Pan-Roasted Pork Chops with Cranberries and Red Swiss Chard

This  was dinner for my brother Mike's birthday. I served the pork chops and chard alongside the Sehr gute Kartoffeln (roasted potatoes) which are my current obsession. The chard, thyme and potatoes came in my Farm Share, and I had some chicken stock that needed to be used, so this meal worked out beautifully for using things up and being delicious at the same time. I got the recipe from epicurious.com

For Swiss chard
1/3 cup minced shallots (2 medium)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 lb red Swiss chard, stems and center ribs cut out and chopped together, leaves coarsely chopped separately. (I think the color on these stems is just gorgeous!)

 For pork chops
4 (1 1/4-inch-thick) rib pork chops
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

For sauce
1/3 cup minced shallots (2 medium)
1/2 cup dry red wine

1 cup fresh or thawed frozen cranberries (4 1/2 oz)
3/4 cup chicken stock or broth
3 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried, crumbled
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

 

(As usual I was running about an hour behind on getting dinner on the table, so these are the only pictures I took. Nothing of the final product... I remembered as soon as we were done eating.)

Preheat oven to 400°F.
Prepare Swiss chard:
Cook shallots and garlic in butter in an ovenproof 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring, until golden, about 5 minutes. Add chard stems and center ribs and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender, 3 to 4 minutes.

(I made this again and remembered to take some pictures, so here they are)

Add leaves and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until tender, 6 to 7 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper, then transfer chard to a heavy saucepan and wipe out skillet.

Cook pork chops:
Pat chops dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then brown chops, about 3 minutes per side.

Transfer skillet to oven and roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted horizontally 2 inches into meat registers 155°F, 7 to 9 minutes. Transfer chops with tongs to a platter, leaving fat in skillet, and cover chops loosely with foil to keep warm.

Make sauce:
Sauté shallots in fat remaining in skillet over moderately high heat, stirring, until golden, about 5 minutes. Add wine and deglaze by boiling over high heat, scraping up brown bits, until reduced by half. Add cranberries and stock and simmer, stirring occasionally, until cranberries begin to burst, about 2 minutes.

Stir in brown sugar and thyme and simmer, stirring, until berries are collapsed, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter until incorporated, then season with salt and pepper.
Assemble dish:
While sauce is cooking, reheat chard over moderate heat, stirring. Divide among 4 plates and top with chops, then spoon sauce over.

Third time's a charm?

I think it's time to move on to a new recipe. I made the Yellow Cake for the third time last night. This time I used actual cake flour.

 

As mentioned on the box, it is 27 times finer than all purpose flour. I really did notice a difference, it was incredibly soft, I wanted to lie down in it. And it did make a big difference in the final product, the texture of the cake was much softer. However,  IT WAS STILL DRY!!! I even added an additional two tablespoons of butter, and was very generous in my measuring of the milk. I did make an error with the assembly again (I think it is the same error I made the first time, involving the milk.) I added the entire 1 cup to the egg yolks, instead of just using a 1/4 cup there, and adding the other 3/4 cup to the dry mixture first. This may be the crux of the problem, as I understand it has something to do with the gluten breakdown (blah, blah, blah) anyway, I blame the recipe, because it says 1 cup milk in the ingredient list, rather than breaking it down into the two measurements. I have since changed it in my version, for your benefit, and in case I ever decide to try this one again. But my audience is loosing patience with repeated episodes of dry cake, so it will probably be a while. 

This one was for my brother Mike's birthday. We had fun anyway, and it didn't stop us from eating half the cake. 

 

That Chocolate Frosting recipe is a keeper though, it saves the cake every time.

Catch up and DRs Birthday

Oh my, a lot of food has been made since I last wrote. Most of it pretty banal, but all of it from scratch. I have been struggling with motivation on a level that shouldn't already be a problem so early in the year, so close to the making of New Years resolutions, resolutions that haven't even been given enough of a chance to fail. I read somewhere that it takes a month to break or start a habit, and now four months (almost) into this project, the making of the food is the new normal. There are so many things that don't even feel like effort any more, like making bread or granola. Even yogurt is only a mild effort. I finally had to make baking powder, and it really couldn't have been easier. I did have a totally unsuccessful go at making sour cream for DR's birthday chili, which was weird because I made it over the Christmas holiday and it worked out fine. But I guess I'll have to revisit that to see what went wrong. It was probably the fact that we were having guests, DRs friends who already think I am a little nutty came over to play poker, and partake of the weird set of snacks that result from trying to stay within the rules. There was an olive tray (remember the olive amendment), that included pickled okra left over from Thanksgiving, Tex-Mex Chili with tortilla chips which were made by cutting into triangles and frying corn tortillas that have been in our fridge since September (I didn't mention this to the guests), guacamole (this falls under the handmade by someone else rule - they make it fresh at Figueroa Produce), the sour cream that never set, nuts, and yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

I revisited the cake recipe from Baby J's birthday and set out with such high hopes that I was correcting all my previous mistakes. I bought actual pastry flour, assembled it while Baby J was sleeping so that he wouldn't distract me from combining the ingredients in the proper order, carefully sifted the flour, everything was going so well. It all started to fall apart when I tried to use the roasting rack in place of a cooling rack and totally split the first layer all to pieces.

I was devastated, but the second came layer out perfectly,

and DR was able to frost them so you couldn't tell at all, so I was sure that crisis had been averted and it was going to be wonderful, (my sampling of warm, broken piece was wonderful as only warm, broken pieces can be). But when it came to eating it actual slices of cake it was dry as dirt. The frosting was great, but I think the cake was even worse than the first one. I am blaming the flour. I was so excited to find actual Pastry Flour that I didn't take in that it was whole wheat pastry flour. (I'm also easily seduced by promises of making things that are delicious and better for you at the same time.)

It has come to my attention that whole wheat flour sucks moisture out of baked goods at significantly higher rate than white flour. I guess I thought it being pastry flour meant that it self corrected for the whole wheat aspect. I would like to test the theory of making it again with the an additional egg yolk and a little more milk, but I can't bear the possibility of another disappointment just yet. And it is quite a bit of cake for two adults to have around the house... and no matter how dry and awful it is, somehow I still end up eating it. The whole adventure was not lost, however because I got to test a little bit of knowledge passed on to me by my sister KK at Christmastime... Before shopping for the cake and frosting I noted that we had a box of powdered/confectioners sugar left over from the cake I made in December, so I didn't buy anymore. I didn't note that I need 3 cups of it, and that the 4 cup box was 3/4 empty. But in discussing making some dessert for Christmas, KK mentioned that you can make confectioners sugar by putting regular sugar in a coffee grinder.

 

The name powdered sugar should have tipped me off, that it's just sugar, powdered. Anyway, this was a thrilling discovery that worked out great, though it was pretty time consuming making sure all the grains were ground up. I had to grind it in batches, and run each batch through twice. But the frosting was delicious, so at least something worked out. 

Train Adventure Part Two

For my birthday last week we finally went on another train adventure. I just read my posting about our first train adventure back in November and my ambitious plans to go on the second one a week later... well two months later... better than two years I guess.

It was another beautiful day, cool and sunny and bright. This is why we love Los Angeles. Growing up my birthday usually involved ice storms and muddy puddles from snow melting off boots indoors, not than walking around outside in short sleeves and sunglasses.

We started off at the first stop of the extension, Little Tokyo/Arts District. This is the last stop before the train goes over the LA River into East LA. It is also the one neighborhood with which I am already somewhat familiar. As you might guess it is mostly as Japanese area with a great Japanese grocery store, a bunch of noodle shops and sushi joints as well as a Japanese mall. As the stop name also implies, this area also consists of a bunch of converted warehouses that serve as artist studios, performance spaces and trendy restaurants. For this adventure we kept the hipness factor at a minimum and just checked out a French café located in a strip mall on Second Street called Frances Bakery & Coffee.

There's a tiny little dining room, with a sort of Asian-French Colonial/hole in the wall feel to it. We ordered the Napoleon and a piece of cinnamon walnut coffee cake and a cup of coffee. I was worried about the coffee, because you never know in this type of place... but it was sufficiently rich and dark (although the free refill was a bit burnt).

The cakes were delicious. The napoleon was rich and creamy, and the coffee cake had a lovely and surprising hint of coconut. Even DR liked it and he usually hates coconut. I would definitley go back there if I were in the neighborhood. In reading online, it sounds like they are really known for their macaroons. So I'm going to try to keep that in mind.

We decided to walk over the First Street Bridge to the next stop, which was Pico/Aliso. This one only had one restaurant listed in the article, a hipster pizza joint, and as I said we were leaving hipster pursuits to another day, so we just jumped on the train here and road it out to Indiana, which is fourth from the end, and the next one in after we left off on Train Adventure One. Here we walked around El Mercado, which is a three story open market. There is a supermarket, all kinds of food vendors (if by all kinds you mean everything from tacos to tamales) and stalls selling a lot of crap... cheap toys, kitchy mexican clothing and tchotckes, etc. I mostly enjoyed looking at the supermarket. I'm sure some of the food is great, but we had our sites on some other places so we just looked around.

Next we went across the street to Tamales Lilianas where we had two tamales, pork & green chilis and cheese & pepper sticks.  They were both delicious. Baby J enjoyed the pork very much... the cheese and pepper was a little too much for spice for his delicate palate, but we are working on getting him into spicy food, little by little. I forgot to take a picture of the tamales, but here is the place. The guy working behind the counter was wonderfully friendly. I think he might have been the owner. They have a fancier restaurant on Cesar Chavez, I'd like to check that one out sometime.

Then we hopped back on the train heading west to Soto. The train goes underground for two stops here, and this is by far the coolest station on the whole route. It's blue, grey and white with doves flying over maps and a nest with an egg light over the center. I'll try to take some pictures next time I am there. We realized when we came out of this stop, that we should have walked from Tamales Liliana's because all the restaurants listed for Soto where really between the two stops, and about 10 blocks to the East. We decided instead of doubling back we would just walk down First Street toward the next stop and see what we came across. We ended up chatting with aguy who runs an arts community center there for a while. He said we should have walked down Cesar Chavez, parallel to the north, it has a lot more life on it, but we were running out of steam at this point, so we decided to save that for another day. Our last stop was La Placita del D.F., a teeny, tiny hole in the wall restaurant that specializes in cemitas poblanos, which is a Mexican sandwich with meat (we chose milanese - which is pounded steak, breaded and fried), white cheese, avocado, string cheese and cabbage on a buttered sesame bun. This is messy, fatty, deliciousness. We took a picture of it, but somehow it got deleted. I guess I will have to go back...

There are still dozens of places left to try along this route, so I am looking forward to Train Adventure Part Three. Hopefully it won't be months before we get to it.

Baby J's Birthday

Friday was Baby J's birthday. He is one year old! It is pretty hard to believe. I remember writing about how difficult it is cooking with a 10-month old in the kitchen when I started this craziness and already he is a year! That doesn't seem possible. That's not even to mention the fast-forward whirlwind of the previous 10 months!

We had a great little celebration for him. It was small and low-key, and he was the only kid, but I think he liked it that way. His grandparents from Seal Beach came, he saw his Omaha grandparents and cousins on Skype and all his other grandparents and aunts and uncles called wished him their best.

One of the things that I was celebrating, besides keeping him alive for a year, was the fact that this kid loves  to eat all kinds of food. He is a connoisseur of haute cuisine, and rustic home cooking. Bring it on, whatever you've got, he'll it with relish.

The party started at 5pm since it was a work day, and our guests trickled in between 5:15 & 7pm. So I fed him his dinner ahead of the guests to avoid a grumpy, hungry guy. He had a simple meal of pasta shells, mixed vegetables and chicken. We moved on to the cocktail hour, where I served Winter Sunshine Latkas in honor of it also being the first day of Hanukkah. (We are not Jewish, but I love cultural food traditions and celebrations of any kind.) These latkas were a big hit, and very delicious if I do say so myself. (What's not to like about fried potatoes, sweet potatoes and rutabagas?) Baby J showed himself to be a worldly man at age one and probably ate three whole latkas himself. As a result of his gluttony Superterrific didn't get one when she arrived a little late.

We moved from appetizers straight to cake, which as I described in the recipe was a bit of a disappointment. It was a traditional Yellow Butter Cake with Chocolate Frosting.

 

But like a blind man seeing for the first time, this being Baby J's first cake experience he wasn't complaining.

 

After cake the grown ups had chili, corn bread and salad. It was a cozy, winter meal that was easy to prepare in advance and required no fussing in the kitchen. Or it would have required no fussing if I had been more organized and made the salad in advance, but time got away from me and DR had to throw it together at the last minute, but he is better at salads than me anyway.

We had a great time on a happy occasion and we are looking forward to all the birthdays to come.

 

Chocolate Frosting

This recipe is from thejoyofbaking.com 

8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

1/4 cup cocoa powder (can use Dutch-processed or regular unsweetened cocoa powder)

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

3 cups confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted to remove lumps (I don't have a sifter, so this was a little lumpy until I mixed it with the hand mixer after chilling.)

1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

In a stainless steel bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, put the chopped chocolate, cocoa powder, milk, and butter.  Stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.  Remove from heat and beat in, with a hand mixer or wire whisk, the confectioners sugar and vanilla extract.  If the frosting is lumpy, strain through a strainer to remove any lumps.  Cover and place the frosting in the refrigerator until it is firm (this may take a few hours).  Once the frosting is firm remove from refrigerator and place in your mixing bowl.  Beat the frosting for a minute or two or until it is nice and smooth and of spreading consistency.

Assemble:  Place one cake layer on your serving plate and spread with about 3/4 cup of frosting.  Place the other cake layer on top of the frosting and cover the entire cake with the remaining frosting.  Cover and refrigerate the cake until serving time.

Makes one - 9 inch (23 cm) layer cake.

Yellow Butter Cake

I found this recipe on thejoyofbaking.com

There is a long description of how to combine the ingredients and why the order and process is important to the actual moistness of the cake. Due to the fact that my cooking assistant was a one year old birthday boy who thinks he's too big for a nap, I completely messed up this delicate process. The result was not the perfectly moist cake that was promised, but rather a kind of dry and crumbly one. The birthday boy in question had no reservations about enjoying his very first slice of cake, but I was disappointed....

However, I was comforted in knowing that this information matters, and that if I had followed the directions properly the cake would have been perfect, and in the future I might just do that.

6 large egg yolks

1/4 cup milk + 3/4 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

3 cups sifted cake flour (I couldn't find cake flour at the store, but my brilliant baker cousin Molly informed me that I could just substitute all purpose flour with a bit of corn starch, and a little internet searching proved this to be true. Cornstarch lightens all purpose flour and reduces the protein content... however using actual cake flour probably would have helped some.)

1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar 

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder 

3/4 teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature and cut into pieces (I was a little impatient with the butter getting to room temp. It was probably too cold)

Preheat oven to 350º F.  

Butter two 9-inch x 1 1/2 inch cake pans, line bottoms with parchment paper, then butter the parchment paper. Set aside.

In a medium bowl lightly combine the egg yolks, 1/4 cup milk, and vanilla extract. (pay attention here! I added the entire cup of milk at this point...this was a crucial error!)

In the bowl of your electric mixer combine the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) and mix on low speed for about 30 seconds or until blended.

Add the butter and remaining 3/4 cup milk. ( I had to start adding the egg mixture here because of my milk error, which means the gluten didn't have a chance to break down before I added the liquid, which has a toughening effect, which is why the cake was dry.) Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened.  Increase the speed to medium and beat for about 2 minutes to aerate and develop the cake's structure.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Gradually add the egg mixture, in 3 additions, beating about 30 seconds after each addition to incorporate the egg.  

Divide the batter and pour into the prepared pans, smoothing the surface with an offset spatula.  (Pans will be about half full.) Bake 25 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in center.  

Place the cakes on a wire rack to cool, in their pans, for about 10 minutes.  Then invert the cakes onto a greased rack.  To prevent splitting, re-invert cakes so that tops are right side up.  Cool completely before frosting.