Kate F____, Girl Reporter

I have a very special treat today: the first-ever guest entry on the blog! (This looks like it may be a bit of a Guest Week, since my mom cooked us a great, simple dinner while she was here visiting, and all I did to “help” was steal beans and take photos.) Bridge faced an Extreme Meat Challenge this weekend, and has a recipe to share plus a cautionary tale about letting someone faceless do your grocery shopping.

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After enjoying Kate’s delectable cider-braised pork with caramelized onions, I decided to give braising a go. We received a gorgeous cast iron enamel pot from E’s dad last spring, but anything we could think to cook in it seemed too heavy until autumn recently crept in. The pot is only four quarts, but in our tiny Manhattan kitchen, it seems like a real beast.

So, last week, I proposed that we get a pork shoulder from FreshDirect. I love FreshDirect for its convenience, but they’re not the most organized. This might explain why I once received an enormous box of Chocolate Peppermint Luna Bars in lieu of the bottle of apple cider vinegar I’d ordered. (I thought about donating the Luna bars but E pointed out that we will need them in case of a zombie attack, so they now reside on the top shelf of our cabinet. This is a true story). I truly believe that there is a Homer Simpson-type at the very end of the packing assembly belt, just throwing random items in willy-nilly before taping up the boxes and sending them off to the trucks.

The other problem with FreshDirect is that you can estimate the size of the meat you’d like, but what they throw in the box is what you get and what you pay for. Which is why I was surprised when E unpacked the boxes in our kitchen and asked me, “Why did you get two?”
“Two what?”
“Two pork shoulders.”
“I didn’t,” I replied, getting up and going into the kitchen. Indeed, they had sent two untrimmed pork shoulders, one weighing seven pounds and one weighing thirteen pounds.

We pondered our options – the smaller shoulder, the one we paid for, was certainly something we could tackle. We decided to make carnitas (more on that in a moment). The larger one, however, was an issue. Given that we’ve recently embarked on a strict budget-adherence mission, it seemed silly to give up free food. But there were several problems in keeping the large shoulder. One, we couldn’t store it whole. It absolutely did not fit in the freezer. It barely fit in the fridge, and there, it was only going to keep for two days or so before we had to do something. Two, we don’t own anything near large enough to cook such a large hunk of meat. It would have to be divided.

(Image from winewebcentral.com)
I think we got most of sections 4 and 5.

I called Kate and she suggested the same, advising me that there would be definitive points of amputation (my word, not hers – this thing was enormous, I swear). She told me to trim it into roasts and chunks (for stew meat, etc) and hopefully I could maneuver the smaller bits into the freezer.

Now, I thought “untrimmed” meant there’d be some excess fat on it and I’d have to do some cute and clever carving, like one does with a heavily marbled steak. I did not realize that “untrimmed” means that there is a hefty layer of skin covering the meat. In fact, I had almost finished trimming the seven pound shoulder when E came in and said, “That’s a lot of skin.”
“That’s fat,” I replied, hacking away with a sushi knife.
E shook his head, and upon closer inspection, I saw pores.

During the trimming process, I’d frequently run into the living room, shake my bloody knife in the air and bemoan the disgusting slab of carcass that had taken over our bright little galley kitchen. [Editor’s Note: The kitchen is not as tiny as some in Manhattan, but the counter space is severely limited. I honestly don’t know how Bridge found space for a 13 pound pork shoulder.] Our cat Giuseppe also took up residence in the kitchen, showing great interest in the meat, his tiny pink-padded paw slooooooooowly reaching toward the mountain of meat before being swatted away. Over. And over. And over.
[EN: Joe also likes to sit on anything Bridge bakes.]

Joe, feigning innocence:

So, the carnitas. I got this recipe from Epicurious and ignored the part about green onion rajas because I decided to make my own salsa.

The recipe is very simple. Take one 4lb pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into two-inch cubes, and put them in a pot. We ended up with more meat than they suggested, but I just threw it all in the pot and poured in a 32 ounce container of organic chicken stock. Add water until the meat is submerged by about a half-inch and bring the whole thing to a boil.

After it boils for a minute or so, lower the heat to a simmer and leave it partially covered for almost two hours, or until all the liquid is absorbed.

Two hours later, I went to check on it and…almost nothing had happened. The pot was still completely full of liquid and chunks of pork. We had some errands to run, so I opted to turn off the burner, cover the pot, and leave it for three hours or so.

Upon returning home, I let it simmer for another two hours and got to work on a simple salsa of plum tomatoes, scallions, chopped cilantro, jalapenos, a little olive oil, lime juice, and salt.

That’s when E got impatient and began poking at the pork chunks with a wooden spoon. I warned him that we had to wait for the liquid to absorb and then it would be time to shred the meat, but when I looked in the pot I was shocked to see that his poking had caused the pork to self-shred into a beautiful mound of white meat, thereby sucking up all the extra liquid. I simply added salt and cracked black pepper, plus a lime’s worth of juice.

With some warm tortillas, the fresh salsa, and a cold Corona, we both agreed it was one of the top ten meals we’d ever made. I think the trick with the pork is to gauge doneness by feel and texture, not by cooking time. The recipe was off by two hours, and the end result was well worth it. Also, minus the trimming debacle, it was insanely easy to make. Not to mention, we have tons of shredded pork left for sandwiches and tacos.

Now, any ideas for ten pounds of trimmed pork shoulder? In the end, we threw away an entire garbage bag of skin and fat, but we are still the very proud owners of two huge roasts, plus a gallon-sized Ziploc of stew meat. Thanks, FreshDirect. I think.

We have a beautiful dining table, a 1790 antique drop-leaf made of New England maple, but it seats four and we can’t patch together that and the kitchen table as easily in this apartment as we could in Hanover. Meanwhile, the table we’re using behind the couch (first thing you see when you walk in) is too small, and the dining table would be perfect in that spot, as a landing pad and grounding element. We need a dining table that can seat six, and hopefully eight in a squeeze, and yet won’t be too big for everyday. The dining room is almost square, with the door in and the door to the kitchen diagonally across from each other, so that a table in the middle of the room will force an annoying weave through the room. Oh well! I want a chandelier, and that needs to be centered, and the table needs to be centered under it. But it does mean I think we need a round table that expands to an oval, and this weekend we saw this one at Pottery Barn and finally were ready to bite the bullet. We’ve been looking and looking at antique stores, flea markets, every furniture store we pass…Nothing has been quite right. This one *is* solid wood, which we felt strongly about. And it’s nice and simple? The photo in the right finish shows it unexpanded, which will be the everyday size (45″):

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Here it is expanded, with giant chairs and not my style of stuff surrounding it (why is there Sooooooo much stuff on it? Weird.):

Simple, right? Next up: Chairs. I like these from West Elm, but maybe we’ll get something really plain and upholstered, like these from CB2.

West Elm:

CB2:

And then there’s lighting. We saw some promising specimens at Restoration Hardware this weekend:

(Ok, that last one is more like something I’d want in the living room…)

But I think I’ll at least give it another couple months of looking for something vintage before I give in to the box stores on the lighting!

My mom has been telling me for a year to try a raw brussels sprout salad that she’s in love with, and this weekend I finally grabbed the ingredients to make it. Then yesterday I saw an article in the Times dining section about weird-sounding menu items that will likely be really good, and the author mentions this exact salad. She says she had it at Franny’s in Brooklyn–I don’t know where Mom got the recipe but it’s exactly the same.

Regardless, I finally tried the raw brussels sprouts, Mom! And despite a mishap that perhaps damaged things a bit, they were very tasty. (I also want to try the kale salad from that article now.)

The obligatory Brussels Sprout Glamour Shot:

My mom shreds the sprouts on the mandoline, but I am lazy and used the shredding blade in the cuisinart. They get nice and fluffy.

You’re supposed to use chopped and toasted walnuts. I had walnuts in the freezer, I broke them up, I put them in the toaster oven to toast (um, using the oven setting), and then I set about doing a bunch of other things. I came back to the kitchen a few minutes later to be greeted by Ben unloading the dishwasher and acrid smoke seeping out of the toaster oven, which was full of blackened shards of walnut. Sad. Instead I chopped up leftover marcona almonds from the other weekend and used those. They were fine but the texture and slight bitterness of walnuts would have been way better. Lesson: Never abandon toasting nuts!

(hee.)

I dressed the sprouts with lemon juice and the great olive oil B&E brought, salt and pepper, and then tossed in the almonds and a generous handful of grated parmesan.

Stir it all together and voila! (Served with baby sweet potatoes, of which the less said, the better, and leftover sausage.)

I am jealous that Mom (who is visiting right this minute) will get to eat the leftovers (wilted a bit in the microwave, which she says may be even better than when it’s fresh) for lunch today. Yum.

Ok, we’re just missing cabinet pulls, lighting, art…The fun stuff! I ordered cabinet pulls but something mysterious has happened to the order so I think I need to try again.

I also need to do some more treatments of the counter to make sure it has a good thick finish on it. But at least we have cabinet doors! I also added a couple more recent living rooms pictures to the apartment Flickr set.

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Big thanks to Scrappy Girl and Another Shade of Gray, both of whom have given nice links to the blog in the last couple days! I’m touched and flattered; I love both of their blogs.

Xander, a world traveler who is currently living in Bangkok, writes about travels, food, and culture at his blog Primitive Culture. I am always fascinated by the gorgeous photos he posts of daily living around the world–he has a great eye and captures a lot of details that you don’t see in vacation pictures. Today he launched a new series, Bangkok Colors, which I think is going to be so inspirational. Today: Pink! All those pinks and spring greens are so preppy and the opposite of the autumnal colors that surround us here in Boston right now. Fun.

And finally, a random obsession. I loved love love white ceramic and porcelain stuff, and have been slowly building up a few pieces at home. In today’s House and Home section there was a fun slideshow about hits and busts at various home stores, and I was pleased to see the porcelain logs that I adore posted as a hit. The same shop, Koo de Kir, said a Jason Miller porcelain Hostess Cupcake was a total bust for them. But I love it (it’s down at the bottom)! So fun.

(photo from Koo de Kir)

So I had two bunches of chard in the fridge, and lots of leftover pork… I decided to make soup to use up at least some of each. (I still have a bunch of chard left.) How gorgeous is rainbow chard? Vegetables make me happy:

I cooked an onion in a bit of olive oil, and then added in the chopped up pork to brown a bit:

Then I rinsed and threw in a can of organic salt-free cannelini beans:

Then I poured in a good splash of dry vermouth, which I use as a substitute for white wine in risotto, etc. After that heated up (and smelled wonderful) I poured in a can and a half of the Swanson’s “Natural Goodness” chicken broth, which is lower sodium and tastes better. I let that cook for a while, then let it sit because Ben was running late. When he got home I heated the soup back up and added in the chopped up chard:

Which filled the pot all the way up and then immediately wilted down to nothing. It always amazes me! I let it cook about 10 minutes, until the chard was tender, seasoned it, and then we ate it with toast. It would have been even better with panini, but we didn’t get around to hauling the panini press out until last night.

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By the way, I read a good review of a flavored pasta from Trader Joe’s on Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen. It’s a lemon-pepper pappardelle, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot. I cooked it and tossed it with the great olive oil that Bridge and Enrico brought us, and Ben grilled a couple sausages we bought from a butcher in the North End. I also chopped up some feta and put that and the sausage on the pasta–not much to look at, but the pasta was really good and this was a nice combo and a SUPER easy meal, since there’s no prep at all.

(Ok, seriously. Must work out the lighting in the kitchen. This is embarrassing.)

The other thing I’ve been up to lately instead of cooking is painting. Our friends Chris and Greta are having a baby boy very soon, and they came to town for a brief visit this weekend. I’d promised to paint something for the nursery for them, so I was working on that last week. Bad photos but I was pleased–Greta wanted a bumble bee and other bugs, in non-pastel colors.

I’m also working on two huge canvases for the living room wall. They are currently in the “wow, that’s hideous” phase; hopefully I can pull them together tonight.

Dinner on Saturday night got started very, very late–we ended up getting home three hours later than I expected, and then baked cake, etc, so we started the (braised) meat at about the time I thought we’d be eating, and ate at bedtime. I scaled back the plans because we’d been snacking and it was so late, which means I have a lot of chard that I need to do something with this week. Soup tonight, maybe…

To start we had a salad that Bridge and I always split at Inoteca: Romaine and radicchio in a red wine vinaigrette, topped with a mountain of ricotta salata. It’s so, so simple, but the combo is perfect–the sharp radicchio and vinegar are offset by the mound of cheese, which is salty and perfect. I know my mom has been making this salad ever since we went to Inoteca, and this was the second or third time I made it. (Of course, afterwards all I want to eat is Truffled Egg Toast, it’s Pavlovian.) Try this at home!

For dinner I made a variation on an old Gourmet recipe for cider braised pork with caramelized onions. Whole Foods doesn’t carry pork shoulder, on or off the bone, so I made do with boneless pork butt, which….well, it’s big mess to deal with, I’ll tell you that. It was held together with an elastic net, but I had to take that off to score the fat, and then all the lobes of meat were everywhere and did NOT want to be bound back together with kitchen twine. I got flustered and started browning it 1) before sticking all the slices of garlic in (I did a bit of that while it was in the pan, an ouchy process that Bridge watched with trepidation), 2) WITHOUT SEASONING IT. That’s right, I completely forgot to salt and pepper the meat before cooking it. Brilliant. Somehow I don’t have any photos except of the finished process, but basically I browned the meat, pulled it out, caramelized the onions, added the cider in, put the meat back, and braised for a while in the oven. About 45 minutes before it was done (the time was all weird because I had a totally different piece of meat than the recipe called for) I pulled the le creuset out, peered in at my messy, messy chunks of meat, and cut off a little bit to see if it was getting tender. No, not yet. Also, it tasted like a shoe, because it was still in the tough phase, before the braising tenderizing magic happens, and also I HADN’T SALTED OR PEPPERED IT. I added S&P then, and then just really drowned the pieces in the onion sauce mixture (which you reduce a bit) when I served it. I have to say, it ended up tasting good: The Braising Magic kicked in and the meat was super tender, and blanketed in the sweet onions it was flavorful enough. I wasn’t feeling well, though, so I only ate two bites!

Served without chard or noodles, due to the lateness of the hour:

I liked my apples/sherry more than the onions, but I think short ribs might be next on the menu. And the brussels sprouts the Amateur Gourmet blogged a week or two ago, which I’ve been thinking about ever since. My mom is visiting next weekend! Cooking ahoy!

Today is Blog Action Day and thousands of bloggers are talking about how to make a positive impact on the environment… I’m sorry to say that we aren’t single-handedly saving the world–our recycling habits, especially, need help. But we both commute on public transportation, our building doesn’t have an elevator (heh), I try to buy local veggies and fruits 99% of the time, and I’ve been getting better and better about skipping the plastic bags. Today at Whole Foods I finally picked up one of their $1 bags, since the ones I’ve been using are a little small for any normal amount of food. I got the grape pattern, which I find charming.

Here’s a photo from an eBay auction where they’re selling the bag at a jacked up price (!?):

It has nice purple sides, very handsome.

The one thing I am pedantic about is staying away from water bottles. It’s easy and it makes sense–just use a reusable bottle, or a cup. I got a nice big cup for my desk at work, a bright and cheerful one from Target, and I fill it many times a day. A nice surprise when we got our new fridge was the clever little filtered water spout inside! I didn’t think we’d get filtered water, since we weren’t getting it in the door. It’s great–no more Brita to re-fill.

By the way, we are two cabinet doors (and some baseboards, and cabinet pulls, and more coats of oil on the counter) away from finished in the kitchen. I need stainless steel cleaner; that stuff gets fingerprints like crazy. I don’t understand why they haven’t worked that out yet–our SimpleHuman trash can is fingerprint resistant and always looks great. Well, dented (thanks, construction guys!) but print-free.

Can you guess where the missing doors go? Isn’t Ben’s solution subtle?

Ah….. Just had the most delightful weekend with Bridge and E., who journeyed many, many hours on the Fung-wah bus to visit. We revived them with Redbones ribs on Friday after their nightmare trip up from NYC, then walked all over Boston on Saturday and came home to cook and relax by the fire. Mostly the guys relaxed by the fire while Bridge and I cooked, starting with a pumpkin crumb cake that AT: The Kitchen printed last week. While we cooked the boys munched on some lovely snacks:

That’s bread and amazing olive oil from NYC, brought by B&E. (It’s a Puglian olive oil from Murray’s, incredibly flavorful and bright green!) Prosciutto and marcona olives picked up in the North End, and some pepitas for seasonal flair.

So, the cake. Basically this is a pumpkin pie that has mated with a coffee cake. And it is delicious.

You start with a dry mix that is then turned into the crumb topping and the cake layer. You also make pumpkin pie filling to pour in between. It’s simple but not exactly quick, and I was really glad we had the dishwasher up and running since you end up with lots of dirty bowls! So fun to cook with Bridge, though, and I was glad her cat Joe wasn’t there to sit on the cake once it was done. He seems to resent her baking at home!

Bridge whips up the pumpkin filling:

Layer one (cake batter), spread in place:

I pour in layer two, the pumpkin (Bridge is a better action photog than I am!):

Layer three, the topping lovingly hand mixed by Bridge (isn’t crumb topping always the best part? Mm, butter and sugar…):

Cross-section:

The next morning, ready for breakfast:

I have eaten approximately my body weight in cake in the last two days, since I really can’t refuse things with pumpkin pie in them. I’d like to experiment, though, with a crumb cake that is just pumpkin CAKE and topping, rather than the layer of pie filling. The cake part is great with the filling but would be dry on its own…I wonder if I could sub in pumpkin for sour cream in my mom’s coffee cake recipe and play with that? Good thing I have months of fall left!

I cooked dinner last night, hurray! It got chilly quite suddenly here in Cambridge, and I was feeling very autumnal. I strolled through Whole Foods after sending Tom off, and ended up with a pair of lovely boneless pork chops. In the back of my mind, creeping quietly closer to the front as I contemplated the meat case, were the apples and baby brussels sprouts that I’d bought at a local farm last weekend, languishing in the fridge after we abruptly went kitchenless.

I knew I wanted to cook the pork and apples together, but a conversation with my mom convinced me to cook them in the dutch over, in part to skip the extra step of browning in one pan (and washing it) and cooking in another.

[A side note: I apologize for how wretched these photos are. The current lighting situation is grim, at best, and there simply wasn't much I could do. Suggestions for a good lighting scheme for the kitchen are welcome!]

I peeled the apples and cut them into thick slices, marveling at the lovely star pattern the cross-cut core makes. As a kid I always thought that was the coolest thing. (I didn’t get out much.)

Cored the apple slices, diced a small onion, then patted the chops dry, seasoned them and dredged them in flour. I browned them in the dutch oven while I finished up the onion.

The temperamental stove got a little excited towards the end, and the nice browned bits scorched. I let the pot cool enough to wipe it out a bit, then melted some butter, cooked the onions until they were soft, and added in the apples. After stirring them (well, nudging them) around a bit, I added about a third of a cup of sherry and let it simmer for a minute.

I added a dash of white vinegar for some bite (cider vinegar would be better but I’m all out and my brain was turned off, so I didn’t grab the sherry vinegar!) and about a cup of chicken stock. I simmered that for another minute or so, then put the pork chops in and tucked them in snugly under the apples.

I covered everything tightly and cooked on low for about 15 minutes, turning the chops once.

Meanwhile I’d cleaned the baby brussels sprouts (so wee!), trimmed them and cut them in half. I sautéed them in olive oil with lots of salt and pepper, cut side down until they were well browned, and then tossed around a bit so their backsides could brown a bit.

Overall, a big success. The pork wasn’t overcooked, but it was a bit tough–next time I’m going to make sure I don’t brown it for too long. The tang of the sherry and vinegar with the apples, alongside the pork, was delicious. I love those. I want to try making a kind of applesauce along the same lines to serve on the side another time, or with ham. Oh, and I always love brussels sprouts. I’m so happy their season has returned!

In kitchen news, I gave the counters their first coat of Danish Oil tonight, and tomorrow the fridge and dishwasher come!!