Hooray For Spinach

For the last week, I’ve been puppy (and kitty) sitting.  Cooking in someone else’s kitchen is one challenge; cooking in someone else’s kitchen while three pets are underfoot hoping you’ll drop something tasty is another. It means rummaging through drawers to find just the right utensil and opening cabinets to chase down more pepper while being careful to mind my footsteps so I don’t accidentally step on any paws. It also means gently pushing curious puppy noses away from the hot oven so that the puppy nose doesn’t get burned and the puppy mouth doesn’t eat my dinner.

Nothing says “good time” like a wet puppy nose on the back of your leg as you try to carefully remove a pork tenderloin from the oven.  I’m not sure I can really blame them, it was pretty delicious.  Instead of grilling it like I have in the past (which eliminates having to look for an appropriate pan!), I decided to flatten this and stuff it with sautéed spinach and feta cheese.  I didn’t regret it.  The most complicated part of making this is butterflying the pork tenderloin and then pounding it out thin, and even if you’ve never done this before, it isn’t difficult at all.  The spinach gets a quick saute with garlic and olive oil, then the whole thing goes into the oven for about an hour.  This is a great recipe when you need an impressive entrée but don’t have time to hover over the stove.  It’s simple but delicious and it looks like it took way more hands-on time than it actually did.

Spinach and Feta Stuffed Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. pork tenderloin
• 2 C. fresh spinach
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 C. crumbled Feta cheese
• kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut a slit lengthwise down the center of the pork tenderloin, staying about 1/2 inch away from cutting entirely through it.

Open up the pork tenderloin (like a book) and lay it flat between two sheets of waxed paper and pound using a meat mallet or heavy skillet to 1/2 inch thickness.

Sprinkle salt and pepper evenly over the pork tenderloin.

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat.

Add the garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes.

Add the spinach and saute for 2-3 minutes, until the spinach just starts to wilt.

Spread the spinach mixture evenly over the surface of the butterflied pork tenderloin.

Sprinkle the feta evenly on top of the spinach mixture.

Roll the pork tenderloin up, like a jelly roll, starting from the long end.

Place the pork tenderloin into a baking dish or roasting pan with the seam down (use toothpicks to keep the tenderloin closed if needed).

Sprinkle the pork tenderloin evenly with salt and pepper.

Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees.

Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes before slicing into approximately 1 inch slices (or wider depending on preference).

Makes 4 servings.

Source: Diana Dishes original

Ordinary Day

If you’ve been reading for any length of time, you know that we are not a Christian household.  Without getting too into it, I hold one set of religious beliefs and Lane holds another, and the kiddos will decide what, if any, religion they subscribe to when they are older.  Despite being raised Catholic, Lane and I are not Christian and do not celebrate Easter.  I celebrate spring at Ostara, usually with a good house cleaning, a nice meal, and some spring treats.  That said, the Easter bunny doesn’t stop here.  While I’m happy to celebrate Easter with family when there’s a gathering (I don’t feel that because I hold different religious beliefs I should be disrespectful of theirs and not attend on principle), Easter Sunday is really just another day over here.  The grocery stores don’t hesitate to cash in on Easter though, so that’s when there are an abundance of hams available and on sale.

Many times I’ve considered making ham for a regular weekend “just because I have time today” dinner but I’ve found that the only hams available are way too huge for a family of four unless I want to be eating pea soup and ham sandwiches for a month.  Even on a night we have the kids, with ham sandwiches planned for the next day, no one’s eating twenty pounds of ham. So when we found ourselves standing in front of the hams at a warehouse store and finding one that was solidly under twenty pounds, ham was put on the meal plan for our next weekend with the kiddos.  Lifting a ham (even the eight pounder we enjoyed) onto a cutting board to score it (making that diamond pattern) and then hefting it into a roasting pan isn’t for me, so it was great that this is a spiral cut ham.  This was a ridiculously low-effort meal, and it looks like you must have spent all day checking in on the ham.  As far as it being spiral cut, just pull of even slices of delicious ham with your fork and keep moving down the buffet line- no carving necessary.  I can’t take credit for the spiral cuts, but I can take credit for the glaze.  The first thing I do when I unwrap a ham is throw away the glaze packet often accompanying it.  It’s so easy to make your own glaze and pour it on with about twenty minutes of cooking time left that there’s no excuse for that often overly-sweet packaged glaze to make an appearance.  Don’t fear the tiny amount of cayenne pepper in this glaze, it lent that “extra something” to the flavor, but wasn’t spicy at all.

Pineapple Brown Sugar Cayenne Glazed Spiral Ham

Ingredients:

• 1/2 C. pineapple juice
• pineapple rings, optional
• 2/3 C. brown sugar
• 1 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 2 tsp. ground ginger
• spiral cut ham (this was 8 lbs., the glaze is enough for a much larger ham as well)

Directions:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place the unwrapped ham into a roasting pan fitted with a rack (if your roasting pan doesn’t have a rack, either insert a wire cooling rack or coil up some aluminum foil and place it underneath the ham so the ham isn’t sitting on the bottom of the pan).

If desired, place pineapple slices on top of the ham and secure with toothpicks.

Cover the ham loosely with aluminum foil.

Bake the ham for 10-12 minutes per pound (for an 8 lb. ham this is about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Whisk together all ingredients for the glaze.

During the last 30 minutes of baking, remove the foil from the ham and pour the glaze over the ham.

Continue baking until ham reaches an internal temperature of 140 degrees.

Serve hot (for spiral ham, the slices should pull right off with a meat fork, no carving required).

Source: Diana Dishes original

Like a Lion

I remember being about O’s age and working on lion and lamb paper bag puppets at school, because March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.  While the snow that’s falling right now is pretty and all, I’m ready to skip to the lamb part.  About eight inches of accumulation this morning and it looks like maybe a foot by the time this is over today.  It’s crazy that in the aftermath of the blizzard we had last month, I hear that a foot of snow is coming and think that’s really nothing.

My favorite way to warm up the house when it’s snowy and cold outside is to crank up the oven inside.  Pizza Friday is a great excuse to do that, and this pizza makes it a no-brainer.  White pizzas, or pizzas without red sauce, are always harder for me to get excited about, mainly because something has to make up for the lack of sauce and plenty of places don’t get this right.  It takes more than just skipping the tomato sauce to make a white pizza work.  When you top a great pizza crust with a drizzle of olive oil, creamy fresh mozzarella, some thick cut bacon, and thinly sliced browned onions you’ve definitely managed to make it work.

Bacon Onion Pizza 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 recipe basic pizza crust dough (or 1 lb. your favorite pizza crust dough)
• 8 oz. thick-cut bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 8 ounces fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced
• Grated Parmesan cheese
• cornmeal, enough to lightly sprinkle onto pan or pizza stone

Directions:

Put an oven rack in the lowest position in the oven and heat the oven to 450 degrees.

Cook bacon for 2-3 minutes in a large skillet over medium-high heat, until fat is partially rendered.

Use a slotted spoon to remove the bacon to a paper-towel lined plate.

Put the onions into the pan with the rendered bacon fat and cook, stirring frequently, 10-12 minutes until browned.

Section the dough into four equal pieces and stretch each portion out into a roughly 12 x 4 inch rectangle.

Place the dough rectangles onto a large baking sheet or pizza stone that has been sprinkled lightly with cornmeal.

Top each piece of dough evenly with mozzarella, then onions, then bacon.

Bake for 12 minutes, until cheese melts and the crust is golden brown (if you want a darker crust broil for 30 seconds to one minute).

Grate Parmesan cheese over each pizza.

Cut and serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings.

Source: Three Many Cooks

Pushed & Pulled

Home improvement projects manage to occur in groups for me.  It started on Friday when I decided I would finally deal with the vent cover in the living room that’s loose only to end up removing the first floor vent covers and scrubbing them.  Over the weekend we decided we’d finally get around to hanging stuff on the walls.  It was high time we got around to doing that, seeing as how we just finished discussing where we wanted to hang these items.  Just finished discussing it in October, that is.  Then, Lane replaced the toilet flapper and well, I couldn’t be outdone.  Around Thanksgiving, we acquired four chairs that we figured would work well with the dining room chairs we already have.  After giving them a scrubbing and replacing the hideous vinyl that was covering the chair pads, anyway.  So through the entire holiday season I kept saying that I’d get to these chairs.  Then I waited almost three more months, for good measure.  Armed with an Exacto knife and a scrubbie sponge (and various other implements that said “I mean business”), I managed to remove the aforementioned hideous vinyl (both layers), staples of assorted sizes, and a quantity of upholstery nails that could keep a Home Depot stocked for ten years.  So to recap, I now have sparkly clean vent covers, stuff on the walls, flappy flappers in the toilets (they’re supposed to flap, right? I don’t fix toilets . . .), and a total of eight dining room chairs that I love.

There is a limit, however, to my productivity.  When I’m fussing around the house and making sure the cat isn’t crawling into the vent where I’ve just removed the cover so that I can scrub it (who does this?!), I can’t be hovering over the stove at the same time.  Well, unless it needs to be taken apart and cleaned as well, but in that case I probably shouldn’t be making dinner on it at the same time.  So on days when big or little home improvements take over, it’s nice to throw a few things in the crock pot and have dinner ready when I’m done with all of the insanity home improvement.  Enter crock pot pulled pork.  Pork chops, onions, barbecue sauce.  Throw those three things into the crock pot, shred, and serve on hamburger buns or in tortillas or taco shells.  I could go on and on with serving suggestions but those are my favorites.

Crock Pot Barbecue “Pulled” Pork

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. boneless center cut pork chops
• 1 C. your favorite barbecue sauce 
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced

Directions:

Spray the inside of a crock pot with non-stick cooking spray or line with a crock pot liner.

Spread the onion slices evenly across the bottom of the crock pot.

Place the pork chops onto the onion slices.

Pour the barbecue sauce over the pork chops.

Cover and cook on low for 6 hours.

Remove the pork chops and shred using two forks.

Return the shredded pork to the crock pot and stir it in with the onions and sauce.

If needed, add more barbecue sauce.

Serve as desired (but I strongly suggest serving this on sandwich buns).

Makes 6-8 servings.

Source: Diana Dishes original

Academy Award

The 85th Academy Awards air tonight from the Dolby Theater in Hollywood and before I settle in to catch all of the red carpet action, I want to share a round-up of the film-inspired recipes I’ve shared over the previous twelve days.  It wouldn’t be a round-up without some Oscar trivia:

Nine-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) is the youngest actress ever nominated for Best Actress in a Lead Role, taking the distinction from actress Keisha Castle-Hughes who was nominated at thirteen for her role in Whale Rider.  She competes against Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), who at eighty-five is the oldest nominee in the category.

The youngest actor ever nominated is Justin Henry, who at eight years old was nominated for his role as Billy Kramer in the 1979 film Kramer vs. Kramer.

Silver Linings Playbook is the first film since the 1981 film Reds to earn nominations in all four acting categories as well as Best Director and Best Picture.

Les Miserables is the first musical nominated for Best Picture since Chicago in 2002, and prior to Chicago no musical had been nominated in the Best Picture category since Oliver! in 1969.

Composer John Williams, nominated this year for his work on Lincoln, still holds the record for the living person with the most nominations at forty-eight.  Next in line is Woody Allen with twenty-three.

Three of this year’s Best Actor nominees: Bradley Cooper, Denzel Washington, and Hugh Jackman, have previously been named People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive.

For this year’s 12 Days of Oscar feature, I selected four movies that have been nominated for but did not win Oscars, four films that have won at least one Oscar, and four films hoping to win an Oscar this year.

Pleasantville, Salisbury Steak

I Am Sam, Crepes

When Harry Met Sally, Chef Salad (with oil and vinegar on the side!)

My Week With Marilyn, Roasted Chicken Salad

The Aviator, Banana Ripple Ice Cream

Marie Antoinette, Cream Puffs

Chicago, Deep Dish Pizza

Titanic, Chicken Lyonnaise

Moonrise Kingdom, Lemon Butter Pollock

Les Miserables, French Bread

Silver Linings Playbook, Crabby Snacks

Lincoln, Mary Lincoln’s Apple Bread Pudding

When You’re Good to Mama

The first musical to win a Best Picture Oscar since Oliver! in 1969, the seventh film in the 12 Days of Oscar series is the 2002 film Chicago.  Taking place in 1920′s era Chicago, the film focuses on Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger), who are both on death row for committing separate murders.  Velma is a famous vaudevillian and Roxie is a housewife desperate for a famous vaudeville act.  With the help of lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) Roxie manages to become the newest celebrity of the prison, which disgusts Velma and thrills Mama Morton (Queen Latifah).  Roxie’s trial becomes a media circus and after it ends, Roxie and Velma find themselves working together despite their mutual hatred.  Chicago was nominated for thirteen Oscars, and won six.  In addition to Best Picture, the film won in the following categories: Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Catherine Zeta-Jones), Best Art Direction- Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound.

The city of Chicago is known for many foods, including the Italian beef sandwich and Chicago hot dog but the food possibly most often associated with Chicago is the deep dish pizza.  If you’re not familiar with deep dish pizza, instead of having a flat crust, it is baked in a pan that resembles a cake pan (I use a springform) giving the crust sides that are filled in with sauce, cheese and toppings.  The sauce is chunkier than a traditional pizza sauce, because it is made from whole or chopped tomatoes and goes on the pizza without being cooked.  I did break with tradition and add more mozzarella cheese on top, then more toppings.  I did it this way because the kiddos will eat just about anything on a pizza if it is covered in cheese, and because I made two of these at the same time and wanted to keep track of which toppings went into which pizza.  To top this one, I used cooked Italian sausage, thinly sliced red onion, and sliced mushrooms.  You can use whatever toppings you like, and about three cups of toppings are sufficient to fill the crust.  I used a 12″ springform pan to make one pizza.  If you don’t have a springform pan (or one that large), two nine-inch cake pans will work just as well.   The crust is buttery perfection and even if Lane calls this “pizza casserole” (I blame it on him being a New Yorker), it was a huge hit.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

Ingredients:

for the crust:

• 4 C. all- purpose flour
• 3 Tbsp. yellow cornmeal
• 1 3/4 tsp. salt
• 2 3/4 tsp. 
  
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 4 Tbsp. butter, melted
• 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil or salad oil
• 1 C. + 2 Tbsp. lukewarm water

for the filling and toppings:

• 3 C. toppings of your choice (sautéed vegetables, cooked sausage, or pepperoni suggested)
• 3/4 lb. mozzarella cheese, sliced
• 28 oz. can plum tomatoes, drained and coarsely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. dried basil
• 1 C. freshly grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese
• 4 Tbsp. olive oil, divided

Directions:

Combine the dough ingredients and knead by hand or using the a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook until smooth, about 7 minutes if using the stand mixer on medium-low speed.

Lightly oil a large bowl and place the dough into it, then turn to coat the dough with oil.

Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

Prepare the pan by spraying it with non-stick cooking spray, then drizzle in 3 Tbsp. of olive oil and tilt the pan so the oil coats the bottom of the pan and partway up the sides.

When the dough has risen for 1 hour, use your hands to stretch the dough out into as large of a circle as you can (it should be much larger than the diameter of the baking pan), or roll it out on a lightly floured surface.

Lay the dough in the pan, and press it to cover the bottom and up the sides of the pan.

Cover, and let it rest for 15 minutes.

Start preheating the oven to 425 degrees while the dough rests.

Check to ensure that the dough covers the bottom and sides of the pan, and press into place if needed.

Let the crust continue to rest until the oven reaches 425 degrees.

Bake the crust for 10 minutes, until it’s set and just barely beginning to brown.

While the crust bakes, start preparing the filling by mixing the drained tomatoes with the basil, oregano, sugar, and garlic.  Add salt to taste if necessary.

Remove the crust from the oven and cover the bottom of the crust with the sliced mozzarella.

Add your toppings of choice on top of the mozzarella.

Top with the tomato mixture.

Sprinkle with the grated Parmesan cheese (you can add additional mozzarella here like I did, but that’s completely optional).

Drizzle the top of the pizza with the remaining 1 Tbsp. of olive oil.

Bake for 25 minutes, until the filling is bubbly and the top is golden brown.

Remove the pizza from the oven and carefully lift it out of the pan (if you’re using a springform, release the collar and carefully slide the pizza off of the base) onto a wire rack.

Allow the pizza to cool for at least 15 minutes before cutting.

Makes 12 servings

Source: adapted from King Arthur Flour