Stuffed pattypan squash

Down the road from us is a farm with a store that's larger than a farmer's market but smaller than a grocery store. I love shopping there (and usually do so once a week, on average) because they have incredibly fresh fruits and vegetables along with a great selection of gluten-free and organic foods, a homemade baked goods section, and a deli. It's a great place to pick up a gallon of milk or a last-minute something without making the trip to the supermarket.

So the other day they had a basket of patty pan squash, with a sign saying, "OUR OWN!" I couldn't resist them - they're so cute - but especially because you can't get any more local than five minutes away.

Truth be told, I purchased some of these last year, but they went to waste before I could find a recipe to use them in.  That wasn't going to happen this year, so I searched for (and found, on allrecipes.com) this recipe for stuffed pattypan squash.

Since I only had 4 pattypans, I scaled this down a little bit.  You may want and need to do the same, depending on the size of your squash.

Ingredients
6 pattypan squash, stem and blossom removed
6 slices bacon
1/2 cup diced onion
1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Bring one inch of water to a boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add squash, cover, and cook for 10 minutes, or until a fork can pierce the stem with little resistance. Drain, and slice off the top stem of the squash. Use a melon baller to carefully scoop out the centers of the squash. (I used a regular teaspoon.  Worked fine.) Reserve all of the bits of squash.

Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Remove bacon to paper towels, and set aside. Saute onion in bacon drippings. Chop the reserved squash pieces, and saute them with the onion for one minute. (My note: I used vegetarian bacon.)

Remove the skillet from heat, and stir in the breadcrumbs. Crumble the bacon, and stir into the stuffing along with the Parmesan cheese. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stuff each squash to overflowing with the mixture, and place them in a baking dish. Cover the dish loosely with aluminum foil.

Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until squash are heated through.

I served this with vegetarian chicken and macaroni and cheese.  Since this was a new dish to try (and I'm happy to report that everyone at the table tried it), I needed something else for us as a backup.  These were pretty tasty!

Feta- and jalapeno-stuffed, bacon-wrapped pork loin with scalloped potatoes

I know there's been a lot of pork around here lately, but it's what I have scheduled to give you today, so...here's some more pork. Lots of it, actually. As Homer Simpson would say, it is indeed a wonderful, magical animal.

You'll need a nice pork loin, some feta, some pickled, diced jalapenos, and some good bacon. Slice the loin almost completely through lengthwise, but leave the two halves just attached. Mix together until well combined about a third of a cup of feta cheese with about a quarter of a cup of jalapenos (adjust this to your spicy, adventurous tastes). Put this mixture into the pork loin groove, filling it from end to end. Then take the bacon--I end up using about six slices--and tightly wrap it around the loin. The final result looks unfortunately like a large, meaty caterpillar, but I promise, it's good.

We don't grill much because it's hot here, so we just do this one in the oven. I cover it with foil or a good lid and have it at about 425-450 F until the meat thermometer confirms it's at a temperature suitable for pork (about ~160-170 degrees internally)--maybe about an hour, depending on the heft of the loin. Once it's hit that temperature goal, I remove the foil or lid and let it crisp a bit because the bacon's better that way.

I served this up last time with scalloped potatoes that I baked at the same time. To make these, I sliced small, peeled Yukon golds into 1/8 inch slices and layered them in a buttered baking dish as follows: potatoes, salt, pepper, bit o' olive oil, grated cheese (your choice; I like gruyere when I have it) until I was out of potatoes. Then, I mixed in a separate bowl about a half cup to a cup of whole cream or half 'n' half with another half cup or so of the grated cheese and pour on top. Your amount will vary with how much you're making. My goal is to get the liquid at least halfway up the depth of the potatoes. Cover with foil or a good lid and bake until potatoes are tender. Remove foil or lid and let the cheese that's on top get a nice golden-brown color.

Slice the loin, spoon out the potatoes, make a good salad to go with it...and you're done. The feta with the jalapenos, bacon, and tender loin is simply a taste sensation.

Coconut cream pork with apples

In 2007 my family switched from store-bought meat to buying in bulk directly from the farm once a year. That first season when we unloaded the coolers full of meat into our newly purchased chest freezer, I looked down on all the bundles neatly wrapped in butcher paper with a mixture of satisfaction and uneasiness. I was going to have to cook all that meat. Not only that but I had never cooked most of the cuts before. I didn't even know what some of those cuts were! One such cut was simply labeled: Ham. Now I know what a ham is, but this piece of meat was not cured and it looked nothing like the ham that my mother traditionally served up every Christmas. It looked more like a big steak. After lots and lots of trial and error, I finally developed this recipe and it has won a spot in the family cookbook because I've found that everyone, even our pickiest eater, will eat it.

I'm including a picture of the meat, pre-cooking, so that you can see what I'm working with. I'd love to know if anyone else has successful recipes for this cut. Every other thing I've tried has come out dry.

 For this recipe you will need:

2-3lb pork
1 large yellow onion, coarsely cut
4-5 crisp apples (I used Granny Smith), cut into small cubes
Lemon pepper
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
vegetable oil
1/2- 3/4 cup coconut cream/milk
3-4 slices bacon
1 Tablespoon light brown sugar (optional)
red pepper flakes

To begin, rinse the pork and pat dry. Rub lemon pepper well into both sides of the meat (I used about 3 Tablespoons), then place it in the middle of a glass 9x13 baking dish.  In a heavy skillet saute the onions in a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil until they are tender. Add the cubed apples and the cinnamon and cook for five minutes.

 

While the apples are cooking, place the bacon in strips over the top of the meat in the baking dish. I used un-cured bacon so I first tossed it with kosher salt and black pepper.

Spoon the onion and apple mixture over the meat, covering it completely. Spoon the coconut milk over the apples. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes and a bit of kosher salt if your lemon pepper doesn't already have salt in it (mine didn't).

Cook uncovered in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

After the first 45 minutes, use a spatula to move the apples and onions to the sides of the pan so that the bacon has a chance to brown up a bit.  While you have the oven open, sprinkle the the brown sugar over the meat and the apples. 

When the meat is done, remove the dish from the oven, place the meat on a large cutting board, trim and discard fat, then cut into small pieces. Finally, mix the meat with the apples and onion mixture. The resulting dish will be a nice mixture of sweet and peppery.

Serve with garlic fried rice.

Penne with vodka sauce and capicola

This one's an oldie from Eating Well, and the inspiration for making it was the usual: leftover something that I could put in it. This leftover was rotini. I know the title says "penne," but we'd cooked rotini, and that's what we had left over, so that's what we used.

The pluses for this recipe are that it's really lightning fast and comes out pretty tasty. The minus could be that with the red pepper and vodka zing, it may not be something the kiddies go for.

Ingredients were cooked pasta, 2 oz. capicola (pancetta would do as a sub, as would a good bacon, I think), a small onion, three garlic cloves, 0.5 c. vodka, a 28-oz. can of crushed tom-ah-toes, 0.25 c. of half'n'half, 2 tsp Worcestershire, crushed red pepper to your taste (the recipe recommends between 0.25 and 0.5 tsp), chopped basil (if fresh, recipe recommends 0.25 c; I used dried, at about a teaspoon). Pepper and salt to taste. I found that this one didn't require much extra salting.

Put the water for the pasta on to boil if you're not like me and already have some cooked pasta around.

Chop the capicola (or pancetta), the onion, and the garlic. Cook the meat to crisp, then set aside to drain. The recipe doesn't call for oil for the onion and garlic, but I found that they required it, so I added in a lug of olive oil and cooked these on just above medium heat until the onions were transparent and soft.

The fun part, as usual, is adding the alcohol. Jack the heat up to high and pour in the vodka. Enjoy the show, then let it boil until the volume drops by about half. Then add in everything else: cream, tomatoes, half'n'half, red pepper, basil (but see below), reduce the heat, stir, cook for about 10 minutes.

In the original recipe, the recommendation is to serve the sauce over the pasta with the cooked capicola added on top and the basil sprinkled on. I add the basil into the sauce itself, and I also added in the meat. We're not really a "set the table with garnishes" kinda group around here, so I wanted the sauce ready and waiting for when dinner time rolled around.

What we did garnish with was a really nutty, good Parmesan. Add in some rosemary baguette and a good leafy salad, and we had an enjoyable, fancy-seeming dinner involving big words like "capicola" and grownup things like vodka and that bit us back a bit as we ate it, and it only took about 15 minutes to throw together.

Bon appetit.

Savory spring salad

It's spring break. I haven't cooked in days because we were on break and traveling or having guests. When that happens, we eat out a lot, or we eat other people's food. But, a few days ago, I made one of my favorite salads.

I know. Salads aren't exciting, and probably most people reading this know how to make a damned salad. But this salad is for people who are sensory seekers, who want flavor to savor with their greens, people who can handle the almost overwhelming combination I'm about to present to you. And, like I noted, it's spring. A great time for salads.

Regardless of your salad attitude, I can tell you that this little baby will load you up with all the green leafy things, colorful crunchy things, fiber, flavor, and sabor you'd need for a good lunch or a "light"-ish dinner. This is good (green) stuff.

That means, of course, that you're gonna need some greens. I use an organic spring mix with baby spinach added in. Top this with shredded carrots and shredded broccoli slaw. I buy these in bags at the store...if you can't find that, then I guess you'd need to shred these yourself or add in larger chopped pieces of these items.

Get the tartest apple you can find. Small, brightly green Granny Smiths, nicely chilled, are my favorites for this. Slice it thin, as thinly as you can. I use an entire apple for this salad. Keeps the doctor away, I hear, and I could use that.

Green olives--saltilicious!--go great on this (to my sensory and salt-seeking palate, anyway). I used the sliced kind with pimentos. Adds a nice color and yet another flavor to the mix.

I'm a sucker for blue-veined cheeses. For this salad, I go for gorgonzola, but bleu cheese would do, as well. I lay out for really good cheese, and the flavor a truly tasty blue adds to something like this cannot be beat.

Finally, there's meat. My preferred addition here is smoked turkey breast, sliced (we get the nitrate-free variety). Bacon, microwaved to crisp, is also good if you don't have turkey. This salad has so much flavor and substance, though, that you can dispense with the additional animal protein altogether if that's not your thing.

For the dressing, I prefer balsamic vinaigrette (I go with Newman's Own) or Marie's Greek Vinaigrette. Adds even more zing to this already zingy combination. Like I said, I'm a flavor seeker. I often make my own dressings, but for this salad, either of these is a wonderful finish.

Chill it until you eat it. Then, sit down with your fork and dig in to the cold, crunchy, salty sabor that is this salad. Mmmmmm.

Single-pan chicken, peas, and bacon with pasta

Another one that's not for the dieters out there, as the glistening lipids in the above picture can attest.

I lifted the idea for this one from Jamie Oliver, but then I just did what I wanted to do with it. He's got a recipe in his Food Revolution cookbook that is pasta shells with peas and bacon, if you're interested. The one I describe here has chicken, too.

-Put the pasta of your choice on to boil. I think we used bowtie with this one.

-Melt a couple of tablespoons of butter in a skillet.

-Add in a "lug" (as Jamie would say) of olive oil.

-Meanwhile, cut up about four slices of bacon into small pieces.

-Fry the bacon in those two fats--yes, now we have three fats in there--until it starts turning a nice golden brown color.

-Meanwhile, cut up two raw chicken breasts into small chunks or half-inch slices.

-Add these to the fats and bacon and sizzle to doneness. You can add a little salt at this point, too.

Break out some heavy whipping cream and add about a cup of that, enough to cover the pan, leave the chicken bits poking out a little. If needed, you can add more liquid in the form of chicken broth, but don't make it too thin. This sauce should nice and creamy, like an alfredo, and the cream will thin a little as it heats.

Stir, let it get to a nice simmer with an occasional stir. Then, add in at least a cup of frozen peas--more if you're a big fan of peas. If needed, add in more cream and/or chicken broth to get the sauce to the consistency you like. Do not overdo the chicken broth, or you'll thin the sauce too much. Don't forget, the peas will release some water as they thaw if they're frozen, so wait a bit before adding anything else to see what the sauce is like after the thaw.

Get it again to a simmer with an occasional stir. Salt and pepper to your taste--very little should be needed with all the flavors in this. If you like (and I always like), you can sprinkle Parmesan over the top. Ladle over bowls of warm pasta and serve. In many families, this dish would be kid friendly. It was friendly to two of our three offspring and to us. Just try not to think about the saturated fat content too much.