If you have the tomatillo salsa on hand, roasted pork with tomatillo sauce is a quick and easy meal. The salsa darkens as it cooks in the rendered pork fat. The sauce picks up the flavours of the meat to really come together nicely. I used pork tenderloin because I was jammed for time but you could do it with a small pork loin as well. Just up the amount of tomatillo salsa you use to line up with the amount of meat you are preparing.
main course
pork piccata
Pork piccata is a great alternative to the more obvious chicken piccata. It’s easier to prep. It’s less likely to dry out. And it has more flavour. What is not to love here?
holiday turkey dinner
Holiday turkey dinner. Are there words that strike fear in the hearts of cooks more effectively than holiday turkey dinner? Probably not. Turkeys are just not made oven friendly. Add the 17 sides that everyone expects and you have a ridiculous task in front of you. Stop. Think. Why do you need 17 sides? What is the point exactly? Have you ever been to a great restaurant that put 17 sides on the plate? It makes no sense at all. None.
Why not execute 5 things perfectly instead? Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy and one vegetable. Who wouldn’t be happy with that? Quality over quantity. Pick your battles. Pick the ones you can win.
dry brined roast turkey
A perfectly cooked turkey is not a difficult thing. Pick a good quality bird, keep it under 14 lbs, don’t stuff it and dry brine it. Dry brined roast turkey deserves a whole lot more attention than it gets. It works. Well.
pan fried steak with dijon white wine sauce
While a grilled steak can be pretty good I’m not happy unless there’s a sauce. For me, a pan fried steak is where it’s at. A splash of wine, a bit of stock – in this case veal stock – and a couple of flavour highlights and you move into serious territory.
The French have mastered at least 100 different pan fried steak dishes – and yet there’s no grilled steak recipes in the Cordon Bleu at Home…
french chicken in a pot
French chicken in a pot. It’s a great way to mix up the Sunday roast chicken. It infuses the chicken with rich flavours and creates an unbelievably delicious sauce.
This is a simplified version of the poule-au-pot. It’s not stuffed. It’s not poached. It’s roasted. But it’s not really roasted because it’s sealed in a pot. Confused? Just go with it. It’s really, really good.
lemon thyme chicken
Lemon thyme chicken. Some flavours just work together. You see them over and over. Nothing original here but it works. A bit of white wine and some crushed chili flakes round it out. Just tasty. This is a great place to use concentrated chicken stock if you have some on hand. If you don’t, consider it seriously…
There’s not a lot of sauce though. Just a spoonful per serving. Leaves you wanting more. Lemon thyme chicken is fast enough for a weeknight but flashy enough for the weekend.
panzanella – tuscan tomato bread salad
Panzanella is a tuscan tomato bread salad from the land of endless summer. If you like tomatoes and you like bread you owe it to yourself to try it at least once.
Where I live tomatoes are trucked for miles in winter. I think they’re tomatoes. That what the sign says. The taste says nothing. Nothing. Dust. In summer though, picked at the peak of ripeness from nearby farms the tomato is a magical thing. For me, it just screams summer and I work them into almost every meal for as long as they last.