10-10-10 Pork Tenderloin

Does anyone else watch shows like Top Chef and The Next Food Network Star? Sometimes I feel sorry for the contestants. We all have recipes that we know by heart because we've made them so often, but under that kind of pressure, it would be so easy to forget something. Not to mention that the sneaky producers are always throwing weird ingredients at them. I wouldn't have the faintest notion how to cook a rattlesnake. A grocery store where I used to live kept a supply of them with the frozen meats, so someone must be cooking them.

Like my protagonist, Sophie Winston, I love to entertain and my friends gather in my kitchen. When I'm trying out new recipes, it can get a little bit hectic to join the conversation, pour drinks, and pay attention to everything on the stove. So I was thrilled to run across this basic recipe, which I will always think of as 10-10-10 pork tenderloin. You can vary the ingredients so that it's a different dish entirely, but no matter what kind of chaos is in progress around you, all you have to remember is 10-10-10. I made this dish with white wine recently (which would be a very nice Valentine's dinner, btw), but if you're not into wine, you can make it with chicken broth, or even a combination of broth and apple juice.

10-10-10 Pork Tenderloin

1 pork tenderloin
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons dried rosemary
salt
pepper
1 1/2 cups white wine and/or chicken broth
3 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced

Preheat oven to 400.

Mix the rosemary with salt and pepper on a plate, and roll the pork in it. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan (one large enough to accommodate the apples later). Brown the pork on all sides, about 10 minutes.

Place the pork in an ovenproof baking dish and add 1 cup of white wine and/or chicken broth. Roast uncovered for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, deglaze the pan with the remaining 1/2 cup white wine and/or chicken broth. Add the apples, cover and simmer until soft but not mushy.

Remove meat from oven, pour the apples and sauce over the meat and let stand for 10 minutes. Slice into one inch thick rounds and serve.

Enjoy!

It's Super Sunday!

by Sheila Connolly

If you're into football, you know what today is. If you're not, just go on about your business and ignore those people shrieking at the television set.
It's Super Bowl Sunday. I almost went to a Super Bowl once, when it was held close to where I lived AND I had connections through which I could have gotten tickets. The thing of it was, I was seven and a half months pregnant, and I thought spending the day fighting crowds and jumping up and down in a football stadium was not a wise thing to do under the circumstances. As a result, I missed watching Joe Montana kick Dan Marino's butt live at Super Bowl XIX. Yay, Niners! I'm sure my daughter appreciates my thoughtfulness.

But cheering is hungry work, either at the field of battle or sitting in front of your television (and hey, you get a much better view watching on television). So I offer you two recipes for football-watching sustenance. The first is a recipe for Swedish meatballs, from my Swedish-born step-grandmother (it's complicated). Make them small (under an inch), hand people toothpicks or skewers, and you're good to go.

Grandmother Johnson's Meatballs

½ lb. ground pork

1 ½ pounds ground beef

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 Tblsp butter

1 cup moist (not dried) bread crumbs

1 egg yolk

½ cup water

½ cup milk

salt and pepper (you can also add herbs such as thyme or parsley if you like)

Sautée the onion in butter until soft but not brown.

Mix all the ingredients together, and form small meatballs (about a teaspoon each).

Bring a pot of water or broth to a boil. Drop the meatballs in, a few at a time. When they float to the top, remove and drain.

Sautée the parboiled meatballs in a combination of butter and oil until brown. Serve warm, with whatever dipping sauce you like (barbecue, horseradish, etc.). These may be made ahead and sautéed immediately before the game (just don't miss kick-off–or any of those expensive commercials!).

And now for something completely different...Nacho Layer Cake (courtesy of my mother's bridge club in West Chester, Pennsylvania)

1 can (16 oz.) refried beans

1 package (8 oz.) Philadelphia cream cheese at room temperature

1 container (8 oz.) sour cream

1 can (4 oz.) chopped green chiles

2 fresh ripe tomatoes, finely chopped

4 oz. Monterey Jack cheese, coarsely grated

4-5 scallions, chopped

Taco seasoning

Use cooking spray to grease an 8" or 9" spring form pan with a flat bottom.

Spread the refried beans over the bottom of the pan, and sprinkle some taco seasoning on top.

Combine the cream cheese and sour cream, and spread over the layer of beans.

Drain the chiles and scatter over the cream cheese layer, then sprinkle the chopped tomatoes, the grated cheese, and the green onions.

Chill for 1-2 hours, then remove the sides of the pan (and admire the lovely layers–it'll get messy fast, but it looks nice at the beginning). Serve with sturdy corn chips to dig in.

Don't be afraid to experiment–you can add a meat or guacamole layer if you like. Just don't make the mix too goopy, or it will collapse in a messy but tasty puddle when you take the mold off.

See? Another recipe you can do ahead so you can sit down and enjoy the game.

Go, um...whoever is the better team (since neither one is the Patriots).

My not so secret love affair with ...

You may feel that February is the month of roses, soft music, gifts of twinkling jewelry, and all things romantic, but I think of it as the month of chocolate love. There’s nothing wrong with all that other stuff, but chocolate always makes me melt. I particularly adore chocolate at the end of a meal. This affection for chocolate desserts goes back to the days before I could even imagine being able to make such a thing, in fact, before I could pull off anything but the occasional tuna fish sandwich. You see, I came into my marriage with that single ‘culinary’ skill. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, had once cooked for the Queen of England. Ahem. Talk about a challenge. The problem was that I hated cooking.

Lucky for me, I wasn’t alone. I found a cookbook that seemed to have been written for me. The late, great humorist Peg Bracken saved my bacon and possibly my marriage. I fell upon her cheating-in-the-kitchen masterpiece The I Hate to Cook Book, a small but hilarious paperback with fast and easy recipes that could fool some of the people some of the time. I was able to laugh my head off while suffering in the kitchen. Many of the recipes are dated now, but I can still fool some of those same people with variations on the originals. I credit Peg Bracken with letting me fall in love with cooking. The original books have fallen apart over the years, but I still snatch up copies at library and book sales any chance I get.

But back to my story: one of the recipes in The Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book (yes really) is something called pot-de-chocolat, a rich confection of chocolate, cream, and rum. It was pretty snazzy when I served that after a dinner party back in the day. No one knew it had taken about two minutes to make. I sure didn’t tell them.

In a recent New York Times Magazine, Amanda Hesser did a ‘Recipes Redux’ piece on the chocolate rum mousse, giving a recipe The Times had run in 1966 when rum and chocolate desserts were new and French terms boosted a cook’s status. I prefer Peg’s recipe. I have updated the original by using dark chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate. It’s very easy. I imagine even on of my hopeless protagonists could make it. With a bit of luck. Here goes:

Pot-de-chocolat (6- 8 servings)

Into your blender bowl put:

1 cup of dark chocolate chips. (I used Hersey’s Chipits Special Dark, but this is me, so there are no rules)

1 ¼ cups scalded* 18 % cream. (I suppose you could fool around with the percentage of cream, but I haven’t yet)

2 egg yolks

3 tablespoons of rum (I experimented with Grand Marnier too, but the rum was better)

* Heat until just below boiling

Turn the blender on at high speed ( I don’t have to tell you to put the lid on) and blend until the racket stops. Pour it into small pretty cups – Japanese tea cups or demi-tasse. It also looks great in small liqueur glasses – all will be pretty on your table or a buffet as well.

Keep the serving dishes small because it’s rich! I even used shooters too just to see how that would turn out. It worked so well we ate those before we got to our party. Oh well.

Don’t forget to chill the desserts for at least three hours. Feel free to fancy them up with a bit of whipped cream or a raspberry or two, but I like them this way. The only decoration I use is a spoon.

May I suggest that if you are all cozied up with someone you love on February 14^th, that this will make a nice contribution to the mood. If the someone is a dog or cat, you’ll have to eat the pot-de-chocolat yourself (not good for them!) and hand out dogs treats or fish snacks, whatever. But those will be the subject for another post.

Until then, thank you, Peg Bracken, for laughter, coping skills and some tasty tricks!

Quick Change Chicken

Snow? Ha!

We scoffed at snow.

Snow was not going to keep us cooped. Not us - we had a plan.

Because the rest of the week would be crazy-busy, my husband and I decided we'd carve out a little time Tuesday night and go out to dinner. They'd predicted a blizzard, but we figured we'd opt for somewhere close and be able to make it home before it really got bad.

But Mother Nature had other plans. The storm started right on schedule, whipping snow into little tornados of white, severely limiting visibility. My husband's place of work closed. We were staying in! And... no chance of grilling, either!

Uh-oh. What to do? We had a couple of veggie side dish leftovers, but nothing that could even remotely resemble an entree. Now what?

My first "Quick Change" of the evening. Take inventory: I had chicken breast filets in the freezer. Lucky for me they weren't full breasts, because that made them that much quicker to defrost.

But then what? I pulled out a couple of cookbooks, but nothing looked all that great. I had a pound of fresh mushrooms (what is it with mushrooms lately?), some dried onion soup mix, bread crumbs and wild rice. Surely I could come up with a casserole with those ingredients!

What I wouldn't have given for some cream of chicken soup right then. But I was out.

What follows is my improvisation. One that turned out spectacularly well, and garnered lots of compliments throughout dinner. I was pleased enough to write it all down so I can make it again. Soon!

There's another quick change in here as well. More on that in a moment...

QUICK CHANGE CHICKEN

1.5 lb +/- chicken filets. You can use whole boneless chicken breasts, but you'll have to adjust the cooking time. Or just cut the breasts into strips first. I kinda liked the serving size.

2 eggs beaten in a medium bowl

1 cup Panko crumbs

1/2 pkg of dry Italian salad dressing mix

butter

1 pkg dry onion soup mix

1 lb of fresh mushrooms, sliced

On a plate, or in a medium bowl, combine dry Panko crumbs (heck I had them left over from last week, why not use them!) with the dry dressing mix. Set aside.

Melt about 2 -3 Tbsp of butter in a good-sized frying pan, and just as it gets hot, dunk the chicken filets in the beaten eggs, one at a time. As soon as you pull each filet from the egg, dredge it through the panko mixture then place it immediately in the hot frying pan. Continue until all filets are done. Brown one side, turn, brown the other side. Don't cook through, just get it nice and crispy on the outside.

Combine half the mushrooms with the dry onion soup mix. Place it in the bottom of a 10 x 14 glass casserole dish. Add chicken. Top with remaining mushrooms. Dot liberally with butter. I probably used half a stick.

Place in a 350 degree oven until chicken is cooked through and mushrooms merge with butter and begin to cook.

QUICK CHANGE #2

It was at this point, our eldest daughter texted to say that her place of work was closing for the evening and she was coming home. You need to understand that this daughter does not like mushrooms. Not at all. For me to serve her such a heavy mushroom entree would be ... well, a disappointment.

Not to worry. The chicken was just about done, so I moved the filets to a separate plate and returned the mushroom/butter/onion soup/leftover crumbs-that-fell-off back to the oven. I warmed up our leftover veggies and I'd also made some wild rice to complement the chicken.

Perfection. Robyn never knew I'd cooked the chicken with the mushrooms, which my husband and I used as a side dish. She and my husband both raved about the chicken. It was juicy, tasty, and crispy on the outside. They kept saying how great dinner was.

I felt pretty good. Heck, I hadn't even planned to cook at all that night, but with a little improvisation, and a few quick changes - dinner was served!

You probably can't really make out the chicken in there, but we forgot to take that last "Ta-da!" picture before we started eating. Fortunately, my husband remembered.

Sometimes foodie experiments don't turn out so well. Lucky for us, this one was great!

Enjoy!

Julie

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Bacon Cheddar Guacamole Grilled Cheese

I just sent out a newsletter to readers who have signed up on the mailing list on my website. For those of you who received the newsletter, I apologize for a second posting of this recipe, but it got a lot of email response, so I wanted to share it with our MLK readers.

To prepare for the newsletter, I was thinking about new year's resolutions and, in the process, reading up on Mark Twain. The man was so brilliant. His words are famous. They make me laugh, think, even cry. Oh, to be that talented. What inspired me as I read was this quote:

"A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. There is nothing more satisfying than that sense of being completely "at home" in your own skin. When you achieve that as a natural state of "being", then you can finally look beyond yourself and fully contribute all your talents to the world."

Oh, wow, do I ever want to achieve that state of comfort in my lifetime!!!

In the meantime, I seek solace in good food, good wine, good friends, and good books. (I think Twain did the same).

Also in the meantime, I was researching cheddar cheeses. Cheddar originated in the village of Cheddar in Somerset, South West England. Cheddar Gorge, a limestone gorge in the Mendip Hills near the village, is the site where Britain's oldest complete human skeleton (Cheddar Man, about 9,000 years old) was found in 1903. HOW COOL IS THAT FOR A MYSTERY WRITER TO KNOW?

Now, I'm not sure if Mark Twain liked cheese, but if he did, with his sharp tongue, I'd bet he would have preferred cheddar. So I've named this recipe (the one from the newsletter) after him.

BACON CHEDDAR GUACAMOLE GRILLED CHEESE

or The Mark Twain Special

Ingredients:

(serves 2)

4 strips of bacon, cooked crisply

4 ounces Cheddar cheese

2 ounces Unie Kaas Robusto (or other cow milk cheese)

Guacamole (recipe to follow)

4 slices bread

2 tablespoons butter

Directions:

Cook the bacon as crisply as you prefer. Drain on paper towels.

Prepare the guacamole (according to recipe).

Butter the bread on one side. Heat a griddle on medium. Lay all four pieces of bread on the griddle, butter-side down. Layer with cheese and guacamole on one side and cheese and bacon on the other.

Cook the half-sandwiches until the cheese melts. Stack the two sides together and cover with a

lid or piece of foil to finish the melting process.

Serve warm and enjoy.

*Note: Because of the guacamole, this is a hard sandwich to slice. Prepare to get messy.

GUACAMOLE

Ingredients:

1 avocado

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon sour cream

Dash of white pepper

Dash of Worcestershire sauce

Directions:

A trick for peeling the avocado. Slice in half, remove pit. Using a spoon, scoop out the contents.

Put avocado and other ingredients in a bowl. Whip together. Cover tightly to prevent air from getting to the guacamole until you are ready to use.

Note: This is gluten-free if you use gluten-free bread. ( I did. It was yummy.)

Also note: This guacamole would go great with chips for Super Bowl Sunday.

Enjoy and think positive thoughts!!!

******
A SNEAK PREVIEW of LOST AND FONDUE is now up on my website. Click here. If you'd like to know more about A Cheese Shop Mystery series and want to download a few other recipes from me (on recipe cards), click on this link to my website: Avery Aames. I've posted recipes in the "morsels" section. There's lots of other fun stuff, as well.

And sign up for the mailing list to get in on the next contest...coming every two weeks as I approach the launch of L&F in May.

Say cheese!

Shrimp Pasta

I don’t know about y’all, but sometimes I feel like I’m giving my family the same kinds of things. They can kind of tell, too. Because when I make something like shrimp pasta, they say, “Wow, Mom! What’s the special occasion?”

Then I reflect that I’ve been making a lot of casseroles lately. :)

The nice thing about shrimp pasta is that it’s just as quick and easy as my casseroles, it's low on clean-up time, and it looks pretty on a plate. Attractive enough to serve for company, nice mix of tastes, and quick, too.

Simple Shrimp Pasta

8 oz angel hair pasta
1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 cup green peas (thawed if frozen)
5 oz garlic and herbs cream cheese spread
2 t butter
2.5 oz can sliced mushrooms
2 T milk
3/4 t dried dill weed or 2 t fresh

Cook pasta, according to package instructions. Cook peeled shrimp and mushrooms in butter. Sprinkle dill weed on top of shrimp. When shrimp are halfway cooked, add the garlic and herbs cream cheese spread and milk and heat until melted, stirring constantly. Stir in the peas to the shrimp mixture and cook until heated through. Spoon the shrimp mixture on top of the cooked pasta to serve.

Hope you’ll enjoy! This disappears quickly at my house. :)

Happy Birthday to Cleo and Happy Groundhog day! (Fingers crossed for an early spring…I’m posting this at midnight, so I’m still waiting to hear the news!)

And...I'm updating this post to make an important announcement--Early spring (yay!) is the word from the groundhog...and our friend Dave at My Year on the Grill has made an incredible chocolate bacon bark that my Lulu from the Memphis BBQ series is planning on putting on her menu immediately! Hope y'all will pop over to check it out. :)

Riley/Elizabeth
Delicious and Suspicious (July 6 2010) Riley Adams
Pretty is as Pretty Dies –Elizabeth Spann Craig

Groundhog Day Giveaway: Six More Weeks or Not? Comment to Win from Cleo Coyle

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, a very special day to me for two reasons. I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, where Punxsutawney Phil (the famous groundhog), prognosticates the weather annually. Groundhog Day is also my birthday. That’s right, I was born on a very cold day one February 2nd, which is why I’m throwing an online party this week with a fun "comment to win" giveaway! (See rules and prize below...)



Cleo Coyle, author of the
Coffeehouse Mysteries, born on
Groundhog Day. See a resemblance?



My birthday dinner this week will include a generous helping of Lomo Saltado topped by shoestring fries (see photo below).

If you'd like the recipe for this dish, you can find it by clicking here. It's posted at the wonderful Vintage Cookbook blog of librarian Amy, who has been a guest here in the past.



"Lomo Saltado" is one of my favorite
comfort foods. Click the photo to get my
recipe for this popular
Peruvian dish.

Instead of my favorite orange-vanilla Creamsicle cake (click here for the recipe), I'm taking a break from the oven and enjoying a decadent stack of Krispy Kreme doughnuts topped by a single candle. My age? Well, I'm turning 39 again -- and if you ever saw the movie Groundhog Day, then you know how very apt that joke is. And speaking of Groundhog Day...

As I type these words, half the United States is waking up to a world covered by a beautiful blanket of white. Or, if you’re not a fan of winter, a brutal new storm with yet another round of dangerous blizzard conditions and subzero temperatures.

Had enough? Or want more? That decision may just rest in the capable paws of Punxsutawney Phil...

So help me celebrate my Groundhog birthday.
Leave a comment with YOUR prognostication:

Will Phil see his shadow and give us
six more weeks of winter?

Or will we have
an early spring?

The comments and guesses are in! Thanks to every one of you who left comments. Thanks also for your heartwarming birthday wishes. I sincerely appreciate them!


And now, the two winners
of the retro Krispy Kreme
"road sign"coffee mugs are...

My Blog Winner is:

"Lo-Mo" aka Lori of
Little Kitchen on the Prairie 

Lori correctly predicted that Phil would not see his shadow and we'd be in for an early spring (we can only hope!). Congrats, Lori, you were right (about Phil's prediction, at least) and your comment was chosen by random number generator to win a pair of retro "road sign" Krispy Kreme mugs.


My Facebook Winner is: 
Nancy Hill Bradford

Nancy also predicted no shadow on my facebook post. Congrats, Nancy! You were right, too, and you also win the  mugs by random number generator.


Thanks again to everyone for
your comment/entries.
If you did not win this time,
hey, keep hope alive...

Watch this blog or
my Coffeehouse Mystery web site
for future chances to win my
fun, instant giveaways!

Happy
Groundhog Day!

~ Cleo Coyle, author of
The Coffeehouse Mysteries

To get more of my recipes, win free coffee,

or find out more about my books, visit me
 at my *virtual* coffeehouse:

CoffeehouseMystery.com



 

Click on the book covers above
to learn more about Cleo's culinary mysteries.



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A final, quick note for our mystery reading fans.
The latest Mystery Readers Journal with the theme Hobbies, Crafts, and Special Interests is now available.

The issue, edited by Mystery Fanfare's Janet Rudolph, includes many mystery authors who have guest posted for us over the past year. You can check out the contents by clicking here, which will also give you info on how to purchase a copy (hard or electronic) for yourself.

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