Lamb Chops with Sweet & Sour Squash Ragu

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I hear people become more extraordinary versions of themselves in extreme situations.  You know, suddenly have the strength to lift a mangled Cadillac to release a trapped baby, find courage to run inside a burning building to save an elderly woman’s cat, selflessly throw yourself in front of a speeding bullet, figure out what to do with half a butternut squash and lamb chops that were picked up on a whim…

You can probably guess which of these situations I found myself in recently and I am happy to say the old lady and her cat are very happy to have both survived the blaze.  It was nothing, really.  I’m sure you would have done the same.

Oh, you don’t buy it?

Fine, you win, it was the one about the squash and the lamb and it felt pretty extraordinary at the time.  It was one of the weeknights where I was cranky and tired and really just wanted to come home and crash, not cook, and definitely not take a zillion food pictures.  But that boyfriend of mine happened to be coming home at the same time and just had to stop by the grocery store and discover lamb loin chops were on sale.

Matt has the tendency to go to the store, make a bee-line for the meat or fish counter, buy whatever looks good, and count on me to come up with the rest.  When I’m in the right mood, it’s fun and I can pretend I’m on Iron Chef, without the pressure.  When I’m tired and don’t feel like cooking it feels more like a chore for a taken-for-granted housewife.

But I have a cooking blog now.  I’m not just cooking for myself or Matt, I’m cooking for all of you.  It’s my duty and an honor.  Plus, there were lamb chops on the line.  I had to rise to the occasion.  So I stepped out of my cranky-pants, rooted around the fridge, and became the more extraordinary version of myself.

What did I find in the refrigerator?  Half a squash, green olives, mint, red onion, a lemon.  Let’s grab some currants, cinnamon, and vinegar from the cupboard and see if we can land this dish somewhere between Sicily and Morocco.

No time to dilly-dally, we’re on a mission.  Let’s chop the onion, get it sizzling, and put it all together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let it bubble and perk.  This is going to taste way more complex than you’d think possible for a thirty minute simmer.  Sear your chops, make some couscous, and you’re there.  Dinner!  You did it.  You’ve uncovered your extraordinary self.  You stepped up, impressed yourself, impressed that person you sometimes feed.  You’re good under-pressure and this beats moping around in your crabby-pants.

 

Lamb Chops with Sweet & Sour Squash
 
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This quick squash ragu could easily be served without the lamb as a vegetarian/vegan main course.
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Serves: 2, generously
Ingredients
  • 2 c. Butternut Squash, cubed
  • 2 c. Tomatoes, crushed
  • ½ medium Red Onion, diced
  • ¼ c. Dried Currants
  • ½ c. Green Olives, pitted and chopped
  • 2 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • ½ tsp. Fennel Seeds
  • Red Pepper Flakes, to taste
  • 1 Cinnamon Stick
  • 1 Tbsp. Lemon Peel, julienned
  • 1 Tbsp. Honey
  • 1 Tbsp. White Wine Vinegar
  • 2 Tbsp. Fresh Mint
  • 1 Tbsp.. Fresh Oregano
  • 4 Porterhouse Lamb Chops (loin chops)
  • Prepared Couscous
Instructions
  1. Heat olive oil in heavy bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Add red onion, fennel seeds, and red pepper flakes, season with salt and saute until the onions take on a little color, 2-3 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, boil squash until it is slightly tender, about 5 minutes, and drain. This will speed up your dinner significantly.
  3. Add crushed tomatoes and squash to onions along with cinnamon stick, lemon peel, currants, olives, honey, and vinegar. Season with salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and maintain a simmer until the squash is tender, the tomatoes have reduced, and the flavors have married, about 30 minutes, adding water if pan becomes too dry.
  4. In the final 10 minutes of cooking, prepare couscous and lamb chops. The lamb chops are seasoned with salt & pepper and seared in a lightly oiled pan 2-3 minutes per side. Allow to rest while you finish the ragu.
  5. Season ragu as necessary with additional honey, vinegar, red pepper flakes, salt and black pepper. Stir in chopped mint and oregano.
  6. Serve ragu over couscous and top with lamb chops. Sprinkle with additional herbs, if desired.
Notes
You could also braise chunks of lamb in the ragu rather than serving with seared chops.

Roasted Vegetable Stock + Easy Minestra

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I’m not going to get too preachy with this post because the fact is there are plenty of times when I do not follow my own advice.  I’m writing this as a reminder for myself as much as I am writing to share with you.

My message today?  Keep homemade stock on hand.

I just made this roasted vegetable stock and it was super easy.  I didn’t have to mess with bones or let it simmer for hours and hours and I was still able to walk away with a big batch of stock that is going to improve the flavor of all of my upcoming soups, stew, risottos, Thanksgiving stuffing, braises, and more.

I know, right?  We want those dishes to be the best they can be.  We better get started.  Raid your veggie drawer.  Carrots, celery, onion.  Aromatics, a little this, a little that.

Chop the vegetables and take them from raw and crunchy…

…to dark, shriveled, caramelized and intense.

Now we’re ready to make a rich vegetable stock.  Put it all together, add some water, boil, simmer.

Let it bubble away until the liquid is a delicious shade of brown.

Now you’re ready to strain and divide between freezer-safe containers. 

Hurray, we just made a whole bunch of upcoming meals better and it barely took any effort.  We should do this all the time.  We should celebrate with a quick bowl of minestra.

Minestra is the quickest, most comforting, homey bowl of soup you could ever want on a chilly day.  All you have to do is saute a little pestata (a vegetable paste that is used as the soup base), add a little tomato paste, simmer with broth.  Easy.  You could add some small pasta or beans and although I’m no linguist, I think your minestra would become a minestrone.

To make the pestata, all you have to do is throw some chopped veggies in a food processor and pulse until you have a thick paste.

 

 

 

 

 

Pack the pestasta into ice cube trays and freeze.  Between your pre-portioned pestata and all your wonderful stock, you can have a quick vegetable soup anytime you like.  Add some pasta or beans for a more substantial meal.

When you want soup just pop a pestata cube into a saucepan with a little olive oil and saute until it takes on color, add a squirt of tomato paste, and broth.

Simmer and you’re done.

Yum.

Roasted Vegetable Stock
 
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This easy vegetable stock is great for fall and winter soups, stews, and braises.
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Ingredients
  • 8 Carrots
  • 4 Celery Stalks
  • 4 Onions
  • 1 Leek
  • Other Vegetable Trimmings (I used some scrubbed squash peels)
  • 6 cloves Garlic
  • 1 bunch Parsley
  • 8 Sage Leaves
  • 4 sprigs Thyme
  • 6 Bay Leaves
  • ½ tsp. Whole Black Peppercorns
  • Salt
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400°.
  2. Wash and coarsely chop vegetables. Toss chopped vegetables and garlic with a little olive oil and a light sprinkling of salt and roast on a baking sheet until dark and caramelized, about 45 minutes. Stir a few times while roasting to prevent vegetables from sticking to pan.
  3. Place roasted vegetables in stock pot, add aromatics, 1 tsp. salt, and cover with cold water. Bring to boil and reduce to simmer. Simmer 45 minutes or until the stock is deep brown and richly flavored.
  4. Strain stock. Season lightly with additional salt, if desired. Stock can be used immediately or frozen for future use.

Pestata + Easy Minestra
 
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This pestata can be portioned into ice cube trays and frozen for a quick bowl of minestra anytime. Each cube yields 1 portion of soup.
Author:
Ingredients
  • 2 Carrots
  • 2 Stalks of Celery (leaves included)
  • 2 Onions
  • 4 cloves Garlic
  • Parsley
  • Tomato Paste
  • Stock
  • Pasta (something small like Acini di Pepe or Ditilini), if desired
  • Beans (Cannellini, Garbanzo, etc), if desired
Instructions
  1. Coarsely chop vegetables and puree in food processor to create a thick paste (pestata).
  2. The pestata can be stored in the refrigerator or frozen in small portions.
  3. To make the minestra, heat some olive oil in a saucepan, add pestata, season with salt, and saute until golden. You may have to add a bit of water if your pestata is frozen. Add a little tomato paste and allow to caramelize briefly before adding broth. Simmer together, season with salt and pepper as needed. Add a small pasta or beans for a more substantial meal and top with grated Parmesan.

Autumn Harvest Quinoa Muffins

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I’ll admit it.  On occasion, after eating what is essentially dessert for breakfast five days straight, I feel a tiny twinge of guilt.

But what’s a girl to do?  A girl’s gotta eat.  And this girl has got to bake!

Solution: a healthy, hearty, grainy, good-for-your-body muffin.  No delicate, dainty muffin here.  This is a muffin that wakes up, steps into steel-toed boots, fastens its toolbelt, and gets to work.  And it works hard.  It’s going to get you out of bed, out the door, and carry you all the way through ’til lunch.  This muffin is not going to flake out on you.  How many other muffins can you count on to do the same?

Building blocks:  quinoa (it’s a super-food, you know), squash, apples, raisins, nuts.

That’s grated butternut squash, not cheddar cheese.  Hmm…cheddar might not be a bad idea…next time.

Combine dry ingredients, brown a bit of butter, whisk egg with buttermilk, toss the quinoa and other tasty touches together in a bowl.

butternut squash, golden, raisins, pecans, apple, brown butter, cinnamon

Bring it all together.  Into a muffin tin and into your oven.

butternut squash, quinoa, muffin, golden raisins, pecans, nuts, apples, cinnamon, hearty, healthy, whole grain, whole-wheat

Golden & toasty, a little crunchy, a lot healthy, super satisfying.  I call middle-right, you can have top-left.

squash, apple, raisin, quinoa, muffin, fall, hearty, healthy

You are going to love these wholesome, nutty muffins.  They’re so good you might not even want to go back to your more decadent breakfasts next week.  You may even make another batch, try another variation, other whole grains, different secret vegetal add-ins.

healthy, whole grain, squash, apple, pecan, raisins

Or maybe you’ll rediscover the jar of nutella.

5.0 from 1 reviews
Autumn Harvest Quinoa Muffins
 
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These muffins are wholesome, flavorful, and moist with just enough crunch. Customize them with your nuts and favorite dried fruits.
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Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • 1½ c. All Purpose Flour
  • 1 c. Whole Wheat Flour
  • 1 tsp. Baking Soda
  • 1 tsp. Baking Powder
  • ½ tsp. Salt
  • 1 tsp. Cinnamon
  • ½ c. Dark Brown Sugar
  • 1½ c. Buttermilk
  • 1 Egg
  • ¼ c. Unsalted Butter, melted and browned
  • 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
  • 1 c. Cooked Quinoa
  • 1 c. Grated Apple (1 medium apple)
  • ½ c. Grated Butternut Squash
  • ½ c. Golden Raisins
  • ½ c. Pecans, chopped
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 375°. Butter or spray a 12 cup muffin tin.
  2. Combine flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, brown sugar, and cinnamon in large bowl. Mix well.
  3. In medium bowl, whisk together egg, buttermilk, browned butter, and vanilla.
  4. In another medium bowl, combine quinoa, apple, squash, raisins, and pecans.
  5. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until just combined.
  6. Fold quinoa mixture into muffin batter and scoop into prepared muffin cups.
  7. Bake until golden and tester comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

 

Spaghetti with Tomato, White Anchovy & Olives

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I wasn’t planning to write another love letter about Italy so soon after the Roman steak tartare, but then this pasta happened.

So off we go!  We’re heading south, gonna’ get coastal.

Spaghetti with Tomato, White Anchovy & Olives

It was an accident, really, this pasta.  The ingredients and idea assembled themselves; we didn’t set out to recreate a specific dish.  My gardener friend brought me the season’s last bag of ripe tomatoes and I made the mistake of taking Matt to the grocery store, where he insisted we buy white anchovies.  I didn’t realize until we sat down and started eating just how transportingly Italian it was going to taste.

This could be a really quick recipe, I dare say 30 minutes if you use dry spaghetti and canned tomatoes.  Matt and I have been itching to crank out some fresh pasta and I had the ripe, red tomatoes so we opted for the scenic route.

Divide and conquer.  Matt’ll mix the pasta dough, I’ll get the sauce going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t cry when your well breaks, you’ll recover.

Peel, core, crush tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

Let’s start building flavor.  Promise me you won’t skip the anchovies.

 

 

 

 

Let your sauce simmer while you tackle pasta cutting as a team.

 

 

 

 

Fun.  Now let’s finish the sauce.  Olives, capers, herbs.  Taste, season.  Almost there!

Ready?  Let’s eat.

And suddenly, we’re back in Italy, feasting and having fun.  All because of a couple tomatoes and some white anchovies.  The best happy accident in months.

Spaghetti with Tomato, White Anchovy & Olives

Spaghetti with Tomato, White Anchovy & Olives
 
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Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • Spaghetti (recipe for homemade follows or use 1 box dry spaghetti)
  • 2 c. Crushed Tomatoes (use canned if tomatoes are out of season)
  • 1 medium White Onion, halved
  • 4 cloves Garlic, bruised
  • 8 White Anchovies, divided
  • ½ c. Black Olives (I used nicoise olives), chopped
  • 2 Tbsp. Capers, chopped
  • Fresh Oregano
  • Fresh Flat Leaf Parsley
  • Red Pepper Flakes
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Instructions
  1. Heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil in heavy bottomed sauce pan over medium-high heat.
  2. Add onion halves, bruised garlic, and 1 tsp. red pepper flakes.
  3. Saute until onion and garlic start taking on color (don't let garlic burn).
  4. Add tomatoes, season, and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer and add 4 chopped white anchovies.
  5. Simmer over medium-low heat for 20 minutes, remove onions and garlic, add olives and capers, and continue to simmer (about 5 more minutes) until flavors blend, adjusting seasoning as needed.
  6. Meanwhile, cook spaghetti "al dente" and add directly to sauce.
  7. Sprinkle in some fresh oregano and chopped parsley. Divide among warm plates, drizzzle with additional olive oil, and garnish with an anchovy.

Semolina Pasta
 
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Makes 1 pound of pasta. Serves 4 as a main course, 6-8 as a first course
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Serves: 4-8
Ingredients
  • 1 c. All-Purpose Flour
  • 1 c. Semolina Flour
  • 2 Eggs
  • ¼ c. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Cold Water, as needed
Instructions
  1. Combine flours and mound on clean work surface.
  2. Create a well in center of mound, add eggs and pinch of salt.
  3. Carefully beat eggs with a fork, slowly bringing in flour, adding water as needed.
  4. When you have incorporated enough liquid to create a rough ball, knead the dough for a couple minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Wrap in plastic wrap and allow to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
  5. Roll rested dough and cut into desired shape.
  6. Cook in plenty of salted, boiling water. Pasta is ready when it floats to the top.

Pork Roulade with Caramelized Fennel & Onions

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This pork roast is so good.  It tastes so familiar, so comforting, so homey.  It tastes like autumn Sundays of my childhood.

So, now what?  Am I about to share my mother’s top-secret, time-honored recipe for pancetta wrapped pork loin roulade with caramelized fennel and onions?

No, I’m not.  No, the only “roulade-ing” I remember my mother doing those days involved corned beef and cream cheese (which is still delicious, but not the point).  In fact, I doubt anything pancetta-wrapped or caramelized fennel-stuffed came out of her kitchen pre-2002.

So why does this pork remind me so strongly of my youth?  It’s like we’ve met before, I just can’t pinpoint where.  Did one of my grandmothers make something like this?  An aunt?  A friend…

It finally dawned on me.

It’s not the finished product- it’s the process of making it that seems so familiar.  It’s spending a Sunday afternoon at home, the smell of onions cooking, padding through the kitchen to give something an occasional stir, wearing your grandma’s old “kiss the cook” apron, the sound of a football game on in the background.  That’s what I remember from my childhood; that’s what I find so comforting and satisfying.

But you didn’t come here for sap.  You came because you’re hungry!  Let’s cook.

Flavor Agents, report for duty.  Red onions, fennel, apples, walnuts.

Let’s take our fennel and onions from crisp and sharp to dark, concentrated, and sweet.

 

 

 

 

Unroll your pork and pound.  Work out those frustrations.  You’d never have this much fun just popping something in the microwave.

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s put it all together now.  Spread on the onions, roll up the pork, wrap with pancetta.  It’s like a pork on pork jelly roll…I wish I looked this good in pink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brown on the stove and place over apples, onions, and Brussels sprouts.  Add cider and you’re oven-ready.

 

 

 

 

 

Roast, let rest.  Mash potatoes, open some wine, and call your mom if she’s not across the table from you.


Pork Roulade with Caramelized Fennel & Onions
 
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This pork roast could easily be assembled the day before you plan to serve it. I served it with brussel sprouts, roasted in the same pan and mashed potatoes. It would be delicious served with polenta or squash puree as well.
Author:
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 2 medium Red Onions, sliced
  • 1 bulb Fennel, sliced
  • ½ c. Walnuts, chopped
  • 2# Pork Loin Roast
  • ¼# Pancetta, thinly sliced
  • Fresh Rosemary
  • Fresh Sage
  • 1 c. Apple Cider
  • 3 Apples, cut into wedges
  • 2 small White Onions, halved
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Butter
Instructions
  1. Heat 1 Tbsp. butter and 1 Tbsp. olive oil together over medium-low heat. Add sliced onions and fennel, season with salt and pepper, and caramelize slowly over low heat, about 2 hours, stirring occassionally. Add 1 tsp. chopped rosemary and walnuts towards the end and season as neccesary.
  2. Preheat oven to 400°.
  3. Roll cut pork loin to create a rectangle. Pound to even thickness and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
  4. Spread flattened pork with onion-fennel mixture and roll.
  5. Cover rolled pork loin with slightly overlapping slices of pancetta and secure with cooking twine. Tuck sprigs of sage and rosemary under twine.
  6. Place apple wedges and halved white onions (and brussel sprouts, if desired) in roasting pan.
  7. Heat 1 Tbsp. olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat and brown pork evenly on all sides, about 10 minutes.
  8. Place browned pork over apples and onions.
  9. Pour apple cider into skillet and bring to boil, scraping up brown bits. Pour in roasting pan.
  10. Roast pork about 1 hour, until internal temperature reaches 140°.
  11. Remove roast, apples, onions, and brussel sprouts from pan and tent under foil for half hour before slicing and serving.
  12. While pork is resting, strain pan juices, skim fat from top, and reduce in small sauce pan. Remove from heat and finish with 1 Tbsp. butter.