SECRET RECIPE CLUB: ORANGE AND ROSEMARY PORK TENDERLOIN

Posted in Pork, Secret Recipe Club by sallybr

The time has come again, for the much awaited Reveal Day of The Secret Recipe Club! I felt a shiver up and down my spine when I got my assignment, and it is easy to see why: my assigned blog, A Taste of Home Cooking, has been around since 2006! She is a veteran food blogger by definition!

I struggled to choose a recipe, because too many appealed to me, and to make my life even harder, she kept publishing new posts with more enticing stuff, like a recent Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Mushrooms and Cream. At some point, I had to quit going back, and settled on two possibilities, the first you’ll see today, of course, but I will be making the other one soon, independent of the SRC.

ORANGE AND ROSEMARY PORK TENDERLOIN
(slightly modified from A Taste of Home Cooking)

2 pork tenderloins
4 oranges, juiced
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons agave nectar
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup heavy cream
chopped parsley leaves

Cut the tenderloins in 3 or 4 equal portions and place them in a plastic bag. Whisk together the marinade ingredients and pour them over the meat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight, massaging the meat when you have a chance, or moving the pieces around).

Preheat the oven to 370 degrees. Remove the pork from the fridge and pour the marinade into a small saucepan.

Heat an oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat. Place the pork pieces into the skillet and sear on all sides, about 10 minutes total. Put the skillet in the oven and roast for 20 minutes, until cooked through (the meat should be pale pink in the center; if using a meat thermometer, the recommended safe internal temperature is 160°F), flipping the meat a couple of times during the roasting.

While the meat is roasting, put the saucepan with the remaining marinade over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Keep boiling, uncovered, stirring regularly, until the marinade has reduced halfway. Add in the cream, salt and parsley. Stir, and keep warm over low heat.

When the meat is ready, remove the skillet from the oven, and transfer the meat to a cutting board. If there are any juices in the skillet add them to the sauce and bring back to a boil. Cut the meat pieces into thick slices and serve with the sauce,sprinkling more fresh parsley on top.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: This recipe was originally from Clotilde, of Chocolate and Zucchini, another ultra-veteran blog, but I followed all the modifications from “A Taste of Home”, like browning the meat before, and increasing baking time. Departing from both versions, I opted for an amount of cream halfway between them. You can get by with less, maybe a couple of tablespoons, or splurge, but I felt the meat had just the right amount of naughtiness the way I made it… 😉

After making this recipe, I am convinced we should all use oranges more often in sauces, marinades, salad dressings. They bring the citric component, but a lot more natural sweetness.

I loved this month’s adventure at The Secret Recipe Club! If you want to see what my fellow bloggers came up with, simply click on the links brought to you by the cute blue frog below.

Note added after publication: curious to see who got the Bewitching? Jump to “The Double Dipped Life”, and see the recipe she chose (a favorite of ours, by the way).

ONE YEAR AGO: Pistachio-Walnut Sourdough Bread (we loved this one!)

TWO YEARS AGO: Pork Tenderloin and Blue Cheese

27Feb2012

SECRET RECIPE ENCORE: CHICKPEA SALAD

Posted in Salads, Secret Recipe Club, Veggies by sallybr

When I was a child, becoming an orphan was my greatest fear, and I literally lost many nights of sleep worrying about it. So, when I learned that one member from the Secret Recipe Club was about to be an orphan this month (the person supposed to pick a recipe from the blog had a problem and could not complete the assignment in time) I decided to perform a virtual adoption… 😉 My “encore” post for this month’s reveal day comes from Without Adornment, and you can visit it clicking here. Bean, the hostess, has a site loaded with gluten-free recipes, and absolutely gorgeous photography. Due to the time constraints (I had less than 24 hours to pick a recipe, make it, and write about it), I had to go with a simple dish. But, it all ended perfectly for me: I had no idea what to eat for lunch after working out, and her chickpea salad came to the rescue. Delicious, refreshing, light, healthy, but also filling enough to carry me through a busy Sunday afternoon…
CHICKPEA SALAD
(adapted from Without Adornment)

1 can of chickpeas
2 medium carrots, thinly sliced
1 stalk celery, thinly sliced
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, diced
Grape or Cherry tomatoes to taste
salt and pepper
grapeseed oil
lime juice
white balsamic vinegar

Boil 2 cups of water in a small sauce pan. Drain the chickpeas from the can, and drop them in the boiling water for 5-10 second. Quickly drain them and rinse with plenty of cold water. Reserve until cold.

In a bowl, mix all the ingredients from chickpeas to tomatoes. Make a simple dressing with oil, a squeeze of lime juice, a little balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Drizzle over the salad and….

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

This salad gives me the chance to introduce you to a reasonably recent acquisition from the Bewitching Kitchen… a spiralizer! Or a spiral-cutter… or… whatever you want to call it…
I like raw carrots in salad, but prefer if they are cut paper-thin. This gadget gave me the exact texture I was hoping for. The very thin ribbons get perfectly seasoned and retain just a little crunch.

Chickpeas & boiling water: this is a tip I learned from Barbara Tropp, in her book Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking. She recommended to rinse all sorts of canned products in boiling water, to remove what she described as the “tin taste”. The improvement in flavor is quite noticeable. So I normally do it whenever I use chickpeas, beans, and water chestnuts.

Bean, it was fun to get to know your blog, I wish I’d had more time to devote to it, your Lemon Cupcakes seemed absolutely scrumptious! 😉

ONE YEAR AGO: A Soft Spot for Chevre

TWO YEARS AGO: Seared Tuna, My Own Private Idaho

27Feb2012

SECRET RECIPE CLUB: EARTHQUAKE COOKIES!

Posted in Cookies, Desserts, Sweets, Secret Recipe Club by sallybr

After one month break, we are back with “The Secret Recipe Club“, and our group even has a new moderator, April, who did a great job coaching us through the changes that took place during the break. For those who are not familiar with the event, a few weeks before reveal day, each member is assigned a food blog (in secret) to cook a recipe from. This time I was paired with My Judy the Foodie. When I get an assignment, I jump straight to the “About” page, to get to know my fellow blogger. Shari describes herself as a “kitchen-clueless person”. But one who is ready for a challenge, the challenge of creating new traditions for her own family, inspired by her mother’s cooking. The whole blog is in fact a beautiful tribute to her Mom. Her page “About Judy” was particularly touching to read.

I next browsed through her recipes, and it didn’t take me very long to choose her beautiful “Earthquake Cookies“. Considering the fact that while living for one year in Los Angeles we didn’t have a single earthquake, but the very week we moved back to Oklahoma the earth shook three days in a row, I felt these cookies were the perfect choice! 😉
JUDY’S EARTHQUAKE COOKIES
(from My Judy the Foodie)

8 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 squares unsweetened chocolate
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups sugar
4 eggs beaten
2 cups flour, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
1 + 1/2 cups of confectioner’s sugar

Melt chocolate and butter in a microwave safe container, stirring every 15 seconds.

Beat the eggs in a large bowl, add the sugar, vanilla extract, and melted chocolate/butter mixture. Add the baking powder, flour, and salt and beat until very smooth.

Place bowl in fridge and chill as long as 24 hours.

Heat the oven to 350 F. Cover two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place confectioner’s sugar in bowl large enough to roll out the fudge balls. Take a teaspoon of the cookie dough and form into balls. Coat the ball with confectioner’s sugar by rolling it around in the sugar many times.

Place on baking sheet with enough room for each ball to “explode” open. Bake for approximately 12 minutes (mine took longer). Cool and then remove cookies to wire rack (make sure to place foil under the rack as powdered sugar can be quite messy).

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: When you make these cookies, don’t forget the cookie dough must sit in the fridge for 24 hours. Once you mix the dough, it will be very soft, the only way you can shape them is by refrigerating for several hours. As far as taste goes, a full day in the fridge seems to be the best option.

Here you can see the dough right after mixing it…

and next day, ready to finish the job…

My cookies did not explode the same way Shari’s did, her cookies looked a lot more “interesting” than mine. Not sure what happened, I suspect the geologic fault that runs near our home was fast asleep when I put them in the oven. Bummer! However, exploded or not, these cookies were VERY tasty. They have a slightly fudgy consistency, and as they melt in your mouth the chocolate flavor will force you to close your eyes and indulge in extremely happy thoughts. My kind of cookie!

Shari, nice to meet you through The Secret Recipe Club! Looking forward to checking out what was your assignment this month! 😉

ONE YEAR AGO: A Soft Spot for Chevre

TWO YEARS AGO: Seared Tuna, My Own Private Idaho

26Dec2011

SECRET RECIPE CLUB: WHITE CHOCOLATE DIPPED COOKIES

Posted in Cookies, Desserts, Sweets, Secret Recipe Club by sallybr

My third assignment for the Secret Recipe Club! When I clicked on my assigned blog – Kudos Kitchen by Renee – I melted on the spot: the front page was a post composed by her three dogs (Ivy, Nutmeg and Nell), and they had a lot to bark about! 😉

Renee is an artist (check her store at Etsy), and that alone leaves me in complete awe, because I cannot draw a tree to save my own life! In fact, back in middle school two things terrified me to the point of losing sleep: physical education and art classes. I was absolutely horrible at both, and wanted to disappear from the planet when it was time to face them. Back to blogging. I fell in love with Renee’s 4th of July cookies, and adapted them for a Christmas time motif, switching the colors to green and red. And, since I’ve always wanted to make shortbread cookies, this was a perfect excuse to bake a batch. Without further ado, and with apologies to Renee, here is my very first attempt at playing Jackson Pollock. You can understand why I was not very popular with the art teachers… (sigh)

WHITE CHOCOLATE DIPPED COOKIES
(adapted from Kudos Kitchen by Renee)

for cookies
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 cups flour
3/4 cup ground hazelnuts
zest of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons vanilla
pinch of salt

for dipping cookies
1 + 1/2 packages white chocolate morsels
3 tablespoons Crisco, divided
1 tablespoon milk
red and green food coloring

In a large kitchen Aid type bowl, beat together the butter with the brown sugar until creamy. Add the flour, ground hazelnuts, vanilla, lemon zest, and salt. Beat until smooth. Remove the dough from the bowl, form it into a log and wrap with plastic. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Heat the oven to 325 F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. When the dough is firm enough to handle, remove 1 inch balls and shape as a cookie, flattening the surface. Alternatively, you can slice pieces straight from the log, 1/4 inch thick. Smooth the surface and edges, and place on prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes on until set and very lightly browned on the bottom. Remove from pan and place the cookies to cool on a rack. Before icing, place them in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Dipping the cookies: melt 1 cup of the chocolate chips and the 2 + 1/2 tablespoons of Crisco in your microwave. Check on it often and stir it occasionally until the chocolate is smooth and completely melted.

Using a fork and working with one cookie at a time, dip each cookie, turning it over to coat both sides nicely with chocolate. Place your dipped cookies on a baking sheet that has been lined with parchment paper. Follow this step until all of the chocolate is used up. This amount of chocolate will be enough to coat about 12 cookies.

With the remaining 1/2 cup of morsels, melt them in your microwave again, using 1/2 Tbs Crisco and 1 tablespoon of milk to keep the consistency thinner and better for drizzling.

In two separate small bowls, divide the chocolate and color them with the red and green food coloring. Drizzle the cookies with both colors of icing, using the tines of a fork dipped in water, or if you have the right skills, a little improvised piping bag made with parchment paper.

Place the cookies in the fridge until time to serve them.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

A few things I learned from this baking adventure…

1. Run away from the small tubes of food coloring gel, because even if you squeeze the full tube of green gel in 1/4 cup of melted chocolate, the resulting icing will have a pale lime color. Go for the real McCoy, the type that you need to use a toothpick to grab the tiny amount that gets the job done.

2. White chocolate is not for sissies. When Renee says to make sure the chocolate is fully melted and smooth, she knows what she’s talking about. Lumps get together and seem to multiply at a fast rate. Then, right before your eyes, the whole thing turns into a solid mess.

3. White chocolate is not for sissies. Melted chocolate, when smooth and fluid, has a remarkable tendency to splatter. Certain types of dog fur catch droplets of icing with high efficiency, and don’t wash easily.

4. Have I mentioned that white chocolate is not for sissies? Buy more than you think you’ll need. Have a cup of chamomile tea before icing your cookies. You may need three shots of tequila after.

But it will all be worth it, these cookies were amazing! You can play with the colors to match your favorite football team, or go real artistic and draw something over the white chocolate canvas, like red hearts for Valentine’s Day! 😉

Renee, it was great to get to know your blog, hope you had as much fun as I did with your assignment this month!

ONE YEAR AGO: Sourdough Focaccia, with a Twist

TWO YEARS AGO: Merry Christmas!

28Nov2011

SECRET RECIPE CLUB: WILD MUSHROOM RISOTTO

Posted in Rice and Grains, Secret Recipe Club, Vegetarian-friendly by sallybr

My second “assignment” at the Secret Recipe Club was the blog “I am a Honey Bee”. I had a lot of fun browsing through its pages, starting on the “About Me” chapter with a list of 25 things about her. A few matched me so well I had to smile: “I hate the cold, REALLY hate the cold…” or “I went to Greece, fell in love with everything I saw, ate, smelled, touched…” …. and “I get frustrated too easily, I’m sorta working on that one” (good to know I’m not alone in this! 😉

Even though I spent quite a bit of time reading her blog, it took me about 35 seconds to choose her Wild Mushroom Risotto. It is the perfect time of the year for it, plus I had two special ingredients already at home: porcini mushrooms, and home made chicken stock. All I needed was to stop at the store for two more types of mushrooms (fresh shiitake and white), and I was ready to have some serious fun. On a small departure from her recipe, I used the pressure cooker to make it, and with this statement I just irritated all serious risotto enthusiasts, but trust me: it is a nice trick to have up your sleeve. Still, I’ll give you the two variations, as not everyone has a pressure cooker at home.

WILD MUSHROOM RISOTTO
(Traditional Method)
(adapted from “I am a Honey Bee“)

1 cup very hot water
1/4 ounce dried wild mushrooms, such as porcini
9 ounces assorted fresh mushrooms
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup chopped shallots
1 cup Arborio or rice
8 sage leaves, finely julienned, divided
1/2 cup dry white wine
5 – 7 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
4 to 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup grated Parmegiano cheese, plus more for serving
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Soak the dried mushrooms in 1 cup of very hot water for 30 minutes. Remove the mushrooms with a slotted spoon, chop them finely. Filter the water through a sieve to remove any grit, and add it to the chicken (or veggie) stock in a medium size pan, keep it at a simmer on very low heat.

Chop the fresh mushrooms. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook until translucent. Add the mushrooms, season lightly with salt and pepper, and cook until tender and all moisture has been absorbed. Add half the sage and the rice, cook stirring, until the grains are well coated, and start to get some color – 3 to 4 minutes.

Add wine. Cook, stirring, until wine is absorbed by rice. Using a ladle, add 3/4 cup hot stock to rice. Stir rice constantly, at a moderate speed. When rice has absorbed most but not all of liquid and mixture is just thick enough to leave a clear wake behind the spoon when stirring, add another 3/4 cup stock.

Continue adding stock and stirring constantly, until rice is mostly translucent but still opaque in center. Add the porcini mushrooms, and continue cooking until rice is al dente, but not crunchy. Remove from heat, stir butter, remaining sage leaves, and Parmigiano cheese. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper, and serve, with additional shaved cheese on top, if so desired.

to print the recipe (traditional method), click here

WILD MUSHROOM RISOTTO
(Pressure Cooker)

1 cup very hot water
1/4 ounce dried wild mushrooms, such as porcini
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter, divided
1/2 cup shallots, diced
9 ounces assorted fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 cup Arborio rice
8 fresh sage leaves, finely julienned, divided
3 + 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano cheese

In a pressure cooker, heat 4 tbs Olive oil and 1 Tbs Butter. Add the shallots and saute until translucent and fragrant. Add the mushrooms, season lightly with salt and pepper, and cook until they start to get soft.

Add half the sage and the rice, cook stirring until all grains are well coated with the oil/mushroom mixture (about 3 minutes). Pour all the hot stock and wine in the pan, close it, and bring to full pressure. Reduce the heat or use the specific instructions from your pan to keep the pressure constant for 7 minutes. Immediately take the pan to the sink, run some cold water over the lid to reduce the temperature, and when the pressure is down, open the pan. If there’s still too much liquid, cook gently, stirring until it reaches the consistency you like. Test the rice to make sure it’s cooked through, add the tablespoon of butter, the remaining sage leaves, and the Parmigiano cheese, adjust seasoning, and serve.

ENJOY!

to print the pressure cooker method recipe, click here

Comments: One of the reasons I like the pressure cooker method is the ability to know exactly when the recipe will be ready, as it makes entertaining a lot easier. I’ve made risotto using this basic method many times, and it never failed me. In seven minutes, the rice is perfectly cooked, and usually the amount of liquid remaining in the pan is very close to perfect. My main problem with risotto is taking the picture, I am a bit slow and the rice goes on absorbing the liquid. By the time I am satisfied with the photo, it’s a little passed its prime.. . 😉

This recipe is delicious, no matter the method you choose to make it. Porcini will always turn any meal into a festive occasion, and I think the sage goes well with it too.

Make sure you stop by “I am a Honey Bee” to check all her other recipes, and if you want to see all other posts in today’s reveal day follow the links by clicking in the icon below (the little blue toad).

ONE YEAR AGO: Tartine Bread: Basic Country Loaf

TWO YEARS AGO: Pumpkin Pie, Light as a Feather