Let me start by saying: I could eat this dish for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Or brinner. Or brunch.
It’s what you might call a “crossover” meal, as anything with a fried egg can be deemed breakfast OR dinner, at least in my book. (And I’m sure many of you, dear readers, agree).
It’s savory. It’s comforting. It’s satisfying. It’s a big bowl of simple ingredients put together to make something truly special—something worth waking up on Sunday morning just to make. (more…)
I have to tell you, I’ve been really digging the weather in my new home, Cincinnati. Summer is already in full force here, which means I can cook many of our weeknight meals (and my client’s meals) on the grill. I just love being able to cook outside—and the fact that there aren’t so many dishes to wash after we’ve finished dinner. Granted, I know the humidity index will skyrocket in July, but I’m trying to pretend that’s never going to happen. Let’s see how long I can keep up the delusion, eh? (more…)
We’ve been eating a decent amount of Chinese take out these past few months (once a month is enough for me!), so I decided it was time for me to get out my wok and stir fry my way to dinner.
As usual, I picked out a recipe that was a bit more complicated than expected for a weeknight, but this Sweet and Sour Pork is well worth the effort, especially if you have a weakness for sweet and sour sauce like I do. It’s not something I order very often because of its—let’s be honest—seriously high calorie count, so making it at home seemed like a good way to up the dish’s veggie content and leave all the MSG behind. Here’s what it includes:
Pork shoulder. Pork butt. Boston butt. Whatever you call it, this lip-smackingly good cut of meat is one of my all-time favorites. When it’s ground it adds fatty richness to meat sauce and meatballs, and when it’s left whole and roasted low and slow it becomes melt-in-your mouth tender and shreddable—perfect for barbeque pulled pork sandwiches or on warm corn tortillas with a freshly made salsa.
While the American South may have a lockdown on barbequed pork, the good people of Mexico, specifically those folks in the Yucatan Peninsula, have their own unique method for bringing out the best in this humble cut of meat.
Happy 2012! I decided to start this year right and introduce some new columns to the Kitchen Bitch Blog right away. If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you’re already familiar with my man-friendly Man Meals column (see, for example, this post) and my ever-popular Feed a Crowd column (check out this post on Texas-style beef brisket, for example).
With life being so crazy, as it always is (I’m busybody, what can I say?), I wanted to establish a few columns in which I can share 1) cooking tips and tricks of the trade; 2) cooking gadgets and gizmos I’ve come to know and love; 3) brands and manufacturers I trust to make foods that taste great; 4) snapshots of my life in food and otherwise; and last, but not least, 4) tried-and-true recipes to which I’ve made little or no changes, because they’re perfect just the way they are.
And that brings us to today’s Recipe Flash column. I’ve actually featured a recipe for sugo alla bolognese before on this blog in the post, Sunday Supper: Not Your Mother’s Meat Sauce. And I do LOVE that recipe. But me being me, I just had to try a new version for the Christmas dinner I offered to host for my mom’s side of the family. After much searching, I decided to go with Anna Nanni’s Ragu alla Bolognese, featured in Saveur magazine. (more…)
I jumped up and down when I opened my mailbox and saw a review copy of Matt Armendariz’s On a Stick! Everybody, absolutely everybody, loves food on a stick, and this is one area where I don’t differ from the crowd.
I had high hopes for Mr. Armendariz’s book, and in the end it did not disappoint. What better way to test recipes then by hosting a Food on a Stick Party? Doug and myself (actually my friend Rae cooked with me instead of Doug—go figure) and two other couples prepared three of recipes from the book for a total of 9 recipes, which I thought was a pretty good test run of any cookbook.
Every year on Christmas morning, my mom would wake up before the triplets and I stormed the Christmas tree to make a delectable one-pot breakfast to eat after all the presents had been opened. Her Sausage and Egg Casserole was (and still is) my favorite thing about that Christmas morning, except for all the gifts, of course, and the nerdy way we still gather around the tree in our jammies, plop down on the floor, and wait patiently for mom to distribute a gift to each of us so we can open them at the same time—only now we can drink mimosas while we do it, which makes the waiting so much more fun than when we were younger.
As luck would have it, I planned on drinking some mimosas for breakfast this weekend with Doug and his roommates (why not, right? It was Sunday!), and I wanted to come up with something new and different to serve with them. Luckily mom’s wonderful casserole came to mind and I used her recipe as inspiration for my own breakfast bake.
Have you ever made a recipe and been pleasantly surprised by the results? You know, those recipes that sound like they’ll be good, just not great? And then when you finally make it you’re like, “Wow, I’m so glad I finally made this damn recipe! I knew I was keeping it around for a reason—I’m a genius! This Cheesy Baked Penne with Cauliflower and Sausage is one of those recipes.
It’s basically mac ‘n’ cheese with the volume turned up, as Ina Garten would say. Adding cauliflower makes such a cheesy dish seem healthier (emphasis on the seem), and adding sausage makes it even heartier for those men in your life bound to complain if there’s no protein involved in their dinner. (I know, I have one. I save my vegetarian dishes for my girlfriends.) Although I must say that everyone—guys and gals—voiced approval for the cauliflower and even went as far as to say that it’s what made this dish, and I have to agree. If you don’t like cauliflower, I promise you will after you eat this.
Pulled Pork Egg Rolls with Barbeque Dipping Sauce
Every family has their favorite dishes—the ones everyone cheers for time and time again—and these pulled pork egg rolls were an instant classic in my parents’ house. I decided to make them again for a ladies’ night I hosted one Friday night, because who doesn’t want to eat crispy crunchy fried food on Friday after they’ve been good all week? (“Good” in terms of health is relative to the girl, but you get what I mean.)
I texted my sister Annie to tell her I was cooking up the egg rolls for my lady friends. “Shut up!” she replied. “I’m SO jealous. Take some pictures for me so I can drool over them.” And so I sent her a series of picture messages showcasing the meal, from the piles of pork to the final deep-fried product, complete with BBQ dipping sauce. Annie practically drooled on me through the phone, and my friends started salivating as soon as they got a whiff of all the good stuff in the works in my kitchen. After sharing three or four bottles of wine between the five of us, my girlfriends and I were all dying to mow down on these pulled pork egg rolls and the stir fry I served up alongside them.
Happy almost Thanksgiving dear readers! I arrived at my parents’ house in Northern Kentucky last night, and I started preparing for Thanksgiving this morning. It may sound ridiculous to start this early in the week, but when you’re feeding 30 very hungry Linnemanns, it’s best to begin preparing sooner rather than later. Plus, if I spread out all my tasks over the week, it’s not bad for me or my feet, which always hurt after a long day in the kitchen. And, of course, my parents are slammed with work this week, so getting the house and food ready is all up to me again. Let’s just say it’s becoming an annual tradition. 
On the plus side, I’ve delegated out most of the side dishes to my lovely aunts and cousins, who were all willing to pitch in and lend a helping hand. That leaves me making the stuffing and desserts, handling the turkey, and whipping up a giant vat of my favorite cranberry chutney.
The turkey pictured above is the one I roasted last year. I like to brine my turkey in an apple cider-salt water solution and then rub it down with a yummy herb butter before stuffing it with lemon, onion, rosemary and sage. As you can see, it’s one helluva turkey. I’m probably going to do a riff of this brine by the Pioneer Woman, an excellent food blogger who just threw down with Bobby Flay last week and won.
Today I made Alton Brown’s recipe for candied ginger. What do I use all this damn candied ginger for, you ask? Cranberry chutney! I like to give out jars of my cranberry chutney to guests to eat with leftover turkey, so I make a large stockpot of the stuff a few days before. The chutney is a sweet-tart mix of cranberries, apples, pears, onion, raisins, spices and, of course, candied ginger. It goes incredibly well with the turkey and it’s delicious on it’s own as well. I’ll be blogging about that recipe tomorrow, if all goes well.
I really like to hear what people are having for Thanksgiving, so I thought I’d share what we’re having this year. Here’s the list:
Apple Cider-Brined Turkey with Rosemary and Lemon
Alice Moeves’ Traditional Stuffing
Goetta & Herb Stuffing —a new Kitchen Bitch concoction still in the works
Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Brussels Sprouts with Bacon & Dried Cranberries
Cranberry Chutney
Soul Sweet ’Taters
Green Beans with Almonds
Cheddar Biscuits
Homemade Pumpkin Pie
Pioneer Woman’s Pecan Pie
Sour Cream Apple Pie Deluxe
Pumpkin Bread Pudding by Bobby Flay
Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream (recipe by David Lebovitz)
Homemade Cinnamon Ice Cream (recipe by David Lebovitz)
So, dear readers, what I am missing that you make at Thanksgiving? What are you favorite Thanksgiving dishes? Do you roast a turkey or skip it altogether and go with another protein?
