Sweet and Spicy Pork Chops

For someone who a couple years ago would have avoided pork, and especially pork chops at all costs, I am really starting to gain a love for it, and I think it might be starting to rival my love for beef. These pork chops I made a little differently than the last time, I let them hang out in a marinade instead of a brine, and I played around with a mix of sweet and spicy flavors. I made them for myself and my dad and we both thought they were really great, he was even talking about them a week later at my grandpa's birthday party (which lets me know he definitely liked them a lot because if I served him shoe leather he would probably eat it and not say much, his motto is that he eats to live, he doesn't live to eat). The only thing I would change with this recipe next time would be to make it spicier, while I did marinate the pork chops with long, hot chili peppers I thought they weren't as spicy as I wanted, so next time I'll add some cayenne or hot sauce to the marinade as well.

I served the pork chops with stuffed jalapenos with mascarpone and bacon, I was watching the Today show earlier the morning that I made this meal and I saw Martha Stewart make stuffed jalapeno peppers with cream cheese, so I sort of upgraded her recipe with bacon and some of the left over mascarpone from the breakfast I made a few weeks back. These came out really well and were a great compliment to the pork chops, and sort of made up for the lack of spiciness I thought I was going to get from the pork chops. Both the pork chops and the jalapenos are super easy and really tasty if your looking for a good summer meal two dishes would be a good place to start.

Sweet and Spicy Pork Chops

2 pork chops

1/4 cup olive oil

juice of 2 limes

4 garlic cloves, minced

4 hot peppers chopped (any kind would be good it just depends on how spicy you want it)

2 tbs. honey

2 tbs. brown sugar

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. chili powder

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

Marinate the pork chops for at least a couple hours. When ready to grill the pork chops, bring the grill to medium high heat.

Grill the pork chops 5-6 minutes per side flipping only once to be sure to attain nice grill marks. When the pork chops are done cooking take them off the grill and allow them to rest for about 10 minutes before serving.

Bacon and Mascarpone Stuffed Jalapenos

makes 8 jalapeno halves

4 jalapeno peppers, halved with seeds and ribs removed

1/3 cup mascarpone

4 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled

shredded cheese (I used mozzarella because I had it on hand and it was good, but again any cheese would work)

salt and pepper to taste

Bring an oven up to 400 degrees.

Mix the mascarpone and bacon together in a small bowl.

Fill each halved jalapeno with the mascarpone and bacon mixture. Top with a pinch of shredded cheese.

Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, until cheese is melted on top and the pepper starts to soften a little bit.

Eat well, Live well

Fiori di Zucca

While this might not be the most practical recipe to be talking, it was pretty cool to use an exotic ingredient like these flowers. They are an ingredient that are only around for a very short time during the year, and this happens to be that time. Lucky for me I didn't have to buy them from the grocery store, or a local farmers market, because they can be quite expensive, my Grandpa keeps up a small garden and grows zucchini, the flowers were all blooming so he let me take some to cook with. I've never eaten a zucchini flower let alone cook with one so I was excited to get a chance to try it out. Since it was my first time cooking with this flower I did a little recipe searching and most recipes I had had you fry the flower in a light batter, or stuff them with a cheese like ricotta, or both. I did both I made a real simple batter and stuffed the flower with lightly caramelized shallots and garlic mixed in to ricotta. I thought they came out really well, they tasted great, I only wish I could use them more often, since it was such a tasty and easy dish to prepare. For some reason my brother and my mom were afraid to try them, they claimed that since I had to clean a bunch of bugs out of them before I cooked them, the bugs were all they could think about and they couldn't get over it. Their loss I guess because they won't be able to give them a try again until next years crop. If you can get your hands on these flowers I highly recommend you giving them a try, they're not a main dish, but I had them as a side to a bowl of spaghetti and it worked really well, dipped in the spaghetti sauce the flowers was even better.

Fried and Stuffed Zucchini Flowers

About 12 flowers

Batter:

3/4 c flour

1 c water

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl, set aside for the prepared flowers.

Zucchini Flowers:

12 flowers

1/2 c ricotta cheese

1 shallot, minced

3 garlic cloves, minced

salt and pepper to taste

olive oil for frying

First, clean all bugs out of the flowers. Yes this may sound kind of unappetizing but you have to remember that these are flowers, and bugs like flowers. I suppose if you got them from a store or farmer's market they probably shouldn't have many bugs in them, but since mine were freshly picked they did. Anyway, its better to check for them than eat a bug.

Next mix bring a frying pan to medium low heat and caramelize the shallots and garlic until slightly browned and very fragrant, about 5-10 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool.

While the shallots and garlic cool, gently pull out the stamen, or pisil from each flower, the flowers are very delicate so be careful.

When the shallots and garlic cooled down mix them with the ricotta. Then carefully fill each flower with about a teaspoon of the mixture, depending on the size of the flower.

Finally, bring the olive oil, in a frying pan, on medium heat, up to a good temperature for frying (you will know the oil is ready when it starts to ripple and very slightly smoke). Then dip a flower in the batter, while slightly twisting the top of the flower closed and fry until golden brown, turning the flower over once in the pan. When the flowers are done frying place on a paper towel to drain some of the oil and sprinkle each flower with a pinch of salt. Serve warm.

Eat well, Live well

Catering: My Grandpa's Surprise 80th Birthday

Gina, Grandpa, my dad, Vinnie, me, my mom

I'm pretty sure my mom and I, along with my aunt, have been talking about my Grandpa's 80th birthday party since Christmas time. Our first priority was to decide on a menu. We went from a bunch of finger foods and appetizers, where I claimed I would be able to make all kinds of different bite-sized morsels (even though I've never really done it before), which we nixed because we realized it wasn't very practical since I've never really made appetizers and our kitchen space isn't really suited to make a bunch of different small dishes. The party was basically going to consist of 40 mostly older Italians, so we decided finger foods wouldn't be the best way to go (I can't imagine the crowd would have been too impressed by fancy looking bite sized dishes). So we had to come up with a menu that would be pleasing to the crowd and would actually be conceivable for a first time caterer with a lot more confidence than experience in this sort of thing. We decided on dishes that I've made before and I knew I would be able to make in bulk, the menu was going to consist of Penne:

meatballs:

eggplant parmesan:

chicken francais:

a potato dish, sausage with peppers and onions:

and salad:

I didn't really think it was going to be that hard, whenever I make spaghetti and meatballs it's in bulk anyway because I freeze the extras for the following weeks, so that wasn't going to be a problem. I've made my chicken francais enough that I didn't think it was going to be that difficult to multiply the recipe to have enough for 40 people, and all I really needed to worry about for the eggplant was if the eggplants I bought were going to be good, because there's nothing worse than a bad eggplant and you can't ever really tell if you have one. I actually fried it a few days ahead of time (a good idea because then I was able to sample it and see if it was good eggplant, and sure enough it was)

which only left me to have to fry the chicken the day of the party which I knew wouldn't be bad, just time consuming. So for me I really wasn't too worried about the food turning out right for the party.

As an aside, I do think it is pretty cool to say that I catered a party for 40 people but I certainly didn't and couldn't have done it all by myself. My aunt made the potatoes, sausage and a salad (which were great Aunt Jojo), and my mom and dad were my sous-chefs on the frying of the eggplant and chicken francais.

Alright back to the story, so for at least the last month my mom was completely stressed about how I was going to make enough food for 40 people, how much I was actually going to make, how we were going to have enough room for everyone and how we were going to keep my grandpa in the dark to all of it. Within the last week alone, , she was on the verge of meltdown, and had a few mini meltdowns leading up to the event, but she gets a free pass because she stresses way to much about everything, and more importantly she's my mom, but also because my Grandpa, at the breakfast I made a week ago said that if we have any kind of party for him he wouldn't come, he said he would go to a movie or something, and he sure seemed serious about it. After that comment we decided it would be best to have him come early so he wouldn't see a bunch of cars at our house and just turn around and not come. It was definitely best to do it this way because not only were we having a bunch of people over for the party that he had no idea about (surprise #1), but my sister came home just for the party (surprise #2), who only comes home a couple times a year and my dad was home and he normally works on Mondays (surprise #3). He walked into our house and was already surprised and really happy to see them, it was funny because he made the comment that it was so nice to celebrate his birthday with his immediate family, and not with a bunch of strangers, then we lead him outside (after a bunch of pictures),

Left to right: me, my sister Gina, the birthday boy, my brother Vinnie, my cousin Lisa, pre-surprise (he has no clue what he's in for)

and most everyone for the party was there. He couldn't have been more surprised, and he ended up being really happy about the party. So, of course, it all worked out in the end, because as I always say (and tried to get it through to my mom) about anything I do, if you know you worked hard and tried your best at whatever it is your doing and believe that the result will be what you want, 9.9 times out of 10 it will work out in the end (that belief is why there isn't much I can think of that stresses me out).

The surprise as it happened

Happy to see you (he didn't run away yet)

Having a great time!

Enjoying the party, getting ready for cake (my aunt in the background cutting it)

Back to the food, if you were at the party you would have thought I was a seasoned veteran of catering, no mix ups, no spills and there was plenty for people to eat. The best part was that most everyone at the party were raving about the food, asking me for the recipes and how I did it all. My moms aunt, who runs our family reunion, actually asked if I would be able to cater that (it would be for at least 100 people), of course I said I could and would love to do it, but I'm not so sure my mom would be able to handle that, but we shall see. It was cool for me to see the reaction to the food from everyone at the party because I really only cook for myself, and my immediate family. While I know my food tastes good (hey, I do), and I always get rave reviews from my family, I can never be 100% positive they're not just giving me compliments because they're my family, so it was great to get such a positive reaction from people who've never eaten my cooking. After months of planning its all over, it ended up better than expected and my Grandpa enjoyed it all (definitely the best part of it all), now I have a 40 person party on my cooking resume, anyone need a caterer!...

Eat well, Live well

Homemade Pizza

I don't know why it took the prospect of a pizza competition with some of my friends to get me to make pizza from scratch. I have a friend with a wood-burning pizza oven and while we were out over the weekend we got to talking pizza. Somehow the idea came up to have a competition to see who could make the best pizza, the only rules for the competition we decided on were BYOD and BYOTs, or Bring Your Own Dough and Bring Your Own Toppings. Of course I was talking a big game saying how easy it is to make dough and how I could definitely make a great pizza, well the only problem for me is before yesterday I've never actually tried to make pizza from scratch. My friend with the pizza oven, makes it all the time and makes a really good pie, I knew if I could get a dough right I'd have a good chance because I know I could create great toppings and pizza sauce. I think my cake theory might hold true for pizza as well, dough like cake can only get you so far, what's on top can push a pizza (or cake) from good to great. I found a pizza dough recipe a few weeks back, by the great bread maker Jim Lahey, planning on attempting it at some point, luckily I saved it because his recipe is what I used for the dough. It seemed like an easy recipe to follow, and with his reputation I figured it had to be great. Surprisingly to me, the recipe actually ended up being really easy to actually do (many recipes seem to look easy on paper but end up being a lot of work, this was not one of them), and tasted great too. The only addition I made to the recipe was I added olive oil to it from the beginning, probably about a tablespoon or two, and the bowl I had it sit in for 24 hours was also rubbed down with olive oil. The recipe says it makes 4 12 inch pizzas, but I was only able to get 3 out of it, and if you give this a try make sure to cover the dough with olive oil when you go to stretch and form your actual pizza. I didn't do this with the first one I made and it was a lot less pliable and stretchy, and holes formed a lot easier, the next two I drizzled olive oil on and they stretched a lot better.

The toppings I used were, roasted red peppers on one:

bacon on the second:

and mascarpone, spinach and caramelized onions on the third:

As much as I like bacon pizza, the spinach and mascarpone was definitely the best one, maybe because I wasn't sure how it would turn out and it ended up being awesome, and maybe because my mom and dad wouldn't stop saying how good it was. Both my mom and dad aren't the type to try something they haven't had before, especially a creamy cheese like mascarpone, I was actually surprised my Dad even gave it a try, but after he did he had to have said at least 10 times how much he liked it (and I don't think he was just being nice, it is very easy to tell when he doesn't like something). I was really happy and encouraged with how my pizza escapade turned out and I think I might be ready for a little friendly competition.

Recipe: Pizza Dough

Pizza Sauce

enough for at least 5-6 pizzas

1 16 oz can of tomato sauce

4 oz tomato paste

1-2 tsp dried oregano

3 cloves of garlic

3 tbs olive oil

1-2 tbs red wine

1-2 tbs beef stock

2-3 tbs sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Add the olive oil and smashed garlic cloves into a small sauce pot, and bring up to medium low heat. When the garlic starts to brown and becomes fragrant, take all but one of the cloves out of the pot.

Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, red wine, beef stock, sugar, oregano, salt and pepper and lightly simmer for 1-1 1/2 hours, stirring every once and a while.

Allow to cool and spread on pizza when dough is ready, use any left over to dip pizza into or will probably keep in a refrigerator for 5-7 days, or freeze for later use.

***For the spinach, mascarpone and caramelized onion pizza I just cooked the onions earlier in the day, then when I was ready to make the pizza I spread a layer of mascarpone on the dough, and just placed the raw spinach over the mascarpone drizzled a little olive oil over the spinach and put the onions over that. The spinach will wilt down as the pizza cooks, so put a pretty good sized pile of spinach on top of the pizza.

Eat well, Live well