Nov 23 2012

Thai Pork Sausage Stuffing

Posted on November 23, 2012 by lindsey

I’ve made this dish twice this week now. The first time was last weekend, when my family came down to Portland and Jesse and I got to host our first Thanksgiving in the new house.

And the second was yesterday, one of the three true days off that I take off from work each year, when I got to wake up with my favorite person in the world, and spend a beautiful, crisp Thursday morning each cooking our own respective contributions to our gigantic Thanksgiving feast. And I mean gigantic. Seriously, look at this roster:

Appetizers
Dee: Veggie Pizza
Brush: Pickle chips
Caleb: Cheese Board
Andrew: Fondue?
Erika: Stuff Mushroom

The Culinary Explosion
Teran: Turkey, traditional stuffing, brown butter mashed potatoes
Tyler and Jesse: Ham
Dee: Field Roast
Crystal Valley: Squash ravioli
Lindsey: Thai pork sausage stuffing
Kate: Squash rice pilaf
Zack: Fresh Baked Bread Rolls
Andrew: Green Chili Cheese Corn Bake
Jesse Wilson: Green Chili Cheese Mashed Potatoes who aspires to be reincarnated as a turkey
Erika: Mac and Cheese
Carolyn: Roasted Root Veggie
Josh: Cranberry Sauce Salad
Biff: Brussel Sprouts in Cream Sauce
Claire: Sweet Potato Casserole
Kelly: Baked Leeks in Cream Sauce
Andrea: Green Bean Casserole

Yo, Sweetness is my weakness
Kate: Pumpkin Pie
Elizabeth Haus: Holiday Cheesecake
Andrea: Pecan Pie
Cloud: Sweet Potato Pie
Erika: ?

So yes, we were both pretty serious about cooking. Jesse hopped out of bed at 8:00 a.m. to fire up the smoker, where he smoked a pineapple-clove-orange-whiskey glazed ham.

And I went to work on my Thai Pork Sausage Stuffing, round two.

This recipe was adapted from a recent issue of Sunset magazine, and it’s a nice, spicy spin on the regular traditional Thanksgiving stuffing. It was disappointingly bland the first go-round, so here I’ve kicked it up a notch by tweaking a lot of the spices and adding stronger flavors.

It uses starchy, sticky rice in place of half the bread, and mixes flavors of ginger, cilantro, and lemongrass for a tangy kick. The very first step is to soak 1 cup of this sticky rice in hot water for about an hour; get this going at the beginning, and it can soak while you prep everything else.

Meanwhile, into the food processor goes:

2 tbsp minced ginger
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 stalks of lemongrass (inner stems only)
stems from 1/2 bunch cilantro
3 serrano chilis

Puree these ingredients together, then add 1 lb. pork sausage (I used some apple pork sausage from New Seasons), and 1 tsp salt.

Now you’ll want to chop up:

1 tbsp ginger
1 tbsp garlic
1 medium onion

Melt 2 tbsp butter in a skillet, and sautee the above three ingredients until the onions are translucent. Then add in the pork mixture from the food processor, and cook until it has a nice, sausage-y texture.

At the same time, cook the rice by steaming it over a pot of boiling water for about 15 minutes. A smallish strainer like this one is perfect for the job: drain the soaking rice by pouring it into this strainer, then heat up a few inches of water in the pot that the rice had been soaking in, letting it come to a full boil. Rest the strainer full of rice on top of the pot, and place a bowl over top to keep the steam in.

Then, take a very large bowl and mix together the following:

Everything you were just cooking in the skillet
3 cups chicken broth (I used Better Than Bullion, which has a very rich flavor)
1 large sourdough baguette, cut into 1-inch cubes (if you can, try to remember to cut this up the night before so they’re a little stale)
2 eggs, beaten together
leaves from 1/2 bunch cilantro
a few tablespoons of chopped basil
4 green onions

Once everything has been thoroughly mixed, transfer it all to a 9×13 baking dish, and bake at 375 for 30 minutes, covered with foil. After 30 minutes, uncover and bake for a final 30 minutes with the foil off.

This Week’s Groceries

Safeway 11/14

Can of green chilis: $1.49
Beef broth: $0.99
Tomato paste: $0.59
Tomato sauce: $1.39
Chili beans: $1.39 — Can you guess what Jesse was making for dinner?
Chicken broth: $2.60
Frozen pizza: $4.99
Yellow onions: $0.28
Jalapeno pepper: $0.12
Pork sausage: $3.29

TOTAL: $17.03

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $147.39

New Seasons 11/16

Coconut oil: $6.99
Table salt: $0.99
Sushi rice: $2.72
Dozen eggs: $2.99
Half and half: $2.99
Cream cheese: $1.99
Lemongrass: $0.69
Fresh herbs: $1.52
Jalapeno: $0.95
Ground chicken: $3.97 — The first go-round of this dish, for my family, I used chicken instead of pork
Sourdough baguette: $3.99

TOTAL: $29.79

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $117.60

Portland Fruit Company 11/16

Chestnuts
Yellow Onion
Gallon milk
Rutabega
Parsnips
Turnips

TOTAL: $27.30

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $90.30

Grocery Outlet 11/20

Pineapple rings: $1.29
Frozen peas: $0.99
Half and half: $2.39
Ginger root: $1.49
Butter: $2.59
White vinegar: $1.49
Yellow onions: $1.49

TOTAL: $11.73

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $78.57

New Seasons 11/20

Sushi rice: $1.44
Anaheim pepper: $0.42
Serrano pepper: $0.18
Lemongrass: $0.72
Apple pork sausage: $6.17
Sourdough baguette: $2.99

TOTAL: $11.92

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $66.65

Fred Meyer 11/21

Brown sugar: $1.79
Pickling salt: $2.09
Lawry seasoned salt: $2.37
Meat tenderizer: $3.69
Cloves: $0.35
Ginger root: $0.45
Shallots: $0.57
Turkey breasts: $19.08

TOTAL: $30.39

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $36.26 — Not too shabby, after two full Thanksgivings!

Jun 21 2012

Pork Chops in Garlic Red Wine Reduction, Roasted Broccoli, and Tzatziki Potato Salad

Posted on June 21, 2012 by lindsey

All right, back in the swing of things. After a fantastically fun housewarming party on one of the first super hot, sunny days of the summer, and then a relaxing evening of Papa Murphy’s and Redbox movies on Jesse’s couch, I finally had an old school, productive Monday/Tuesday “weekend,” where I knocked out a slew of errands like getting my car cleaned, oil changed (and Jesse even changed my brake pads for me over the weekend! Little Ford Focus is getting in shape!), taking my work computer up to Jantzen Beach to have the hard drive replaced, going to the gym, getting ahead on my transcription for the week, picking up my new car title from the post office, making a yarn deal out in Lake Oswego, and compiling a comprehensive list of everything in my house I need to pack — either now or later — before the big move.

And then I cooked all my food for the week!

I’ve started a Pinterest account — not because I actually like Pinterest as an addition to the social media landscape, but because my old method of cataloguing recipes I want to try with Delicious was just too dang obsolete. I’m totally ambivalent about whether people follow me on here or not, because the sole utility it poses to me is that while I’m perusing my food blogs (this is what I do whenever I’m eating alone), when I see something I want to make, I just click a little widget to pin it, and then trust that it’s being saved somewhere.

Then, on an afternoon like Monday, when I want to cook something but don’t know what, I can visit my board and see what I’ve been hanging on to, make whatever I choose, and then delete it when I’m done. It’s kind of like a big visual to-do list, divorced from my actual to-do list that makes my world go round.

This week, I knew I had a little extra money to spend on some good meat, so I decided to try out The Pioneer Woman’s pork chops. I’ve never made pork chops before, so this felt sort of exotic. I also knew that, despite living in a basement, it was summer outside, so I also took a stab at Smitten Kitchen’s Taztziki Potato Salad. And then some roasted broccoli, because I needed something green in there. And I love broccoli.

I took Deb’s warning and got the potatoes boiling first, so that they’d have time to cool before going in the salad.

This is about 3.5 pounds of baby reds.

A little proud of myself for having purchased my first ever pair of pork chops, I seared them in some butter and olive oil (after salting and peppering both sides), while those potatoes boiled and cooled.

I was only making two chops instead of Rhee’s recommended six, so after browning both sides and removing the meat from the pan, I threw in six whole peeled cloves of garlic, as well as half a yellow onion, slivered, which was my own personal touch. Once these had cooked for a few minutes I added about a cup of red wine and a bay leaf, letting this mixture reduce down. Then, I added a little spoonful of Better Than Bullion’s beef paste and some water to turn it into broth, and added the chops back in.

Meanwhile, I was throwing together a quick base for the potato salad. It all revolves around this.

I love Smitten’s idea of using yogurt as the base rather than mayonnaise, because even though I can totally get behind mayo on a sandwich or even in an aioli, I still have a hard time using it as a legit ingredient in dressing. But yogurt? Yogurt continues to amaze. Like eggs, yogurt seems to be able to impress in a myriad of forms, meals, and context. Salty, sweet, savory…whatever you’ve got going on.

In this case, it forms the creamy foundation for this summery salad dressing, starting with 2 full cups of thick Greek yogurt. I don’t usually buy Greek yogurt, which seems to be a new craze as of the last year or two, but I can see why it’s perfect for this recipe: even after adding 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar, the dressing is still thick and rich, not runny. After that, I stirred in half a bunch of chopped dill, 2 teaspoons kosher salt, the rest of my jar of capers, some garlic powder, and black pepper.

Then I took those potatoes from awhile back, cut them into nice little wedges, and let them cool some more while I tossed some big broccoli pieces in a bowl with olive oil, salt, pepper, and curry powder, and then spread them on a baking sheet and roasted them at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Back to the pork chops. Once they were fully cooked, I removed them from the pan and continued to reduce the sauce, adding 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and my remaining little square of butter, until it was a thick, rich sauce to spoon over the top of everything.

First foray into pork chops? Success!

This Week’s Groceries

New Seasons 6/18

Plain organic yogurt: $2.99
Greek yogurt: $3.99
Cottage cheese: $2.19
Corn tortillas: $1.49
Pico de gallo: $3.69 — this is how I solve the tomatoes-are-prohibitively-expensive conundrum.
Dozen eggs: $2.89
Red potatoes: $4.87
Collard greens: $2.49
Fresh dill: $2.99
Yellow onions: $1.28
Bananas: $1.30
Roma tomatoes: $1.05
Pork chops: $5.03
Chorizo sausage: $5.09

TOTAL: $41.34

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: -$12.26 — bummer 🙁 Went over for this month. The good news is, I have tons of leftovers still in the fridge, so with another, say, $5 worth of veggies, I can definitely sustain for the rest of the month.

Mar 8 2012

Mole Pulled Pork Tacos with Buttermilk Cilantro Slaw

Posted on March 8, 2012 by lindsey

I don’t quite know how I’ve made it 30 years without ever using a crock pot, but it’s true. I feel like most of the meals I make are fairly quick and simple as it is, so I never latched on to the true romanticism of throwing all the ingredients together in the morning and coming home to a ready-made meal.

Especially because, I’m now realizing, even if it’s just chopping and measuring, doesn’t that require you to do all the work either after you’ve cooked your regular dinner the night before, or in the morning while you’re drinking coffee and the idea of chopping onions and garlic is sort of nauseating? I’m a die-hard breakfast traditionalist though, so maybe that’s just me.

In any case, practical or not, I was still curious. So last week, I asked Jesse if I could borrow his slow cooker for the occasion, and did some online research. I didn’t want to do a soup or a stew, because I feel like I already do that on the stovetop like every week, probably just using a lot more water as I let it all cook down, evaporate, and then add more to continue the process. New appliance should equal a new style of food, right?!

Well, I’ve certainly never bought pork in this form before, but I stumbled upon this recipe and decided to try it out.

So true to legend, I really just chopped all this up and threw it in the pot:

A whole yellow onion, a few cloves of garlic, a handful of raisins, and a dried ancho chile pepper…

Some anise stars…

And a whole bunch of other stuff, including:

a few pinches of red chili flakes
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 tsp cloves
a whole cinnamon stick
14-oz of canned diced tomatoes
a 6-oz can of tomato paste
1/4 cup white wine
2T each mole powder and veggie bullion

It looked pretty unappealing at first, but…

Pretty awesome after 4 hours on low and 4 hours on high in the slow cooker.

My idea was to make little tacos, so I heated up some corn tortillas I had in the freezer, made a big pot of wild brown rice pilaf, and this slaw from Smitten Kitchen that I’ve been eyeing forever, replacing the napa cabbage with some regular green cabbage and sliced (rather than diced) radishes.