Food, Glorious Food

Last weekend was a whirlwind of social engagements - all of which included food, of course!

Friday night was an epic restaurant meal with one of my great foodie friends. We ate at Nostrano, a Madison favorite, and pulled out all the stops. I'm slightly embarrassed to say that we shared three appetizers, two entrees, and one dessert.

This was our menu:

CELERY ROOT SOUP*

GREEN APPLE | CHIVE-CREME FRAICHE | CURED MACKEREL | MARCONA ALMONDS

SUNCHOKE SFORMATO

GRILLED RADICCHIO | BOSC PEARS | SUNFLOWER SEEDS | WILLI'S BANDAGED CHEDDAR | AGED BALSAMIC

GRILLED OCTOPUS SALAD

FINGERLING POTATOES | CHICORIES | SALSA VERDE | CAPERBERRIES | TANGERINE AGRUMATO

CAULIFLOWER RISOTTO*

HEDGEHOG MUSHROOMS | ROMANESCO | PECORINO | CURED EGG YOLK

GRILLED STURGEON

FREGULA SARDA | LITTLENECK CLAMS | ARTICHOKES | ROASTED GARLIC | SAFFRON

AFFOGATO

CARAMEL GELATO | SEA SALT | ESPRESSO | BOMBOLINI 

YUM!! Add a couple of amazing cocktails (wine for my friend) and we had a crazy-good meal.

Saturday I had THREE parties to go to. The first is one of my favorites of the year - the annual Garlic Potluck at my friends' Tami and Tom's house. It's exactly as you imagine. Everyone has to bring a dish that includes garlic and, of course, if you're playing along the right way, it should be a LOT of garlic. Tami and I were talking about the party a couple of weeks ago and I was musing about what I should make. I had this idea that I wanted to do a white pizza with garlic but realized I couldn't make enough to feed the entire party. That idea mutated into garlic bread and, between Tami and I, we invented a recipe for the most garlic-y of all garlic breads. It was easy to make and everyone loved it. The recipe is below.

(not the actual child)

The middle party was a combo birthday party for my friend and her two-year old. All I had to do was show
up to that one and be tolerant of a house FULL of very small children. It was a riot. There was one little red-headed girl who insisted on holding a giant bunch of balloons. Every time her mother took them away from her, she'd have a total screaming melt-down. She really loved those balloons... The menu was primarily child-friendly snack foods and cake.

(my actual crock pot & pork)

Party number three was one of two, annual beer tasting parties at my friend Andy's house. It's sort of pot-luck-ish although I was so full from my previous parties that I couldn't think about eating and just brought drinking material. Andy always provides some meat-based product as the core food and, for this party, he made pulled pork in the slow cooker. Holy cow (or pig, as it were), that was some amazing pork! So good, in fact, that I made him give me the recipe then stopped at the store on the way home and bought a pork shoulder to make for Sunday dinner. It's the simplest and tastiest pulled pork that I've had in a long time. The recipe is also below.

Finally, on Sunday, we had the pulled pork with cole slaw and "parmesan potatoes", which is a derivative of a popular side dish from a local restaurant called Quivey's Grove. Again, recipe below. :)

So... that was my crazy weekend of eating. It was so much fun and I really enjoyed creating some new dishes to add to my repertoire. I hope you like them too!

- Alex

Extra Garlic Garlic Bread

One long loaf (or a number of rectangular "rolls") of French bread. You want a bread that's relatively soft on the outside, not a hard crust bread.
5-6 heads of garlic plus a few cloves
Italian seasoning
Parmesan cheese
Salt (if there's not already salt in your Italian seasoning)

Roast the garlic. An easy way to do this that is quicker and eliminates the fuss of removing the cooked cloves from the head is to skin the cloves, place them in an aluminum foil packet, and drizzle with olive oil. Close the packet up tight and place in a 400 degree oven until the cloves are very soft and slightly caramelized.

Put the roasted garlic, along with the olive oil they cooked in, into a bowl and blend smooth with an immersion blender. If you don't have an immersion blender, you can do this in a regular blender. Take the garlic paste and stir in Parmesan cheese and salt to taste.

Cut the bread long-ways and place on a cookie sheet, cut side up. Brush the cut side with olive oil and sprinkle with Italian seasoning. Spread the garlic paste on the bread, making sure you get some paste all the way to the edges.

Mince the remaining cloves of raw garlic and sprinkle on top of the garlic paste.

Place in the oven and cook until the garlic paste is golden and the minced garlic has browned. Be careful not to burn the minced garlic.

Slow-Cooker Pulled Pork

Pork shoulder roast that will fit, whole, in your slow cooker
Worcestershire sauce
Brown sugar
Salt

Pour enough Worcestershire sauce to cover the bottom of the slow cooker. Place the roast in the slow cooker and pour more sauce over it to coat all sides. (I turned the roast over and sort of rubbed the sauce all over it) Then take about a 1/2 cup of brown sugar and coat the wet roast with it. Put the cooker on low and cover. Cook for anywhere from 10 to 12 hours. Remove the roast (it'll probably come off the bone in chunks) to a large platter or cookie sheet with raised sides. Discard the bone. Using two forks, shred the pork. If there's a lot of liquid in the slow cooker, pour off all but about a 1/3 to 1/2 cup. Return the shredded pork to the slow cooker, salt to taste. Turn the slow cooker to warm (if you don't have a warm setting, you can leave it on low) and leave it until it's time to eat. Serve with bbq sauce or "dry" (ie: no sauce) and top with cole slaw.

I had so much of this when I was done, I've also used it for pork tacos and with eggs in the morning. It's kind of all-purpose!

Parmesan Potatoes

A bag of frozen shredded hashbrowns
Onion (diced)
Salt
Pepper
Shredded Parmesan cheese

Place the frozen hashbrowns in a shallow baking dish. You want the layer of potatoes to be relatively thin. Mix in diced onion, salt, and pepper to taste. Level out the potatoes so the top is pretty flat. Cover the top with shredded Parmesan cheese until you can't see potatoes through the cheese layer. Bake, uncovered, in a preheated 375 degree oven for about an hour, or until potatoes are hot and cheese is melted and golden brown.

Christmas Dinner

Yeah, I know it was a couple of weeks ago, but there's a story. Isn't there always?

A few days before Christmas I did a run to Costco. I needed a few things and, while there, realized that I could buy nearly all my Christmas dinner supplies as well - in giant quantities, of course.

For those of you with a Costco membership, I don't have to explain the wonder of their meat department. And, because it was just before the holiday, they were seriously stocked up. After debating with myself for a while between a beef roast or a lamb roast, I called my son and let him decide. We ended up with lamb.

So, the dinner menu consisted of roast lamb, artichokes, creamed greens (like creamed spinach but add swiss chard and kale), brussel sprouts with bacon, and roasted mixed fingerling potatoes. Yum!

On Christmas morning I started brunch by putting the bacon in the broiler. If you've never broiled bacon, give it a try - it's super easy and less messy than any other method I've found. I went about prepping the other items and about five minutes later I realized I wasn't hearing, or smelling, the bacon. Sure enough, the broiler and, as it turned out, the oven were both broken. So much for the lamb roast! I considered other cooking methods but none would work, for a variety of reasons. So, we had sides for dinner and the potatoes were mashed instead of roasted. It worked. We were full and didn't really miss the meat (too much).

The oven eventually got fixed and the roast got cooked. It came out great and has been enjoyed for three meals so far. So, for today, I thought you guys might enjoy a few of my Christmas dinner recipes - easy to cook and very satisfying. Bon appetite!


Lamb Roast

Feeds a small army

1 leg of lamb (I used boneless, 4.5 lbs)
1/4 C fresh lemon juice
8 (or more) cloves of garlic, minced
3 T chopped fresh rosemary leaves
Salt & Pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove any webbing that's holding the roast together. Rinse the roast in cold water and pat dry. Reshape the roast in your roasting pan and, using your hands, rub the lamb all over with the lemon juice. Pat the garlic and rosemary evenly over the surface of the meat. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Place the lamb in the oven and roast for 30 minutes to brown. Reduce heat to 350 and continue to cook until a meat thermometer inserted into the center of the roast registers about 145 degrees for medium-rare. Remove lamb from pan and allow to rest for 10 to 15 minutes before carving.


Brussel Sprouts with Bacon

4-6 servings

4 strips thick-cut bacon
2 tablespoons butter
1 pound Brussels sprouts, halved
1/2 large onion, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions

Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until crispy. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate, then roughly chop. In same pan with bacon fat, melt butter over high heat. Add onions and Brussels Sprouts and cook, stirring occasionally, until sprouts are golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste, and toss bacon back into pan. Serve immediately.

OPTIONAL: My son is a big fan of bacon but not, necessarily, of brussel sprouts so I added diced apple for the last 5 minutes of cooking to add some sweetness to the dish.

Creamed Mixed Greens

4 servings

2 pounds fresh mixed, dark greens (spinach, kale, chard), washed and tough stems removed
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup heavy cream

Chop the greens and set aside. Melt the butter in medium saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring, until soft and fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the greens and cook, stirring, just until the greens are fully wilted. Add the cream, salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and cook until the cream is reduced by half, about 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and serve immediately.