Pork Chops, Sweet Potatoes, Spinach

Here I am again to tell you about my Thursday night dinner and my sweet potato snack I made from the leftovers. 

Thursday night I made pork chops with diced, steamed sweet potatoes and sauteed spinach.

Sweet Potatoes 
Steaming sweet potatoes takes some time, 15mins about; so I start the potatoes 5min before cooking the meat and veggie


1. Dice up the potato(es) (I used one very large sweet pot. for both of us) diced into about 1" pieces
2. Steam until tender (can easily pierce it with a fork)
3. Remove from heat and keep covered until ready to serve
4. I love sweet potato so no frills are necessary for me, I spray some olive oil on them using my Misto (love my Misto) and add fresh ground pepper.

 Pork Chops:

1. Removed the chops from the fridge, salted and  left out for an hour before cooking in order to bring the meat closer to room temp. This allows for even cooking of the meat and the salt removes excess water from the pork which was previously frozen.

2. After an hour I wiped down the meat to remove some of the salt and excess water - I wipe down all meat with a paper towel rather than wash it for two reasons which go together - 1- the heat will kill any bacteria so there is no need (here is the 2nd reason) to contaminate your sink and counters with raw meat from the splashing often caused by running water over your meat.

3. I sprinkled the chops with a new spice I bought - Charnushka, It was a great, subtle addition to the pork chops.  I also added fresh ground pepper.

4. In a large saute pan, I heated about 2Tbs of crushed red pepper olive oil  (I make this routinely in small batches by just barely heating olive oil and crushed red pepper on the stove and putting it in a spice jar).  I placed the chops in the very hot pan for about 3min on each side, until they were browned and cooked just medium. 

5.  I them let them rest under foil as I prepared the spinach. Resting is extremely important, the meat will continue to cook up during this period of 5-10min - this is why I remove meat from heat just before it is done - the outcome is very juicy, tender meat.

Spinach:
1. I quickly rinsed the pork chop pan, leaving some of the juices and tidbits of pork stuck to the pan.  I reheated the pan, placed half a bag of washed spinach in the pan and added some red pepper olive oil, fresh ground pepper, dash of salt and 1/3cp of cooking sherry.

2. Once the spinach started to reduce in size, I added the second half of the spinach, tossing fairly constantly until the water from the spinach was reduced to a nice browned colored broth and the spinach a dark green

You can also add garlic in with the mix, but to be honest I do not like garlic in my spinach, although I love it in just about everything else.  I also love to add sauteed mushroom/corn. 


After dinner I placed the remains of the pork left on our plates - bone and fat - into the freezer, adding to my slow growing meat stock ingredients.  There were still a good amount of sweet potatoes left, so I put them in the fridge for the next day.

The next day Skillet Sweet Potatoes:

1.  I tossed the leftover, diced sweet potatoes in Pumpkin Seed oil, dash of salt and fresh ground pepper
2. I heated a small skillet and added the potatoes, cooking until they were just a bit crispy

They were delicious! 


 

Evolution of Stock . . . . Part II

I am lying in bed with all the windows open enjoying the amazing spring-like weather here in Arlington.  The sounds around me are quite interesting as well.  To my left window I can hear, for the first time ever, my neighbor playing some light jazz on his/her sax (Over the Rainbow and somewhat appropriate for the coming weekend festivities)- very pleasant. To my front window, in the next room, are children yelling and, well, being children on the school playground across the street. I just have to say I love Halloween, tomorrow there is a Zombie walk of 50 middle-schoolers, and I think I will have to stop by the Arlington Center and watch, maybe bring some candy with me.  It is truly one of my favorite holidays, the other being Christmas because I am a visual person and I love lights on everything and sparkling things dangling of trees.  The cats, Madden and Parker, are also chilling with me on the bed, completely ignoring each other. 

Yesterday I went to the store and bought some essentials for the weekend.  A pack of pork chops (bone in), two for tonight and two in the freezer for another night.  I am starting to build up a stash of meat bones, so far I have two huge veal bones from a special dinner I cooked for Eric a few weeks ago.  Next I will add the pork bones from my recent buy.  Not sure if I will be satisfied with just that thou, so I will probably wait on making meat based broth until I get more bones to contribute.

While at the Stop and Shop, I perused the racks of soon-to-be tossed produced.  Stop and Shop wraps up bulk veggies and fruits that are close to being expired and sells them for $1.09, no matter what it is: strawberries, peppers of all kinds, apples, squash, green beans . . . .  etc. Yesterday I got a nice batch of organic mini-zucchini.  I brought it home and washed them, cut them up, put the scrap ends to the side to freeze for broth, and finally divided the pieces into two batches, one to freeze the other for tonight's dinner. The zucchini is in mostly perfect condition, but needed to be tended to immediately.  I only buy off the rack when I know I have enough time to cut, sort and freeze the produce or cook with it that very night.  This practice that I picked up on is a great way to save money, but even more important the food is not going to the dumpster in back of the Stop and Shop at the end of the night.  I often will grab veggies off this rack for making soup stocks, they may be a bit bruised but the flavor is ripe - usually at its best - and looks don't matter in stock, only the flavor and nutrients being extracted from the vegetable.

That's it for today.  Tomorrow I am roasting a chicken for a dinner with friends, simple, thrifty and very tasty.  I will post the recipe in my upcoming blog.  I leave you with Parker and Madden goofing around in the kitchen while I am trying to cook.

My mother pointed out a few things about this photo so I will clarify 1) the stove is not on and 2) the cats are not generally allowed to use the counters and cabinets as a playground . . . however, when I saw what they were doing I had to take the picture

Stock your Stock: The Evolution of Broth . . . Part I

There is nothing more satisfying to me than making my own vegetable and poultry stock (both fish and meat stock are on my to-do-experiment list).  Now, I started making chicken stock first; I think sometime way back when I lived with my grandparents after college and was making lots of bone in chicken, they liked my chicken.

Anyway, I started noticing how much waste was going in the garbage after our meal - all the bones, chicken skin, tidbits of meat clinging to the bone, not too mention the fat and juices at the bottom of the pan.  I decided I did not want to waste all that good stuff anymore so I decided to make chicken broth for chicken soup - Brilliant and thrifty I thought! Well of course I did not look in a book to find out how to make broth - or at least good broth.  So I winged it and came home from the grocery with celery, carrots, onion - inexpensive but you will read later that spending money on making broth is not the goal.

So I bought the stuff, cut it all up, put the veggie mix in with all the chicken bones I had been collecting in the freezer for a few weeks in a large pot, filled it to the brim with water and let it simmer with lid on for about 1 1/2 hrs.  Let's see where did it all go wrong, well wrong is not the word but BLAND is . . . First off when making chicken stock put all the goodies in the pot then add water to just barely cover the ingredients - too much water will only dilute the broth and increases cooking time in order to get that perfect, rich broth.  Second, a lid? What was I thinking? That keeps the water in and does not allow for proper reduction.  Third, WHOLE CHICKENS are where it's at - the more the better!

So some time between leaving the grandparents and entering graduate school I started roasting whole chickens.  Up until recently I was a single girl, and other than the frozen food dinners at the grocery (you know the 10 for 10 "cuisines") there are few options for singles when it comes to individual serving sizes.  Then why buy a whole chicken you ask? How do you manage to eat a whole chicken without it going bad? I think this dilemma  inspired me to find all possible ways to use everything I buy.

The first night, usually Sunday, I roast the chicken.  It takes a total of 10min prep and about 1hr 45min cook time.  I steam or saute vegetables on the stove top during the last 5-10min of chicken time.  As for carbs - well I never used to bother but Eric (my fiance) likes them, so I cut up some potatoes and put them in with the chicken and that's that. So total time spent on meal one is 20min or so.  So we eat the chicken and place the leftovers in the fridge for the next night.  After the second night of whole chicken eating, I tear the chicken to pieces - literally, I use a big sturdy knife.  Now when I first open my pack of raw, whole chicken, the inside of the chicken contains, well the insides and a neck.  I put in a storage container and place it immediately in the freezer. As for the cooked meat, I tear off all chicken meat I can find off the bones and either freeze it or put it in the fridge for a meal the next night (like Mexican style chicken with rice or pesto chicken with pasta).

Next, I chop up the bones into manageable sizes (pieces will eventually have to fit into pot so usually the back bone and ribs needs to be halved). After that I put those bones in with the insides I put in the freezer earlier, along with all the skin, fat and juices left at the bottom of the pan.  I ALSO include all the bones/skin left on peoples plates - this my sound gross but it's not, promise.

I cook a whole chicken about every other week, especially in the winter - because it is hearty soup season! So for every two chickens I make a broth.  The best part of making chicken broth, for me is that it is never quite the same.  Whatever the ingredients and spices you use to make your roasted chicken will end up in the broth.  For instance, last week I made a spicy curry chicken with thick slices of onion -"discs"- laying across the bottom of the pan - onion "discs" as I call them not only add flavor but it keeps the bottom of the chicken from getting all soggy and cooking in the fat. The onions and the spices mixed with all the juices, which I saved for making the broth! The outcome being a rich, slightly spicy broth with I used to make white bean chili with chicken and an assortment of hot and mild peppers.

Remember earlier I mentioned going to the store to buy ingredients for making stock is not necessary - well here is why:  Those vegetables I steam or cook in any meal always have scraps that most put in the garbage.  I do not. I freeze them in a separate container.  Onion skins and cut off ends, the tough asparagus stalks cut off from the bottom, garlic skins and garlic that is a little past it's prime, carrot ends . . . . you get the picture. Accidentally buy to many vegetables one week? Cut them up and freeze them for stock or for cooking with later.  All these veggies add up quickly and can be added to the making of the chicken broth or for a very nice vegetable broth.

A quick and final note as I end my first blog post, wear gloves or fully wash your hands immediately after handling hot peppers - the pain is horrible if you let the oils soak into your skin.  If you do happen to forget and end up with burning hands - rubbing alcohol will break down the oils and almost immediately relieve the pain.

My next posts will soon follow with recipes and photographs, as I take you through my weekly cooking and grocery routine.