132. Spiral-Sliced Ham

Date Cooked: April 4, 2010
Page: 478
Rating: B-

I cooked this recipe almost 2 months ago. Time is flying by with another little one in the house. Definitely takes another chunk of time out of my already precious little time. In addition a few other changes have altered our dietary eating habits so the truth is trying to cook through this book has gotten a little more difficult. But I forge on anyway.

Nothing screams Easter like a 10lb. ham for two. Well actually it wasn’t really two, I have two little eaters as well so I guess it was more like two and a half. This year was a quiet Easter for us but we still wanted a nice family dinner and there is one thing we don’t eat a lot of in our house. Ham. We don’t dislike it but never really seem to want to cook one. Easter is a good excuse to cook one. The book is full of little articles on the best kitchen equipment or brands of product that taster’s recommend. Often this is useless to me because many brands aren’t sold in Canada or they are but are sold under different names. In this case the book recommended Cook’s Spiral-Sliced Smoked Ham. Just so happens that my preferred supermarket had them on sale. 10lbs. of ham is relatively inexpensive ($17) … compared to the 4 lbs of lamb shoulder chops I am looking for ($80).

Easter Sunday was time to get this big guy in the oven. I made some drastic miscalculations with regards to the timing of my meal. Between cooking time and resting time I underestimated by almost 2 hours. This probably would have been okay if it wasn’t for the fact that I was planning on dinner being at 6pm. By time 8pm rolled around we were famished.

Cooking a spiral sliced ham is not exactly rocket science, although I still struggled. In essence you are merely reheating a previously cooked product. The real learning for me was carving the ham. If done right you get a lot of meat with very few cuts. The book nicely outlined how to do this. I will say that I have become rather good at carving turkey, chicken and ham.

Rating: B-. I still can’t say I get overly excited about ham. It is a fine product but I would rather eat a good pork roast over a ham. This was served with a sauce which was rather tasty. Both of my eating children enjoyed the ham which always makes it a winner.

98. Gas-Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Date Cooked: August 22, 2009
Page: 586
Rating: A

Pork tenderloin is one of those cuts of meat I was always intimidated by. I felt it was a high quality cut and therefore difficult to prepare well. I am slowly realizing how much of an idiot I am. I am spending too much time letting perceptions of food interfere with cooking and enjoying it. One thing I have absolutely learned from this project is that my perceptions are faulty and I need to discard them. Pork tenderloin on a grill could not be easier.

I started by brining the pork tenderloins in salt and sugar for an hour. During this brine process I prepared the Asian Wet Rub and then fired the grill. Once the tenderloins had been rinsed and patted dry I coated them in the rub and set them on the grill. The sizzle as they hit the hot grill was a beautiful sound.

They were grilled for 2 minutes a side at high heat and then I let them cook over low heat for a few more minutes until the internal temperature reached 145. I then removed them and let them rest. I’ve done a fair bit of reading with regards to the internal temperature of pork and have come to the conclusion that when 145-150 is reached and then left to rest I get a much nicer meal. When the temperature reaches too high I might as well cook the plastic tray the pork came in.

Rating: A. I like pork so I am a little biased. I was surprised at how easy it was to prepare and cook this meal and the pork was moist and full of flavor and the rub was delicious on it. I will definitely be cooking much more pork tenderloin in the future.

89. Gas-Grilled Pork Chops

Date Cooked: July 31, 2009
Page: 583
Rating: A

I am a fan of pork. It is a meat that I thoroughly enjoy the taste and texture of. When cooked properly. Nothing can be worse than a dry pork chop. So I was happy to see that this recipe starts with brining the pork chops in a mixture of salt and sugar. The brining is meant to help keep the pork chops juicy and boost their flavor. The book recommends rib or center-cut loin chops and while at the grocery store I picked up center-cut loin chops because they were thicker. Pork chops should be about 1 ½ inches thick and maintain a uniform thickness. My chops weren’t that thick unfortunately. I am still searching for a local butcher that can provide me with my meat needs without paying a hefty premium for the service. Until I do I will be reduced to the supermarket offerings.

The chops brined for a little over an hour while I prepped the rest of the meal. Once the brining was complete I patted them dry and seasoned them liberally with the spice rub from the previous post. When I say liberally I mean they were encrusted with the rub.

I am getting better at grilling. Or more importantly I am getting more confident on the grill. I had one side of the grill set to high and the other side to medium. The pork chops were grilled about 3 minutes per side over the hot section of the grill before being cooked for another 7 minutes over the cooler section. When they were done the chops looked and smelled great.

They were served with a peach salsa (covered in the next post but you can see from the picture above).

Rating: A. The only real improvement I could have made to these chops would have been to get thicker ones. These chops were delicious with the rub really accenting the juicy and flavorful pork. I am craving these again as I type this. I might need to make some pork chops tonight!

32. Oven-Fried Bacon

Date Cooked: November 1st, 2008
Page: 658
Rating: A-

Yes this is an actual recipe in the book. I’m actually surprised it took me this long to make it since it was so simple and I have had a lot of bacon since starting this project. Maybe I was intimidated because it was so simple I felt there was a trick. Or maybe I felt it was such a ridiculously simple recipe that it didn’t really deserve a post. I suspect the latter. Saturday morning I decided to cook up a good breakfast for the family because 1) I don’t normally eat breakfast and 2) It was the first weekend in awhile with nothing planned. So I flipped through the breakfast chapter of the book and picked out a few quick recipes to use. This was one of them.

I’m going to do something I don’t normally do. Post the recipe.

Oven-Fried Bacon
12 slices of bacon
1. Preheat oven to 400°F
2. Place bacon on baking sheet.
3. Bake for 12 minutes turning once.

I admit I summarized a little. I think the book devotes two pages to the intricacies of bacon and this is the preparation it all boils down to.

Rating: A- I loved it and so did my wife. The kids love bacon regardless of how it is cooked. Oven-Fried the bacon came out nice and flat and mostly intact. I was about to type how it tasted just like every other slice of bacon I’ve eaten but that would be a lie. I just realize now that it didn’t leave that off-flavor taste of grease in the mouth… I will prepare bacon in this manner in the future as long as the oven is not required for something else. I really want a double wall oven.

27. Smothered Pork Chops

Date Cooked: October 7th, 2008
Page: 462
Rating: B+

Ahhh… another pork dish. This dish went smoothly and I would say was definitely the beginning of a shift in my cooking. I settled on this recipe since I had all the ingredients and wanted to use the pork chops I had in the freezer, plus it had bacon and that is just a sure sign of a great recipe.

Let us begin with this wonderful tale of smothered pork chops. I’ll start at smothered. That is a word which invokes one thing in my mind. A pillow pressed against the face of a sleeping individual. I don’t want you to think I am some creepy individual but I can’t say I have heard the word smothered used in many other contexts. Pretty much just the crime version. So I have only begun the recipe and I am already comparing it to a crime. The only crime here is me in the kitchen.

The dish starts out with cooking the bacon to render it down and crisp it up. This of course gets the whole kitchen smelling nicely of bacon. I’m thinking all recipes should start this way, even if they don’t use bacon. A little cooked bacon to snack on while cooking would be perfect right? I wonder if they sell bacon potpourri.

Once the bacon was done and set aside the pork chops where quickly sautéed until both sides were seared a nice golden brown. They were then set aside to rest while the remainder of the ingredients came together. The remainder of the ingredients where a lot of onions! I was thinking this recipe seemed really out of proportion until I realized it was written for four servings and I was cooking only two. So these two pork chops were absolutely going to be smothered… I’m trying to figure out a word which would raise smothered to a whole new horrific level but I just can’t, maybe it’s time to invest in a thesaurus, or therapy.

Once the onions were caramelized all the ingredients get put in the pan (except the bacon) and then you bury the pork chops under the onions and cover and cook. 30 minutes pass and the house is smelling good. The pork chops got plated on some rice and then covered in the sauce with a little bacon sprinkled on top. The picture shows what I think a little bacon is.

Rating: B+. These pork chops were really good and serving them on rice was a great choice since the sauce is quite delicious. My only complaint would be that the pork was a little overcooked and probably could have spent a little less time buried under the onions. Pork on pork will always be a winner.

26. Sautéed Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Cream, Apples and Sage

Date Cooked: October 3rd, 2008
Page: 469
Rating: B

Where do I start with this dish… well it was definitely a hectic one to complete as I was cooking another dish at the same time that was composed of several of the same ingredients. I highly recommend when creating a meal that after you get you ‘mise en place’ set up that you double check the ingredients and quantities for each. I had a lot of confusion as I tried to pull this together. No disasters, sorry to disappoint, but a few moments of panic.

I first started by getting the pork tenderloin sliced into medallions. I had come to realize that I love pork like this. The only problem is that I am still trying to figure out how to get the silver skin off easily. As I have mentioned before when cutting up the chicken I have a tendency to get a bit obsessive. I can (and have) spent several minutes meticulously trimming what I feel is silver skin from the tenderloin. I was proud of the finished product but feel that it was a bit excessive… okay it was a lot excessive. I need to see how it is done properly so I can save time in the future.

Once the tenderloin medallions, apples, sage, cider, and several other bit players in the recipe were ready I set to work. The medallions were sautéed and then set aside for a rest, not like they did much work. I’m the one that needed the rest after trying to remove them of their skin. Once done some onions and apples were caramelized and then simmered in apple cider. This is where I messed up… a little. The other recipe I had cooked (Braised Cabbage) also called for apple cider and I had two quantities sitting on the counter. I grabbed the wrong one (that had twice as much cider) and added it to the pan. I very quickly realized the possible error and scrambled to check the Book. Sure enough I screwed up but since I had to reduce the liquid anyway it would just take longer. Of course longer means everything gets to simmer in hot liquid for a lengthened period of time. This had two outcomes I will explain shortly. Once the sauce was reduced some cream was added along with the tenderloin medallions and a few more ingredients. All this got warmed through and then plated.

How was it you ask? Well let’s start off by saying it was pork so it begins with good marks. My error in apple cider measurement though created a much more intense apple flavor to the dish which wasn’t bad. The only negative was the increased cooking time turned the apples to applesauce. It was actually not a very nice textural accompaniment. You would take a wonderful mouthful only to hit an extremely overcooked apple piece and have it turn into soggy mush after the slightest bit of pressure. Not to mention a momentary burst of apple flavor that overpowered the entire mouthful. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the dish but it would have been nice if the apple flavor was a little more subdued and the apple pieces a little more… structurally sound.

Rating: B. If I had planned ahead to screw up I could have saved myself some work by using apple sauce instead of apples and cider. But then who actually plans to fail? Oh wait, I do by failing to plan.

10. Stir-Fried Pork, Eggplant and Onions with Garlic and Black Pepper

Date Cooked: September 2nd, 2008
Recipe: 10
Page: 471

I would like to apologize for the quality of the photo. I had just finished creating this masterpiece when I realized the camera was not in the house. So I had to scramble for any electronic device I could find with decent photo taking capability. Katt’s phone was at hand so I snapped a few photos as best I could.

I was really mixed about doing this dish. I’ve only had eggplant once before and was not a fan of its preparation back then. I found the texture questionable and the taste mild but not really pleasant. I wanted to give it another go plus I had this lone eggplant sitting in my fridge from my sister-in-laws last visit. I grabbed the new knives and set to work cubing the eggplant. I love my knives.

I grabbed the pork tenderloin from the freezer where it was having a nice little rest to firm up for slicing and I took the knife to it and sliced it into beautiful medallions. I love my knives. How did I ever function in a kitchen before? I think I know why I didn’t really cook previously. I had crappy tools.

The pork was first up as I fired it in a little oil for a few minutes to brown it up nicely. At this point I couldn’t help but steal a few pieces… you know, to ensure they were fully cooked. I put cooked pork aside (but still close by so I could ensure the little nuggets of pork goodness weren’t going bad with some frequent tasting) and dropped the eggplant into the pan with a little more oil. These bad boys started browning up nicely and took on a firmer texture. When the eggplant was done I set them aside with the pork. This was the final go/no-go point in the meal. If I didn’t want the eggplant I would have to jettison it now. The smells in the kitchen and the nice looking brown crisp they had started to form convinced me to give them a chance. Next up was the onions. I chose a sweet Vidalia onion for this since it was a main component of the dish. These were sautéed until tender and starting to caramelize.

Then came the fun. The recipe calls for something like nine cloves of garlic and two teaspoon of black pepper to be mixed together and then sautéed in the pan until fragrant. I was supposed to sauté until it was brown. It was black. How do you tell when a black paste has browned? Anyway when the kitchen smelled strongly of garlic and pepper I considered it done and then threw everything back into the pan with the sauce to coat. A few tosses of the ingredients and it was complete.

I served the stir-fry over some white rice and sprinkled it with some fresh cilantro. Ever since I have begun cooking rice on the stovetop in a frying pan, I have played with the amount of toasting I do to the rice before adding the water. This time I toasted it a little longer than called for and really liked it that way.

I was really surprised by this meal, both in how well everything came together, and the taste. The pork was succulent and the eggplant was actually pretty good, mild in flavor but definitely noticeable. I must remember to add less cilantro to my dish next time (or chop it finer) since I was not a fan of its texture difference from the rest of the dish (although I loved the fragrance it provided).

Recipe number 10... The book boasts 1000 recipes so I guess that would make me officially 1% complete.