/4 c olive oil and two 10" hoagie rolls. It suggests that this recipe serves 2-4. How could two people eat so much?? Gross.
Sometimes lavender-flavored food items seem weird to me, because I associate lavender with the smell of soaps or lotions that shouldn't be eaten. I got some lavender tea once, for example, and did not enjoy it as much as I liked the sound of it. These were good though, because the lavender wasn't overpowering. I think it just scented the butter a little bit, and most potatoes didn't actually have huge clumps of lavender on them. And even if they did, it was a little crispy at that point, so it wasn't overpowering.
The sandwiches were nice and flavorful. I used tenderloin (they were out of pork loin because it had been on sale for very cheap... dang!), so it was nice and soft. Toasted baguettes cut the inside of my mouth though :( Is that normal?! Anyway, I think this meat would taste great served on rice, cous-cous, salad, or however else too.
I also had some more of the ice cream from yesterday, now that it has set up in the freezer for a day. Now it's like real ice cream :) but still soft!

Month 7 day 11: Quiche and chocolate ice cream

Today I made:
Spinach, Green Onion, and Smoked Gouda Mozzarella Quiche, Cooking Light August 2010
The Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World, Saveur August/September 2011

I feel like I've made quiche a lot lately.

I got home pretty late today, but I realized that this week's recipes basically all call for 3 hour - overnight marinating or brining, giving the quiche the unusual title of fastest possible meal. Note that I skipped some steps in making the quiche-- the first 1 hour in the fridge got abridged to ~20 min in the freezer while I bought more cheese (I thought I bought cheese yesterday, but I couldn't find it anywhere, and sure enough it wasn't on the receipt either. I have no idea what happened. Also, our store has only one type of smoked cheese, and I thought "smoked" was more important than "gouda." Especially since it took forever to even find the gouda). Then, the second 15 minutes in the freezer after putting the crust in the dish was basically just however long it took the oven to preheat. And I didn't cool the crust before putting in the filling. In the end it still took about 2 hours start to finish though.

The crust was unusual for a quiche... I'm used to the simple flour, butter, and ice water (keeping everything as untouched and cold as possible), but this one started with softened butter, milk, an egg yolk, and then the flour got mixed into that. No wonder it needed to cool off for an hour. The short time in the freezer wasn't a good substitute as it turns out, because when I went to roll it out it stuck awfully to the rolling pin and just cracked everywhere. I ended up just pushing it into the dish with my hands. The crust was fine, but I think it's best to just go with whatever crust is easiest, since the flavor is dominated by the filling. The filling in this was so simple, but tasted really good. Maybe from the green onions? Anyway, this was a nice quiche, and unlike last time it didn't overflow, so that was good.

This was not very dark. Or very frozen when it came out... it's pretty nontraditional, with no eggs. Instead, it has cornstarch, corn syrup, and cream cheese. Basically after making the mix last night and letting it cool all day, it seemed like I had just spent a lot of time/dirtied a lot of dishes to make a loose homemade pudding. It didn't firm up so great in the ice cream maker, and instead was like a homemade frosty. Sometimes that happens with the non-custard bases. I'll see what the texture is really like tomorrow.
For some reason the mix didn't get homogenized well. There were some different dots in it, maybe from the cornstarch and also from the chocolate. This ice cream is nowhere near as dark as pictured on the Saveur website, so I wonder if maybe it would be better with a different brand of cocoa powder or something. I thought this would be great with some orange flavoring. I'm kind of curious to try the ice cream base alone or with just a few berries or something, too, because I was curious about the cream cheese etc. but it was all masked in this.

Month 7 day 10: Cornbread

Today I made:
Jalapeño Cornbread, Saveur May 2009

I started going to church this summer, and basically ever since the beginning of summer they've been talking about a new tradition-- the first annual chili cook-off. And since I'm shy, basically I spend the last 10-15 minutes of each service having an internal debate about whether I should go to the "social hour" after the service or just dash away. Usually the dashing away side wins out (my tradition is to get an iced Earl Grey at Dado Tea on my way home), although a couple of times someone has said hi and then I've gone into the social room. I decided that I definitely should go to the chili cook-off, and I knew that if I made something to bring it would be good insurance to make sure that I actually ended up going. I would've loved to make a chili (maybe this one!), but I walk ~1 mile to the church so I knew that wouldn't work out. I decided that cornbread would be a good side to bring. Apparently, so did most other people. There were only two chilis (the organizer's plus one), but there were about five different cornbreads. Three people brought some fruit and another brought cole slaw. That's it! I know in the bulletin it said that you could come even if you didn't bring something, but I was kind of shocked that so few people participated. So the judges realized that they should judge the cornbreads (and the fruits O_o) in addition to the chili. Although lacking in number, the chilis were both really good. I only ate the meat one which I thought was amazing, but it lost, so I guess the other was even more amazing. Then, I think they didn't want to hurt feelings (or maybe just didn't want to eat so much bread) so they gave one first place to someone and then third place ribbons to everyone else who brought anything, even the cut up fruit, ha.

This cornbread actually wasn't spectacular. It was fine, but nothing out of the ordinary. I made it muffin-sized and put green chiles in half. I would have liked to put some cheddar in it but I was out. Although there were many variety of cornbreads at the potluck, there were only two muffins left (out of the 24 that I brought). I gave them to a homeless person on my way home. He seemed excited, even though I told him that it wasn't the winner ;)

In the evening I prepped some chocolate ice cream that I will make tomorrow.

Month 7 day 9: Pulled Chicken Sandwiches

Today I made:
Barbecue Chicken Sliders with Pickled Onions, Cooking Light August 2010
Broccoli Slaw, Cooking Light August 2010

This was a great meal! And super easy too. It is also part of the weekend getaway menu I referred to in the last post. Unlike the brisket sandwiches I made last week, which cooked all day, these chicken thighs just cooked in the grill pan for a few minutes (boneless thighs are quite thin) before getting shredded and mixed with the 5-minute sauce. The honey in the sauce made it nice and sweet, and even though I wasn't hungry going into the meal (after we baking bread in lab), I ended up eating two sandwiches just because it was so tasty. This is totally one of those meals that you could make for someone and they would think that you worked hard for it. I made mine normal bun-sized, but as sliders they would be great for a party dish. Also awesome? Excluding the condiments I had on hand, this dinner cost $9 to make (for 4-6 servings).

The slaw was kind of meh... I like the idea of using yogurt instead of mayonnaise to make a healthier cole slaw, but there just wasn't enough dressing (especially since the slaw bag I used was 16 oz instead of 12 oz). The store was out of broccoli slaw, so I just used the normal cabbage kind. The slaw was fine, but nothing special, and there have been a few other slaws that I've already saved, so I won't keep this one.

Month 7 day 8: Fish and Orange Shortcake

Today I made:
Mahimahi with Bacon-Tomato Butter, Cooking Light August 2010
served with salad
Citrus Shortcake, Cooking Light August 2010
served with vanilla ice cream

These recipes were both rated 5 stars online, so I knew this would be a nice dinner! And it was.

Bacon-Tomato Butter is much like it sounds. You cook up a cut up slice of bacon, then add a bit of garlic and paprika to the grease before adding chopped tomatoes. Then, after it's simmered a few minutes, you add in some butter. The butter flavor is definitely present, in a good way. It's a very easy and fast sauce, and it tastes good. But, I thought that it might be better to have that sauce on some bruschetta on the side and eat the fish plain or with a lighter sauce, because it was so heavy in flavor that it overpowered the fish. Mahimahi is pricey, so if I'm having it I would like to just savor its own flavor. I actually bought one filet each of mahimahi and tuna. I always mistakenly thought that mahimahi was a kind of tuna (I think I was confusing it with ahi), so I was kind of curious to have them side by side and compare the flavors (also mahimahi is more expensive than tuna). The mahimahi had a really distinct lemon flavor, even though I didn't use any lemon tonight. The tuna did have a sort of tangy flavor but wasn't distinct. At one point I thought I tasted something like olives, but it was only in one bite, so... not sure O_o Anyway, the mahimahi is much better than tuna, so maybe it is worth paying extra for a treat. I wasn't sure about the quality of this tuna (can all tuna be served rare?) so I cooked it all the way though, and it was a little bit tough. The mahimahi had a better texture and was also quicker to cook.

While the fish was marinating in sugar-salt water (why??), I whipped up this shortcake. Its main flavor comes from the orange juice/zest, and its main texture comes from 2 Tbs. of corn meal. It kind of ends up looking like corn bread, but the orange flavor is great. Again, I used the powdered buttermilk, which seemed to work out fine, although it did feel really weird to just pour 2/3 c plain water into the batter (you add the powder directly to the dry ingredients instead of reconstituting it). The batter is really liquidy, and even just a few minutes before it was supposed to be finished baking it was really unset. A few minutes later though it was transformed and a toothpick came out clean. Once i cut it open, it looked like it could have used a bit of extra time baking though. Everything was solid, but the inside was a little gummy rather than crumbly (can you see that layer in the picture?). It also had this really interesting pattern of columns of air, so if you cut horizontally across you can see tons of holes, but if you cut vertically you can see all these tubes. I am not sure why it's like that, but it's kind of cool.

This cake is from a feature in Cooking Light about packing for a weekend cabin getaway. It's a cute idea-- there are a couple make-ahead things like this cake and a spice rub, one cooler and one bag's worth of groceries, and then you have everything you need to make a full two days of delicious and easy meals, even without a fully-stocked kitchen. I'm planning to make the BBQ chicken sliders on Friday.

Month 7 day 7: Chickpeas and Crostini

Today is brought to you by the letter "C":
Eggplant Crostini, Cooking Light August 2010
Cumin-Spiced Chickpeas and Carrots on Cous Cous, Cooking Light August 2011

 These crostini were *really good*. I wanted to just keep eating them. It's a recipe from a restaurant in Chicago or something like that. It's kind of similar to baba ganoush, but is easier to make because the eggplant is just (somewhat quickly) grilled instead of being charred, baked, and peeled. The only problem is that the salad doesn't want to stay on top, so it's a little messy unless your baguette slices are wide. But this is a great appetizer and could turn into a great sandwich too.

The chickpeas are fine, but they're not that special. I feel like some sort of sauteed or steamed chickpea with carrots and bell pepper shows up a lot in Cooking Light's "Enlightened Cooking" section (where the vegetarian recipes are). The lemon here is a nice touch. I probably would have enjoyed this more if I wasn't already full from eating the crostini. I will still save this recipe, because I think G will like it more than other chickpea dishes served over quinoa :-P

Month 7 day 6: Muffins

I had leftover succotash today, so I just made some muffins to have for breakfasts/snacks this week

Today I made:
Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins, Cooking Light August 2010

I don't get too many chances to use this little heart cake mold, so I did some normal muffins and some hearts ♡

These muffins are good. They have lemon zest in the batter, so there is just a hint of lemon flavor that I think is a really nice touch. They also have a little more sugar than I think they should be allowed to add and still call it healthy (actually, one of the reviewers makes a big deal out of having no "white sugar." But is brown sugar really better? O_o ). I look forward to having these for breakfasts this week.

An interesting tip in this recipe is to shake the frozen blueberries with a little flour. This is supposed to prevent the batter from turning blue, and sure enough the batter stayed pretty tan. I feel like it's nbd to have blue muffins, but if you do care, there you go.

This was my first time using powdered buttermilk. Since I never use up a full quart, and I always think that I will freeze the rest but then don't get around to it, I figured it would be good to try this out. It's about $2 for 4-1 cup envelopes, so it's about the same price as liquid buttermilk. The flavor wasn't that strong in these, so I can't tell if it's a good replacement or not, but seems like a good solution for me.

Month 7 day 5: Succotash

Today I made:
Edamame Succotash, Cooking Light August 2010

Some measurements weren't quite right (used the rest of a previously opened edamame bag, one of the three tomatoes was moldy, totally missed sugar in the ingredient list...), but I think I got the gist of it. This is a very easy dish and doesn't take too long (maybe 20 minutes), but it has good flavors in it. I think the bacon is important for the flavor, but at the same time I think it's a shame that this dish isn't vegetarian when it's so close to it (I brought it to a potluck).

Not too much else to say. It's a perfect summer recipe! I'll be keeping it.

Month 7 day 4: Brisket

Today I made:
Barbecue Brisket Sliders, Every Day with Rachel Ray July/August 2012

I like the idea of a slow cooker, except that most recipes only call for 6 hours or something like that, which is not long enough for anyone's work day. Luckily, after pulling a few late nights in lab, I scheduled myself a light recovery day today, so it was long enough for mine :) I had actually planned to do this yesterday, but then realized that there was no way I would be able to leave 6 hours into the day.
This smelled sooo good when it was cooking. But when I tasted it.... eh. I was expecting something like pulled pork, but it was beef, and it just tasted like pot roast. We used to have that every so often growing up and I never really liked it much. Shockingly, preparing beef in almost the same way today gave a similar flavor. I guess I should've expected it. Especially since the store didn't stock brisket, so I used a cut that was even called a roast. I wonder if brisket would have tasted differently.

Anyway, I went to a friend's housewarming party, so I brought the brisket there and made the sandwiches that I cut into fourths, since I didn't have slider buns. Oh, and I left out the chipotle mayonnaise. Other people seemed to like them, and all but one or two fourths got eaten (out of 24 to start). It tasted better when it was inside of the bun with the cheese and pickles, but still, I think I'll stick to pulled pork from now on.

Month 7 day 3: Pizza fritatta

Today I made:
Pizza Fritatta, Every Day with Rachael Ray July/August 2012

Hundredth post!!!

This was an interesting meal. Basically, this is a pizza but instead of a crust it has scrambled egg. I think this is probably great for the Atkin's diet or low-carb diet. It's like, how do we make a pizza even more fattening? Let's just replace the bread with eggs, cheese, and half-and-half! Except for me, it was cream, because that's what I had. So, yeah... this is not a Cooking Light recipe for sure. :-/ Last night's dinner was also low-carb. I made up for it by eating a lot of doughnuts today though, so don't worry-- I'm getting my full daily dose of sugars. I sort of wasn't sure about making a fritatta with a dozen eggs, because I know that I will eat this whole thing over the next few days, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. But, I thought that halving the recipe might allow it to burn, since I only have one size of oven-safe skillet. So full on it was!

I think I'll save this recipe, especially for when I'm not eating it all by myself! It was very tasty. The sauce was a bit overly winey, but that was the only problem, and that's probably just because I dislike wine more than the average person and therefore instead of having an open bottle of quality wine around, I just have some crappy cooking wine. I used soppressata, which I've never used before. It wasn't spicy though, so this might not have turned out as it was meant to, so I probably should've tossed in a bit of red pepper flakes. I think it's cool that this recipe actually suggests what could be used for vegetarians to get a similar flavor. AND they suggest the Fresno pepper, so of course I support that :D


I'm glad that I decided six months ago to embark on this cooking challenge of mine. At the end of the day, even if experiments don't work or whatever, I know I'll go home and create something that (usually!) will work out. We've had such great leftovers for lunch every day! The magazine shelf is getting to the point that I need a bookend, and that's a good feeling, to use the things I have. My recipe book is getting full and running out of space for main courses. I feel like I can write some random dinner selector script and have a variety of delicious dinners to eat for the rest of my life. And I'm only about halfway through! So, there will be another 100ish dinners, brunches, or desserts to experience. Cheers to that!

Month 7 day 2: Breakfast sandwich and pork

Today I made:
a Ham and Swiss Provolone Egg Sandwich, Cooking Light August 2011
Grilled Pork Chops with Swiss Chard Salad, Every Day with Rachael Ray July/August 2012

I had some extra ham, cheese, and bread left over from the Nuevo Cubano, so I decided to make this breakfast sandwich. Of course, it's provolone instead of Swiss and a loaf instead of an English muffin, but it's the same idea. I wished that instead of putting the bread with cheese on it under the broiler, I had toasted the bread by itself a bit first. Also, something I realized is that for Cooking Light recipes, you should always err on the side of using too much oil, never too little. So if it says that you should re-oil the pan in between the ham and the eggs, you really should or else your egg will stick a lot :-/

I don't normally eat a leisurely breakfast at home with tea, but it was really nice :) Maybe I should do it more often! But it did end up pushing my work time back about an hour, because while I was eating I picked up The Atlantic and started reading a bit, and once I was finished eating I was still busy reading. Oh well, I stayed late.

So it was a good thing that dinner was a fast one:

The longest part of preparing this meal was looking for hazelnuts. They used to be available in the baking section, but lately Shaw's has been revamping itself. It seems like they are expanding their organic selections but at the expense of the normal items. So you can no longer get small packets of chopped hazelnuts for baking, but you can get fairly large (1-2 cup) containers of raw hazelnuts in the "all-natural" snack section. Of course it costs much more this way and is not where you would typically look for hazelnuts, which I don't think are typically eaten as a snack food :-/
Anyway, this is just some pork rubbed with some vinaigrette, then a raw kale + chopped hazelnut salad tossed with the remaining vinaigrette. The vinaigrette flavor isn't very strong in either part, which is too bad, but this dinner was good anyway. I have been wanting to eat some pork since reading Julie Powell's (of Julie and Julia fame) second memoir, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession. The descriptions of her butcher apprenticeship are really interesting and made me want to learn a little more about the different cuts of meat, but basically she's an awful person. Her husband, who she describes as a "saint"so many times in the first book for supporting her when she's a hysterical mess in the kitchen, gets cheated on, and then even once her lover breaks it off with her, she spends the rest of the book avoiding her husband and stalking (seriously) the ex-lover, all the while refusing to hear any suggestions of going to couple's therapy or considering divorce. At the end of the book I guess they figured something out...???? in that the husband sort of embraces uncertainty??? but it seems like not an ideal scenario. I checked this book out of the library so that I would not contribute to her making money off of a story about treating her husband awfully. Anyway, it was interesting though and did make me want to eat pork, so I was glad to have this recipe in the lineup for tonight. I didn't actually use chops, because I had some cut (I don't remember what) in the freezer from a couple weeks ago when I bought two types of pork not having looked at the required amounts, only to realize that I did not need the second portion at all. It was pretty thick though, so it took a while to cook it well-done, and then was a bit chewy. I think it's probably time to invest in a good meat thermometer. I bought one once, but it's so awful that if you just hold it in your hand it displays that it's 170°F, good enough for poultry. So... no.
This recipe is from Rachael Ray's "Dinners for a Deal" section of <$3 per serving meals. I don't know how much stuff cost exactly, but I'm guessing it wasn't quite there given that the hazelnut box was $7. I guess if you prorate it you might be ok.

Month 7 day 1: Nuevo Cubano

I am half-way through the year of magazines! I'm also over the hump of G's internship, so after this month he'll be here to help me eat my way through more recipes. Last month, between vacations and medical tests, was kind of pathetic. I guess I only cooked 8 days.  :-P

This month I have four issues:

• Cooking Light, August 2010
• Cooking Light, August 2011
• Saveur, Aug/Sept 2011
• Every Day with Rachael Ray, July/August 2012

Lately I haven't been that hungry, and also not had that much energy to cook something complicated. But for some reason, all of these issues are full of sandwich ideas, so that's what I went with tonight. 

Tonight I made:

Nuevo Cubano, Cooking Light August 2010

It's supposed to be an update on a Cuban sandwich, but I think ham and bread are the only common ingredients. This one has a black-bean spread (with cilantro, lime, garlic, and chili powder that gives it a nice smokey taste), ham, mango, and provolone. I toasted it in our George Foreman grill instead of cooking it on the stove, but maybe adding the extra olive oil would have been tasty.

This sandwich tasted like something you might find at a cafe. It was pretty good, though not anything amazing. I think the black-bean spread would be a nice dip. I made the full portion (even though I will not be eating four of these sandwiches) and look forward to trying it on pita chips or carrots.