Banh Mi!

That's a Vietnamese sandwich to you, the uninitiated.

1 fresh baguette

~1 pound pork tenderloin

chili garlic sauce (Lee Kum Kee)

2 T. rice vinegar

1 T. sugar

mayonnaise

1 carrot

2" piece daikon radish

1/2 English cucumber, thinly sliced

1 jalapeno, seeded and diced

2 green onions, thinly sliced

1/4 bunch cilantro, stemmed

1 lime, cut in wedges

rub 1T. chili garlic sauce over pork and roast at 375 until internal temp reaches 155. Let rest tented under foil for fifteen minutes.

Mix rice vinegar and sugar. set aside. peel and shred carrot and daikon. add to vinegar sugar mixture, stirring often.

Slice baguette open leaving attached on one side. Mix together chili garlic sauce and mayonnaise to taste and quantity and spread inside baguette.

Slice pork to desired thickness and lay slices inside baguette. Layer vegetables on pork in attractive manner. Cut sandwich in four and serve with lime wedges. If your sandwich is falling apart, toothpicks may be advisable.

Last night's dinner with friends consisted of Bahn Mi made with pork tenderloin, wine steamed mussels and homemade coconut ice cream. I also made some fabulous rosemary crackers that were paired with Beecher's peppery Marco Polo cheese and some lovely fresh figs. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of the finished crackers, so it will have to wait for next time.

Tomorrow night...dinner for ten. And I have a block on the menu. Maybe a clambake?

Cooking Like Mad

As I mentioned last week, something about the end of the heatwave has me laboring intensely in the kitchen again. Since my last food related post I've made the following:

cherry tart for quilt club

vegeterian chili and cornbread (frugal family dinner!)

double digit pounds of potato salad for a family reunion picnic

scratch made custard based macaroni and cheese

scratch made pizza (so good with carmelized onions, olive oil and lots of pepper)

I finally found a pizza dough recipe that I really really like and find very easy to work with. It's from Mark Bittman's giant tome.

Today I am making another fun meal that I will post after it occurs. Suffice to say, it involves mussels.

Having A Plan cooking agrees with me! If I go back to work, I will be a little sad to have to return to the land of thirty minute meals...ah, c'est la vie!

‘Having Options’ versus ‘Having a Plan’

When I worked, we operated on the Options plan. I felt like I had to keep a vast, Mormon household sized stash in the pantry, freezer, and fridge. Since I’ve been home, I’ve been slowly but steadily using up the contents of particularly the fridge and freezer (easier to do a deep clean when it’s empty). It is a little shocking to me how much food we had on hand.

I think we ate more processed food on the Options plan. I always felt like I had to have chicken burgers and potstickers and meatballs in the freezer. I didn’t really have the energy for meaningful meal planning, but I always had choices and Options.

I am trying to operate under the “Having a Plan” plan while I’m home. Now that it is no longer as hot as the surface of the sun, I am interested in cooking again. Mediterranean Feast and jam production aside, summer isn’t really my cooking season. I’m more of a soups and stewed meats kind of girl, so it’s doubly challenging. This week, with a little shopping, we are eating some fabulous meals while simultaneously cleaning out the larder.

One night we had whole wheat rotini with chicken, peas, sundried tomatoes and artichoke hearts in a creamy pesto sauce. The sauce got its creaminess from reduced fat cream cheese and pasta cooking water. This is inspired by a similar dish I remember loving many years ago at Bizzarro Italian Café in Wallingford. The only item I purchased was the chicken and it was on sale for under four dollars. Since I was going to use it the same day, I went for it.

Another night we had what I lovingly call 75 cent dinner. All I bought was a 75 cent bag of stale baguette already conveniently sliced. I tossed this with a custard of milk and eggs, thawed frozen spinach, some leftover feta, cooked bacon, mushrooms and sweet onion I had laying around. I made it in the morning, let it soak in the fridge all day then baked it. Cheap strata.

Stay tuned for more frugal Having A Plan dinners…

Frances Sang a Little Song...

I know how a jam jar feels...full. of. jam. Alternate titles for this post are:

sick in my disease
committed to continuous improvement
getting my freak on

Katy requested a closeup picture of the labels which got me looking at them...and I decided to re-do them. So I soaked all the jars in cold water in a pan and ripped off the old ones and made these new ones:
Now, they are all the same size and style...and I LOVE them.

teehee - and now I know how to use the macro feature on my camera - thanks to Katy and hubby. Cheers!

Addicted to Jam

On the lighter side, I am now addicted to jam making, canning, labeling...a graphic artist, I'm not, but I'm having fun designing labels for the jars.

There are lots of cool jars out there, like the ones from Weck, but they are really expensive. I'll stay with the old school mason jars for now. Cool labels can be found here, but again are cost prohibitive. It's also kind of fun to see what you can do when you have to (or decide to) economize.

I just bought a pack of 8 1/2 x 11 label paper at the office supply store and used Word on my six year old computer to make the labels shown here. It's a little tough as these are half pint jars, so the labels have to be pretty small. I am trying really, really hard to find the imperfections of my label application homey and charming. I feel like I'm growing!

The newest jam is apricot and as Anthony Bourdain would say, "I can't decide if I should eat it or roll around in it" - it's that good. Hubby and I had some over vanilla ice cream last night while it was still warm.

On to pickles unless another jammy fruit catches my eye!

What To Do When It's 103 Part I

Why can, of course! When one buys berries, one must can and the berries, they wait for no one.

I got up at six on the hottest day in history and made old fashioned raspberry jam and bluebarb (blueberry rhubarb) jam.

It's very satisfying to see the little jars lined up all sealed and happy.

I think I will try pickles and apple butter next. Once you have the equipment, jars, and confidence, it's just a matter of jumping in. I can cross this one off the bucket list, but I think I'm hooked!

My Friend, the Food Stylist

Here are better pictures of the mediterranean feast taken by my photographer friend, Katy. My food has never looked so good! Thanks, Katy.

Mid-Summer Feast with Friends

A couple of nights ago, our dear friends who are living in Luxembourg were in town and we were able to put together a dinner party with a third family we've been friends with forever.

Katy requested a meal I made last summer to be repeated exactly the same as last time. She knows me well enough to know that I couldn't possibly do that ;). I made the same menu, but with a few additions.

The picture is of my plate of leftovers last night that I thought still looked pretty.

THE MENU

sauteed calamari

marinated olives

hummus

pita

Turkish burgers

tzatziki

tabouli

vegetables grilled with garlic, ginger and chiles

greek salad

Our friends brought a fantastic shortcake scone affair with homemade vanilla ice cream and blueberries.

The food aside, we had beautiful weather, five relatively well behaved kids and all in all a lovely time catching up on the patio. We miss these guys and it went by too fast.

"Marmite a Conserves avec Grille"

Also known as "Canner with Rack". I don't know if our garden harvest will yield me enough produce for canning, but I plan to do some canning this summer all the same. Canning is on my bucket list.

I don't even know what I'm going to make yet, but I have the equipment and a library book. I've picked out jars and am studying label designs...it's all about the gear.

The Fruits of Our Labor

Inspired in part by the President and First Lady, my industrious husband built two 4 x 8 foot raised beds in our side yard about two months ago.

We planted several crops in this small space, because seeds are cheap! If a little's good, more's better, right?! We have squashes, cucumbers, zucchini, corn, beans, peas, strawberries, pumpkin, basil, two kinds of tomatoes, etc.

My MIL is coming this weekend and she will help us thin the plants. So far this year, we've planted in total on our property about thirty grasses, a patch of sunflowers, three trees, four blueberry bushes and the vegetable garden. We also plan to gravel the paths around the raised beds and much much more! Our house had always been a rental when we bought it almost three years ago. We've done much work insides and are now turning our attention to the outsides.