Making the most of a great year for peaches: Spicy pork chops with balsamic peaches

Heat is optional, big flavor isn’t, when sweet, savory and a host of spices get together in Pork Chops with Balsamic Peaches. Recipe below, with some variations on the theme.

balsamic-peach-pork

Summer has barely begun and we’ve already had some stellar peaches. Fragrant, sweet, delicious, juice-dribbling-down-your-chin peaches. Nothing local yet, but just picked up at random supermarkets. To me, that’s a sign of more great peaches to come this season.

So when Hannah mentioned balsamic peach pickles in her comment on last week’s wedding food memories post, we were immediately looking for recipes. Not so much for making pickles from peaches [they do sound wonderful, thought, don’t they?], but for tempering the natural sweetness of peaches with balsamic vinegar’s tartness. And when Marion turned up a pork recipe, my search narrowed considerably.

There’s something about the natural savory/sweetness of pork that plays beautifully with fruit. And I’ve certainly exploited it here, making everything from roast pork tenderloin with cherries or with pears and onions to pork chops with dried plums and even bacon marmalade sandwiches on pumpernickel.

These quick and easy pork chops not only make use of pork’s affinity for sweet flavors—they also take advantage of how well it works with big-flavored spices. In this case, chili powder, cumin and cayenne pepper. Continue reading “Making the most of a great year for peaches: Spicy pork chops with balsamic peaches” →

Roasted Lamb Ribs with Rosemary: A marriage made in oven

Caraway seeds give the classic combination of lamb, rosemary and garlic a pungent, anise-like kick. Recipe below.

lamb-ribs

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]H[/su_dropcap]onest. I’m not trying to turn Blue Kitchen into “What I Found at the Farmers Market This Week.” But a recent visit had us picking up about a pound and a half of lamb ribs from the Mint Creek Farm booth—the same people who had sold us the flavorful meat for our goat kebabs a couple of weeks earlier—with no earthly idea how we’d cook them. What we did know was that everything we’d bought from Mint Creek so far had been delicious—and that we were pleased to support the way their animals are 100% grass fed, raised in pastures. Continue reading “Roasted Lamb Ribs with Rosemary: A marriage made in oven” →

Cumin and cinnamon add Middle Eastern flavor to grilled goat kebabs

Goat is a mild-mannered stand-in for lamb in these flavorful kebabs marinated in cumin, cinnamon, oregano and pomegranate molasses. Recipe below.

Goat Kebabs

What is it with Americans and goat? Goats were one of the first animals domesticated by humans, 10,000 years ago or so. An amazing 70 percent of the red meat consumed in the world is goat. But while goat is the most widely consumed meat in the world, for some reason, it’s been slow to catch on in the United States. Continue reading “Cumin and cinnamon add Middle Eastern flavor to grilled goat kebabs” →

Bees, pigs and swine flu in the news

A possible cure for the colony collapse disorder currently decimating honey bee populations and threatening horticulture and sustainable agriculture farms. Is “the other white meat” really red meat—and does it matter? And stocking your pantry for a potential swine flu pandemic.

A breakthrough in saving bees, saving agriculture

Over the last few years, honey bee colonies have been dying off in record numbers. Not just bees within the colonies—entire colonies. This is bad. As an article published this month at EurekAlert! puts it, “The loss of honey bees could have an enormous horticultural and economic impact worldwide. Honey bees are important pollinators of crops, fruit and wild flowers and are indispensable for a sustainable and profitable agriculture as well as for the maintenance of the non-agricultural ecosystem.”

But finally, there seems to be some hope. In a study published in the new journal from the Society for Applied Microbiology, Environmental Microbiology Reports, scientists from Spain have isolated a parasite Continue reading “Bees, pigs and swine flu in the news” →

Warm, simple antidote for reluctant spring: Braised Chicken with Scallion Purée

A base of coarsely puréed scallions and potatoes adds a rustic note to this hearty country dish with a French accent, Braised Chicken with Scallion Purée. Recipe below.

The April issues of the food magazines are filled with springy, hopeful recipes and pictures. Beautiful, slender spears of asparagus abound, as do fresh snap peas, baby spring greens and fingerling potatoes. But as T.S. Eliot warned us, “April is the cruellest month.” It certainly has been here in Chicago. A snowstorm postponed the White Sox home opener by a day; cold rain fell on the Cubs’ first outing in Wrigley Field. And persistent, sharp winds have more than once made us regret abandoning our down parkas for mere wool coats.

So I was quite happy to find this hearty, comforting dish in the April chapter of Amanda Hesser’s The Cook and the Gardener: A Year of Recipes and Writings for the French Countryside. Although the green onions [two dozen of them, no less] give it a springlike brightness, the long-braised chicken has a definite wintry stick-to-your-ribs quality about it as well.

This is the second of three Francocentric cookbooks that Karin over at Second Act in Altadena has recommended to me. I can see why she likes it so much—and why avid [obsessive?] gardener Christina from A Thinking Stomach loves it. I’d be hard pressed to name a cookbook that more completely connects the garden to the dinner table. Author Hesser spent a year as a cook in a 17th-century French chateau in Burgundy, and a central figure in the book is the aging caretaker of the chateau’s kitchen garden, Monsieur Milbert. Hesser gradually overcomes his Gallic reserve, and he shares the secrets of the garden with her.

Beautifully told stories aside, this is an impressive cookbook, with more than 240 recipes arranged by seasonality. I haven’t spent nearly enough time exploring it, but the straightforward goodness of this recipe tells me I’ll be back for more. Continue reading “Warm, simple antidote for reluctant spring: Braised Chicken with Scallion Purée” →

A taste of Provence: Layered Pot Roast with Anchovies, Capers and Garlic

Hearty pot roast gets big flavor thanks to capers, onions, garlic and anchovies in this simple dish from the South of France, Grillades à L’Arlésienne. Recipe below.

A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, I ADMITTED TO BEING A MAJOR FRANCOPHILE when I wrote about roasting chicken on a bed of lentils. That caused our friend Karin to tell me about three different French cookbooks. Already having more cookbooks than we have shelf space for, I immediately headed for the library website and ordered them. Of course, all three showed up within days of each other. Continue reading “A taste of Provence: Layered Pot Roast with Anchovies, Capers and Garlic” →

Another reason to love bistro food: Chicken with Lentils (Poulet aux Lentilles)

A dry spice/herb/salt rub replaces liquid brining for the chicken, which is then roasted atop the lentils and vegetables, flavoring the entire dish. Recipe below.

YOU KNOW ME AND THE B WORD. Sure, I’m an unrepentant Francophile, but I’m an even bigger bistrophile. Still, when I came across a cookbook titled Bistro Chicken and promising 101 bistro recipes with chicken, even I thought that was drilling a bit deep. Then I looked inside. Continue reading “Another reason to love bistro food: Chicken with Lentils (Poulet aux Lentilles)” →

In like a lion, bring out the lamb: Lamb stew delivers comfort on a blustery night

Lamb, dark beer and root vegetables team up for a hearty, satisfying Lamb Stew. Recipe below.

THERE’S AN OLD SAYING ABOUT THE MONTH OF MARCH, “In like a lion, out like a lamb.” It is a transitional month, changing from winter to spring about halfway through. And if the first day of March wasn’t exactly a lion this year, it was no kitten, either. Here in Chicago, we woke to 17ºF and snow blowing sideways. Suddenly, lamb stew sounded like a great idea. Continue reading “In like a lion, bring out the lamb: Lamb stew delivers comfort on a blustery night” →

Fowl-mouthed inspiration: Riffing on Gordon Ramsay’s Sticky Lemon Chicken

Lemons, garlic, honey and thyme bring a lively flavor to the table quickly, for a delicious weeknight dinner. Sticky Lemon Chicken recipe below.

When children are very young, their first experiences of playing with other children are actually playing next to other children. They don’t truly interact with one another, but for them, playing side-by-side is the beginning of their social lives. There’s a school of thought in cooking that mirrors this experience, the idea that putting ingredients next to one another actually achieves some meaningful interaction among them.

You know what I mean—recipes that include instructions like “lay sprigs of rosemary around the roast” or “place a whole peeled apple in the chicken cavity”… Or my favorite, recipes that instruct you to rub lamb chops, steaks, slices of baguette or anything with a cut clove of garlic. In my experience, this technique is a perfect way to waste a clove of garlic and five or so minutes of your life. It adds nothing to the flavor of anything, so far as I can tell. Ingredients have to fully commit to a dish and mix it up with the others to have an impact on the final taste.

So alarm bells should have been going off in my head when I read the Sticky Lemon Chicken recipe in Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food. It called for putting sprigs of thyme, slices of lemon and a head of garlic cut in half into the pan along with the chicken. And for seasoning the chicken itself only with salt and pepper. But this was Gordon-bleeping-Ramsay, almost as famous for exquisite cooking as he is for his expletive-laced tirades at anyone unlucky enough to cross his path in the kitchen. I told myself it would be okay. Continue reading “Fowl-mouthed inspiration: Riffing on Gordon Ramsay’s Sticky Lemon Chicken” →

Pure and simple: Roast chicken

Simple is often best when it comes to roasting a chicken. Here, we start with a good bird, use minimal seasonings and let heat do the rest. Recipe below.

These days, even the most hardcore carnivores [and yeah, that includes me] are thinking more about the meat they consume. Where it comes from, how it’s raised, how it’s processed—even how it’s packaged. So when I was invited to sample some Just BARE™ Chicken—all natural, minimally processed chicken raised cage-free by independent, local family farmers in the upper Midwest—I jumped at the chance.

Some home cooks are fortunate enough to have access to local farmers markets or CSAs [Community Supported Agriculture groups] that can provide them with a regular source for meat and poultry raised by small scale independent farmers. Many, however, aren’t. The challenge has been to find successful business models for translating better farming practices [better for consumers, the environment and the animals themselves] to larger scales to feed a larger market affordably and profitably.

Solutions are being found. Increasingly, terms like organic and free range are showing up in places like Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and even more mainstream supermarkets. Often these products carry a higher price tag, but more and more consumers are showing a willingness to pay it. And that has more and more producers looking for ways to serve this growing market. Continue reading “Pure and simple: Roast chicken” →