pear pie with streusel topping and caramel sauce.

just the other day the mister was asking me why i do not make pies more often, so i have decided to add a pie to this month's repertoire of recipes. happy baking!!!

bartlett or anjou pears work best in this pie. be sure to purchase firm, slightly under-ripe fruit for this pie since the pears soften and give off juice as they cook.

ingredients for pie:

• 3 ounces all-purpose flour, divided (about 2/3 cup)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon  ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 6 medium firm pears, peeled, cored, and cut lengthwise into 1/2-inch-thick wedges
• 1/2 (15-ounce) package refrigerated pie dough
• cooking spray
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces

ingredients for sauce:

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 2 teaspoons water

directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. To prepare pie, weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine 1 1/2 ounces (about 1/3 cup) flour, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl. Add juice and pears to flour mixture; toss gently to coat. Roll dough into an 11-inch circle; fit dough into a 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Fold edges under and flute. Arrange pear mixture in an even layer in prepared crust.
3. Combine remaining 1 1/2 ounces (about 1/3 cup) flour and 1/3 cup brown sugar in a bowl. Add 3 tablespoons cold butter to brown sugar mixture; cut in with a pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle butter mixture evenly over pears. Bake at 375° for 1 hour or until lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack 10 minutes.
4. To prepare sauce, combine 1/3 cup brown sugar, cream, and 2 tablespoons softened butter in a small, heavy saucepan over medium-high heat; bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute or until thickened. Remove from heat; stir in 2 teaspoons water. Serve at room temperature or slightly warmed with pie.

source: cooking light magazine.

substitution central.

ummmm...may? may? hello? where did you go? somehow or another may slipped right by and we never had a chance to whip up the may recipe. but better late than never, we hunted down the ingredients (sort of) and had a feast tonight and this post is back-dated so it will be sorted into the right month.

larger than life greens.

first there was no swiss chard in our grocery store, but ms. gingkochef had forewarned me that i might not find it. at first i was going to use spinach, but then i decided to go out on a limb and buy turnip greens. not necessarily my brightest moment. the sprayer had just finished dousing all of the greens, so i had to buy a sopping wet bunch. as it turns out, if you want turnip greens you have to buy the farm. yup. the bunch would not fit in the produce bag. and then it covered my hands and the floor and the grocery cart and the checkout stand with leaves. it got smashed when i crammed it into my bike basket, but it was still ginormous. the mister and i have still not decided what to do with the leftover greens.

the other substitution was the quinoa. apparently that is not available in our grocery store. totally unsure of how to deal with this missing ingredient, i opted to make orzo. never made it before and it is a small pasta...in pickel logic that made perfect sense. once again, this was not one of my shining moments. ever try to cook pasta with "just enough" liquid to be absorbed and still be al dente? right. it does not really work. so it was a bit slimy, but once mixed with all the other goodies, it stood its ground and seemed to do the trick of providing a foundation for the dish. i still wish i could have tried quinoa.

anyhow, the meal was complete with not too much craziness. it is actually a relatively simple recipe to put together, except that i have zero confidence in my ability to cook fish. but i did. and then we got to the hard part...neither of us is a big fish person, but we both ate it. the mister liked it. i did not. we both liked the mixture of yummies piled up next to the fish, but unless it is fish sticks, i think i am going to leave the fish cooking to the restaurants.

thanks for the recipe ms. gingkochef!!!!! :)

A Picture for Inspiration

They say a picture says a thousand words. Enjoy!

May Dinner - Champagne Salmon with Swiss Chard Quinoa

Hello ladies...

Where does the time go? I can't believe that it is already May, particularly because I never made April's meal. Hopefully we will be able to catch up. But, here is a recipe I have been wanting to make. I am not usually a big chard nor quinoa eater, so here goes. Also, I really like this blog's recipes. Happy cooking and eating!

Champagne Salmon with Swiss Chard Quinoa
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
2/3 cup quinoa
1 1/3 cups chicken stock
1 bottle sweet champagne
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 dried bay leaf
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 salmon filets (ours were 7 ounces each)
1/3 cup pine nuts
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 bunch Swiss chard, stem removed and coarsely chopped (2 packed cups)
1/3 cup golden raisins
Juice of half a lemon

Directions:
Place quinoa and chicken stock in a stockpot over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, place a lid on the pot, and simmer 10 to 15 minutes or until all water is absorbed.

Place champagne, vinegar, bay leaf, and 1 teaspoon salt in a stockpot over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and bring liquid to a simmer. Place salmon filets in the pot and simmer for 10 minutes or until salmon is cooked through.

Meanwhile, place pine nuts in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat and sauté for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring frequently, or until toasted. Remove pine nuts from the skillet and pour in olive oil. Sauté red onion for 5 to 7 minutes or until tender; add garlic and sauté one additional minute. Stir in Swiss chard and sauté for 3 to 5 minutes or until wilted.

Place cooked quinoa in a large bowl and stir in cooked Swiss chard, pine nuts, raisins, lemon juice, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. Serve poached salmon over quinoa. Makes 3 servings.

Nutrition: 684 calories, 30.1g fat, 7.0g fiber, 50.0g protein per serving
Cost: $5.54 per serving (not counting the champagne)

stupendous bo ssam.

okay, so i am not gonna lie..this recipe was daunting. first, the sheer quantity of meat. second, the overnight rest and six hours of cooking. third, where to procure kimchi? but all of these hurdles were easily overcome. at the end of the video, dude definitely says “it was six dollars for a four pound shoulder,” so i made the executive decision that this family was gonna use a four pound hunk of pork. done. the cooking time, while a bit unnerving is not that bad. after all, you only have to visit with the oven once every hour, so you can work on something else (like sewing a quilt) while you wait. finally, after reading the recipe countless times, it finally sunk in that the kimchi is used as a condiment…if it is missing, the meal will still go on.

the shopping list. naturally you have to gather the ingredients for the main recipe, but it must also be noted that this recipe calls for two sauces, which you need to make. like the kimchi, these are condiments, so you can probably buy something similar, but they are DELICIOUS and easy to make yourself. check out this bo ssam sauces post for the ingredients and instructions. i have to admit that i was not motivated to go on a kimchi hunt and it was not at our store, so we went without. the hunk of meat was readily available in the regular grocery store. i bought a half shoulder, because four pounds seems much more manageable. also i could not find bibb or butter lettuce, but luckily discovered that this is also called boston lettuce, which was plentiful. 

the cooking. so you wanna know how it went? weeeellll..it was definitely an interesting adventure. my plans went a bit astray on cook day, so i did not get started until 7:0opm, which meant the cooking continued until almost 2:00am. agg. the pork did not seem to give off a lot of juices, so i was “basting” with bits of blackened goo that were collecting in one corner of the pan. with about an hour to go i made the sauces and rice. relatively uneventful. carmelizing the sugar was a bit disastrous, because the drippings started burning and smoke was pouring out of the oven. yikes. but at 2 o’clock in the morning, after charbroiling our roasting pan and smoking up the entire house, the mister and i took our first bite of bo ssam. words cannot express the deliciousness. sooooooo goooooood. we had seconds. at 2:30am. on a school night. ridiculously scrumptious. ate it cold at lunch today. a. m. a. z. i. n. g.

bo ssam sauces and rice.

you might have noticed that the bo ssam recipe asks for 1 cup of a ginger-scallion sauce and 1 cup of a jalapeño-garlic sauce, but there are no instructions. luckily the sauce creation is in the video. since i already went through the video to unearth the ingredients and directions, i thought i would share to save y’all that step. also the rice is prepared similar to sushi rice, so I have included the instructions for that as well.

ginger-scallion sauce. combine ingredients and stir.

½ cup scallions, chopped

1 large pinch of salt

fresh black pepper

1 tsp soy sauce

a few shakes of vinegar

¼ cup neutral oil (example: grapeseed oil)

1 piece ginger, peeled and finely chopped (about a thumb-size piece)

jalapeño-garlic sauce. combine ingredients (except oil) in blender. start blender and slowly drizzle in oil.

2 jalapeños, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed and roughly chopped

salt

pepper

dash of soy sauce

dash vinegar

neutral oil (an oil with a neutral taste, for example: grapeseed oil)

rice. rinse rice in cool water. bring rice and water to a boil. cover and simmer on low for 20 minutes. dissolve sugar in rice wine vinegar. mix into rice.

1 cup short grain rice (example: sushi rice)

2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

1 ¼ cups water

Bo Ssam

I happened across this amazing website a few months ago, and have been wanting to try this ever since. Yes, it is a lot of meat. And you have to start the preparations the day before you want to eat it (so it can marinate over night). But it looks so very tasty and delicious. And isn't the video lovely?

Ingredients

• 1 (8- to 10-pound) bone-in pork shoulder or pork butt
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon coarse salt
• 7 tablespoons light-brown sugar
• 1 cup Napa Cabbage Kimchi, for serving
• 1 cup Napa Cabbage Kimchi, pureed, for serving
• 1 cup Ginger-Scallion Sauce, for serving
• 1 cup Jalapeño-Garlic sauce, for serving
• 2 cups steamed short-grain white rice, for serving
• 3 to 4 heads Bibb lettuce, leaves separated, washed well, and spun dry

Directions

-Place pork in a large bowl or roasting pan.

-In a medium bowl, mix together granulated sugar and 1 cup coarse salt. Rub sugar mixture all over pork and cover bowl with plastic wrap; transfer to refrigerator for at least 6 hours and up to overnight.
-Preheat oven to 300ºF.
-Transfer pork to a large roasting pan, discarding any accumulated juices (or drain accumulated juices from roasting pan that pork is in). Transfer roasting pan to oven and cook, basting every hour with rendered fat in roasting pan, until meat is tender and easily shredded with a fork, about 6 hours.
-Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together remaining tablespoon coarse salt and brown sugar; rub mixture all over pork.
-Increase oven temperature to 500ºF. Return pork to oven until sugar has melted into a crisp crust, 10 to 15 minutes. Serve hot with kimchis, ginger-scallion sauce, jalapeño-garlic sauce, rice, and lettuce.

From: Working Class Foodies http://www.hungrynation.tv/wcfoodies