Monthly Archives: September 2009

More food experimentation

Sometimes on weekends I do find the time (or we make the time) to do some serious cooking. The same weekend I made the lasagna, I also made an excellent pork tenderloin dish. The reason is that we picked a basketful of pears the previous week from Sam’s tree and needed to start using them up. I have a pork dish I’ve often made using apples and cranberries. Usually during the festive season. But we wondered if the mellow sweetness of the pears would be a good, if not better, substitution for the apple/cran combo. Well, wonder no further for it is true. Here’s the general recipe:

1 good size pork tenderloin (or 2 smaller ones): about 4-5 lbs
chicken broth (1L)
white wine to taste (not too sweet)
stove top stuffing
pears
brown sugar
fresh rosemary
salt, pepper, poultry seasoning

Preparation: slice and fold open the tenderloin so that it is one ‘flat’ piece. You want it to be fairly even and flat…so take a meat tenderizer too it to make it so. At the same time, prepare the stove top stuffing. I would normally say you should make your own stuffing, and you can go ahead and do so, but I’ve done this many times before and it’s not worth the effort in my mind for the minimal (if any) added value.
Once the stuffing is ready, spoon it down the middle of the flattened out loin. You’re going to roll the meat around it so that the stuffing ends up in the middle. So don’t overspoon or it’ll get messy. Once you’ve done this and rolled up the loin, string it up with butcher string and store in the fridge

Prepare the broth. While it is being prepared, peel and cut about 10 or so pears. Place them in a bowl and coat with brown sugar. You want enough so that the roast plus the pears basically fill up the roasting pan. Not enough to completely cover the roast. Just enough to fill in the gaps around the roast.

Set the oven to 350
Take a roasting pan and set the pork into the center. Add the broth. Add the wine. I use about 1/3 to 1/2 a bottle. There should be a enough liquid to cover about 1/2 the roast. Add the pears around the roast.

Sprinkle poultry, salt and pepper to coat the top of the roast. add 4-5 sprigs of rosemary around the roast. I say around and not on top so that the rosemary will stay moist and work its way into the sauce. If you set on top of the roast it may/will dry up and not provide enough value to the subsequent sauce.

Cover and place in oven for 1-1 1/2hrs until pork is cooked and tender. Take the lid off with about 1/2 to go to brown the top. Once done, set roast on cutting board. Cut off string and slice the roast into 1 inch pieces.

Take a hand blender and blend the pear mixture that remains in the pan until smooth. If the sauce is too liquidy, add starch and boil. Pour into a gravy train and serve with the pork.

I like to make this dish with roasted new potatoes and fresh beans from the garden (or flash frozen from the garden).

Make your tomato sauce with roasted love

I haven’t been posting on this site lately. Been more active on OGD’s and Christien’s site now that they are both in full gear….they live far more interesting lives than me. Plus, keeping up with them leaves me no time (nor the want of it) for taking notes and observations of the world. I will do a 20 Words in the next week to wrap up the summer. Of importance to know is that my golf game has mysteriously deteriorated over the last month. But on the plus side….I’m leading my baseball pool.

Anyway, this year’s garden harvest has been of mixed result. The zucchini dominated the garden and yielded an army’s worth. The beans, after replanting them due to rabbit infestation, also did well. The onions and leeks are monstrous. The peppers….average. Still hoping to get more scotch bonnets than I see out there today. The tomatoes, the prize of the garden, have fared poorly. I think due to a mixture of my failing to rotate them to the other side of the garden, not enough nutrient replenishment this spring, and having the potatoes and zucchini nearby. Stole all the nutrients that were there.

However, I did get ‘some’ tomatoes. And there’s still plenty more…just not enough to can, which is always my goal. Enough to get through to the next year. The farmer’s market can take care of that though. Won’t be the same, but I’ll get over it.

The tomatoes I have picked so far have been used to make sauces. And the new trick I’ve discovered is that roasting them before adding to the sauce results in an amazing complexity to any tomato based sauce. Combine that with roasted red peppers and you’ve got something god-like. Two experiments so far: black bean soup and lasagna.

Black bean soup (this is a rough recipe as I’ve never gotten to working out exact measurements):
– Chicken broth (about 1 L)
– 16 oz Black beans
– 2-3 roasted red peppers
– 8-10 roasted tomatoes
– cumin, coriander, salt, pepper
– lime juice

To roast the peppers and tomatoes I toss them in olive oil and a little salt. Throw them onto a hot bbq. For added love, the bbq could already be smoking with mesquite or hickory.
After the skins are crispy and falling off, take them off and put in a bowl or bags that are sealable. Place in fridge as long as possible. Preferrably until they’ve cooled. Take them out and pull off the skins.

Combine the broth, beans tomatoes, peppers and spices into a soup pot. Bring to a boil. Simmer for as long as you want (me: 1 1/2 to 2hrs). The longer you simmer the thicker the texture and deeper the flavour. When ready, take a hand blender to the soup to give it an even texture. Then add salt and lime juice to taste. I dollop sour cream when serving.

For the tomato sauce for pasta dishes, I roast the peppers and tomatoes as mentioned above. Add to pot. If you happen to have some open red wine around, add to taste. Use fresh basil, like a handful of it. And some (not a lot) of oregano. Salt and pepper. Then, to thicken, I add steamed zucchini and brocolli. Serves 3 purposes: thickener, sweetener and a kick of vitamins.

Make your lasagna with this base. Add ground beef to the sauce if that’s your thing.