Smothered pork chops over rice with garden salads

Last week, I bid a fond farewell to my twenties. I knew something big was coming (my husband had been asking "Can I give you your present yet?" multiple times a day), and as there had been all kinds of bugs going around, I became paranoid about getting sick. It happens very rarely as it is; I'd say we each only get colds about every two or three years, but Allan had a terrible cold the first week of this year and was petrified of giving it to me. I took appropriate distance-keeping measures and cultivated the perfect immunity-boosting regimen: a tangerine Emergen-C and a B-vitamin complex in the morning, and a mega sweat-inducing hot yoga class every other day. I developed not even the weensiest sniffle. I was bulletproof.

Test Carrot reveals it is not time to yank them yet.

My birthday finally arrived, and my incomparable husband surprised me with a weekend trip to Napa, culminating in a reservation at the French Laundry. Upon hearing the plans, I wept with joy, gratitude, and love. It was a perfect weekend! First a night at a gorgeous hotel in San Francisco, then breakfast with one of my dearest old friends on Saturday, and a lovely drive to Napa under clear California skies when the forecast had predicted steady rain. The French Laundry was everything I imagined; impeccable service, stunningly beautiful presentations, and of course, maximum deliciousness. Although there were cameras going off at almost every table, I chose not to photograph and blog each dish. I wanted to just be completely present to enjoy it. Needless to say, should you find yourself in a position to dine at the French Laundry, run there, don't walk. As I read in a review about it somewhere, "Once in a lifetime? Not if I can help it."

Burmese red pork stew

I love it when you read a recipe and can tell exactly how it's going to taste. I love it even more when that taste is something you've been looking for but couldn't really find or articulate. This is one of those recipes, discovered in last September's Bon Appetit. For a kid who grew up in Southeast Asia, this is comfort food at its absolute finest.

But a word of caution, if you couldn't tell by the ominous appearance, it is not for the faint of heart. It's intensely spicy, salty, and porky (my faves, eee!). The heat is pretty strong, but the final dish is not nearly too spicy for us. The sambal oelek and chili oil function as major players in the flavor profile rather than just agents of spiciness (you should be able to find both at any upscale grocer, and many options of each at your local Asian market). That being said, I definitely wouldn't prepare this for anyone who couldn't handle some heat.

Like my mom's stew chicken, caramelized sugar provides the foundation for this dish. Add to that the sheer deliciousness of just garlic, ginger, chili, and just a little soy sauce, and the final dish is so much more than the sum of its parts.

Ziti alla Papera

 

Apologies for the sparse posting... That pesky World Series required extensive time commitments to hang out at the ballpark and drink beer, then we were entertaining out-of-towners a couple of days, and I've been forging the frontiers of science like a mofo at my day job. I was hardly cooking, and even when I was it was quick easy ol' reliable recipes all the way. Fortunately, Farmer Dad has been plowing away (heh) at the farm. The terraces are all cut, the pond is completely dug out (and is a gorgeous teal color from the underground streams filling it) and we've just started to sow grass and cover crops for the winter.

This is another recipe discovered during my nightly bedtime viewing of Molto Mario reruns. Of note, there is no herbage or seasoning in this sauce except salt, pepper, and a little parsley at the end. I was concerned about that the first time I made it, but honestly, it's staggeringly delicious as is. I would never have guessed that half of the meat is duck, but flavor and texture wise, you can tell it clearly isn't all pork. The duck gets so soft and delicate, it brings not so much a duckyness to the sauce as a sumptuous melt-in-your-mouthy richness. It adds a lot of complexity to the simple, somewhat expected sweetness of the onion and tomato. It would really overpower the flavor profile to add any other herb than parsley (basil would be an especially bad fit, so don't be tempted). Which is not to say the parsley isn't important, I actually think the tiny hit of fresh grassyness is key.

Pad Thai

Behold, my first attempt on the glorious takeout classic. We love pad Thai - whenever we order from our amazing neighborhood place, we inevitably get one pad Thai and one something else (gai pad gra pow or green curry, usually) and go halfsies. I shouldn't have waited this long to try making it at home, it wasn't nearly as scary as I feared.

Unless it's a dish that I recognize will taste a certain way by just the ingredients, I read a lot of reviews before I try a recipe. I really recommend it, often there are suggestions for improvements posted by the folks that have already tried the recipe and found it lacking in something or other. However, I actually had a hard time finding a pad Thai recipe that had 5-star reviews, so I was even more nervous.

Pork chops and sugar snap peas with mint julep glaze over mashed cannelinis

I came across this recipe whilst flipping through the "Peas" slideshow on epicurious.com (is that embarrassing? I just really... like peas.) Hail, Spring! Anyway, this is a great quick weeknight meal comprised mainly of standard pantry and freezer ingredients. And there's booze!

It's a cool little riff on the mint julep cocktail. Admittedly, I'm not the biggest whiskey drinker. I've always found mint juleps to be missing something, and now I know what that is: pork.

Pretend these came from my garden. My wee little plants are only two inches tall at the moment, but I have high hopes for them.

Red curry noodles with ground pork, red pepper and carrots

I've been slowly accumulating food magazines over the last couple of years. I knew I wouldn't make probably a quarter of the recipes in them and the pile was beginning to get unwieldy, so lately I've been flipping through them and cutting out the ones that speak to me (then taping them to paper and sliding into plastic sheets in a cute binder). This simple and adaptable recipe was yelling at me the loudest, "Make me! ME!"... So I obliged.

Whatever you've got in the crisper is going to work in this dish. I used a red pepper and the rest of the carrots from my garden but it would be great with cabbage, zucchini or summer squash strips, beans or snap peas would be particularly good, and so on. You could certainly use any ground meat you like, and if you don't have ground meat you could just slice a chicken breast or pork chop thinly and use strips. 

Pork chops with tomato-peach compote, rice pilaf and spicy sauteed green beans

This is one of those simple late summer recipes I just live for. It was made all the more magical with local late-season tomatoes and glorious Texas peaches. Oh, Texas peaches. Texas does peaches right. Sad that I'm talking about this in October, right? It's gonna be a long winter.

The original recipe (from Gourmet) calls for pork tenderloin, and I have made it that way in the past and certainly would again for a crowd. Cooking for two, though, it's easier to just grab a couple of chops.