Kosher-Style Pork Cracklins

Every good cook has a good cookbook. I probably have a number of good ones; I just haven't tried them all out yet. I have peeked into a few, mainly to see how some dish is made. and then I decide it's too hard to do!

I do have one very special cookbook, "Cooking at the Café" written by Francie O'Shea. Francie signed and gave me the book herself! How did I come to know such a great cook? I used to babysit for her back in my early college days. She would typically be at home, and with me babysitting, she was free to cook in her kitchen without interruption.

I opened it up, afraid that I'd find some complicated recipes for fancy dishes. However, the recipes included such simple sounding titles as "garden veggie pasta", "lentil soup" and "quick hummus".

Check out the bicycle on the cover!

In part of her note to me, Francie wrote, "Keep this book around -- one of these days you'll want to cook!"

I guess that day is today! I found Francie's website where she has one recipe online, so I decided to try that one out first. Many of her recipes are vegetarian. They are all recipes that were served on the menu at a café she owned in Corvallis, Oregon. All the recipes are hand-written in the book, plus she has lots of tips on cooking.

As this is the Kosher-style Pork Cracklins, I am most pleased to note that there is a Jewish parable on the last page.

This is the first recipe I tried out of "Cooking at the Café." It sounded simple, yummy and like it wouldn't take all day. It still took all day, but that's just me and my (Kosher-style!) cooking.

I couldn't find any fresh or frozen tortellini so I went with dried tortellini. I'm not sure I cooked the veggies right as they still had a little crunch to them. Well, the celery did. However, how often am I eating fresh homemade soup? Maybe it's just fine. Regardless, it tasted fresh and was delicious! Looking into the pot with all the veggies and tomato smells coming up, it reminded me of pizza. I'm guessing this is a tad more healthy.

As suggested, I made a salad and had some warm crusty bread with it, but I didn't even touch the salad or bread til I was done with my soup. That soup was definitely a meal in itself and I probably shouldn't have eaten the additional side dishes!

I looked up instructions on freezing soups, and learned that pasta in soups doesn't freeze very well. So I fished out all the tortellini and put it into a separate bowl for the fridge. It ended up being dinner. (and a fantastic one at that. Give me leftovers everyday if they're this good!!!) The rest went into the freezer. It'll be interesting to see if it's just as good later!

• Tomato Tortellini Soup

Cook up a pot any time of the year, hot, cold or mild weather. It's warm, spicy and satisfying like chili -- without the beans -- so it's lighter and fresher in taste and texture.

Now that I think about it, Francie's right about it being like chili without the beans. I figured I'd make another soup since I loved the last one so much. I mistakenly bought two spice jars of cumin. The store was out of cayene pepper everywhere except bulk, so I bought some bulk. I guess it's a good thing, because in the corner of my cabinet was a GIGANTIC bottle of the stuff. The recipe called for "crushed peeled tomatoes in puree". It sounds like a simple request. It was soooo difficult to find in the store, though! So many choices, but nothing sounded quite right. I ended up with a can twice as big as I needed called "ground peeled tomatoes". It worked perfectly.

Getting the kernels off the corn was a little messy! I had bought some frozen corn just in case I didn't have enough fresh, but I had plenty. It called for 2 cups, which I think took 4 ears of corn.

This time when I was sautéing the vegetables, I wasn't afraid to turn up the heat. Last time it seemed like the veggies were barely cooking, and they were a bit crunchy. This time, I could hear it cooking if I let it sit a little. Also when it came time to simmer, it definitely did... even with the burner on low! I also have to say that my 100% silicone spatula is a dream tool for this job! I love love love love love it. If only the spatula chopped veggies and moved soup from the pot to the bowl, I wouldn't need another utensil.

The chower tastes great! I'd definitely make it again. The corn has some crunch to it, but I think it's perfect. The other veggies, like the carrots and celery seem to have just the right consistency. Definitely have a nice glass of something cool with this, because it is a little spicy (with the chili powder, tobasco sauce and jalapeno, this is not suprising).

Since I had some time (Jay's plane is hours and hours late), I decided to make some cornbread to go with it. I should have tried the Café Cornbread recipe, but I didn't realize there was one til it was too late. I got a recipe off of epicurious. It's good cornbread, but nothing special. If I had more time to buy all the ingredients, I'd have made the green onion-jalapeno cornbread that people seemed to rave about. For this recipe, I ended up calling my neighbor to see if she had cornmeal. She did! So I borrowed some. Unfortunately, neither of us had any baking soda, so I still had to go to the store.

Kosher tip: Kosher salt boxes are wonderful for keeping the recipe book open.

• Mexi-Corn Chowder (Cooking at the Café, p. 56)
• Stone-Ground Cornbread (epicurious.com)

Friday evening, Jay and I planned out our dinner for Saturday. I suggested that we grill something, so we looked through the Cook's Illustrated Summer 2006 issue on grilling. I was looking for something simple, and the grilled asparagus sounded easy and would also make a great side dish. I offered to make a roasted chicken. Amy taught a friend and I how to make chicken in three different ways. The absolute easiest recipe was for a whole roasted chicken, so this would be the first time I tried it on my own. What I loved about our selections the most was that all we needed was a whole chicken and asparagus. The other ingredients were ones we always have around.

The roasted chicken recipe was simple. Just butterfly it, stuff in some yummy herbs, and add salt and pepper before putting it in the oven. (Roast a 3 lb chicken at 475° for about 45 minutes.) I cut out half of the backbone and Jay thought it was the coolest sound ever. I let him cut the other half. I grabbed some rosemary out of the yard and found it a little trickier to slide in between the skin and the meat compared to sage. Oh well, I love rosemary so it was worth it!

The grilled asparagus recipe said that the spears would naturally snap at the point where the woody section begins. Asparagus naturally snaps in a lot of other places, too! So I only snapped off ends that were obviously woody parts. Jay grilled the asparagus while I talked to my in-laws (who follow this blog, too! *wave*).

I thought the best part of the whole experience was being in the kitchen and hearing sizzling noises from the oven and smelling the chicken. But the smell was even better when I walked outside and then back in again. Mmmmm!!

We sat down for dinner and ate all the asparagus and chicken. We loved every bit of it! We agreed this would make a great dinner when entertaining. It makes so much yummy food for such little work! Even the shopping was simple.

We had a bottle of Pelican Ranch Chardonnay that I bought with my sister Judy when we were wine tasting in Santa Cruz the weekend after Ironman Arizona. From their website: This wine is revered Los Carneros (The Ram in Spanish) sub district of the Napa Valley. It is extremely rich with a beautiful straw-color and generous fruit accompanied by notes of pear and apple. The creamy testure accompanied by vanilla and tasted oak accent a hint of butter from the complete malo-lactic fermentation.

• Roasted Chicken recipe from Amy
• Grilled Asparagus (Cook's Illustrated, Summer 2006, p.42)
• Pelican Ranch Chardonnay 2002 Los Carneros Napa Valley

I recently bought a cookbook called "Small-Batch Baking" that has all sorts of baking recipes that yield between 2 and 4 servings. (It has very high ratings on Amazon.) So many of the recipes sound delicious. I'm eager to try out the muffins, especially.

Today, I decided to make up a batch of whole wheat banana bread before Jay headed out of town for work. For this, all I needed to do was buy bananas from the store. Although the recipe said 23-25 minutes, I think it took 28 or maybe even 30. I kept poking the toothpick in and thinking it was never going to finish baking! Then it finally poked through clean. I cut a hot piece off for Jay and he enjoyed it while sitting in the Admiral's Club waiting for his flight. :) I've already had two pieces. It's very good! Thanks to Amy for the petite loaf pans and I also got to use my cooling rack for the first time.

Another thing to note... yesterday, Amy and I were riding our bikes around town and we dropped by Anna's house to say hi. She's the one who created the Million Dollar Chicken Recipe. ...and wouldn't you know it, she was baking a cake at the time, too!

• Whole Wheat Banana Bread (Small-Batch Baking p. 329)

Jay and I perused the Summer Grilling issue of Cook's Illustrated again because we just love using the grill! We found a recipe for grilling pork tenderloin along with two wet rubs and one dry rub. We decided on the Orange-Garlic Wet Rub. This was my first time grilling pork tenderloin, so I was a little worried that it might be too dry. The recipe called for an hour of brining the pork in the fridge, so I did that while preparing the wet rub. The timing worked out well, and the recipe was pretty simple.

The grilling instructions weren't quite as clear as they usually are, but it said to grill on four sides. Well, with our cuts, we only found it possible to grill on two sides. I had visions of dry meat, charred black on two sides. As Jay grilled the meat, I prepared some asparagus to be grilled. As the meat cooled, he grilled the asparagus, and did an even better job grilling it than last time!

The pork tenderloins were unbelievably juicy. Next time I'll need to place them on a cutting board with grooves to collect all the juices! It was really really yummy, too!

• How to Grill Pork Tenderloin (Cook's Illustrated, Summer 2006, p.36)
• Orange-Garlic Wet Rub (Cook's Illustrated, Summer 2006, p.37)
• Grilled Asparagus (Cook's Illustrated, Summer 2006, p.42)