Sage-and-Walnut Pesto—Great in the Summertime

As we've noted, although sage flourishes in the summer, it tends to be used in autumn and winter recipes, and often in its dried state. But it's a shame to limit this velvety, pungent herb to the cold weather months.

You can use this sage-and-walnut pesto to coat pork and chicken before grilling. You can also add it to hot pasta for an easy vegetarian dinner, or mix it with cubed potatoes before roasting them, for an interesting side dish. Play with the balance of ingredients until you find a mix you like. These are the proportions that work well for us:

Sage and Walnut Pesto

2 cloves garlic
1 cup sage leaves
1/2 cup walnuts
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender.

Chimichurri: Fun to Say, Even More Fun to Taste

For us, grilling season never ends. We fire up the grill in snowstorms, thunderstorms, and even pitch blackness, armed with our trusty snake light. As far as we're concerned, almost everything tastes good on the grill, from pizza to freshly shucked corn. But sometimes grilled fish and meat get a little monotonous. That's where chimichurri sauce comes in.

This Argentinean green sauce peps up fish, chicken, pork, beef, and, yes, tofu. Here's Ro Ann Redlin's recipe, which she says she may copyright, it's so good.

Chimichurri Sauce:

1 bunch parsley
1 small white onion
2 T. capers
2 cloves garlic
1 cup olive oil
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 T. lemon juice
1 T smoked Spanish paprika
1 t. dried oregano


Combine all ingredients in food processor, and process. Store overnight. 

New Mexico Green Chile

When traveling, we rarely pass up an opportunity to taste the local fare. We can't remember too many times when a local dish disappointed in a serious way — with the possible exception of the salty fingernail-sized fish served for breakfast in Malaysia.

When Tim biked his way through the mountains of New Mexico a few years ago, he made a point of delving into the local cuisine, which is laden with red and green chiles. His favorite was New Mexico Green Chile Stew, which happens to be incredibly quick and easy to make. This recipe is taken from "Real New Mexico Chile" by Sandy Szwarc (Golden West Publishers)

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New Mexico Green Chile Stew
8 ounces lean pork, cut into half-inch or 1-inch cubes
1 Tbsp. flour
1 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
1 large baking potato, cut into half-inch or 1-inch cubes
1-1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped, roasted and peeled New Mexico chiles (or two small cans of diced green chiles)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp. New Mexico red chile powder (or to taste)
1 quart chicken stock
1/2 tsp. ground cumin

Coat the pork lightly with the flour.
In a saucepan or dutch oven, heat the oil over high heat and fry the meat until golden.
Add the remaining ingredients and lower the heat to medium low.
Cover and simmer until the meat is very tender, about 4 hours.
Serve with flour tortillas.

What could be easier? And, it tastes great.

Salsa Casserole

Any family that eats meat invariably has leftover chicken, pork or beef after a big meaty meal. The meat can be used to make sandwiches, but that doesn't stretch it as far as, say, a casserole that could healthily feed more with the addition of some vegetable add-ins.

We came across this idea when Tim had to help feed a large family contingent at the annual Reunion of Three Dozen. This year, because a memorial service for a beloved uncle was tacked on, it was more like Four Dozen.

The dish started out as turkey chili, but for ease of serving morphed into a chicken casserole, which has now morphed again into Any-Leftover-Meat-and-Salsa Casserole.

Pre-heat the overn to 350. Coarsely chop two cups of leftover chicken, pork or beef. Add 2 tablespoons of onion or shallot and a half cup of chopped celery (optional). Add one 15 oz. can of black or great northern beans, a 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes (with juice), 8 oz. of grated cheddar cheese, 8 oz. of any bottled salsa, 1 teaspoon of ground cumin, 1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of chili powder, 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro, and salt and pepper to taste.

(You can add just about anything to this: chopped roasted red peppers, frozen corn, and leeks instead of the onions. You can also saute the onions, leeks, shallots and celery to add some depth. We added just a bit of smoked gouda for additional complexity.)

Mix it all together in a casserole dish and put in the oven for 30 minutes uncovered. This is a quick meal in one pot that takes advantage of leftover meat plus food you probably already have in your pantry.

Easy Pork Tenderloin in the Oven

We recently put up a guest post from our friend Kevin, who wrote about foolproof pork tenderloin on the gas grill, using the 7-6-5 method.

Last week we added pork tenderloin to a menu, but did not have a gas or charcoal grill handy, so we decided to see how simply we could make a pork tenderloin (two actually, because they always come two to a package) in the oven. Turns out, it's fairly easy.

Here's how we did it:

We heated about a quarter cup of olive oil and 1 Tablespoon of butter over medium-high heat in an ovenproof sauté pan, and rubbed a small amount of kosher or sea salt (1 teaspoon) on the tenderloins, along with about 2 teaspoons of ground pepper from a grinder that included all colors of peppercorns.

We quick-fried about a dozen sage leaves and drained them on paper towels. This is optional, but you'll like it if you do it.

Next, we browned the two tenderloins on all sides in the fat, about 5 to 7 minutes.

We put the pan in an oven preheated to 375 degrees, in the middle of the oven. We roasted them for exactly 15 minutes (until a thermometer in the loin read about 140 degrees). Then we put the loins on a plate or cutting board and covered them with foil; they continued cooking while we made a sauce.

Kevin marinated his tenderloins in a mustard vinaigrette, which we think is a great idea. But we decided to make a mustard-wine sauce to pour over the meat.

First we poured the fat out of the pan and returned it to the stovetop over medium-high heat. We deglazed the pan with about a cup of red wine and reduced it by half. Then we added salt and pepper.

During the reduction process, we whisked in a few tablespoons of mustard. One T of mustard makes a great, mellow sauce; 3 T makes a spicier sauce.

Then we cut the loins on the diagonal, about 5/8-inch thick, and finished them with a fried sage leaves and a drizzle the wine-mustard reduction.

Serve with a Pinot Noir or a Côte du Rhône.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin

[Note: Here's another contribution from guest blogger and grill king Kevin Ireton:]

I’m one of those guys who uses a grill more often than a stove, and I grill all year around, even though it frequently means brushing snow off the grill in the winter. Among my favorite things to grill are pork tenderloins. They come two to a package, so I have one for now and one for leftovers. And the meat is tender and tasty. But best of all, I don’t agonize over whether the darned things are done or not because I use a foolproof technique that I learned years ago from an article in Fine Cooking.

The recipe calls for brining the tenderloins for 45 minutes ahead of time, but I seldom bother with this step. I do it with pork chops, which have a tendency to dry out, but the tenderloins stay pretty moist. The article also calls for the tenderloins to be rubbed with a fruit glaze. But my wife and I prefer a simple mustard vinaigrette instead.

2 T. olive oil
2 T. red wine vinegar
1 T. Grey Poupon mustard
1 t. tarragon

I usually mix up a double batch, pour on some before grilling and some more when I’m serving.

The grilling technique is called the 7-6-5 method, and that’s pretty much all you need to remember. With the gas grill turned up to high and preheated for 15 minutes, you cook the tenderloins for 7 minutes on one side, flip them over and cook them for 6 minutes on the second side, and then turn off the gas (keep the lid closed) letting them cook for another 5 minutes. I usually let them sit a final 5 minutes on the cutting board before I slice them.

Adobo Cream Sauce for Fish, Tofu, Game, or Anything You Like

In February we spent a week in Mexico, determined to relax, soak up the warm shade, swim, read, and eat cheap. One evening we had dinner at a little fish house near our hotel, and Tim ordered snapper that arrived covered with a lightly creamy adobo sauce (adobo is one of our favorite ingredients) and wrapped up in tinfoil. It was subtle and delicious, and we knew that we could duplicate it at home. After two tries, we think we’ve nailed it:

Recipe

1 large shallot (⅓ cup) chopped/minced
1 T olive oil

1 cup white wine
2 cups veggie broth

⅓ cup liquid from canned tomatoes or 1 t. tomato paste (optional)

1–3 T. adobo sauce from canned chipotle peppers
1 t. Braggs Liquid Aminos (optional)
⅓–⅔ cup light cream (heated but not boiled)
1 egg, beaten
½ cup fine cornmeal
cilantro, chopped coarsely

1. Brown shallots in large skillet in olive oil over medium to medium-high heat.

2. Add wine, stock, and tomato liquid, and reduce by half. Add liquid aminos.

3. Add 3 to 5 tablespoons of the warm sauce to the cream to temper it.
Add cream to sauce and stir.

4. Drag protein (fish, tofu, meat) through beaten egg, then cover with fine cornmeal.
Brown protein in skillet over med-high heat but don't cook through.

5. Place protein in casserole dish and cover with adobo sauce.

6. Bake in oven at 350° for 30 minutes.

Serve over rice with side vegetable or black beans (sprinkled with cilantro), and with red or white wine.

We've made the dish with tofu and pheasant, sautéing the slices separately before covering them with sauce and baking the casserole in the oven.* This sauce is great for cooking any non-fatty meats, such as rabbit, that require a cooking liquid. Rice makes a wonderfully absorbent accompaniment.

* A lot of vegetarians don’t like their food hanging out with animal protein, but Ruth figures that if she can kiss Tim’s meat-eating mouth, her tofu can touch his pheasant. If you prefer, though, it’s easy to put together separate casseroles.

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