Bev came home from the store recently with three pork steaks and wanted them grilled with BBQ sauce. I had never heard of a pork steak until our midwestern friends Laurie and David (Big Daddy Dave) served them to us. In reality, they are sliced pork shoulder or Boston butt. I decided to brine them first and found a recipe on Best Recipe Box and decided to use it but not their grilling instructions so they are mine.
When I found this recipe for Fish Veracruz-Style from Saveur Magazine, I knew I wanted to try it with some of our crappie – our go-to for most dishes calling for white fish. I had a little under two pounds of fish which required cooking in two batches and there was still plenty of sauce. Otherwise, I followed the recipe as written except for the heat and all fresh herbs. This is the first batch.
I ask Bev what she would like to eat over the next few days and she said she was having cravings for pasta and would like Bolognese sauce over angel hair. It should not be confused with meat sauce which is basically marinara with meat in it while Bolognese has only a little tomato via tomato paste. Our favorite version has been using the recipe from Ann Burrell but since it takes about six hours to make, I opted to try a different one. The recipe I picked was the Best Bolognese Sauce from Bon Appetit. I made a couple of changes by substituting bacon for pancetta and red for white wine then I added garlic and doubled the recipe to get the one below – wanted leftovers. The original can be found by clicking on the above link.
While we no longer cook every Thursday for our friends, we still provide a meal about once per month. For this one, we decided on using Kevin’s recipe for Creamy DijonChicken Thighs With Bacon and Spinach from his Closet Cooking blog which I had been wanting to make for a while. Since I was making it for two families, I doubled the ingredients as shown below and so it could be delivered and then served hot, I turned it into a partially baked meal. I cooked everything in one pan then divided it between two baking pans. You can click on the above link for the original recipe and several pics like this.
Bev had bought some broccoli salad from the market deli and since I really enjoyed it, I decided to make my own. The store version appeared to contain broccoli, red onion, shredded cheddar, bacon and mayo plus maybe some sour cream. As a fan of Mediterranean flavors, I decided to make a Greek version and use my creamy feta dressing for it.
We had taken a piece of pork loin from the freezer and discovered six peaches in the fridge needing to be used and decided to make them into a meal. Our first thought was to simply grill the peaches as a side for the chops but then we thought a peach salsa would be better. I went on line for a peach salsa recipe and found one from Natasha’s Kitchen that even used some of our big bowl of cherry tomatoes. I made 1/3 of a recipe to get the one below but you can click on the link for the original recipe and many pics.
We love Mediterranean (Italian, Greek, African, etc) flavors around here and have recently made several seafood dishes using them and I decided I wanted to try another as we use up our freezer fish supply. This Mediterranean Tuna recipe comes from How to Feed A Loon and, for flavor, relies heavy on black olives but also makes use of our homegrown tomatoes plus capers and garlic. The only real change I made was using fresh tomatoes rather than the canned ones called for in the recipe and cooking both Ahi tuna and swordfish that came from our visit to Joe Patti's Seafood back in April. I also cooked the sauce and fish in separate pans. For the original recipe and plenty of pics click on the above link.
