My Brudda's Wife: Virtual Birthday Dinner

My Brudda, the Pork Master, is married. His wife, the Pork Mistress, is celebrating her birthday today. They live several states away. The Pork Master appears to be under the weather. He's sutained an injury, perhaps from basting pork.

I've been mulling over all day what I'd make for The Pork Mistress for her birthday, were she in town or were I nearer to her. Here's what I think I'd do:

While I'm throwing together dinner:
Marcona almonds and a gimlet

For dinner:
Vietnamese skirt steak with Vietnamese Chimichurri from the NYTimes food blog
A simple cucumber salad with paper thin slices of cucumber marinated in a little rice wine vinegar and splash of a vegetable oil, just a few lovely grains of cayenne
Simple coconut rice with a bit of finely diced candied ginger and a little retro chunk of pineapple atop

For dessert:
A cook the blog special: The plum crumble from Orangette. I made it this weekend with some prune plums I picked up from the orchard and oh, it is special. Just a hint of ginger from both candied and powdered. Not overly sweet. The crumble is a bit unusual in that the dry ingredients are mixed with an egg, then once spread over the fruit, melted butter is gently spooned atop. Lovely. Stayed crisp even in the fridge. This is definitely a keeper. A splash of cream or warm with ice cream? Heaven.

Happiest Birthday to the Pork Mistress. Many, many, many, many more. Bon appetit.

PS: The cheerful pillow-faced lady is the closest thing to a picture of me you're gonna see!

Really? Does the world need another brownie recipe?

Maybe. Consider these, from Serious Eats, with sea salt. Many brownies, for my money, are overly sweet and not chocolate pillowy buttery enough. But these? Maybe. I mean, they have all my favorite food groups: chocolate, butter, salt, and coffee:

Adult Brownies

Cooking the Blog

We've worked our way through a few recipes from Three Squares this week and I thought I'd include my own two cent's worth, now that I've actually cooked the blog.

1. The Serious Eats Leftover Meat Salad
Let me tell you. This was seriously spectacular, and I had it ready, kind of, in 30 minutes. Now, I cheated a bit. I used steak, leftover from last night. I threw some dried dark red kidney beans in my little crockpot last night and let them stew till morning on low. That's right, no presoaking, no salt, no nothing. Well, I used a bay leaf. They were divine. So the steak and the beans were ready when I walked in the door. I had leftover homemade vinaigrette (with a standard 1:3 vinegar to olive oil ratio plus a little mustard) I quickly chopped a red onion in half, then sliced it thin and threw it in some olive oil with a little salt and oh, maybe a teaspoon of brown sugar. Those cooked on medium high for about 25 minutes, till brown. Once that was on, I flipped on my toaster oven, strolled out to my potager and grabbed five tomatoes, all perfectly ripe. They were sliced in half, thrown on a small baking tray, dowsed in olive oil, salt, and pepper, then roasted till runny and sunken. Oh, divine, and I HATE tomatoes. The whole thing was thrown together along with some chiffonaded basil and pine nuts. I didn't even bother to toast them. SERIOUSLY spectacular, quite possibly company good, especially with a loaf of crusty bread. Especially if the steak were hot off the grill and sliced thin. Note: I didn't have any rosemary and this was still spectacular.

2. Vegetable tostadas
Not bad. I used leftover black beans (which I threw in the crockpot without presoaking on high for about five hours and they were PERFECT) which I blitzed in the food processor with a little mild salsa. We used prepackaged guacamole from a market. Lettuce I had prepped a few days before. We topped with Greek yogurt and a little cheese. The makings literally took me about 10 minutes to put on the table. The kids helped. We served it all on top of Charros yummy precooked stacks of tostada shells, in a make-your-own fashion. Quite easy and yummy.

3. Hominy and me casserole
I turned this into a not-pretty but quite delicious everyday meal. I didn't have quite enough hominy, so I added some fresh corn and some beans (see item #2). I used a bit less cheese inside the casserole, but did toss in an egg to bind everything together. One big pan made more than enough for two meals. For one it was the main dish; another it was a side with sliced apples and grilled sliced flank steak.

Drooling with Itinerant Foodies: Weekend Edition

Hold the phone. This is serious. These pictures and menus make me very drooley and swooney. Take this menu:

Eggplant and Sundried Tomato Spread (Really? I just fainted.)
Grilled Shrimp with Cilantro, Lime, and Peanuts
Corn and Tomato Scramble
Lemony Potato Salad
Spicy Mac & Cheese (although nothing, NOTHING is better than PassUBy's mac & cheese)
Sticky Balsamic Ribs (I just had my heart shocked with a defibrillator and am on a vent. Make the deliciousness stop!)
Plum-Blackberry Streusel Pie with All-Butter Pastry Dough

Read all about it with pictures AND recipes from the Midwest's own Itinerant Foodies.

How I spent my holiday weekend

Rosh Hashanah with Itinerant Foodies

Two menus recently which look quite delectable from Itinerant Foodies, emanating from my own heart of the Midwest. How about:

Beet and Goat Cheese Salad
Brown Sugar Glazed Carrots
Pork Tenderloin with Sauteed Apples and Leeks
Apple Cinnamon Upside Down-Cake

WITH pictures and commentary. Ah, yes please. Thanks, iFoodies!

Itinerant Foodies: Do the Reading

I brake for corn chowder especially with red peppers

This recipe from the Wednesday Chef recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo for me, the movie in which Mia Farrow (it was her, right?) walks right into a movie screen and movie. Or was it Jeff Daniels? Doesn't he live in Michigan? Was it really The Purple Rose of Cairo? When will I be back at Trader Joe's for Israeli couscous? Should I have a second glass of wine? What WILL I wear tomorrow. I can't take the humidity. It's almost October. I need a stew. What should I do with my butternuts squash from Legend Hills Orchard?

Welcome to 30 seconds in my brain.

I recalled a Woody Allen flick, though, because I rarely have wanted to dive into my computer screen so badly and drown in corn chowder as I did when I beheld the pictures from the Wednesday Chef. I can't WAIT to try the recipe.

Pete Wells' Shrimp Chowder with Corn

Okay, well, Concentration Girl (that's irony) just noticed that it's really SHRIMP chowder with corn and not corn chowder with red peppers. I don't care because SHRIMP chowder is even better. This will be made immediately upon entering a beach zone.

Vegan Cupcakes? Have I lost my mind?

From the very precious Gwynneth Paltrow's site, Goop, which I actually secretly kind of like oops the secret is out, an interesting post on vegan cupcakes and darn it, other vegan baked goods.

The one time I had vegan bread I was violently ill for a day. I channeled my grandmother, "My body needs butter." But the baguette is butter, salt, and oil. I eat that without turning my gastrointestinal tract inside out. Of course, I usually eat it with cream of cauliflower soup topped with Gruyere, shmeared with lots of fresh imported butter, but still. It makes no sense.

I am, however, intrigued. I might try it. I might like it. I will not, however, give up the precious goodness of the butter cow.

Goop Make: Babycakes with recipes