Grad weekend #4: Crown roast of pork (p. 498), Spinach, mushroom, and ground meat stuffing (p. 538), and Spicy apricot sauce (p. 217)

On to the main course! I decided to make a big expensive cut of meat stuffed with a delicious stuffing as my showstopper. When I read the recipe for Spinach, mushroom, and ground meat stuffing (p. 538), it reminded me of my grandmother's ravioli recipe and sounded amazing (My Nonni makes the best ravioli in the world).

I cooked spinach, onions, and a lot of onions in butter--a perfect start to any recipe:



I mixed ground pork, fine bread crumbs, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and two large eggs in a bowl with the mushroom mixture. Note: Mix the eggs in before adding the spinach mixture (which is hot), otherwise you have to work really fast because the egg starts to cook.



I could barely stir the mixture--it was extremely stiff. Mom got to work:



The hole in the crown roast was really small, so we baked most of the stuffing in a bowl.



The stuffing was amazing! It was so delicious. It wasn't a bread-heavy typical stuffing but it had an amazing flavor and was really flavorful. I liked the combination of the pork, mushrooms, and spinach--this won't replace the cornbread stuffing at Thanksgiving, but I really enjoyed it.

The main part of the whole meal was the beautiful crown roast that we bought at a local butcher shop. (As an aside, their staff could use some more training--the man who sold it to us told us that he knew it was going to be good because it was pale. That is totally wrong information. Thankfully, he was incorrect and it was acceptable quality).

I've been very intimidated by recipes such as Crown roast of pork (p. 498) for two reasons. First, it's an expensive piece of meat. Second, it makes a HUGE amount of food and we are only a two-person household. So a special family weekend is the perfect time to roll a recipe like this one out.

I rubbed the pork with a mixture of olive oil, thyme, allspice, salt, and pepper, which looked distinctly like sludge.



I roasted it for fifteen minutes at a high heat, then reduced the heat to very low for about an hour. When it was an hour along, we stuffed it.



TJOC says to cook the pork roast until it's 155 degrees but my father, an expert in the field, recommended I remove it at 145 degrees, which is what I did. As it rested, it cooked until about 160 degrees, which is perfectly done for pork. Please, please, please don't ruin a piece of meat like this by cooking it until it's shoe leather.

Dad in action, with his granddog hopefully looking on:



The pork was amazing! It was tender and flavorful and the rub was perfection. The rub is more like a combination for a baked good but it was really good and not too strong. The roast easily fed nine, with leftovers. Most importantly, it was striking and perfect for a holiday.

For some reason, I thought that it would be perfect to have a nice sauce to pour over the pork. I'm not entirely sure why I wanted to add one more dish to the litany. I thought Spicy apricot sauce (p. 217) would taste delicious with pork. I had a vision of a beautiful bright orange sauce covering the pork and stuffing.

Canned apricots were surprisingly difficult to find at our grocery store! There was only one brand and I'm not totally confident that it was the full amount that TJOC required.

I combined a sweet onion, jalapeno peppers, and garlic in vegetable oil and cooked it until tender:



I then added the apricots, water, brown sugar, cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, and soy sauce and cooked it until the sauce had thickened:



I pureed it, added salt and red pepper, and it was finished!



Where is that beautiful orange color I was hoping for? The picture is actually a more attractive picture than the sauce actually was--it was a very strange yellow/orange. It didn't have a very strong apricot flavor but it was fruity and spicy. It was a popular dish and did spice up the meal (Ha! Spice up!). I never make a sauce to go along with meat but I think it's a great idea in general.

Graduation #3: Chicken liver mousse (p. 81) and Spinach and feta triangles (p. 89)

I thought the appetizer spread would also be a perfect time to make an option or two that I didn't want to eat. Chicken liver mousse (p. 81) is a perfect example of an appetizer food that I wouldn't eat unless I was on some sort of dare.

The start of the recipe looked promising--I cooked shallots and diced Golden Delicious apples until they are a little softened and added them to the food processor:



I cooked a pound of chicken livers until they were brown on the outside and pink on the inside.

I actually had to go back through this post and rewrite it because I feel so full of information. First of all, I've taken to buying airport sized liquors so that I'm not stuck with the whole bottle so I've really gotten knowledgeable about the range of tiny alcohol bottles. I knew nothing about cognac so I was blown away when I saw that a airport sized Courvoisier XO was TEN DOLLARS! I ended up with the much cheaper Hennessey, figuring that I know nothing about it anyway. I decided to educate myself (through Professor Wikipedia) on cognac.

There are three grades of cognac, with VS (Very Special) being the youngest, VSOP (Very Special Old Pale) in the middle, and XO (Extra Old) as the oldest. A little bit of trivia for the next night at the bar! Grand Marnier is a type of cognac that has been mixed with bitter oranges. And I always think of the Ladies Man on Saturday Night Live when I see Courvoisier.

I poured 3 tablespoons of Cognac onto the livers and attempted to light it:



And attempted. And attempted. And attempted. It did not light on fire. Maybe there was too much liquid in the pan? I gave up after a few attempts.

I added the liver mixture to the food processor (it was a tight squeeze):



At this point, TJOC says to drop cold butter into the machine with it running. Easier said than done when you have such a tiny processor and only two hands:



I scraped the entire mousse into a bowl and chilled it for a few hours.



Most of the guests were pretty happy with the mousse, which they ate on crackers. It smelled absolutely horrible. Between the smell and the consistency, it reminded me of cat food. My family reported that it was extremely appley but most of them liked it (one of them, who I won't name, ate it with a spoon!).

One of the best outcomes of TJOTJOC (thus far) has been totally losing my fear of phyllo. I still think it's a pain to use but I'm not scared of using it. And, really, foods wrapped in phyllo do look pretty impressive. Because they look impressive, I thought that Spinach and feta triangles (p. 89) would be a good addition to the menu.

Spinach and feta triangles are pretty similar to the Mushroom triangles that I made a few years ago (Wow! Time flies!). I sauteed some onion in butter, then added spinach and cooked the water off. I added feta, lemon juice, and black pepper to the spinach mixture.



I then rolled the phyllo like a flag, into little triangles (I went into more detail on this process in the linked post).



I baked the triangles until golden brown:



They were really delicious! Much better than the mushroom triangles and these were vegetarian, if you needed a veggie appetizer. I think this recipe could be adjusted for other mixtures too--I'm really interested in the idea of a ham and cheese triangle. Anyone have any other ideas for stuffing?

Grad weekend #2: Spanish-style marinated olives (p.71), Garlic-cheese spread (p.76), Marinated mushrooms (p.78)&Ginger lemongrass vinaigrette (p.57 )

I decided to make an appetizer spread for the first day that most of my relatives were showing up. I think this was partially because the only other big meals I've ever made were for Thanksgiving and that's usually what we do for Thanksgiving. It is a good idea, though, because the food can sit out and people can graze.

I thought Spanish-style marinated olives (p. 71) would be perfect since they could easily sit out and they took almost no work. I bought brine-cured green olives, brine-cured black olives, and oil-cured black olives at the Whole Foods olive bar and then added olive oil, garlic cloves, bay leaves, rosemary, and a bit of red pepper flakes. I then let it marinate overnight.



They were delicious and a big hit. The recipe makes four cups of olives but they keep in the fridge for up to a month. The garlic and rosemary flavors complimented the olives perfectly.

I also made Garlic-cheese spread (p. 76), which had actually been on my cooking agenda for a while. I mixed shredded Havarti (which doesn't shred easily--it's soft), a bit of mayonnaise, garlic, and chives.



I stored it for six hours and it was ready to go. Mom told me that a garlic-cheese dip is sold at the grocery store and my version had less mayonnaise, which mom sees as a real plus (she also said that Hy-Vee sells a cheddar version, so go wild with different choices!). It was really good! The garlic gave it an excellent kick and I really like Havarti. It was perfect on crackers.

Marinated mushrooms (p.78) has to be one of the easiest recipes in TJOC. I sliced some mushrooms and soaked them in Ginger lemongrass vinaigrette (p. 575). I mixed lemongrass, ginger, white vinegar, water, and sugar together in a saucepan. I keep white vinegar under the sink since I mainly use it for cleaning, so it always seems strange to use it in a recipe.



When the sauce reduced, I whisked in sesame oil, vegetable oil, and soy sauce and poured it over the mushrooms.



As the mushrooms marinated, they soaked the dressing up.



Re-reading the recipe, I see I was supposed to drain them, but the mushrooms really soaked most of the dressing up. I didn't bother (mostly because I didn't actually read that directive but also because I didn't feel the need to serve them on toothpicks, so extra dressing didn't matter).

These were very popular and went very quickly leaving no leftovers. The lemongrass-ginger sauce had a terrific crisp flavor that really complimented the mushrooms. I think the vinaigrette would work very well as a marinade for grilled veggies too--I can easily imagine these mushrooms on a skewer.

Graduation weekend #1: Chickpea salad (p. 170), Tangy coleslaw (p. 161), and Spicy Chinese slaw (p. 161)

The next few posts need a bit of introduction (a happy introduction!).

Most of you know that I'm working on a PhD--I'm nearing the end (thankfully!) but my university only has graduation ceremonies in May and December. I was originally going to be finished within summer session (I will be done in September now) but because of the lack of an August graduation ceremony, I decided to walk (and get hooded) in the May ceremony.

My mom, her sister, her best friend, my dad, his brother, Josh's mother, and Josh's brother all traveled in for the ceremony and everyone stayed in the house for at least a few days. It was my first time to host that many people and took me a couple of months to get the house in shape. I learned a few things, like take the amount of toilet paper that you think you need and buy twice that.

The part (aside from the actual graduation) that I was the most excited about what cooking the meals. I thought we would have appetizers and cold salads as people trickled in on Thursday, our big dinner Thursday night (giving me an opportunity to cook a big piece of meat), and a nice brunch on Friday before the afternoon ceremony, which would really help my goal of "201 TJOC recipes in 2010".

My thought process with the cold salads was that they could be snacked on during the day on Thursday and kept in the fridge if people needed a snack.

The first salad I made was Chickpea salad (p. 170). The salad was simple. I mixed together chickpeas, roasted red peppers, onion, parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, Dijon mustard, and garlic. Simple!

Actually, the only disaster was while I was roasting the red peppers--I used too much olive oil and put the rack too close to the heating source and there was a small fire incident.



This is a hard salad for me to rate because I dislike red peppers--the chickpeas really soaked up the red pepper/onion flavor and the garlic and lemon juice gave it a nice kick. I think it was better the next day after it sat overnight and the flavors totally melded.

I thought that Tangy coleslaw (p. 161) would also be good. I like coleslaw but not enough to eat it for several days until it's gone, which is why I haven't made many of the coleslaw recipes in the past. I mixed scallions, rice vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and sugar together:



I then tossed cabbage, watercress, and a carrot with the mayo mixture:



And it was finished! I liked this dish. The watercress gave it a nice peppery kick and the carrots were nice and crunchy. I don't think it was particularly tangy but it wasn't the same ole boring coleslaw that I'm used to, so I liked it. It was easy and eye-catching--I think it would be a good choice to bring to a potluck.

Finally, I also made Spicy Chinese slaw (p. 161). I picked up a nice piece of diakon (a type of Japanese radish) at the grocery store and cut it into matchsticks. I ate a TON of diakon when I was in Japan--it's worked into essentially every dish and it's used in probably a hundred different ways.



Honestly, that is some of the best work I've ever done (sad but at least I'm improving!). I salted the daikon with a TON of salt.

I let it marinate and rinsed it off, then stirred in garlic, red pepper flakes, sugar, rice vinegar, olive oil, and sesame oil.



It was so pretty! But WAY too salty. WAY too salty. Rinse the heck out of the daikon. Rinse it until you think it's done and then rinse it some more. I imagine you salt it to reduce the moisture--which it definitely did--but the salt really soaked in. So it's really hard to judge because it was so salty. I think if it had less salt, it would have had a great spicy flavor. Has anyone else made this dish?

Vinaigrette (p. 572), Roquefort or blue cheese vinaigrette (p. 573), Honey mustard vinaigrette (p. 573), and Sherry vinaigrette (p. 573)

I always forget how much I like a nice vinaigrette. For some reason, I never make it for myself, although my Aunt Charlotte makes the best vinaigrette I've ever tasted (and would be more than happy to show me the tricks). I've had excellent experinces with TJOC's dressing recipes--every one of them has been dramatically better than store-bought and I'm becoming well known in my family for my blue cheese dressing, which is based on the TJOC.

I was hungry and figured I could do something with TJOC's Vinaigrette (p. 572).

The recipe was pretty simple--I crushed some garlic through my garlic press and added salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, shallot, and a little prepared mustard.

I then slowly whisked in olive oil:

The vinagerette had a great flavor but was a little heavy on the olive oil in my opinion. I like my vinaigrettes more acidic. In the future I would probably make it with balsamic vinegar rather than red wine but it was nice to get the vinaigrette-making technique down.

And it led me to a delicious dinner:

I love artichoke hearts drenched in vinaigrette, preferentially with some feta cheese on the top. Yum! And I pretend it's healthy!

The next day I took the leftover vinaigrette and turned it into Roquefort or blue cheese vinaigrette (p. 573) by adding some crumbled blue cheese. I always use Maytag blue cheese because it's my favorite--and because I'm an Iowan and feel like I'm supporting the state when I use it. Maytag is mild (for a blue cheese) but flavorful--I would challenge anyone who says they don't like blue cheese to try blue cheese dressing made with Maytag. I've converted many naysayers with it.

I then went on a vinaigrette making bender. I made Honey mustard vinaigrette (p. 573). I mixed lemon juice, honey, coarse-grain mustard, and my version of white wine vinegar. I say my version, because I didn't actually have white wine vinegar, so I just mixed red wine vinegar and rice vinegar.

I whisked olive oil into the mixture:

And had a beautiful dressing! It was good, if you like honey mustard. Sweet and mustardy. I've always thought that I didn't like mustard because I don't like yellow mustard but I seem to be okay with Dijon. Random fact for the day--prepared mustard is yellow because of turmeric.

I finished out my day with Sherry vinaigrette (p. 573). I mixed sherry vinegar (I just counted my types of vinegar and I have white vinegar [essentially for cleaning], balsamic, red wine, rice, apple cider, and sherry--it seems like a lot of choices), Dijon mustard, shallot, thyme, and red pepper flakes:

And then whisked in the olive oil:

It was really good but, like all the others, heavy on the olive oil. I liked the flavor but I think that sherry vinegar is one of my least favorite types--it's a strange flavor.

Honestly, I eat a lot more salad when I actually have dressing and salads in the fridge and I could really stand to eat more veggies (I love them but I forget about them), especially since I'm allergic to an increasingly large variety of fruit.

Has anyone tried any of the TJOC dressings I haven't made yet? I would take requests.

Bean and rice cakes (p. 106)

I haven't had a major TJOC disaster for a while, so I suppose I was due. Believe it or not, Bean and rice cakes (p. 106) had been on my to-make list for a while. I like vegetarian food but I tend not to like non-meat burgers, so I was optimistic about the recipe.

I cooked onion and celery in butter until softened.



I then added a can of chickpeas that I smashed, a cup of cooked rice, two eggs, parsley, salt, and pepper. I think it's possible that one of these choices was a mistake--maybe I shouldn't have used leftover rice? Maybe only one egg? Maybe I didn't smash the beans enough?



My mixture did not form into patties well at all. They were soft and totally not cohesive.



I thought that maybe the crusting step would help--I dredged (or attempted to dredge) the cakes in flour, an egg, and then sesame seeds.



It did not work. They totally fell apart.



Even so, I tried to fry them up.



Lets just say this was not a success. The cakes barely held together and the two or three that I managed to make were bland and way too heavy on the sesame seeds.

Honestly, I think this was the worst TJOC recipe I've ever made. Honestly, something that had some flavor really needed to be added to this recipe--between the chickpeas, celery, onion, rice, and eggs, everything was bland and rather beige (the celery wasn't extensive enough to matter). The recipe was totally unsuccessful. It didn't even taste good! I have no idea why the patties wouldn't hold together. Plus it made a ton of dishes! A total fail.

Baklava (p. 675)

I really like Baklava (p. 675) so I was happy to make the TJOC version. One of my main reasons I started this blog was to get over my fear of making dishes that greatly intimidate me--and baklava was top of the list.

The recipe was actually pretty simple. I buttered a dish, laid two pieces of phyllo out, buttered them, laid another two sheets, buttered, another two sheets, buttered, and done. TJOC recommends cutting the phyllo but they must be talking about phyllo sheets that are bigger than the ones I was working with--my phyllo sheets didn't need to be cut.



I sprinkled the phyllo with half of a sugar/lemon zest/cinnamon mixture that I had set aside and chopped toasted pecans. I think pistachios or almonds are a lot more traditional but I like pecans a lot more.




The whole operation was repeated another time and it was covered with a final six layers of phyllo dough. Honestly, buttering the phyllo was the most difficult part of the whole operation.

I cut the baklava into diamonds. It's supposed to be pre-cut so it doesn't get crushed but it still crushed slightly.



I made the sauce, which was a sugar, water, honey, and lemon juice mixture.



And poured it over the top. And into the oven it went!

When it came out, it was beautiful!



And delicious! It wasn't overwhelming with honey flavor but tasted pretty much like any baklava I've ever had. It was deliciously flaky. I would definitely make this again but not until I have more people around who like baklava--as the only person in this household who likes it, I got pretty sick of eating it after the first week.

I'm extending the contest until June 1st so make sure to enter! Win your own copy of TJOC! And fan me on Facebook.