Kate F____, Girl Reporter

Ben’s “little” brother (6′6″) and one of his friends came to visit this weekend, and since I knew I would be feeding two young guys who can eat impressively large quantities at a sitting, I planned big, food-wise. For dinner when they got up here Friday night I made a meat lasagna, using the Cook’s Illustrated recipe I cooked once last fall. The ingredients total more than six pounds, so I figured it would do the trick.

Hearty Meat Lasagna – New Best Recipes (Cook’s Illustrated)
(As adapted by Kate’s Mom)

Notes from Mom: “This is a production but easy to do. It is important to get the mix of meats. I get it fresh ground at Long’s and ask Mike to make the pork fatty because veal and beef are lean.

Unless I am doing it for a party and need the whole recipe, I assemble it in three tin foil square pans and freeze the other two.”

Method

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Tomato-Meat Sauce

1 T olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped fine
6 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. meat loaf mix or .33 lb each ground beef chuck, ground veal, & ground pork
.5 t. salt
.5 t. black pepper
.25 C heavy cream
1 (28 oz) can pureed tomatoes
1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes, drained

2. Sauce: Heat oil in a large, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering, but not smoking, about 2 minutes.
a. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened but not brown, about 2 minutes.
b. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.
c. Increase heat to medium-high and add the ground meats, salt, and pepper; cook, breaking the meat into small pieces until the meat loses its raw color but has not browned, about 4 minutes.

d. Add the cream and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the liquid evaporates and only the fat remains, about 4 minutes.
e. Add the pureed and drained diced tomatoes, and bring to a simmer; reduce the heat to low and simmer slowly until the flavors are blended, about 3 minutes – and only 3 minutes; set the sauce aside. (Note from Kate: You’re leaving the sauce wet, not cooking it down, because you need enough liquid to cook the no-boil noodles.)

Ricotta, Mozzarella & Pasta Layers
15 oz whole-milk ricotta, 1.75 C
2.5 oz Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, 1.25 C (divided)
(optional per Beth: .5 t. red pepper flakes & .25 t. nutmeg)
.5 C fresh basil, chopped
1 large egg, lightly beaten
.5 t. salt
.5 t. black pepper

12 no-boil lasagna noodles
1 lb whole-milk mozzarella, shredded, 4 C

3. Layers:
a. Mix ricotta, 1 C of the Parmesan, basil, egg, salt, and pepper (and optional red pepper flakes and nutmeg) in a medium bowl with a fork until well combined and creamy; set aside.

b. Smear the bottom of a 13 x 9” baking dish with .25 C of the meat sauce.
(Note: Here’s Mom’s adaptation, and a brilliant one it is. Instead of trying to dab the ricotta onto noodles in the pan, lifting them up and displacing them with your spoon, she lays them out like playing cards and uses a spatula to spread the mixture on.)
c. Lay out 9 of the noodles and smear equally with the ricotta mixture.

d. Place 3 of the coated noodles in the dish to create the first layer.

e. Sprinkle the layer with 1 C mozzarella.
f. Spoon 1.5 C meat sauce evenly over cheese.

g. Repeat layering of coated noodles, mozzarella, and sauce over the noodles two more times.
h. Place the remaining three noodles on top of the sauce, spread with remaining sauce, sprinkle with the remaining 1 C mozzarella, then with the remaining .25 C Parmesan.

i. Lightly spray a large sheet of foil with nonstick cooking spray and cover the lasagna.
j. Bake 15 minutes; remove foil.
k. Return lasagna to oven and bake until the cheese is spotty brown and the sauce is bubbling, about 25 minutes longer.
l. Cool the lasagna about 10 minutes; cut into pieces and serve.

Let me tell you, this is a delicious lasagna. Each boy had two of those huge pieces that night; Ben and I each had half a piece and split the other piece for lunch the next day. See the pretty layers in the cold slice:

I served it with salad and a loaf of store-bought garlic bread. That is a classic combo for a reason!

I am trying to avoid falling back on pasta for non-company dinners, so last night I tried a recipe from Mark Bittman’s The Minimalist Cooks Dinner, a chinese-inspired eggplant/shallot/ginger mixture to serve with chicken.

The shallots get browned for a while, then in goes the eggplant until it’s nice and browned and soft. A bunch of minced ginger goes in towards the end, and I served it over rice with grilled chicken.

The eggplant was pleasantly bitter with the sweet shallots, which were really delicious. Another time I might just cook a ton of shallots this way–they were slightly caramelized and a really nice side dish.

We ate out on the porch even though it was a bit chilly. Frogs have woken up in a stream a block or two away, which reminded me of eating on my parents’ deck in Oregon. Spring must really be here!

I tried Bittman’s rice recipe from that book and it didn’t work nearly as well as his method in How to Cook Everything. This way made wet rice, blech.

Scrappy Girl asked today about buying real/knock-off vintage furniture, and it got me thinking about why we love old things. Ben and I are true suckers for old music, houses, furniture…You name it. Our wedding song was “I’m Old Fashioned.” The (big) band played only standards—the music Ben also plays on the piano. So of course when we started apartment hunting we focused on things built before 1940, and especially before 1920. The apartment we ended up with was built around the turn of the 20th century, and it shows. The layout is long and narrow, with the kitchen and maid’s room (my study!) at the back. The exterior doorknobs are brass, with beading details around each one. The inside knobs are either brass of painted wood, depending on where they’re located. The double crown molding ends in picture rails around every room, so I can hang art with picture hooks instead of making holes in the wall, if I want (the inspector was impressed that I knew what they were). And then there is that pantry that I already posted pics of… All those details are what make a house feel special to us, and we feel really lucky that we found something that is nearly perfectly intact.

At the home inspection on Tuesday, I took a closer look at the fireplace, which I was already in love with:

That is….not a great photo. But the gorgeous mantel aside, the fireplace is surrounded with narrow green subway tiles, and a border of white ones. Tuesday I actually leaned into look at the interior, and here is what I found:

Ooooh. I think it’s a cast iron liner? I cannot wait to see it with a fire lit!

(Yet another long delay. I’ll try to wrap this up in the next week.)

The evening after our wine tasting day we simply could not face walking into town for dinner at a restaurant. That morning, we had asked Maria Gracia, the owner (and matriarch), if we could have dinner at the hotel. It turns out they had stopped having asados since no one ever asked for them, but we were invited to join the family for dinner at the main house.

The contractor who is working on the guest houses had gone fishing at the reservoir that morning and caught the trout (right Dad?) that we ate. Maria Gracia served mashed avocados (with lemon, salt and pepper) and bread to start, then we had an eggplant parmesan prepared by Maria Gracia’s mother, Rosa (with heavily rolled R, followed by a dramatic pause and: “di Napoli”). That was delicious—the eggplant was more bitter than I’m used to eating in the US, but the dish was served room temperature and all the flavors had mingled nicely. The eggplant wasn’t fried, just sliced and layered with tomatoes and cheese, then baked.

The trout had been cleaned and then stuffed with grated carrots, fresh oregano and tomatoes and baked. It was a good combination, especially with the incredibly delicate fish. I had a bit of trouble with the de-boning (I got one side off perfectly, then spent the rest of the night picking bones from the other side out of my mouth), proof that I have got to practice eating whole fish more often.

Maria Gracia’s birthday was earlier that week, and friends who own a bakery had given her three fancy Alfajors, which are the national cookie of Argentina, from what I could tell. They’re more like cakes, with two dry cookie layers filled with dulce de leche and then frosted with chocolate or meringue. We cut each one up into little pieces so everyone could try each flavor. (The cat tried to grab one, but we rescued it. The cake, not the cat.)

At the table were Ben and I, Maria Gracia and her husband Alberto, their son Gabriel, and Rosa. We sampled several wines from the vineyard where Gabriel works (he is in college studying viticulture), Alta Vista. The rosé was a nice end to the meal. We ate and talked for about three hours, in Spanish, English, French and a little Italian. Alberto is a scientist and Maria Gracia was an art history professor, and the conversation covered lots of ground. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip, tied with our experience hanging out in the Andes with Gustavo.

…..Gustavo. The next day, Gustavo picked us up, this time in casual wear. We drove up into the Andes, a couple hours west of where we were staying (the foothills are within half an hour; we were driving nearly to Chile). We took a two-kilometer hike from the highway past the ranger station and up to a lake that has a great view of Mount Aconcagua, the highest point in the Americas. By far the best part was when we got to the viewing area and Gustavo opened up the box he’d been lugging up the path. Out came a bottle of wine and two glasses, along with some crackers to snack on.

Gustavo polishes up the glasses:

What an incredible interlude, slightly light-headed from the altitude and the wine and the sun, gazing at the mountain. Gustavo took this photo of us, with me looking incredibly Lushy–it makes me think of the Valley of the Dolls or something, with the sweater and glasses and glass of wine, so inappropriate in that setting:

Sigh. I’m not very outdoorsy. I got a fierce sunburn that day.

The mountain, through the perfect looking glass:

Aw, it’s not even as remotely food related as all the wine talk, but here’s a picture of us with Gustavo, who is an incredible guy and tons of fun:

For lunch we kept driving west, up to a hostel/restaurant/shop built up over the highway:

Gustavo told us it was simple food, the type of thing most people eat at home. Sure enough, there was a buffet of stewed beans and meats, rice, rice and beans, and rice and lentils, as well as a salad bar. I had a delicious chicken milanese, salad, mashed potatoes, rice, rice and lentils and salad. (With a side of carbs, please!)

I asked Gustavo how to cook the rice so it’s as flavorful as mine was. Here’s his recipe:
-Put corn oil in the pan, heat it up, and add rice. Cook for 10 minutes.
-Cover with water and add a bouillon cube. [I guess I could sub in chicken stock for those two.]
-Cook, uncovered, until almost done. Remove from heat and cover until dried out.

That night we were exhausted again, so we ended up walking to the corner store and assembling a rather make-shift picnic, ham sandwiches and chips and cookies:

Spring threatened to finally arrive this weekend, hitting us with incredible hot days and lots of sun, but it has already vanished again–today is grey and cool. Between trips to Boston on Friday and Tuesday, and Ben taking a business trip Monday and Tuesday, I feel like we’ve barely been home (or seen each other) in ages. As a result, I haven’t been cooking much, since evenings at home alone don’t inspire me to cook anything worth taking photos of. Last night I had a delicious but hardly impressive dinner of fried eggs, a toasted english muffin, and some salsa.

I am vowing to be better, though. This weekend Ben’s brother and a friend are visiting, so I’m gearing up to feed some extremely hungry 20-year-olds. A big pan of lasagna should work… We have a couple dinner parties in the next two weeks, as well And when it’s just me and Ben, I’d like to branch out a bit, get my hands on some nice spring vegetables, maybe cook with fish and chicken for a lighter change of pace.

Over the weekend while it was hot and sunny, Ben got a bee in his bonnet to plant flowers in the beds and window boxes in front of the house. It’s a pretty grim sight right now—heavy storms pulled hundreds of sticks and branches out of the ugly trees out front, and our grass is barely existent and full of tire tracks from various trucks pulling onto the lawn. Still, we went to Home Depot and stocked up on pansies and violas, and then I spent the afternoon sanding and painting over the ugly stencils on our porch table while Ben planted the flowers.

The violas are particularly charming:

And though it’s hard to tell from this photo, the house does look a little happier now:

That evening our friends Ann, Chris, Brian and Liz came over to help us break in the porch and welcome spring with margaritas. Liz is from Milwaukee, and suggested a bratwurst barbecue, so she made caramelized onions and we grilled the sausages and ate them with a big salad and a succession of tasty, tasty frozen margaritas. The power of the margarita is such that I completely forgot to take any photos. Oops. We got the call from our broker asking if we wanted to grab the apartment midway through the first round, so the dinner was very celebratory!

Well. We found an apartment this weekend; we have a signed, accepted offer, and if all goes according to plan (inspection pending, etc.) we will close in mid-June and move to Cambridge, MA that month. The apartment is enormous and in nearly mint condition; it’s an an apartment building from 1901 and the current owner updated the bathroom but has otherwise left it completely alone. The kitchen is the original: Ancient sink and stove, not one counter or cabinet, but you don’t really need cabinets because….drumroll….There is a PANTRY as well as a BUTLER’S PANTRY with glass cabinets and loads of storage:

We will have to do the kitchen, but I’m excited to get to do it my way, instead of buying a place that a developer has slapped a new kitchen into as quickly as possible. Many, many more photos will follow, I’m sure.

Last Wednesday, two days after the big storms here in the Northeast, our power went out at about 5:20 in the afternoon. A few hours later it was clear we wouldn’t be getting it back until nearly midnight, so, accompanied by the unearthly racket of our neighbor’s obnoxious generator, I went ahead with the stir-fry I had planned for dinner!

It was still somewhat light out while I was chopping up the veggies and meat, and by the time it was really dark I was mostly mincing ginger and making sauces. Ben brought in a bunch of candles and took some hilarious photos of me looking confused while trying to read the recipe.

I didn’t really follow a recipe in the end, since I had a random selection of vegetables and I wasn’t in the mood to velvet the pork. I took Barbara Tropp’s sauce and marinade recipes from a pork stir-fry and used whichever ingredients I had. The marinade had some sesame oil, soy sauce and garlic; the sauce included sugar, soy sauce, sherry vinegar (subbing in for cooking sherry and rice vinegar!), hoisin sauce, etc. For aromatics I just used garlic and ginger. Veggies: orange pepper (for Ben), a big head of bok choy, zucchini. The pork was from the tenderloins; I had trimmed the skinny and fat ends and frozen them for stir-fry.

I cut them up into ribbons and cooked them halfway in a little corn oil, then stir-fried the aromatics and vegetables, cooked them in the sauce, thickened the sauce with cornstarch, and at the end threw in the leafy parts of the bok choy and the pork to finish cooking.

Served with jasmine rice, it was quite good, and the leftovers were even better the next day.

Dinner party two last week was for one of Ben’s favorite professors, his wife, and our friends Brian and Liz. I’ve been on such a Suzanne Goin kick lately, but with Easter the day before I simply didn’t have time for a bunch of three day projects, so I consulted with Mom and decided to make a menu of her standbys.

To start I made a warm goat cheese salad, using a recipe from Epicurious. It uses panko instead of regular breadcrumbs, which makes the coating extra crispy. These needs to be made early in the day so they get a couple hours in the fridge; otherwise they will melt everywhere when you try to cook them. They get pretty fragile anyway, so handle them gently once they’ve been heated.

I cut up a big log of mild goat cheese and forced the pieces into nice rounds:

The rounds get dipped in egg whites, then the mixture of panko and herbs:

I made a variation on the salad dressing in the recipe (basically my usual vinaigrette, but I did microwave the oil and garlic as they suggested, which worked very well). A few minutes before we sat down to eat I cooked off the cheese, and while it was crisping up I dressed and served the salad and heated up some bread. The timing worked out really well, actually.

Unfortunately I had forgotten that the professor doesn’t eat cheese; Brian was kind enough to eat the extra round. I’m not the biggest goat cheese fan but this is really nice. Mild, creamy, and the little crispy coating is great.

For the main course I roasted red potatoes, steamed beans (dressed with a bit of olive oil and lemon juice) and made my mom’s grilled pork tenderloin. We ate this ate a lot of dinner parties when I was growing up, and it remains a favorite. I had never cooked tenderloin, and was grossed out by the process of cleaning the meat (the silverskin or whatever it’s called…well, yuck), but the marinade is easy and properly grilled tenderloin, tender and flavorful, is a real crowd pleaser.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Rosemary, from Kate’s Mom

2 pork tenderloins
2 T Dijon mustard
2 T honey (Note from Mom: I do a little less ‘cause honey can make marinade burn)
1 T fresh rosemary needles, diced
S & P to taste – make marinade salty
2 T olive oil

• Clean t-loins and butterfly; pat dry & lay in glass dish
• Combine mustard, honey, rosemary, s & p, and oil in glass measuring cup until it emulsifies
• Slather marinade over both sides of meat & marinate for 1 hour and up to overnight
• Grill over hot coals until just cooked – still pink – do not over cook!
• Let rest 5 minutes before slicing thinly, on the diagonal.

Note from Kate: Mom advises trimming the fat and skinny ends off the tenderloins and saving those for stir fry. That leaves a nice even tube of meat (gross), much easier to grill perfectly than if the thin and thick parts are still attached. I made 3 tenderloins for 6 people and we ate every scrap. To butterfly the tenderloins, after you’ve trimmed and cleaned them lay them out flat and put one hand on top of the meat. Using a sharp chef’s knife carefully cut into the middle of the side, cutting the tenderloin open but not all the way through. When you’re done you should have turned your tube of meat into a nice flat rectangle. Did that make any sense?

The finished plate looks a bit meager, but that’s because it’s mine and 1) I wasn’t too hungry; 2) I had just dropped most of the remaining beans on the floor due to a tongs malfunction.

Nothing about this dinner was complicated or time-consuming, but it was one of my favorites that I’ve made yet. I guess Mom really is onto something…(As if I didn’t know that already!)

For dessert I made yet another Beth Special, an apple crostata. If you aren’t familiar with them, crostatas are Italian fruit tarts. The dough is super easy and SUPER delicious—buttery, crispy and flaky—and you just pile the fruit in the middle, top it with a butter/sugar mixture, and pull the pastry up over the sides. It’s very rustic, less stressful than pie, and absolutely delicious. This is getting recipe-heavy, but you’ll thank me (and Mom) if you try this. It looks complicated but the directions are just detailed; the dough took 5 minutes to make:

Apple-Crisp Crostata – from Cucina Simpatica

Crostata Dough

.5 lb (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
2 Cups unbleached flour
.25 Cup superfine sugar
.5 teaspoon kosher salt
.25 Cup ice water

• This recipe works best with very cold butter. Cut the butter into .5” cubes; return to fridge for at least 10 minutes.
• Place flour, sugar, and salt in food processor (steel blade). Pulse a few times to combine.
• Add butter and toss quickly with your fingers to coat each cube with flour so the butter breaks apart and combines more evenly with the flour.
• Pulse 15 times; butter should be no smaller than small peas.
• With the motor running, add the ice water all at once through the feed tube. Process only 10 seconds, stopping motor before the dough becomes a solid mass.
• I divide the dough into separate small Ziploc bags and form into flat round discs, about 11 oz. each.
• Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days. Freeze for up to1 month. Thaw in fridge overnight.

Crostata Filling

11 oz. dough (.5 batch above)
.25 Cup unbleached flour
.25 Cup superfine sugar
.5 stick (4 T) cold unsalted butter
1.5 lbs (about 3 large) baking apples

• Roll dough into 11” circle, transfer to a rimmed baking sheet and return to fridge.
• Combine flour, sugar in a bowl. Blend in butter until mixture crumbles and holds together in irregular clumps.
• Peel, core, and slice apples into thin slices. Cover dough with apple slices, leaving a 1.5” border.
• Cover apples with the butter mixture and raise the dough border to enclose the sides of the tart, letting it drape gently over the fruit. Press down on the dough at the baking sheet, securing the sides and bottom. Gently pinch soft pleats that form from the draping.
• Brush dough edge with egg white and sprinkle with coarse sugar. (Note from Kate: I forgot to do this and it was fine.)
• Bake the tart at 350 for about 20 minutes, until the crust is golden and the apples are soft. Check the tart after 12 minutes; if the topping is browning too quickly, place a sheet of foil loosely over the top of the tart for the rest of the baking time.
• Cool the tart for about 10 minutes and serve warm.

Here’s the tart, right out of the oven:

And plated with some ice cream:

The best part? I have the other half of the dough in the freezer, ready for another time!

Last week we had three dinner parties, and MAN, was I tired by the end. The first was a super-traditional ham dinner for a few friends on Easter. We even ate in the late afternoon; it was very retro—so much so that I was even inspired to wear one of my 50s dresses, complete with rick-rack trim. I wasn’t clear on how many people were coming, so I ended up with MUCH too big of a ham; it was more than 9 pounds and in the end we had four meat eaters! I now have a freezer full of ham. (There are worse fates, I guess.) To go with it I made my mom’s broccoli puree, which is the one item we nearly always eat on holidays, and which I’d never made before, and Julia Child’s Scalloped Potato recipe from the cookbook that goes with her early television shows. I baked Parker House rolls and cupcakes, too.

We were in Boston on Saturday and got home (with groceries) around 10, and we were going to church in the morning so I knew I had to do some prep that night. I made the broccoli purée and put it in the fridge, all ready to go. It took a while to clean all the broccoli, then I cooked it and it took a longer while to puree because I didn’t follow the instructions. I had too much to do all at once in the cuisinart, so I was trying to purée some, remove it, purée the rest, then continue with the recipe. Hmm, it turns out you really need to add the crème fraîche for the recipe to work. The cuisinart can’t get the broccoli smooth enough unless you add it before puréeing—it needs the wetter texture to get the job done. Oh well, lesson learned, but I wish I hadn’t learned it at 11 o’clock at night, while madly spooning hot broccoli in and out of the cuisinart. I think Ben was a little scared. This is a fabulous (and EASY if you follow the directions) recipe, though, and a really nice fancy side dish.

Note holes from repeated pokes with a thermometer to see if it was hot yet:

My mom apparently got the recipe from the Silver Palate cookbook, but I will always think of it as Mom’s Broccoli Puree:

Broccoli Purée with Crème Fraîche – Silver Palate

Note from Kate’s mom: I often adapt this recipe to the amount of broccoli I have on hand and adjust other ingredients accordingly; i.e.; I often reduce the amount of crème fraiche.

4 big stalks broccoli (3 lbs), trimmed and chopped, including stems
1 Cup crème fraîche
4 T sour cream
2/3 Cup freshly grated parmesan
1⁄2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1⁄2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste
2 T sweet butter

1. Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil; salt.
2. Chop broccoli, leaving several flowerets whole to decorate top of dish. Drop broccoli into boiling water.
3. Cook just until tender, about 8 minutes, but test earlier.
4. Transfer broccoli, reserving flowerets, to a food processor. Add crème fraîche and puree thoroughly.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
6. Scrape puree into a large bowl. Stir in sour cream, parmesan, nutmeg, pepper and salt to taste. Mix well.
7. Mound in ovenproof serving dish, dot with butter and bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes or until puree is steaming hot.
8. Garnish with reserved flowerets and serve immediately.

Note from Kate: Since I made this ahead it was very cold when it went into the oven, instead of being lukewarm from the cooked broccoli. As a result it took forever to get hot; good to keep in mind for next time.

The scalloped potatoes were much simpler than I expected, though you definitely want to use a mandolin to slice them super-thin. It would have taken forever to do with a knife, and I doubt I could have gotten them thin enough. I ignored Julia’s instructions to use a flameproof gratin pan, since I have no such thing. Instead I heated the milk (whole milk with a crushed garlic clove or two, plus salt and pepper) on the stove and poured it over a few layers at a time of the potatoes. I am paranoid about undercooking this sort of thing, having eaten some very crunchy scalloped potatoes in my day, so I peeled back the top layer and pulled out a sample from inside once or twice to check that everything was cooked enough. The finished dish was subtly garlicky and very refined. It held together well and I didn’t miss cheese or cream.

The ham was from Vermont and was pre-cooked, so I just had to heat it in the oven. It was good but not great… It sure looked impressive though! Here’s the whole spread:

The Parker House rolls were a fiasco. I gambled that the bulk yeast I have is instant, and….it’s not. The rolls were very small. Heh. I also made my first ever batch of cupcakes, yellow cake with confectioner’s sugar frosting, and though they spread out on top of the pan, once I trimmed the errant tops to size and frosted them (sloppily) they looked ok. They tasted quite good, too!

I told Ben while I was hacking the crispy overhanging edges off the cupcakes that I feel like I have two cooking/entertaining fairy godmothers, one on each shoulder. In one ear Martha was telling me to bake another batch; in the other Julia was saying to just add more frosting and cover the cut edges. Obviously I listened to Julia.

A few recent meals before I continue with the Argentina travelogue…

Yet another absorption pasta
First of all, I don’t usually post my absorption pastas at this point–it has become a favorite midweek meal, usually involving broccoli and sausage, but a recent one was so easy and tasty that I thought I’d toss it in the ring. I sautéed a couple chopped up slices of pancetta until nice and crispy, put them aside, sautéed a sliced up summer squash for a few minutes, set *that* aside, then cooked the pasta and added the squash and most of the pancetta back in towards the end. I chopped up some really firm feta and sprinkled it on top, then finished with the rest of the pancetta, for crunch. 20 minutes, completely delicious, and rather pretty, too! (This is my contribution to the Everything Yellow design trend currently sweeping the internet.)

Cured pork chops, Goin style
My brother brought his new girlfriend over for dinner a couple weeks ago, and I made a real dinner for them instead of presenting poor Tom with whatever I happened to be cooking that night. I made the cured pork chops from Sunday Suppers at Lucques, starting the day before by making the brine (juniper and allspice berries, fennel seed, fresh fennel, onion, carrot, dried pepper, thyme…) and soaking the chops for 24 hours.

That left the chops really fat and juicy with brine–I wish I had weighed them before and after; next time I’ll do that to see how much they suck in. See how shiny and plump they are?

To start the meal we had another Goin suggestion, roasted asparagus with prosciutto and mustard crème fraîche. I should have grilled the asparagus (as she suggests), but we were low on propane so I used the oven. It could have used the extra shot of flavor from the grill.

I boiled a million marble-sized new potatoes and buttered them, and sautéed spinach as a bed for the chops. Ben grilled the chops to perfection—he has gotten so good on the grill! The meat was juicy and flavorful; I will definitely do this again. Compared to Goin’s other recipes, the brine is really simple.

I made rhubarb compote (again, from Goin) for dessert, to serve with ice cream. Sigh… The rhubarb at the Coop was uninspiring; I should have scrapped it. But I forged ahead, making a caramel with a vanilla bean, then cooking the rhubarb in it, etc. It turned out ok but not great, since the flavor of the rhubarb was not great to start with. Pretty, though:

I adore rhubarb and was looking forward to eating a lot of it this year; I don’t know why I haven’t been able to get any. Dessert plans for a dinner tonight were shot down, too—a rhubarb crisp had to give way to brownies due to a supply problem!

Simple sausage dinner
Mmmm, I really am a sucker for the simplest food. I finally made the roasted shredded brussels sprouts that we’d eaten at our friend Greta’s house months ago. I crushed some garlic and let it sit in olive oil while I ran the cleaned sprouts through the cuisinart (using the shredding blade), then when it was almost time to eat I tossed the sprouts in the oil, spread them out on a baking sheet, and baked them at around 400 degrees until they got crispy. You have to power through the moment when you think you’ve killed them and want to pull them out: Before getting crispy they wilt a bit, which is scary.

I made an emergency box of couscous, and Ben grilled sausages. All together it was a great combo of flavors and textures, and a very satisfying weeknight dinner.