Grilled Pork Tenderloin & My First Aioli

This post was to be about grilled pork tenderloin but since I got the meat too salty, I’ll make it about aioli instead.  I rarely remember to make a sauce for meat but finally did and I headed over to site of the sauce/aioli queen, Jenn, from Jenn’s Food Journey and used her recipe for Greek Aioli but substituted Montreal Steak Seasoning (also used on the pork) for the Greek seasonings.  It was a little too tangy for me as made and didn’t have enough seasoning flavor so I added more Montreal and some sugar.

Now, it was not only too tart, but also too salty, from the Montreal, and I decided it would be a good salad dressing but not right for this meal.  I have a long way to go Jenn.  While I do have CRS, I recalled that Chef Dennis over at A Culinary Journey With Chef Dennis had recently posted a recipe for homemade Montreal Steak Seasoning and I had everything but the dill, so I made this Aioli (omitting the salt component):

1/2 C. Mayo (I started with ¼ C.)

1/2 t. Dijon mustard

1/4 t. paprika

1/4 t. black pepper

1/8 t. garlic powder

1/8 t. onion powder

1/8 t. ground coriander

1/16 t. ground cayenne

It was good as made, but a little too flavorful, so I doubled the mayo to get the recipe above and I thought it was very good and it went well with the meat.

We sided the pork with grilled asparagus that was marinated in Ken’s Northern Italian with Basil and Romano dressing and potatoes that were sliced and steamed then grilled with a basting of garlic butter (Emeril’s Essence on some of them).

The potatoes were pretty good and similar to roasted but they needed some herbs.  For someone accustomed to fresh grown asparagus, what we had was awful – this stuff can only be used for moist heat cooking (or I’ll just wait til next spring).  I thought the aioli was the best part of the meal – there’s hope for me Jenn – so I put it on everything. 

I'm now responding to your comments and hoping you will stop back by - photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

10/03/12 event date

Saturday Humor - Finally An Explanation I Understand ..

The financial crisis explained in simple terms:

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Berlin .

In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers - most of whom are unemployed alcoholics - to drink now but pay later.

She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around and as a result increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar.

Taking advantage of her customers' freedom from immediate payment constraints, Heidi increases her prices for wine and beer, the most-consumed beverages.

Her sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert bankers transform these customer assets into DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and PUKEBONDS.

These securities are then traded on markets worldwide. No one really understands what these abbreviations mean and how the securities are guaranteed. Nevertheless, as their prices continuously climb, the securities become top-selling items.

One day, although the prices are still climbing, a risk manager (subsequently of course fired due his negativity) of the bank decides that slowly the time has come to demand payment of the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar.

However they cannot pay back the debts.

Heidi cannot fulfil her loan obligations and claims bankruptcy.

DRINKBOND and ALKBOND drop in price by 95 %. PUKEBOND performs better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80 %.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar, having granted her generous payment due dates and having invested in the securities are faced with a new situation.

Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor. The bank is saved by the Government following dramatic round-the-clock consultations by leaders from the governing political parties.

The funds required for this purpose are obtained by a tax levied on the non-drinkers.

There you have it.

Finally an explanation I understand.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

Go West Old Man – Headed Home – Nevada, MO - 2012

I just can’t drive a mobile house more than two consecutive days, so I planned a down day in Nevada, MO – where you say, why there?  First, a pronunciation lesson:  after saying it wrong, I was advised in Colorado that Arvada has a short middle a, like the state of Nevada, but Nevada, MO has a long middle a, which was hard to make myself say (nuh-VAY-duh). 

On the trip home, I wanted to avoid large cities and their rough roads that jar our teeth in the RV with 90 psi tire pressure plus see some of the country.  So I picked a route that looked like it would accomplish both, and then looked for campgrounds and there aren’t a lot of choices, but Nevada, Mo had a reasonably nice one in Osage Prairie RV Park.

Since we were in beef country and wanted to cook out for supper, we went to the local store and picked up a couple of steaks to grill at our fancy cooking setup.

We first cooked up a skillet full (wanted extra for breakfast) of potatoes, peppers, onions, and roasted chiles from Durango.

The grill-meisters throne.

The view from the throne.

The sous chef resting after completing her job – her guard looks around for possible threats or animals to chase.

Bev added S&P and Texas Rib Rangers Gourmet Steak Seasoning to the steaks – it’s what we had with us – and I grilled them on the Smoky Joe charcoal grill, which ran a lot better than when we were at 7000’.  It took me two meals in the high country before I realized why everything was taking so long to cook on the grill – the car ran at a higher RPM than normal as well.

I added some of the same seasoning to the veggies and both they and the meat were very good – this spice will go into the regular rotation for beef.  I forgot to get a shot before I'd cut off the filet and a piece of the strip for Bev - we saved most of the other strip.

The campground owner suggested we go to Daylight Donuts and More for breakfast, especially if we liked biscuits and gravy, which I do a lot.  Daylight Donuts is a worldwide company which runs as follows – “As a Daylight operator, you are a licensee, not a franchisee.  As such, you do not pay a franchise percentage or even an upfront licensing fee. You simply agree to use Daylight products and processes in exchange for the right to use the Daylight Donuts brand name and trademark.”  Then the local owner provides the “and More” part.

We got there too late for breakfast, except biscuits and gravy, so Bev had lunch special of a grilled roast beef sandwich and salad bar both of which were very good.  I decided to get a full order of biscuits and gravy so I’d have the next day’s breakfast as well.  The biscuits had to be at least 3” tall and scratch made, as would be expected from a donut shop.  This is my plate and the biscuits and sausage gravy were both very good.

The campground owner also suggested a restaurant for supper where they have a 24 oz. sirloin with the sides for two for only $20 and we had to give it a try - remember we were in beef country.  In the Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives classification system, from the outside, the place was more of a dump aspiring to be a dive - I wondered if I should be armed.

The sides weren't too good but the steak would have been had it not been overcooked - just another interesting trip experience while traveling the good ole USA. 

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

9/25 & 9/26/12 event dates

Pork Loin And Stuffing

I’d recently bought two whole pork loins while they were on sale – I’ve decided to stock up a little in case the prices skyrocket next year.  Since this was butcher, bag, and freeze day, I thought some chops cut from one of them would be in order and the idea of baked ones came to mind.

The next light to pop up in my mind, was to look thru “The Estabrook Family Cookbook” recently sent to me by Bob and Lea Ann Brown (Cooking On The Ranch) thinking a family cookbook from people who lived in the mid-west might have a baked pork chop recipe.  Sure enough there it was - Chicken And Stuffing – which I’d already been thinking about, except with pork and the author commented it worked equally well with pork.  So this is the final recipe I used:

Pork and Stuffing

Adapted from Lois Welker, reprinted with Lea Ann’s permission.

6 boneless pork chops, ¾” thick

Brine – recipe below (added by me)

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 C. sour cream

¼ can cream of mushroom soup – left from the broccoli casserole (added by me)

A few drops of Kitchen Bouquet (KB) for color (added by Bev)

1 box stuffing mix - Stove Top for Pork

S&P to taste – Aunt Lena added no salt and with the brine neither did I

Basic brine:  Add to a sauce pan 1 C. water, 1 C. apple juice, ¼ C. kosher salt, ¼ C. brown sugar, ¼ tsp. coarse black pepper, ½ bay leaf and heat until sugar and salt dissolve. Fill a 2 cup measuring device with ice cubes and add apple juice to make two cups.  Mix the two liquids in a cool container, stir until Ice melts and pour over the chops – cool liquid further if necessary.  I brined for 4 hours.

 

1. Spray a 9”x12” dish with cooking spray - drain and add pork chops- don’t rinse or pat dry.

2. Mix together the soup(s), sour cream, KB, and a little fresh ground pepper and spread evenly over the chops.

3. Prepare the stuffing mix per package directions plus ¼ cup of extra water for more moisture.

4. Spread the stuffing evenly over the chops and soup mix.

5. Bake uncovered at 350* until chops reach desired doneness – I used a remote probe and pulled them at 137* which took about 30 minutes on convection bake - chicken would take longer to get up to 165* (the recipe says one hour for boneless chicken breasts)

We served it with Bev’s broccoli casserole and fried rice – the rice needed to be used and we wanted to be sure we had something picky eater Madison would eat.  She is our 14 year old granddaughter who is living with us as she did when she was 11 - this should keep us young (or plant us earlier).  Sorry my plate wasn't very pretty.

The chops were very good and the only thing I’d do differently is make some biscuits or boil some potatoes to be whipped or hand mashed – there was plenty of good gravy that needed something to sop it up.  After I coaxed Madison to reluctantly try a bite (our food deal), she ate a whole chop and some broccoli casserole - hard to beat good ole comfort food. 

I’m not much of a cookbook person, preferring to use your blog posts for recipes, except when given a family, or church, town, etc. book, where everyone includes their old favorites, which are often family heirlooms.  I look forward to the next recipe we try from this book - thanks for sending it to us Lea Ann and Bob.

I'm now responding to your comments and hoping you will stop back by - photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

10/07/12 event date

 

Go West Old Man – Headed Home Days 1 & 2 – 2012

Since getting home, I’ve been watching the weather out west and it looks like we picked a good time to be there as winter is now making an appearance.

We pulled out of Denver around 9:00 am on 9/24 and traffic was light until I-70 turned into a parking lot on the east side of town – took 30 minutes to go about a mile – I just love big city driving.  After that, traffic was light all the way to Russell, KS, where we spent the night at the Triple J RV Park, which was adequate for a one night stop-over.  We were on a mission to get home so drove I-70 all day and found it to be a good road.

I assumed we would have a big elevation drop or two from the Colorado Plateau to lower elevations but other than one 300’ hill, it was a gradual downhill all the way to the Mississippi River – should get better MPG.  There was a combination of ranching and farming in this area but mostly farming until southwestern Kansas.

We also saw this thing go by and wondered what it was until we noticed the wind farm under construction and then a turbine blade went by. 

So we knew the first piece was part of the tower and later the piece that tops the tower and holds the blades went by – all of these things were huge.  

The next day we went east toward Salina on I-70, then south on I-135 and around the north side of Wichita to take US-54 to Nevada, MO.

West of Salina, we passed the Smoky Hills Wind Farm, consisting of 155 turbines, generating 250 mega-watts. “Smoky Hills is the largest and newest wind farm in Kansas and more than 100 landowners are participating in the project. Including the land used for roads, turbine foundations and maintenance buildings, less than two percent of the 20,000 acres covered by the wind farm will be removed from agricultural service.”  It was a real surprize that there were only about a half dozen of them operating.

The wind farm went 24 miles along I-70, but the shocker for me – “The project owner is Italian-based utility Enel, Europe's second biggest utility.”  Then the news recently had a story about Obama blocking a Chinese owned wind farm because it was too near something of special interest.  Why are we giving foreigners control of our most vital utility?  WOW.

I'm now responding to your comments and hoping you will stop back by - photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One Year Ago:  End Of The Garden Supper Two

Two years Ago:  Muffuletta Flavored Omelet

Larry

9/24 & 9/25/12 event dates

Go West Old Man – Breckenridge, CO – 2012

During our snow skiing days, many trips were made to Summitt County and we stayed in Breckenridge several times, but we’d only seen it in the winter.  Before leaving home on this trip, we decided a summertime visit to one of our favorite wintertime places was a must, so we spent our last Denver day there.  It's a nice little town, but I prefer it in winter - town shots are from the street and from the bottom of Peak 8.

It has a nice little creek with a walking path along side that I didn't know existed.

After a little walking, I left Bev to her shopping and the dogs and I rode around to see some of the town I remembered and had never before seen.  For our first trip out there, we stayed at Trappeur Villa and walked along and over the mostly frozen creek down to the slopes.

There were lots of these around the area and it has grown a lot in the last 15-20 years. 

These are some shots of the ski mountain, which I'd never seen without snow - I know the Horseshoe Bowl in the 3rd shot is steep and thrilling with snow.

For the trip back, we did something I'd always wanted to do during our many trips to Summitt Country and that was to drive US-6 over Loveland Pass.  We drove past Keystone then Arapaho Basin Ski Resorts - this is A-Basin.

 We finally got to the pass which is definitely up there.

Looking way below, you can see route 6 and I-70

It was another awesome drive and day in the Colorado mountains - I have to wonder if all those folks flying around the Denver area roads ever stop to take it in.

I'm now responding to your comments and hoping you will stop back by - photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

9/23/12 event date