Prudent Foodie

Whole Wheat Pasta with Peas and Smoked Pork Chop

A good friend once repeated this quote (variously ascribed to Irma Rombauer and Dorothy Parker) to me:  "eternity is two people and a ham."  Having  a small family, with only two meat eaters, this is a reason why ham typically features on my table only on Christmas Eve, and possibly Easter.  But, I love a similar meat  - Kassler, or smoked pork chops.  For one thing, you can buy a single chop if you like, and for another, you can do a million things with it:  I have another post on this site which features this versatile, and cost effective ingredient.  After several days of over cooking and overeating over the holiday, a simple flavorful dinner seemed like the antidote to appetizers, cookies, mulled wine, etc.  Because I didn't make a Christmas ham this year, I am using smoked pork chop in the recipe, but you can shave a day off of eternity by using leftover ham in this recipe!!  The flavor will be a bit less intense with the ham, but it will still be very tasty.  The suggested quantities should serve four with some leftovers.  Like my recipe for Cauliflower Pasta "Carbonara", you want all the ingredients ready and sitting there when the pasta is done. This recipe uses the heat of the just cooked pasta to cook the eggs that form the cheese sauce, so it needs to be steaming hot when you assemble it.

Whole Wheat Pasta with Peas and Smoked Pork Chop (or Ham)

2 eggs- beaten and ideally at room temperature

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 tsp dried tarragon

1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes

16 oz frozen Locavorious sugar snap peas, or 2 cups of frozen conventional green peas

1 smoked pork chop cut up into 1/2 inch dice (or 1-2 cups of diced leftover ham)

1/2-2/3 cup shredded quattro formaggio blend

6-8 oz uncooked whole wheat pasta (fusilli is a good choice for this creamy sauce)

Boil the pasta until it reaches the tenderness you prefer.  In the meantime prepare everything else.  Beat the eggs and add the tarragon and red pepper to them; heat the peas in the microwave, or boil them in water, and warm up the smoked pork chop cubes in the microwave.  I used frozen whole sugar snap peas, but just plain green peas will be fine too.   When the pasta is ready, drain the water off and pour in the heavy cream and stir it in, followed immediately by the beaten egg, and stir well for a few minutes, until the pasta is completely coated with the sauce, and its heat has cooked the eggs.  Add the hot peas and ham, and stir, then add the shredded cheese and blend everything together.   Check the seasoning, and add a little black pepper if needed.  This is good served with a green salad or fruit salad! Dee Dee

Vacation Food, Seafood, Easy Food

Siesta Key

The Prudent Foodie is on vacation this week in gorgeous Siesta Key, Florida. Gotta say that this beats the heck out of Orlando :- )   What does this have to do with the Prudent Foodie's theme?  Well, no one goes on vacation to save money, but you can spend a ton of money eating badly when you're traveling, and guide books aren't always great for finding a place you will really enjoy.  We prefer to stay someplace where we can spread out and cook the odd meal when we're gone - partly for comfort, and partly to eat better for less when we travel.  But, I cook all the time at home, and having to devote hours of my time off to cooking isn't exactly what vacationing means either.  The solution is to cook simple meals and rely on some convenience foods. 

Today I went to the Siesta Key farmers market, which is small but featured everything I needed to put together a great, easy meal or two.  I picked up some fresh red snapper, some picked fresh crab meat, some gorgeous fresh pasta, and some green pea and bacon pasta sauce to go with it.  Also ripe strawberries, corn on the cob and scallions.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  We spent the afternoon at Caspersen beach, hunting for fossilized sharks teeth, and got back to the condo ready for an easy meal.  Over a few margaritas I came up with this.

Red Snapper "Margaritaville"  (serves 2)

8 oz fresh red snapper fillet

1 ear fresh corn on the cob

1/3 cup medium or hot high quality fresh tomato salsa (I used store bought)

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 TB butter

1/2 cup leftover frozen margarita from the bottom of the blender

1/3 avocado, sliced into 6 thin slices

salt and pepper to taste

Shuck the corn and cut off the kernels, set aside.  Melt half the butter in the bottom of a saute pan on medium heat, and toss in the garlic for a minute or two.  Add the corn kernels, salsa and margarita to the pan and simmer for 5 minutes or so.

In another saute pan, melt the the rest of the butter on medium heat, while you salt and pepper the red snapper. Put the fish in the pan, and brown for a few minutes (3-5 depending on how thick your fillet is).  Turn the fillet over and cook for a few more minutes.  I had very thick fillets, so I actually poured a little more margarita into my saute pan, covered the fish with a lid and steamed it for another 3-5 minutes to finish cooking it.  If you have thinner fillets, you can omit this step.  Remove the fish from the pan, and serve it with the corn and salsa mixture with the slices of avocado on top.  I microwave steamed fresh green beans as a side, and served this with blue corn chips, because it was less trouble than cooking rice or potatoes :-)  This tasted great, and would work well with any number of mild white fish, such as tilapia, cod, whitefish, haddock, pollock, etc.  You would adjust cooking time depending on the thickness and firmness of the fish used.  

Even if you are not on vacation, this brings a little bit of margaritaville to your kitchen since you will just have to make and drink a marg while you cook so you will have leftovers for the recipe.   Enjoy! DeeDee

Potato Fritters with Corn and Chorizo

I was hoping that this week I'd be posting a great pasta recipe, but it's not ready for prime time yet :-(  So, here is different recipe, that I think is tasty comfort food at this time of year, and definitely economical in terms of time, effort and money.  And that leaves more time and money for Christmas shopping, ho ho ho.  This is a mashed potato fritter, and ideally you would be using leftover mashed potatoes that you just happened to make extra of to save yourself some time.  This rarely happens to me, but it's nice to think about.  Instead, I'm going to include my 12 minute mashed potatoes tip in this post before we get to the fritters.  It's almost as fast as having leftovers!

Microwave Mashed Potatoes

8 large potatoes peeled and sliced in halves or quarters (any type but russet)

1-2 cloves garlic peeled and crushed (optional)

1 1/2 cups water (roughly)

Put the potatoes, garlic and water in a large ceramic microwave safe dish with a lid that fits well.  Put in the microwave for 10-14 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through.  The total time will depend on your microwave power rating and the size of the potato chunks - with quarters taking less time than halves. When done, you can drain off all of the remaining water and mash the potatoes with whatever you like to use (butter, yogurt, sour cream, milk, etc.) or leave some of the water to mash in  - this will increase the amount of garlic flavor you get if you included it.  Add salt and pepper, and mash to your preferred consistency.  For fritters, smoother is better than extra chunky.

Potato Fritters with Corn and Chorizo

1/2 pound chorizo

2 cups soft mashed potatoes

1 1/2 cup frozen corn (I used my Locavorious share)

1/3 cup diced roasted red pepper

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp dried red pepper

1/3 cup chopped scallions

1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley  (you could also use cilantro)

Cook the chorizo (if you have the type in a the sausage casing, I'd slit it open and cook it loose so you get crumbles), and warm up the corn.  My preferred method is actually to put the chorizo, corn and red peppers together in a 400 degree oven in a flat glass baking dish (I don't mix them all together) and roast until the chorizo is cooked  - 15 minutes or so - and the corn lightly browned.  But you can cook the chorizo separately, and saute up the red peppers in a little oil and warm up the corn in aboiling water or a microwave if you prefer.  Then, mix everything on the list together, adding salt and pepper to the mashed potatoes if you just made them, and form into patties.  You can pan fry these in a little olive or corn oil, or if the oven is hot from the cooking the chorizo, go ahead and oven fry them.  You can do this by putting some butter, vegetable oil, or a combination in the bottom of a glass baking dish, letting it heat up in the 400 degree oven, and the placing the patties in the hot dish.  Put back in the oven for 10 minutes, turn over the patties and cook for 8-10 minutes more and you're done.  Serve with a nice  green salad with a vinaigrette dressing.   Easy, and tasty. DeeDee

Strawberry Whipped Cream Torte

I'll start this post by saying I REALLY should have taken the picture BEFORE we got to the very last slice! This simply does not do this recipe justice and I may have to make it again to get a better photo.  Oh, well.   As a child, I spent a long time living in Sweden and this was the birthday cake (födelsedag tårte) that we always had growing up.  My mother's 75th birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year, so it seemed appropriate to serve this strawberry torte (and a bottle of vintage champagne - Pommery 1995).  Don't worry though, we did nod to the spirit of the holiday by having pumpkin bars as well, and I served roasted delicated squash stuffed with a wild rice cranberry-walnut pilaf.

Those of you who read the Prudent Foodie with any regularity (all three of you) will know that I'm not a big baker, but one of the lovely things about this recipe, is that it is both classic, and curiously unfussy, as long as you use very fresh eggs.  There's no baking powder in the recipe so success is all in getting lots of air in those eggs!   I buy mine from my neighbor, but of course you can also get yours at the Farmer's Market while you are picking up your Locavorious share!  This cake can be made with either fresh or frozen strawberries, but frozen works perfectly well, and allows you to use local produce if you have frozen some of the summer's bounty.  This recipe will make 2 thick layers or three fairly thin ones.  I went with three as it is not much extra trouble, but looks far more beautiful than two layers!  Be sure you have deep enough pans if you go with two layers.  The frosting is super easy: just whipped cream with a little vanilla sugar added!

Filling

12 oz frozen or fresh strawberries, sliced thin

1/4 cup water,

1/3 cup sugar

2-3 TB of dry sherry or madeira (optional)

Heat the water to boiling, add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Add the sherry or madeira, and cook briefly, until the mixture boils.  Add the sliced strawberries and turn off the heat. Let rest until the rest of the cake is ready. You can also just pour the sugar over the strawberries and set aside for a few hours to produce juice, then pour on the sherry - you don't boil off the alcohol if you do it this way.

Cake

8 eggs

1 cup plus 2TB sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups minus 4TB SIFTED flour

14 TB butter melted, and then cooled

Preheat oven to 350F.  Butter and flour 2 or three cake pans well; the secret to getting your cakes to come out!  Combine the egg,s sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl, and rest it in a second, larger bowl filled with fairly hot water.  Beat with a hand electric mixer for 5 minutes, then remove from the water and beat for another 3-5 minutes (until cool).  Fold in the flour in three portions using a spatula, then fold in the melted and cooled butter.  Pour the batter into the cake pans and place in the oven for 25-35 minutes, or until it tests done. Turn the cakes out onto wire racks to cool (I have accidentally cooled them in the pans and gotten away with it). 

Put the bottom layer on a cake dish, and pour over it half of the strawberry filling mixture, letting the juice seep into the cake.  Put on the second layer and repeat, then add the top layer.  

If you want a smaller cake, you can cut this recipe in half.  You will either get two thin layers, or you can use smaller diameter pans, and get three. 

Frosting

3/4 pint whipping cream

2 tsp vanilla sugar (or 2tsp powdered sugar and 1/4 tsp vanilla extract)

Whip the cream and frost the top and sides of the cake.  You can use a fork to make a cross hatch pattern on the top. 

Serve to your delighted guests and family.  DeeDee