Stuffed Pork Tenderloin!

Stuffed pork tenderloin for dinner today...woooo. I was in a rush so I made some slight alterations that you'll see in each step. Hope you like it!

First, you want to chop up some celery. I used about four stalks. 

Then, do the same with an onion, only one, though. I used a yellow onion rather than a vidalia because it was the right size for the amount I needed, and more importanty, vidalia onions can become TOO sweet in some cases, and with a savory dish like stuffing, I didnt want that to happen. If you just let the onions carmelize a little bit more, youll get the sweetness from the yellow onion, without it being overpowering like a vidalia. 

Add about a quarter of a cup (1/2 of a stick) of butter and put the onion and celery in. I also added a splash of chicken stock, because when the vegetables cook, the flavors compliment the celery and onion, and bring out a new flavor in them.  These aeromatics will later add a bunch of flavor to the stuffing, as well as texture. 

Please, dont use premade stuffing. Once you make it this way, I can almost guarantee that you won't go back. Anyways, add this bag right into the pot of the celery and onion, and add some boiling chicken stock. A little at a time on the liquid here...you can always add more but you can't take any out. Also keep in mind that you want it to be a little bit more dry than usual since when we stuff the pork, its juices will go into the stuffing and make it more moist.

I chose to use a broiling pan, so that the juices would fall through and in turn, the meat would get a nice, almost crispy crust on it.

Next, using a paring knife, slice a line in the middle of the tenderloin. Don't cut through to the other side though, basically you want to filet it, while keeping the edges regular so that when you fold it up, it keeps its shape. After you make the first slice, you'll have to do a couple more on the side then slice off the excess meat to make it more of an even thickness.

They should look something like this when you're done. Then, drizzle a little bit of olize oil onto the inside of the meat, and season with salt and pepper.

Add your stuffing, shown in the bottom piece of meat, and then fold it together, as shown in the top piece of meat. 

Using kitchen string, tie up the meat so that it holds its shape. Drizzle with vegetable oil and season with salt and pepper. The slit that you made to put the stuffing in should now be on the bottom. Bake at 475 degrees until its cooked through, which should take about 20 minutes.

If you have extra stuffing, place it in an oven safe dish, cover with aluminum foil, and bake it right along with the stuffed pork tenderloin.

This meal has become a family favorite and I hope you enjoy it! Of course, if you wanted a sauce to go along with this dish, you could always use the juice from the pork that collects in the pan and make that into one, but as I said, I was running short on time so I tried to make it as simple as possible. Also, if you try it out, let me know how you liked it in the comments!

Until next time,

K

Minestrone Souper Soup!

ayyyoooo. So today I'm doing a post on a classic italian dish-minestrone soup. This specific recipe is great because everything is made in one pot from beginning to end even though there are multiple steps! I made up this recipe when I was about 11, so I've been making the soup for about 7 years now. It's a family favorite and I've been wanting to share it with you guys but since its getting warmer, I havent had too many opportunities to make it. But alas, my grandfather had a cold this past week, so I made him a batch and decided to take the opportunity to use it as a blog post for all of my lovely readers. 

First, you want to slice up an onion into... I guess you could call them discs, and then slice them in half like shown above. They look big now, but remember that by the time the soup is served, they'll be tender and this size will be perfect to eat. 

Add half of a stick of butter and saute them up in a stockpot type of pot. Sort of like you are going to carmelize them. Cover them, but leave a little space, as if the cover isn't on all the way so that steam can escape. You don't want them cooking too fast since were going to be making a soffritto.

While youre onions are cooking, evenly chop up carrots and celery. I used about 4 stalks of celery, and an equal amount of carrots, which happened to be about 4 as well. This is called an italian trinity, or a soffritto. Just like in my braised short ribs dish...remember? Now we're getting somewhere! Anyways, let these cook up until tender. 

While they are cooking, you want to shred up a cabbage. You'll need about a cup to two cups, depending on much you like cabbage. Remember though, cabbage cooks down, just like spinach so what looks like a lot when you add it, will end up being about half of the amount when it's fully cooked. A sinple way to do this is to cut off one part of it, usually the top so that instead of being round now its flat, and just chop equal amounts off. Then just shred it in your hands. At the same time, you want to dice up about 3 potatoes. 

Once your soffritto is tender, add your chicken broth, along with the cabbage and potatoes. I used two of these cans, which contain about 6 cups each. 

Now, add all of the following things, mix it well, and then bring it to a light boil:

-Cannellini beans, which are white kidney beans.

-Red kidney beans

-Crushed tomatoes

-Garbanzo beans, which are just chick peas. 

After it has boiled, taste a little bit of the broth, and if you think that it needs to be a little bit more 

"tomato-y", add a can of diced tomatoes. Finally, let it boil for about na hour, until the cabbage looks all cooked down, and the flavors have melded together. It should look something like the picture below. 

Boil up some type of small macaroni, such as ditalini, add it right into the pot, and youre good to go. It's also great if you top it with a little bit of grated parmesan cheese and a splash of olive oil before serving. Try it out and let me know how you like it!

Until next time,

K

Chicken Caesar Salad!

Hey guys! Wait...wait..I know. before you even say it, let me apologize for being M.I.A. these past few days. I have a huge paper due for my english class that's kind of been taking up all of my writing energy. Even though I'd obviously rather be doing this. Anywho, enough with the explanations, onto the next topic. I've decided to expand the blog in order to increase the amount of posts per week. I'll still be doing recipes, but probably one or two a week, and then there will be cooking show reviews, restaurant reviews, and just general posts about food. Okay...without further adieu, onto the food!

I decided to make chicken caesar salad for dinner the other night with home made creamy caesar dressing, hence the title. There are a few main components that are always involved in caesar dressing, so I decided to try and combine them and make my own spin on caesar dressing rather than using a recipe. I feel like ceasar salad in itself is like a quintessential meal. Think about it, you can add shrimp or any other type of seafood for that matter, steak, and of course chicken. Or, you have to option to serve it without a type of meat as a side dish. Below you'll learn the ins and outs of how to make home made dressing, and briefly how to make a classic caesar salad.

First, you want to just roughly run your knife through some garlic. This will make it so that the cloves will be chopped up the same size when we put it in the blender. I used 3 cloves.

Then, put them in the blender and pulse it a few times. Don't be too particular since we will be running it through again and again as we keep adding ingredients. Then, you want to add a few tablespoon of red wine vinegar. If i remember correctly, I used 2.

Then, add about a tablespoon of anchovy paste. Nasty, I know, but believe it or not, almost all caesar dressing has anchovies in it. 

Add a few tablepoons of dijon mustard to the mix, and pul it together until its all combined. I used about 3 tablepoons.

Squeeze the juice of one lemon into the blender, and mix. A tip to figure out if a lemon is ripe or not while at the grocery store is to smell them. If you cna smell the lemon scent, it means that the piece of fruit is fully ripened.

Add about a cup a freshly grated parmesan cheese and blen together until its smooth.

It should look something like this by the time you've blended all of the ingredients together.

Next, you want to gradually add about 3/4 of a cup of olive oil. Here, we have my brother Mike who can barely make easy-mac but likes to help me cook so I give him jobs like this. If you can find someone to do this for you like Mike, then feel free.

Add about 1 and 1/4 cup of mayonnaise and one whole egg, uncooked, and blend together until it is relatively smooth and looks somewhat like this.

Pour the dressing into a container and refrigerate until you've made your salad.

To make the salad, you want to start with romaine lettuce. Tearing it into pieces is better than cutting it, but feel free to do whichever you please. I find that the lettuce cleans easier if you wash it after its been torn or cut since its not so tighly packed toghether anymore like it is when it's in its natural state.

Then, you want to cut some chicken up into small chunks, similar to a smaller version of what you'd use to make kebobs.  Mine were thick so I had to filet them first, but that's up to you.

This is how big mine were in proportion to my hand incase you're trying to get a grasp on how large to cut them up.

Toss them in a little bit of vegetable oil and season with salt and pepper. I then broiled mine since it was raining outside but if you want to, they'd be awesome grilled too.

They should look something like this when they're cooked through if you chose to broil them.

Put the cleaned romaine lettuce into a large bowl and top with the chicken, croutons, and some freshly grated parmesan cheese. Top with your homemade dressing that, at this point, should be slightly chilled from sitting in the refrigerator while you prepared the salad, and you're good to go! 

Keep the good food, good music, and good people coming!

Until next time, 

K

NONCOOKS LIFELINE:

Filet- To filet a meat is basically to thin it out, or slice it. For instance, when I did this to my chicken, I took a fileting knife and sliced the chicken in half in order to thin it out since I wanted to control the size of the pieces of chicken. You can also filet meat if you have a 'lopsided' piece of meat (ie. if you have a piece of chicken where one side is thicker than the other) and you want to ensure an even cooking time. You would just start where the thin side ended, and use that as your line point, and make the entire piece of chicken as thick as that spot. Then, you wnd up with 2 thinner, and equally sized filets.