A Weekend of Cooking and Picnicking

Friday evening I pan-braised a little pork tenderloin with mustard and vermouth sauce. With it we had focaccia with blue cheese, sage, and walnuts; and carrots and snowpeas.

Then Saturday we took the leftovers with us to visit the Amerind museum. It's just off of I-10 at Texas Canyon, where we turned off to go to Cochise Stronghold. The museum was wonderful, but the picnic area was a truly special place, with huge granite boulders and live oak trees. We had a memorable picnic. Afterwards we drove to the east side of Saguaro National Park and, after an hour's drive on a washboard road, took a 3-mile hike through the woods to the wilderness boundary.

Today we began with a breakfast of a grilled cheese and green chile sandwich, and finished with Grandma and Walt for dinner. I served Italian chicken with red wine and olives, raw broccoli salad*, and Piedmont peppers. Grandma made bread. I had leftover ice cream pie from last week's recital, which I served with fresh blackberries.

This broccoli salad is very strange but satisfying.

Broccoli Salad

1 pound broccoli
4 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled (optional)
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/2 cup cashews or other nuts

Cut broccoli into small florets, or chop. Combine in large bowl with bacon, raisins, red onion, and nuts.

1/3 cup light mayonnaise
1/3 cup non-fat yogurt
1/3 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons vinegar
Salt and pepper

Combine mayonnaise, yogurt, sour cream, sugar, and vinegar to make a smooth dressing (or use bottled ranch dressing). Toss with broccoli mixture. Chill at least one hour.

Curry Chicken

What do you do with leftover hoppin' john from New Year's Day? You re-purpose it as Caribbean peas and rice.

And what do you do with the unexpected midwinter gift of a few fresh homegrown chiles? You make Caribbean curry chicken.

On New Year's Eve, my friend Ken showed me and Lawson his nifty greenhouse and gave us a few fatalii peppers he'd grown in it. I'd never had them before. They were like small yellow habaneros, so I thought I would use them in a scotch bonnet-worthy recipe.

I used almost exactly the same recipe as I did for the goat, with two substitutions: 2 nice organic chicken leg quarters instead of lamb, and 2 regular white potatoes instead of sweet potatoes. All else was the same: rub the spices into the meat and let it sit for a while, then brown everything and make a curry.

The taste was warm and wonderful, quite similar to the curry chicken I've had at good Jamaican places. And it tasted nothing like the goat did, despite having the same spice blend. I served it with beet greens and leftover hoppin' john peas-and-rice.

One Small Chicken, Four Meals

I haven't roasted a chicken for while--previous ones have seemed too fatty and gross. But for Sunday dinner I had a hankering for the traditional roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, so I bought a smallish--three-and-a-half pounds--"natural" bird which turned out to be just fine.

I rubbed it with a paste of salt, paprika, and olive oil, stuffed fresh parsley, rosemary, and thyme in the cavity, and baked it on a rack at 325 degrees for about one hour and forty-five minutes. I made gravy with vermouth. So good! I rounded out the menu with roasted red peppers and cold lima beans dressed with oil and lemon juice. And Grandma made her lemon pudding.

Instead of using the leftovers in a different dish, we had a repeat of the same meal the next day. Then chicken enchiladas, and finally some chicken broth which I'm storing up for a rainy day.

I'll get that Lemon Pudding recipe from Grandma tomorrow.

Gnocchi and Asparagus

We never take food home from a restaurant--but Dad couldn't finish his wonderful gnocchi with tomato cream sauce from his Italian lunch, so we finished it for dinner. Wow.

Asparagus is perfect and cheap right now, so I made it my favorite way.

Cold Asparagus with Curry Mayonnaise

2 pounds asparagus

Break off tough stems. Peel stems below tips if very thick. Cook until barely tender. Drain and chill.

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1/3 cup yogurt

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon curry powder

Salt to taste
Lemon juice and zest to taste

Mix remaining ingredients to make a smooth dressing. Arrange chilled asparagus on serving plate and spoon dressing over.