Meatballs!

I found the easiest way ever to make meatballs.

Take one 1-lb package of Italian sausage meat (I used spicy). Add 1 egg and enough breadcrumbs to bind. (The sausage meat is already seasoned.) Bake, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, at 350 for 25-35 minutes. Remove and add to tomato sauce. Simmer for an additional few minutes.

Done!

Sriracha pork mac n' cheese

Last week I cooked up a ginormous pork shoulder, to make a big batch of pulled pork. (Why not; I had a lot of jars of barbecue sauce around.) Hubs and I have been eating pulled pork sandwiches all week, which is delicious, but was becoming tiring.

So today I decided to make a big batch of pork mac and cheese.

I used this mac and cheese recipe, without the greenery, with lots of leftover shredded pork added in. (I used regular cheddar cheese; I bet pepper jack would be fantastic in this.)

On the spur of the moment, I added a healthy amount of Sriracha to the cheese sauce, enough to turn it lightly orange.

The result was a slightly spicy, very porky, very cheesy mac and cheese.

Sriracha and pork make everything better, don't they? To celebrate I made myself a Srirazerac, as well.

Prosciutto muffins

What makes a good muffin even better? That's right, pork. And cheese.

You could make these as mini-muffins, and they would be great as appetizers. Or make them as large muffins (like I did), and just have yourself a meaty cheese bread periodically. You don't even need butter.

From plainchicken.com:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup minced prosciutto
1 Tbsp dried basil
10 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups plain low-fat yogurt

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Spray four mini muffin tins with vegetable oil-spray. To make regular-size muffins, use two regular muffin tins and reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees.

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, Parmesan cheese, prosciutto and basil in a medium bowl. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Whisk mustard and eggs together, then beat into butter mixture until it forms pea-size lumps.

Add dry ingredients and yogurt into the butter mixture, alternating between dry ingredients and yogurt one third at a time. Beat until smooth. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Bake until golden brown, about 12 minutes for mini muffins or 25 minutes for regular size muffins.

Butternut squash casserole with leeks and prosciutto

Time for using up random things again, including a bunch of prosciutto. (It's a good problem to have.) This is essentially a savory bread pudding, with butternut squash, leeks, prosciutto, and parmesan.

From Food & Wine, reprinted below:

3 pounds butternut squash—peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch dice
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons finely chopped thyme leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3 leeks—white and light green parts only, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise (about 4 cups)
6 large eggs
2 1/2 cups half-and-half
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
8 ounces baguette, crusts removed and bread cut into 1/2-inch dice
4 ounces thinly-sliced prosciutto, cut into thin strips

Preheat the oven to 400° and butter a 9-by-13-inch baking ceramic baking dish. In a large bowl, toss the butternut squash with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and the thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Spread the squash on a baking sheet in a single layer and roast for about 25 minutes, until tender, tossing once halfway through. Let cool.

Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, melt the butter in the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the leeks and season with salt and pepper. Cook over moderate heat, stirring, until tender, about 20 minutes. Let cool slightly.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs with the half-and-half, cheese, 1 teaspoon of salt and a 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Stir in the bread and let stand for 10 minutes. Fold in the squash and the prosciutto. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking dish and bake for about 1 hour, until lightly golden on top. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

Pork meatloaf

This is a delicious meatloaf using only ground pork; it's really quick and easy to throw together, too. I thawed a 1-lb package of ground pork, thinking to use it in soup, but then I got tired of soup and needed to use it up.

1 lb ground pork
1 onion, small
1 green apple, medium
1/2 cup fine breadcrumbs
1/2 cup sage, fresh (or 1 tbsp ground)
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon white pepper
2 eggs, well beaten

Peel and core apple and cut as finely as possible. Peel and finely chop the onion (can use processor for both). In a large bowl place ground pork, apple, onion, breadcrumbs, sage, salt and pepper. Mix well. Add beaten eggs. Hand mix all together and shape into loaf. Place in pan. Bake for 1 1/2 hours at 350°F. Carefully drain off any fat. Serve in thick slices.

Pig head

The other night, I ate a pig head.

And it was one of the top 5 most delicious things I've ever put in my mouth.

A little backstory: Since I've got less than two weeks left there (eep!), I feel it's safe to disclose that I work at Craigie on Main, Boston's finest restaurant. One of their specialties is the pig head. Remember the pig head I had in Montreal? Naturally, I couldn't leave town without experiencing Craigie's fabled pig head.

I got some friends together and I went in on my night off. We got octopus, terrines, and pig tails to start; then the pig head and bone marrow; then the cheese plate and beignets for dessert. (We also had a lot of cocktails.)

Here's the thing about pig head: if you can get past the concept of digging your fork into a pig's face, it tastes amazing. It's fatty, meltingly tender, and the skin is super-crispy. Craigie serves it Peking duck-style, with pancakes, a boudin noir-hoisin sauce, and a spicy pumpkin sambal. The pancakes and sauces help cut the fat of the pork a little, which then means you can just shovel it into your face at a faster rate.

Here's the other thing about pig head: the whole thing is edible. The cheek, the eye, the snout, the ear. Everything. Cheek: fattiest part. Ear: like a great big pork rind. Eye: like a big gob of pork fat butter. I'm serious. I ate the eye and it was the best part of the whole thing. We stripped that thing down to the bone.

Not to discount the pig tails: like fattier ribs.

But I'm not used to eating so much rich, fatty food in one sitting, so yesterday I was suffering from a bit of a pork hangover (in addition to the regular kind of hangover). Which is why I didn't get around to blogging about it until today.

So, don't be scared. Eat the pig head. You'll be glad you did.

And feel free to use that as a metaphor for life, as well.

You can freeze leftover barbecue

I learned this yesterday. You can freeze leftover barbecue!

I had a bunch of pulled pork left over from my houseguests this weekend. I filled a Ziploc bag full of shredded pork (just pork, no sauce) and popped it into the freezer. That's all you need to do. When you thaw it, you can use it for barbecue (you're going to cover it with barbecue sauce anyway, right?) or soups or casseroles or whatever.

Which means you could freeze it in small portions, then thaw one out whenever you feel like eating barbecue. Awesome.

Ham beans

...is what I call my mama's green beans, slow-cooked in ham grease in a Crockpot.

The South is not known for its kind treatment to green vegetables. Whereas I like my greenery crisp, my grandmother never met a vegetable she couldn't boil into a grey mush. Preferably with some kind of pork fat. This method works well for collard greens, but not much else.

Except for ham beans. My mom cans dozens of quarts of green beans every summer, and while they're not nearly as tasty as fresh green beans, in the dead of winter they're a lot better than tinny-tasting canned ones. She slow-cooks them with a ham bone and the grease left over from cooking the ham, ending up with a Crockpot full of green beans that taste like ham.

So: green beans (preferably home-canned, but regular canned will work), and the leftovers from a ham. Combine in a Crockpot. Set on low for several hours. Enjoy with barbecue.

Beet, goat cheese and proscuitto sandwiches

The recipe is in the title--roasted, sliced beets, goat cheese, and proscuitto, on thick homemade peasant bread.

You could add some greenery, if you have some: baby arugula or spinach, perhaps.

Avocado slices would go really well, too.

You could also throw on a fried egg.

Or some ripe tomato (not that you'll be able to get good tomatoes this time of year).

Just be sure to pack a lot of napkins in your lunch. You don't want to drop any beets on your lap.

5-spice pork tenderloin with cabbage

1 pork tenderloin, thawed
1 large onion, cut into wedges
1 large cabbage (red or green), cut into wedges
1 cup white wine or apple juice
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Spice mix, made by combining:

1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon each cinnamon, ground cloves, fennel seeds, ginger, and 1-2 broken up star anise
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
salt and pepper
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
1 tablespoon sesame oil

Place the onion and cabbage in the bottom of a large heavy casserole or Dutch oven. Rub the mustard into the pork, and press the spice mixture into that. Pour the wine over the vegetables, and lay the pork on top. Roast at 500 for 15-20 minutes, and let rest 5 minutes before cutting.

Grilled pork loin with green tomato jam

My new kitchen comes with a built-in indoor grill. How awesome is that?

The problem is that a) my grilling skills are rusty, and b) it eliminates two burners on the stove.

Oh well.

I decided to give the indoor grill an inaugural run with grilled pork tenderloin. It worked great--the pork came out a little dry, but it was cooked all the way through and the house didn't burn down, so I consider the grill test run a smashing success.

Because it was a test, I didn't do anything to the pork--no marinades or anything. I just turned on the grill, slapped the tenderloins on, and turned them periodically until the internal temperature hit 150. To offset the dryness when it was done, I served it with green tomato jam, which was a killer combination. I highly recommend it.

Boudin-stuffed cabbage rolls

I can't believe no one's ever done this before.

Traditional stuffed cabbage rolls (a Jewish staple) are stuffed with a mixture of ground beef, rice and veggies (onion, carrot, celery, maybe a parsnip) and slow-cooked in a tomato sauce. Hearty, filling, real winter fare. I was poking around in my fridge the other day and realized I had a head of cabbage that needed to be used up. But I wasn't in the mood for either slaw or soup.

"Stuffed cabbage rolls!" says I.

"But I don't have any ground beef," I told myself.

"Pshaw," I scoffed, "I have this boudin right here. All thawed out even."

And boudin, as we all know now, is a loose pork-and-rice sausage. All I had to do was add the veggies, and voila! Instant cabbage roll filling! With pork, and spices, and yumminess!

For those of you without boudin, any other kind of ground meat is just as good.

1 head of cabbage
1 carrot, diced
1 stalk of celery, diced
1 small onion, diced
1 lb ground meat (or pork, or boudin filling, or whatever)
1/2 cup uncooked rice
2 tablespoons tomato paste
salt and pepper
tomato sauce or juice

Core the cabbage by cutting out the core from the bottom, leaving the head intact. Put the head in a bowl and pour a pan of boiling water over it. Let sit.

Meanwhile, saute the carrot, celery and onion in a little olive oil until soft. Transfer to a bowl. Add the meat, rice and tomato paste and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.

Fill each cabbage leaf with a 1/4 cup or so of the mixture (you may need to cut out the bottom inch or two of the center vein) and wrap into a small roll. Fill a pan with the rolls. Add enough tomato sauce to just cover the rolls, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer 45 minutes. Serve immediately.

Freezes beautifully.

Pork fried rice

You may remember from yesterday's post that I had most of a pig head left over from my trip to Montreal:

What does one do with a leftover pig head, you may ask? An excellent question. Turns out the answer is pork fried rice, and broth.

If I were a more productive sort of person, I probably would have figured out a way to make head cheese out of the thing. But I'm just not that productive on a weeknight.

I peeled the remaining bits of meat, fat and skin off the pig head (a fairly grisly process) and separated out the meat. The skull, cartilage, fat and skin, along with the lobster shells and half a bag of frozen vegetable scraps, went into the stockpot to make a particularly tasty broth.

Once the leftover meat was chopped up, I had about two cups worth. So I decided to make a version of pork fried rice--I say "version" because I used freshly made rice. If you let the rice sit for a day or two, the fried rice is much tastier.

But it's still pretty tasty with fresh rice. I made a big batch of brown rice (about five cups cooked, two cups uncooked).

When that was done, I put 2 tablespoons of sesame oil in a big skillet.

When it was hot, I added four beaten eggs, and essentially scrambled them.

To the eggs, I added most of a bag of fresh spinach, the rice, the pork, and lots and lots of soy sauce and kept stirring and moving everything around until it was all heated through. (Scallions would have been very good with this, too.) Serve, and done.

Head cheese

I didn't make the head cheese--it was part of my meat CSA offering last week.

Despite the name, there's no actual cheese. It's kind of a meat jelly--pork scraps held together with aspic or gelatin, a more gelatinous version of country pâté. The scraps are generally taken from the head (hence "head cheese"), flavored with onion, black pepper, allspice, bay leaf, salt, and vinegar.

Some versions are more gelatinous than others, of course. I cut this one open and it's pretty solid.

See?

It's great on crackers or bread. Think of it as upscale French lunchmeat.

Ham and bean soup

For the second week of my meat CSA, I got four handmade Italian sausages and...this.

They claim this is ham. But this doesn't look like any kind of ham I've ever seen.

Nevertheless, it was definitely pork, so I decided to throw it into a soup and call it a day.

1 onion, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
3 stalks of celery, chopped
2 big carrots, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped

Saute all that in some olive oil until the veggies are soft. Add to it:

4-5 cups of soaked, pre-cooked white beans
1 cup chopped ham, or some other sort of pork product
enough broth to float the whole thing
a bay leaf

Let that cook down for a while, then add seasonings: Italian, cumin, salt and pepper. I threw in a head of kale, chopped, as well, since I had it. But that's strictly optional.

A good, cheap, all-purpose (if uninspiring) soup.

Pan-grilled pork chops

Aren't those some beautiful pork chops? They're thanks to my new meat CSA, which I blogged about yesterday. I know you're thinking, "So, if this CSA is $100 a month, for three pickups those two pork chops basically cost you $33." True. But they were BIG. You can't really tell from the picture, but they were each two inches thick, and bigger than my outspread hand. And fresh, organic, free-range, 100% Berkshire heritage breed pork. You can't get that kind of quality meat shrinkwrapped at Kroger's. Look how glossy and pink they are!

Anyway, since I don't have a grill (even if I did, it was 7 degrees outside, with two feet of hardpacked snow on the ground), I decided to pan-grill them.

Heat your oven to maximum (probably 500 degrees) and put a cast-iron skillet in there. Rub a little olive oil on the chops, which should be at room temperature. When the skillet is smoking hot, throw the chops in there (you may have to do one at a time, depending on the size of your pan/chops) and return to the oven. Cook about 5-7 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of the chop. Serve with salt, pepper, and lemon wedges.

That's it! I served them with mushroom risotto and sauteed zucchini:

Makes your mouth water, doesn't it?



A new CSA! For meat!

I found a new CSA! For meat!

So you know that I belong to both a veggie CSA and a fish CSA already. Thanks to The Butcher Shop, now practically my whole food intake is governed by CSAs. It's pretty awesome. Granted, my grocery budget has gone up a bit. But my grocery shopping has gone way down, as I only ever need to shop for staples now (grains, rice, eggs, that sort of thing.)

The way the meat CSA works, it's $100 a month for a half-share, and each month is a different kind of meat. This month was organic, free-range, Berkshire pork from the Finger Lakes in New York. There was a demonstration, butchering the pigs, and then we each took home our first week's share: two beautiful big loin chops. Next week we'll get bacon and ham, the next week sausages, head cheese and chicharron (pork cracklin's). Next month will be veal. I'm totally excited already.

Here are some shots from the demonstration:

Mmmmmmm! Look at all that beautiful fresh pork!

Tomorrow I'll show you what I did with the chops.

Pasta with acorn squash, proscuitto and kale

Happy New Year, everyone!

I made this with penne, but most any shape pasta will do.

1 box penne, cooked
2-3 acorn squash, roasted, with the cooked squash removed (I also used a spaghetti squash; any/combination of winter squash will work)
chicken or veggie broth
proscuitto or bacon or some sort of pork product
parmesan cheese
garlic
gently sauteed kale

I roasted the squash ahead of time and removed the cooked squash puree. I mixed in a little chicken broth to turn that into a thick sauce. In a big skillet, I sauteed a little garlic in olive oil, and added the proscuitto to that. (I used half of a big package, in shreds.) Then I threw in the squash mixture. To that I added the cooked penne, plus a little pasta water, plus fresh rosemary and salt. In another pan, I gently sauteed two big bunches of kale, until wilted, and stirred that into the pasta mixture. Finally I stirred in two or three big handfuls of parmesan cheese.

The squash adds a nice sweetness, and the kale counterbalances that with its green bitterness. Then you have the cheese and the proscuitto. All in all a very lovely dish.

Jamon iberico

I'll only say this once. If you can find jamón ibérico, buy it. I don't care that it's $60 a pound (or more). It's worth every penny.

Jamón ibérico is a type of cured ham, made in Spain. Like proscuitto, only so much better. It must be at least 75% black Iberian pig, fattened exclusively on acorns. The finest jamón ibérico is called jamón ibérico de bellota (acorn). This ham is from free-range pigs that roam oak forests along the border between Spain and Portugal, and eat only acorns during this last period. The exercise and the diet has a significant impact on the flavor of the meat; the ham is cured for 36 months.

It tastes buttery. I know you're thinking, "How can ham taste like butter?" Well, it does. It tastes like ham and butter and every good thing all rolled into one sublimely fatty piece of meat. This is NOT for cooking with. This is for eating, all by itself. I've had boyfriends I liked less than this meat.

I got some for my parents' recent visit. I got a quarter-pound. It never made it off the paper it was wrapped in; I believe it saw the light of day for approximately 30 seconds before it was gone. It's a rare treat, but a delicious one.

BBQ pork quesadillas

I made a pork loin last week, and still had lots of pork left over. First I put it on salads; then I started adding it to soups; and I plan on using the last of it this weekend in a batch of minestrone. But I still had a whole lot of pork that needed to be dealt with. Yesterday I had a flash of genius: BBQ pork quesadillas!

I shredded most of the rest of the pork and mixed it with the last of my barbecue sauce. (Maybe 3-4 cups of shredded pork to 1 cup sauce.) I mixed that all up together and added it to whole wheat tortillas, along with about 1/4 cup each of shredded habanero cheddar. I topped each with another tortilla, and toasted each one in a big skillet. Because there was more pork than cheese, the finished quesadillas didn't hold together very well, but they were still pretty darned good. I served with a fresh salsa.

So if you have tortillas around, consider that an excellent way to use up leftovers.

I could have also thrown the barbecue pork-sauce mixture onto a tortilla, along with some fresh spinach or greenery, rolled it up, and called it a wrap. Or mixed it with eggs and called it a breakfast burrito.