Using up Ingredients - Plum Chutney

 Last evening I pulled out a pork tenderloin and some leftover pancetta to make the following recipe:  

                             Pork Tenderloin with Plum Chutney - Bon Appetite  (we did not make the chutney)  

I even had kitchen string!  Justyn grilled it and we served it up with leftover rice, sautéed spinach, and leftover spicy plum chutney that none of my girlfriends tried at book club (nothing personal).  This book club took place over a year ago, so I was eager to get this out of my refrigerator, especially since I filled it up with Thanksgiving food.   We paired it with a highly tannic Nebbiolo that cut through the pancetta's saltiness perfectly.  

I always love to find a perfect recipe for the perfect ingredient.  Now I just have to make it again, because there is still half the chutney left in the jar! A little goes a long way!     

Ground Meat with Rice for dinner

 I have started a new meal cycle program - which I will talk about in a later post (I mean, how long do these cycles last before I get distracted.....) .  But, one of the meals this cycles includes ground beef with rice - a very easy combination which my children devour, even the one who claims to not to like rice 😕. It is also a gluten and dairy free combination - which always wins in my book! 

 Ground meat and rice can be seasoned/added to multiple ways to make the combination reflect most food cultures.  In the past, I have traditionally done this recipe:  

Spicy Turkey Stir-Fry With Crisp Garlic and Ginger Recipe - NYT Cooking (nytimes.com) - It has an Asian tinge that includes Fish/Soy/Basil flavors. Very easy to come together and gobbled up little complaint by the goblins (especially if basil happens to not touch their dish).  This specific recipe is actually a riff on a recipe Melissa Clarke wrote in one of her cookbooks, that I have photocopied and have stained in a folder - and I usually do that one. 

I also recently tried this Americanized beef/rice combo ala Julia Turshen/Vivian Howard: Turshen's Sizzle Burgers and Howard's Tomato Rice.  Turshen writes about Sizzle Burgers in her cookbook Simply Julia, which involves simply sautéing ground beef (or turkey) patties, and serving them with caramelized onions over rice.  In Deep Run Roots, Howard remembers her Mother serving ground beef patties once a week over Tomato Rice, a dish she claims she, "can rhapsodize over its simplicity, and make everyone a cook."  I combined the two dishes, and the kids ate it, even the tomatoes. It was easy.  Check Check!  

Last night, I made Spanish Beef and Rice Bowls With Avocado Recipe | Real Simple .  I left out the olives.  My oldest said it was "delicious."  My husband said it didn't make enough.  The 5 year old actually ate the rice, and my plate was clean in five minutes.  Another weeknight win!  

If you always have ground beef in your freezer, and rice in your pantry, you always have this weeknight win of a dish ready to go!  

Reflecting on Nine Months of Pandemic Cooking - 2020

 Since I got married in 2010, I have kept track of every dinner I have every made.  This is the first time I have looked back on a year of cooking and reflected upon the results.  

Thus, my reflections.  

1) January and February 2020:  During these two months,  I was practicing ( and had been practicing for five previous months) the FasterWay diet, and trying to incorporate the program's meals (recipes) into my family's life, because I was paying for the program's recipes. As a result, I  lost 15 pounds and wanted to maintain that loss.  Yet, the FasterWay recipes were not good.  Nine years of near daily cooking had made me a better cook than those recipes.  The calendar also shows that I was cooking only about four evenings a week during these two months, and I can't even remember how we spent our time outside the house.  

2) March 2020:  First half of the month, I stopped paying for the FasterWay recipes, and tried to maintain a dairy and gluten-free diet on my own.  The challenge really begins halfway through the month, for obvious reasons.  

3) April/May 2020:  I run a pretty tight meal schedule, as I've described in my previous post. "Eating Out" is replaced with steak.  Going to the grocery store becomes my only way out of the house.  We eat a lot of Reid's Fine Foods.  The workers still don't recognize me after taking my temperature almost daily.  

4) May/June 2020:  Try and use beets and carrots from our garden. We eat our first asparagus harvest!  We eat outside every meal. The weather saves our lives. 

5) June/July/August 2020:  Large group cooking at the Vineyard for family.  Using up the tomatoes in the garden. Lots of panzenella salads with no cheese, since I am largely avoiding mozzarella (though still occasionally making the old tomato mozzarella standby).  

6) September/October/November/December 2020: Zoom school returns. Preschool returns and saves my life. We return to a pretty standard meal schedule that is largely dairy-free, but with a new emphasis on feeding the kids what they like (even more than before...).  Recipes focus on Chicken Pot Pie, Meatloaf, and other kid friendly fare. I finally made pie crust (my one pandemic goal).  I cooked no holiday meals for the first time in ten years.  

New cook books acquired this year:  Sam Sifton's See you on Sunday and Vivian Howard's This Will Make it Taste Good.

Cookbooks used the most: 

1) Skinnytaste's One and Done, as well as her first and original Everyday continue to be used almost every other week.  Her Turkey Meatloaf and Chicken Pot Pie are two of the kids' favorite meals.  

2) The Dinner Plan and Keepers:  I continue to cook through these gems.  All the recipes are on point and well tested.  I have repeated mostly salmon recipes, mainly the Southwest Salmon, and the Yogurt Marinated Salmon.  

3) Jenny Rosenstrach's Dinner a Love Story/Celebrations/Dinner: The Playbook.  Her marinated grilled chicken recipes are always summer hits, i.e.. her Picnic Chicken, and her Yogurt Marinated Lemon Grilled Chicken. Also, her prose and blog were a balm during quarantine. 

4) New York Times Food App.  No competition for its search functions, and the fact that it stays open as you cook the recipe.  

Recipe Review 2020 

 I couldn't think too hard about this, or I would never write this.

Best overall dish:  Vivian Howard's Chicken Toast from This Will Make it Taste Good.

Best comfort food that never gets old:  Burgers from Reid's Fine Foods. Add Chef Alyssa's Tomato Jam, and you are transported.  

Best Stew:  Southern Living's One Pot Beef Stew.  I tried many this past year and I always enjoy the dab of Dijon mustard added at the end of this one.  

Best New Potato Salad:  Sam Sifton's Potato Salad from See you on Sunday surpasses any potato salad I have ever made.  It will be hard to make a different one in the future.

Best and most versatile vegan meal:  Melissa Clark's Black Bean Tacos with Pickled Onions.  Kids eat them and can add cheese.  I get a dairy-free/gluten-free meal that is really, really good and easy.  

Best dairy free soup:  Mark Bittman's Carrot Soup.  Uses coconut milk.  With the use of an immersion blender, there are not many dishes to clean.  Win/win!  

Cooking Resolutions for 2121

1) Continue the search for good dairy free recipes.

2) Continue to try different recipes for meatloaf/meatballs and chicken pot pie.  

3)  My husband wants me to make gazpacho.  

4) Make this NY Times pizza dough.  First I have to buy the flour.   

Bardo - Restaurant Review

Charlotte needs a restaurant like Bardo.  While "foodie" cities like New York, San Francisco, Toronto each had  Modern* style restaurants, Charlotte had NONE. For many deprived years, if your palate craved an eclectic fix, you had to get on a plane. Now, you only have to take a short trip from Uptown.  If you want to be extra hip and young, take a scooter!

The Nowaiters have a long restaurant history and seasoned palates, and many dicey Charlotte restaurant experiences.  Voted Best Restaurant by Charlotte Magazine in 2019 and Best New Restaurant by the Charlotte Agenda, Bardo had high expectations to fulfill, and within one hour, they met ours.

Located in the hip South End, Bardo is in a converted garage-like space with little signage to alert the passer-bys. The dining room is sparse of decoration and the open kitchen is Scandinavian-like in its cleanliness and movement. Electronica music beats lightly in the background, and waitstaff seem to move to the beat.  With  few tables seated at 6 PM, we gathered the attention of most service staff during out meal.

The center stage kitchen creates carefully arranged, locally foraged dishes from a variety of food cultures.   Menu items such as Aged Ribeye contain local beef, Carolina gold rice, yet is also served with kimchi, most likely made from local cabbage.  Scallops are served with pad thai and bamboo rice, and the asparagus was served as a tempura, but using the rare spring ingredient ramps.  We also reordered Bardo's signature dish, the "egg and grain", which is exactly how what it states, only delicately presented and more savory than your standard morning fare. The three dessert choices are all sweet and savory, such as carrot cake with cardamom, and ricotta with herbs and oxtails; each bite had a nip of acidity, yet kept you returning for more until your plated was wiped. While all dishes are meant to be shareable, they can also (and probably should be) eaten individually.

 Meanwhile, signature cocktails and an uncommon wine list made for hard decisions. Bardo strays from its local roots to introduce small wineries from far and wide.  Grapes available by the glass included standard chardonnay and pinot noir, to a chancier Malvasia Bianca (canned wine!) and Cabernet Franc. The cocktails stick with Bardo's sweet and savory theme by combining flavors such as banana cinnamon and rum in a drink called "Cruel Summer", or Gin, lemongrass, and mint in the fittingly named "South Mint."

While the Nowaiters could have tried every drink, and probably needed a few more dishes, we had places to go, a symphony to see, and babies to return home to. But we will be returning again and again, and then maybe get a burger afterwards.

Food: 43
Beverage: 15
Service: 20
Ambience: 17 (bathroom is awkwardly in the front of house)

Total: 95

* In this review, a "Modern" restaurant is one that experiments with local ingredients in the essence of the original ElBulli, for former iconic Modern restaurant which was in Spain.  

It's My Turn!

I finally get to cook Thanksgiving Dinner for my family this year!! (Now I am going to try and write this post without any exclamation marks.)

Reflecting on my previous post - Dream Thanksgiving and Christmas Meals - I find that my menu has not changed.  I am sticking to the Pioneer Woman's Beautiful Brussels Sprouts, and my Mother's Party Mashed Potatoes.  I am still going to have only two pies. My Mother is going to make her Apple Pie, and I am going to order Chocolate Pecan Pie from Great Harvest, along with rolls.
Questions to contemplate:
1) Should I order my turkey from Midwood Smokehouse? It comes smoked and is probably phenomenal.
2) What wine should I buy?  Definitely on the list - two bottles of Biltmore Champagne, North Carolina at its finest.  Should I take advantage of the Harris Teeter 15% of a half dozen bottles this weekend? Most definitely.
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Elisabeth has awoken from her mini nap.  Maybe I will just write mini posts now instead of waiting until I have a larger chunk of time. My appetite is back, and I have a lot to say.

(Also, I will throw away that Miso Paste in the refrigerator. I can't believe it has been over a year since it was purchased.)

Salmon Salad with Herbed Yogurt

Salmon Salad with Herbed Yogurt



I wish I had a photo of our meal. It looked just like this.....  My parents visited from Cohasset, MA this week and helped out immensely with the children and the house. (Thank you!)  I was able to prepare this easy Salmon Salad with cucumbers, canned beans, lemons, prewashed spring mix lettuce, and grilled salmon. Went perfectly with the perfect 80 degree weather.  Low in carbs, and definitely a keeper!  

Hopes I Have for my Daughters

I started this blog last summer, when I had my two daughters in camp every day.  I see that I have not posted since February. This is because we are expecting daughter number three(!), and daughters one and two were only going to school three days a week.  Now they are back in camp!  I have my iced coffee, and I could not resist the computer.

Since we are expecting our third daughter, I thought I would write a list of expectations and hopes for them.
I hope you:
never get tattoos.  There should be no explanation needed.
enjoy reading.
love learning.
are respectful of your elders.
are kind to workers in the service industry.
write thank you notes.
appreciate nature.
go to church.

I realize this is only a short list. Don't want to make expectations too high!