Pork Tenderloin with Mustard Sauce (or Varkenshaas)
I love pork tenderloin because it’s so versatile, tender, easy to cook and it’s always available.
The original recipe lists 2 pork tenderloins and directions on how to roast them. You can certainly take that direction. But I have chosen to use just one pork tenderloin and slice the pork into medallions but with the same sauce proportions. Either way it’s a great recipe and quick too!
Pork Tenderloin with Mustard Sauce (slightly adapted from Gourmet, September 1996 Varkenshaas)
1 Pork Tenderloin, ~ 1 pound
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon minced shallot
1/4 cup dry white wine
2/3 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard ( I like Grey Poupon)
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh basil leaves
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh parsley leaves
Cut pork tenderloin into ~ 1 inch thick medallions. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
In a large saucepan, heat oil and 4 tablespoons of butter over medium heat until sizzling. Add pork slices and cook for about 4-6 minutes on each side, until nicely browned. When cooked, set pork aside onto a plate.
Add remaining tablespoon of butter and shallot to saucepan, cooking for about a minute. Add wine, broth and mustard, scraping up any brown bits and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add cream and basil and simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes. Stir in parsley. Add pork pieces, turning pieces over to cover with sauce and simmer, covering pan with top, for 2 minutes.
Serve pork over rice with sauce.
mise en place:
cooking pork:
shallots:
wine, broth and mustard:
cream and basil:
add parsley and pork back in and simmer, covered:
Enjoy!
Hummingbird Food
I am waiting for the Hummingbirds to arrive. Then I know Spring is here.
UPDATE: April 29, 2013: First Hummingbird sited! Yippee!!
I usually check the map on this site, Hummingbirds, to see whether they are close to my area. They are. So it’s time to put the feeder up.
This is my favorite hummingbird feeder. I have 2 of them but right now I only put up one. I like it because it’s small. It only holds about 8 ounces of liquid. This way I can change it frequently, which is important.
Making food for the hummingbirds is very easy so please don’t buy a mix or anything. It’s water and sugar in a 4 to 1 ratio. If you buy this particular feeder, it has the proportions on the inside of the top. Very convenient.
So the male arrive first. (Though sometimes I get Hummingbirds that just pass through on their way to their breeding area further north.) Then the female arrives. I usually only get one pair. Then I stop seeing the female and I assume she is laying on their eggs. By the time the babies are out (we always get 2), the mom is very skinny (the male does not help with brooding) and the babies are flying around like crazy. This is when I put the second feeder up. And not too close to the first one either. I see pictures of other hummingbirds clustered around one feeder and am always amazed. Ours are very territorial and very rarely do I see 2 on one feeder. If I do it’s one of the babies and the mom.
Then for about a month or month and a half, we sit on our deck before dusk and are entertained by the acrobats of the Hummingbirds. Very enjoyable.
By the end of August the male leaves. Then in about 2 weeks the female leaves. By the end of September the babies have left, too. I usually keep my feeder up for another month or so just in case some other Hummingbirds are passing through on their way south.
Then it’s over and I’m sad. Next year.
Hummingbird Food
In a large saucepan, put 4 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar (this can be doubled, which is what I do).
Put saucepan on burner on high, and stir with a whisk constantly until the sugar has dissolved completely.
When the sugar has dissolved completely, stir occasionally until the water just starts to come to a boil. This whole procedure takes about 10 minutes.
Remove saucepan from heat and put top on.
Let sit for one hour.
After one hour, pour into a pitcher and place into your refrigerator until completely cool, usually overnight.
When completely cool, pour into your hummingbird feeder.
I change the food in the feeder, in the early spring and summer, every 3 days. I also clean the feeder itself, removing, with hot water from the tap and a toothbrush or paper towel, any black mold I can see. I clean it even if I don’t see black mold. I feel very responsible feeding the hummingbirds. I do not want to harm them, so I am very careful about cleaning the feeder and giving them fresh food. When it’s very hot and/or humid, I change the feeder every day.
sugar and water (I’m making a double batch so 8 cups water to 2 cups sugar):
stir constantly until sugar is dissolved completely (it will be clear):
bring mixture just to a boil, remove from heat and cover for 1 hour:
after 1 hour, pour liquid into pitcher and refrigerate. I also put about 8 ounces into a measuring cup and cover and put into refrigerator. In about an hour this small amount is chilled and ready to go into the feeder:
pour chilled liquid food into feeder:
hang feeder and wait:
these pictures are from last year, as well as the one at the top of the post:
Coconut Macaroon Bars
I decided to start going through my cookbooks and try some of the recipes I tore out of magazines, that I just seem to flip by, getting to my favorites. I have had some of these untried recipes for over 10 years and I’m not getting any younger. I thought I better start trying them out or I will need a magnifying glass instead of just my reading glasses to read them.
I needed to weed out the ones that were worth keeping and get rid of the ones that were not up to snuff. The first thing I did was plug them into their perspective websites (can you imagine: Bon Appetit launched theirs in 2008 ! How did we live without them?) and see what kind of rating they got. If they had a very good or excellent rating, then they were worth trying.
The first book I started on was my Cookie Book and this one was a keeper.
The original recipe does not call for chocolate in the middle but I decided to add it after reading other people’s comments. It makes them alot more like Mounds, the candy bar, one of my favorites. You can certainly omit that addition but, well, that’s up to you.
Coconut Macaroon Bars (adapted from Bon Appetit March 2001)
Cookie Crust:
1-1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons butter, chilled (right from the refrigerator is fine) and diced
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Middle:
1 cup of chocolate chips: dark, semi-sweet or milk, whichever you like
Top Coconut Layer:
2 tablespoons flour
1 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
2 ounces butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
8 ounces sweetened flaked coconut (I like Baker’s)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13 x 9 x 2 inch metal baking pan with canola oil spray.
In the bowl of your food processor, blend the first 3 ingredients of the crust (flour, sugar, salt). Add the butter and using the on/off buttons, pulse until mixtures resembles coarse meal. Add egg yolk and cream and blend until the dough comes together in clumps, about 30 seconds. Press dough evenly over bottom of prepared pan. Bake until pale golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over crust. After a minute or so, the chips should be melted. Spread melted chocolate with a small metal spatula, back of a spoon, whatever, over entire crust.
For the top coconut layer, place the flour, sugar, salt, eggs, melted butter and vanilla in a medium bowl. Stir with a whisk until thoroughly combined. Add coconut and stir with a rubber spatula until completely combined. Pour top layer over chocolate.
Bake for about 25 minutes until golden brown on top.
Cool in pan. Take a dull knife and loosen the cookie all around the edge. Cut into the square size of your choice.
adding diced butter to blended flour, sugar & salt:
coarse meal:
add egg yolk and cream:
dough in clumps:
pressing dough into prepared pan:
sprinkling chocolate chips onto hot crust:
spreading melted chips over entire crust:
mixing top coconut layer:
pouring coconut layer over chocolate:
golden brown after 25 minutes in oven:
White Whole Wheat Bread
I love making bread. It makes the whole house smell delicious and the taste can’t be beat.
I started making this White Whole Wheat bread about a year ago. The best thing about the recipe is that it makes 3 loaves. If you are going to go to the trouble of making your own bread, you might as well make alot. And it freezes beautifully.
White Whole Wheat Bread (adapted slightly from All Recipes)
3 cups warm water (110 degrees)
2, 1/4 ounce packages of Fleischmann’s Rapid Rise Highly Active Yeast
1/3 cup honey
5 cups bread flour (I like King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour which is available in the supermarket)
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup honey
1 tablespoon salt
3-1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (again, I like King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour, also available in the supermarket)
2 tablespoons butter, melted
Coat a fairly large bowl with straight sides with butter. Coat the inside top from a pan, that will fit over the bowl, with butter. Put a cup of water on to boil. Put a 13 x 9 inch pan on the lower rack of your oven.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, place warm water (use a candy thermometer to get the correct temperature), yeast and 1/3 cup honey. Add the 5 cups of bread flour and stir with the paddle attachment until combined. Remove paddle but not the bowl and cover bowl with a towel and let sit for 30 minutes. It will get bigger and bubbly.
After 30 minutes, remove towel and put dough hook attachment on your machine. Add to the dough, 3 tablespoons of melted butter, 1/3 cup honey, salt and 2 cups of white whole wheat flour. Mix with the dough hook for one minute until combined. Add 1 cup of white whole wheat flour and beat for 1-2 minutes. The dough should start pulling away from the sides of the bowl. If not add 1/2 cup of flour. Mix again for 2-3 minutes. The dough should still be somewhat sticky. Don’t fret over this too much. If this is your first time, you will begin to see, if you make bread again, how the dough should look and feel. I have pictures below that will help. If the dough seems too sticky, add a tablespoon of flour at a time until it gets to the right consistency.
Place dough into prepared bowl, turning once to make sure the top is coated with butter too. Cover bowl with top from pan and place in middle rack of oven. Put boiling water into 13 x 9 inch baking pan that is on lower rack of oven and close door. Let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
While dough is rising, spray 3, 9 x 5 inch loaf pans with canola oil.
After 1 hour, remove dough from oven. Take baking pan out of oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Punch down dough and divide dough into 3 pieces. I use my kitchen scale to get 3 equal pieces. The bread will bake more evenly if the loaves are the same size. Smoosh each piece in your hands for about 30 seconds to get the bubbles out and then form into a loaf. Place each loaf into prepared pans and let rise for about 50 to 55 minutes. The dough should rise about 1 inch above the tops of the pan.
Place loaves in oven and bake for 25 minutes. The bread should be nicely browned and sound somewhat hollow when you tap on it. Remove bread from oven. Brush each loaf with melted butter. This keeps the crust nice and soft.
Cool for 30 minutes. Remove bread from pans and continue to cool on wire racks. When completely cool, cut bread into slices. Place cut bread into freezer gallon bags and store in freezer. The bread is easy to pull apart when ready to use.
using candy thermometer to check temperature of water:
water, yeast, honey and bread flour:
after mixing:
cover with towel and let rest for 30 minutes:
dough after 30 minutes:
the rest of the ingredients added to the dough and mixing in:
finished dough:
prepared straight sided bowl and top:
dough in bowl:
set up in oven:
prep pans:
after 1 hour of rising:
dough in pans:
after 50 minutes and ready to be baked:
out of oven:
brushed with butter:
cooling on rack:
slicing after cooled:
storing in freezer bags:
yum!
my husband made french toast out of the bread, delicious!
Shrimp with Matisse
I started reading about Matisse a year ago in the column of Cooking Light magazine “Kid in the Kitchen“. I had always enjoyed reading the recipes that Mastisse (she was 11 at the time) cooked and loved the commentary from her friends, who were around her age as well. It was inspiring to see someone so young and so eager to get in the kitchen and try stuff out. She seemed beyond her years.
I never knew much about her until I got the March issue of Cooking Light and read the Note from the Editor page. Scott Mowbray visited and cooked with her in her Pittsburgh home and gave some background information about her plight. She is originally from New Zealand and “came to America with her family to get life-saving treatment for a rare intestinal condition that, for years, had meant she was unable to eat solid food at all. She became fascinated with cooking despite her disease and something of a cooking-TV junkie. Then, in December of 2010, she had a life-changing organ transplant and was finally able to eat the food she already knew how to cook.” You can read more on her blog: Matisse’s Kitchen.
Fascinating stuff! The world is full of incredible people!
So I tried the Shrimp and Shiitake Rice Bowl from the March issue of Cooking Light ‘Kid in the Kitchen’ and included the commentary as well.
I agree with Matisse about the Shiitake mushrooms, I used white button mushrooms and the rice, I made from scratch too but used white. It was a great recipe! I added probably 2 more ounces of snow peas but followed the rest of the recipe as is.
Enjoy and make sure you read a bit more about Matisse! Definitely puts life in perspective!
Oven Fried Potatoes
I originally got this idea from either The Victory Garden or Julia Child or both. I can’t remember, it’s been so long. I have modified this recipe alot over the years and finally took pictures and wrote down exactly what I did, last night . You can certainly tweak this recipe yourself, adding more or different spices or fresh instead of dry but this is the basic recipe.
I usually serve it with steak, which I did last night or steak sandwiches but occasionally I have served it with grilled chicken. It makes enough for 4 people or 2 people with plenty of leftovers. It’s also great served the next day, cold, over mixed greens and some leftover steak (or chicken) – yum!
Oven Fried Potatoes
1-3/4 lb. of Idaho Baking Potatoes (about 3 medium/large potatoes) make sure they are similar in size
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 large cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a large rimmed cookie sheet with canola oil spray.
Wash the potatoes thoroughly, using a scrub brush if necessary to get all the dirt off. Dry the potatoes. Cut the potato in half-length wise (see pictures below), take one of the halves and cut in half lengthwise again. Then cut each quarter into 3 even wedges (be careful, this is very awkward and you can easily cut yourself ). Repeat with the other half and the other potatoes. Place potatoes in a very large bowl.
Sprinkle the potatoes with the oregano, basil, salt and garlic. Toss thoroughly until everything is coated. The garlic might still be on the bottom but that’s ok. (If you are prepping in advance, the potatoes can keep like this for about an hour. Right before you are ready to put them in the oven, toss with the olive oil.)
Pour olive oil over potatoes and again toss thoroughly until everything is coated.
Place potatoes onto cookie sheet, distributing the garlic more. Spread the potatoes on the cookie sheet in one layer. Place in oven and bake for 30 minutes. Half way through the cooking time, take the potatoes out and flip over. Continue to bake. After 30 minutes, see how they are. We like ours very crispy so I usually bake them for an additional 10-15 minutes.
about 1-3/4 pounds:
cut potato lengthwise:
cut each half, in half again:
cut each quarter into 3 even wedges:
one potato cut:
potatoes in bowl:
add oregano, basil, salt and garlic:
toss:
toss with olive oil:
onto cookie sheet:
spread potatoes in one layer:
half way through cooking time, turn potatoes over:
ready to serve:
Garlic
Fresh garlic was very frustrating for me. I would bring home, what I thought, was a nice head of garlic, only to discover when I wanted to use it, that it was bad! Or I would open up a head of garlic and half of it was dehydrated! Or I would open up a head of garlic and maybe one or two cloves were of descent size and the rest were these ridiculous skinny cloves! Then to add insult to injury, you had to get the skin off and when you were done, there was nothing left! Or I would have to buy this sleeve of 6 or 7 garlic heads because the single heads were not available and half of them would be rotten, dehydrated or just plain awful! Sometimes, I would resort to the jarred, already chopped or minced garlic but always felt guilty because I felt I was cheating and it would leave me thinking that it would probably taste better with fresh garlic! Sigh……
So one day, as I was doing some grocery shopping among the mushrooms, I spotted already peeled, fresh garlic. I looked at the bag. There was alot of garlic in there. I liked the idea but would I use it all before they went bad? Would it be a waste of money? I decided to experiment and bought it.
I am happy to say, I am on my second bag. What an incredible discovery! You may have already indulged in this fantastic product but if you have not please give it a try. It will revolutionize your garlic usage.
