Cooking: Vietnamese Pork Ball Lettuce Wraps

I was going to bring a Broadway pea salad to a birthday happy hour celebration, but then the hostess suggested I put it into lettuce cups and so I decided to just scrap that pea salad plan and make this:  Pork and Lemongrass Meatballs in Lettuce Cups. I went to an Asian market and bought lemongrass like the recipe called for, but I had never worked with this ingredient.  I decided to take a hammer to the last five inches of it before mincing.

I got a lot of aggression out and found the last five inches of lemongrass toward the bulb very easy to mince with my chef's knife:)

I then put about 2 tablespoons of that minced lemongrass into a bowl with 2 pounds of ground pork along with 2 tablespoons of minced shallot, 4 stalks of scallions sliced, 4 tablespoons of fish sauce, 4 tablespoons of chopped cilantro, 4 large cloves of minced garlic, and a 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper because I didn't have any white pepper.

I then took my mini scoop and plopped them onto my lighted barbecue grill full of 20 lit briquets.  

These are my Vietnamese pork balls after 10 minutes after which I turned them over to brown on the other side.

Here are my Vietnamese pork balls after 20 minutes of grilling in the rain.

While my pork balls were grilling, I grated half of a large carrot and mandolin sliced 4 Persian cucumbers into a bowl of 4 tablespoons of lime juice, 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, 3 tablespoons of fish sauce, 1 tablespoon minced lemongrass and chopped Serrano and Fresno chile pepper.

I also rinsed and spun a head of butter lettuce and placed the leaves into a bowl.

Lastly I used tongs to place the meatballs into a serving bowl and poped into a 200 degree oven to keep warm for serving a half hour later at the party while I showered and got ready for a birthday celebration.  My appetizers were well received, and I had leftoverer  meatballs and cucumber salad which will be terrific atop a bowl of rice vermicelli along with sprinkles of chopped mint and cilantro for a homemade lunch.

Cooking: Quiche and Soup

Anticipating a busy work week, I spent my Monday afternoon grocery shopping and cooking a mushroom quiche and a cream of cauliflower and broccoli soup.

I chopped cauliflower and broccoli, freshly harvested from the garden and then drizzled olive oil and sprinkled salt to roast in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.

While the vegetables were roasting, I chopped and minced an onion, a few cloves of garlic, and a fennel bulb.

And diced a couple of slices of bacon because....

I needed some fat to sauté my onion, garlic and fennel bulb.  However, the bacon was rather lean, and so I added some pasture-raised pork lard to the sauté.  

I also poured myself a glass of Chardonnay and set out a homemade chicken stock because the soup called for those ingredients.

My cauliflower and broccoli had finished roasting.

And into the soup pot went the roasted vegetables and my glass of wine until the alcohol evaporated followed by the chicken broth.

While my soup simmered for about an hour before pureeing in the blender, I had also collected sprigs of thyme and marjoram from the herb garden and diced a shallot and sliced brown crimini mushrooms as well as grated leftover Emmenthaler and Gruyere cheeses which had made for some tasty grilled cheese sandwiches.  I had also pressed a frozen pie crust into a glass pie plate, crimping and poking holes all over it before baking in the 400 degree oven for twelve minutes.  Sauté the mushrooms and shallots and herbs--the leaves will fall off the branches which you can pluck out--until soft and caramelized.  Sprinkle the vegetables and the grated cheese into the  bottom of the pre-baked pie crust, but don't forget to reserve some of the cheese like I had forgotten to sprinkle on top of the custard.  Beat six eggs with heavy whipping cream and pour into the pre-filled pie shell.  Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes, and  then turn the oven down to 350 and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the quiche to bake for another 20 to 25 minutes.  The top can be jiggly in the middle because it will set.

Adventures in Preserving.... Enchilada Sauce

I've been buying enchilada sauce in cans for years, but recently I've wanted to try making it from scratch.  I searched for various recipes on the Internet, which range from mixing oil, flour, chili powder and other spices (no thank you!) to the more authentic or traditional Mexican grandmother's way of toasting ancho and pasilla dried chiles, roasting aromatics and then pureeing them with other vegetables and spices.  Because I wanted to have my enchilada sauce on hand in my pantry for the winter months, I finally turned to a canning jar company's website for a recipe and found this one along with instructions on how to process the enchilada sauce.  

I went to a nearby ethnic market and bought dried chiles.  I decided to use 12 Guajillos and 6 Chile New Mexico pods.  I then poured boiling water over the peppers along with a cinnamon stick to soften for 20 minutes.  I reserved the hot liquid, removed the stems but not the seeds from the softened chiles as well as the cinnamon stick, and put it into a blender.

I had also charred red onions and garlic in a cast iron grill pan and added them to the blender.

I have a bumper crop of heritage tomatoes, and so I also added a few tomatoes to the blender along with cumin seeds, Mexican oregano, thyme, and marjoram.  I wish I had remembered to add a bay leaf to the soaking water of the peppers, but next time.  I whirred this mixture until it was a smooth paste like below. 

I then cooked the pureed chiles, tomatoes, onion, garlic, oregano, cumin, marjoram and thyme and 2 teaspoons of salt until the sauce was less watery or to the thickness I wanted to preserve.  Did I mention the bumper crop of heritage tomatoes from the garden?  And so I had a pot of marinara sauce simmering next to the enchilada sauce.  

Lastly I processed the enchilada sauce with the marinara sauce in pint jars....the enchilada sauce needed only 50 minutes in the water bath but they ended up with the marinara in the same canning pot for an hour and 25 minutes.

A Breakfast Burrito

This breakfast burrito is definitely going into my Sunday brunch rotation.  Below are the ingredients:  soft scrambled eggs, chipotle cream (sour cream + chipotle peppers in adobo sauce), pork sausage, jalapenos, tomatoes, and onion.

Melt cheddar or jack cheese on to a tortilla.  Pile on the rest of your ingredients and roll (or fold into a taco like I had to because I overstuffed it).

BLT Construction

My favorite meal other than a Caprese salad with the summertime bounty of heritage tomatoes is a BLT.....and wouldn't it be fantastic to throw a dinner party that was a Bacon Lettuce Tomato Sandwich bar?  Start with Miracle Whip for him and Duke’s for me (or good ole Best Food's or Hellman's if you're on the East Coast) to spread on your favorite bread.

Most important are in-season tomatoes, and heritage varieties are really the best. Below are a Mirabon ($14 for the seeds!)tomato and a Black Triffle tomato, sliced with a sprinkling of sea salt.

And bacon! I bought what was on sale at the supermarket.  I fried it up to include both crispy for the hubs and a little chew for me. But thick cut heritage pork would amp up a sandwich.  And the vegetarians at a party would omit the meat altogether though turkey bacon might work for those who don't do the other white meat.

Lastly, I also bought Beckmann’s California sourdough, and mixed greens with arugula (also from the garden)though big leaf lettuce for the paleos and gluten free eaters would have to be there at a buffet.  My BLT was delicious y'all!

Putting Up Heirloom Tomatoes: In Own Juices & Marinara

What I love about summer besides the quality of the natural light flooding my condo, is the bounty of heirloom tomatoes from our plot at the Beresford Community Garden.  August is when my galley kitchen goes into the mode of preserving heirloom tomatoes that I haven't already eaten in a Caprese salad or Mexican salsa.

This year I decided instead of just making Italian marinara to can, I would also preserve quart and pint jars of tomatoes in their own juices for use in other tomato dishes such as paella, cioppino, or other dishes without the oregano, thyme, marjoram, onion, garlic and olive oil though I did also can on this day pint jars of marinara.  Below a jar of tomatoes prior to processing.

I don't have a pressure canner, and so I used the water bath process which at sea level means boiling for an hour and half.

Below waiting to hear the popping sound of the vacuum effect from the water bath which creates a pressure within the jars and means the seals on the lids have closed tightly over the jars.

Later in the afternoon, I pureed tomatoes in a Vitamix blender and then added aromatics and herbs to boil down into a marinara.  I added fresh sprigs of basil at the top of the sauce before processing.

Heirloom tomatoes for cooking throughout the season until they run out just before summer or to give as holiday presents.

Whole Cloth Baby Quilt

I didn't get to finish this in time for a baby shower I attended over the weekend.  Finally a couple days earlier I finished quilting and binding and then managed to mail this unicorn whole cloth baby quilt yesterday to the mother-to-be.  I backed it with minky and used a low loft batting.  I tried to echo the clouds on the ombre blue sky and thought I was going to free motion stars to parallel the gold stars in the print.  Nope.  It was much harder than I thought it would be even though I had spray basted and pinned this small quilt.  I told the new mom that it will look better when it's washed gently and dried on a low setting and all those tiny charming crinkles appear.  I used my domestic machine and the walking foot and basically my whole body to maneuver this quilt under the needle. If I ever sew another baby quilt, I would hand quilt it with a running stitch.