Mish Mash of a Dinner

My friend Shelly died of melanoma.  At age 51.  She'd moved to Phoenix about nine years ago.  I'd see her when I'd go out there for a conference.  Or we'd chatter away on the phone.  She was the driving force behind Girls Night Out, a group of friends who've gotten together for about 20 years.  She had surgery in March and they thought they got it all.  In May it was back.  By the end of August she was gone.  The last month of her life we took turns calling to make sure she got a phone call from one of us every day.  By the end she was on such heavy meds that she could barely talk.  So, we had a memorial service here in Indy.  It was a drizzly, grey Friday.  Matched our moods.  Each of us got a white balloon to write on.  Then, we released them in unison.  Then, each of us got about a teaspoon of her ashes to scatter.  Afterward, we all went to our hangout for many years, Daddy Jacks.  About half the crew had her favorite drink, Bacardi and Coke with a lime wedge.  I'm not allowed caffeine so I stuck with red wine.  We laughed and cried.   I miss her.

So, life has been bittersweet recently.  I've known that I needed to be able to grieve but wasn't really able to do so.  Then, we went to see Calendar Girls.  One of the characters dies of cancer.  Yup, that unleashed a torrent of tears.  Now, I feel better.  Going to Phoenix next month for a conference will be very hard.  I know I can do it.  It's my broker/dealer's women's conference.  They actually have a two day conference just for the women.  How cool is that?  About a dozen of us are flying in a day early to do our business plans for next year.  The bad news is that my friend Windus who lives in San Diego won't be able to be there.  And, Melissa from Kansas City has left to join another firm.  I'll still get to see a whole bunch of friends.  Yup, I'm pretty darned lucky!

Speaking of lucky, we had dinner with four friends at a great new Indy restaurant called Union 50.  Liz is also knows as That Skinny Chick Can Bake.  Her hubby Bill is  such a great guy.  Their across the street neighbors, Pam and Steve joined us.  Steve and I have known each other since middle school...  We'd highly recommend Union 50.  Connie and I split a salad, mussels and a duck/duck confit/sweet potato dish.  All were VERY good. 

During dinner, Liz and I started chatting about how much fun a new blogging group would be.  One with a monthly theme.  Seasoned bloggers.  By invitation only.  The next day, we started chatting with our friend Christiane, The Mom Chef.  The Blogger C.L.U.E. Society was born.  Please come visit on November 12th for our first reveal.  We'll be posting the second Wednesday of every month.  November will be Thanksgiving foods.  I can't wait to see what all of these talented bloggers come up with!!

After a lovely Saturday evening, it was time to head back to the office on Sunday.  Someday we're going to be able to quit working seven days a week!!!  After we escaped the office, we headed out to run errands.  Then, we started cooking.  Prepping for my last Secret Recipe Club post.  Dinner for Sunday.  Partial prep for Monday and Tuesday's dinners. 

I'd wanted to try a shrimp dish from the Food Network cookbook I bought while we were out in Seattle.  There was also a cauliflower that was getting very long in the tooth.  Cauliflower gratin and coconut shrimp with jasmine rice and mango basil salsa don't exactly go together.  Too bad.  That's what we were having :-)  What did we think?  The cauliflower was amazing.  I'll make that again soon.  The shrimp was very good.  I'd prefer larger shrimp but that's what we found today...  Now, the confession...  Alas, I didn't get a photo of the finished dish.  Suffice to say we had it for three meals and loved every bite!

Cauliflower Gratin with Gingered Crumbs

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs cauliflower, broken into florets
3 T unsalted butter, divided
2 T flour
1 c half and half or light cream
1 t lemon juice
1/4 t freshly grated nutmeg
dash of Tabasco
1/4 c grated Swiss cheese (I probably used half a cup...)
1/4 c fresh bread crumbs
1/4 t ground ginger
2 T finely grated Parmesan


Directions:

Heat your oven to 350F.  While it's heating. cook the cauliflower in salted water until just a bit more done than al dente.  You do not want mushy cauliflower here...  Drain and put the cauliflower in a baking dish.  

In a small saucepan, melt two tablespoons of the butter.  Stir in the flour and cook for a couple of minutes.  Don't let  it get brown.  Slowly whisk in the half and half.  Add the nutmeg, lemon juice, Swiss cheese and hot sauce.  Cook until it's thick enough to coat your spoon. 

Gently mix the cheese sauce with the cooked cauliflower.  While the sauce is cooking, melt the last tablespoon of the butter in a small skillet.  Add the bread crumbs and ginger and cook until browned. 

Sprinkle the crumbs over the cauliflower.  Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 minutes.  Allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving.

adapted from Greene on Greens


Coconut Shrimp with Mango-Basil Salsa and Lime Jasmine Rice

Ingredients:

for the salsa:
1 mango, finely diced (I used the jarred version from the refrigerated section...)
3 scallions, sliced (I used a shallot since that's what I had)
5 basil leaves, thinly sliced
juice of one lime
salt and pepper to taste

for the shrimp:
1 small jalapeno, seeded and sliced
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 T dark brown sugar
zest of 1/2 lime
1/4 c coconut milk
small handful of basil leaves, torn
1-2 T vegetable oil
salt and pepper
1 lb peeled, deveined large shrimp (I'd recommend 25/lb or larger)

for the rice:
1 c jasmine rice
3/4 c coconut milk
3/4 c water
zest of 1/2 lime
salt

Directions:

This is much easier to put together than the ingredient list would have you believe!  First, make a marinade for the shrimp.  Mix it in a non-reactive dish.  I used a plastic storage container.  Add the shrimp and marinate for at least 30 minutes and up to four hours.  If you're going to marinate it for more than half an hour, do so in the fridge.   Um, that's a bourbon plum smash in the background...  I'm hoping I can get Connie to weigh in on that one! 

To make the salsa, mix all the ingredients together.  Set aside.

To make the rice, put all the ingredients in a medium saucepan.  Simmer for 12 to 15 minutes until the liquid is absorbed. 

While the rice is cooking, pour about a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a large skillet.  Heat it to shimmering.  Add the shrimp in one layer.  Flip them once.  Cook them just until pink.  Remove the shrimp from the heat and keep warm.  Pour the marinade in the skillet and bring it to a boil.  Cook it for at least five minutes.  You'll want the sauce to thicken and you'll want enough cooking time to make it safe to eat after marinating raw seafood...

Put the dish together now.  Mound a bit of rice on the plate.  Top with shrimp.  Put salsa on the side and pour some marinade over.

adapted from Food Network Favorites

Coffee Crusted Pork Roast

Saturday was a pretty lousy day.  I was up all night Friday with a bad belly.  Saturday I not only felt lousy but was exhausted.  All I could get down for dinner was a fried egg sandwich.  Thanks to Connie who was chef for the night.  He toasted the bread just enough to take the smoosh off but not so much as to make it crunch.  The egg yolk was still a little runny.  And, he grated a bit of swiss cheese onto it.  It was pretty darned perfect.  And, as soon as I ate I got to curl back up on the couch and go back to sleep.  That's how to recuperate!
 
Needless to say, my week's menus did not get made on Saturday.  Sunday we went to the office for the morning and got home just in time for the Colt's game.  YAY - we beat Tennessee!  Andrew Luck rocks!!!  So, at 5:00 Sunday I still had no clue what I was going to fix for dinner.  My options from the freezer were not promising.  Fine.  I picked up the cookbook on top of the stack of cookbooks to mark for recipes to make.  Commander's Wild Side.  Another find from the bargain bin at the grocery store.  I want to make everything from the chapter titled, "Showstopping Dishes to Impress Your Friends."  Let's see, there's Truffled Scallps and Crabmeat wtih Caviar Vinaigrette, Creole Lobster Bisque, Crab and Brie Stuffed Flounder, Speckled Trout Napoleons with Morel Cream, Crab and Oyster Mushroom Risotto and Pepper-Crusted Beef Sirloiin with Crispy Oysters and Horseradish Cream.  Is your mouth watering like mine is? 
 
I knew Sunday was not the evening for a show-stopping (read long and complicated) recipe, however.  You see, Peyton's playing Drew Brees.  That we need to see.  So, I opened the cookbook to the chapter titled, "Not-So-Wild Game."  The first recipe was Coffee-Crusted Pork Loin with Fig-Bourbon Syrup.  Not only did it sound fantastic, it also sounded pretty darned quick.  Connie said there was a tub of spinach to be used up.  I found a recipe from Southern Living called Mango-Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette.  Sounded perfect together.  And, I had a sweet potato I could mash to go along.  I was off to the grocery. 
 
What did we think?  This was super easy to put together.  The flavors were amazing.  The crust on the pork was very thin but so packed with flavor.  The fig-bourbon syrup was perfect with it.  As were the bourbon mashed potatoes.  Those were just a large sweet potato mashed with about a teaspoon of bourbon, a quick grate of nutmeg, a couple of tablespoons of butter and a couple of tablespoons of half and half.  The salad was a great alternative to your traditional spinach salad.  All in all, we gave the whole meal a score of five on a scale of one to five.  Connie liked the pork best, while I preferred the salad.  But, there were no losers here!
 
Coffee-Crusted Pork Loin with Fig-Bourbon Syrup
serves 4
 
Ingredients:
 
1 cup fig preserves
1/2 c bourbon
1/4 c finely ground chicory or regular coffee
1 T plus 2 t dark brown sugar
1 T Creole seasoning (we use Emeril's)
1 t smoked paprika
2 lb trimmed boneless pork roast, preferably loin
 
Directions:
 
Mix the preserves and bourbon in a small saucepan.  Let it simmer while you prepare the pork.  I needed an immersion blender since there were some pretty big chunks of fig in the preserves.

Make the rub next.  In a spice grinder combine the coffee, brown sugar, Creole seasoning and smoked paprika.  Process it until it's very finely ground.

The original recipe called for rubbing the pork with vegetable oil prior to rolling it in the rub.  I didn't do that and it worked perfectly.  Roll the pork in the rub, coating every surface.  Allow it to rest at room temperature for 20-30 minutes.

Heat your grill.  Grill the pork for about 20 minutes or until it reaches an internal temperature of 130F.  Make sure to turn the pork so all sides get a nice crust.  Remove the pork from the heat and allow it to rest for 10 minutes before carving it. 

Serve the pork drizzled with the fig-bourbon sauce.

adapted from Commander's Wild Side


Mango-Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette
serves 2

Ingredients:

4 thick slices bacon, diced and browned
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 c red wine vinegar
1 T lime juice
1 T honey
2 large handfuls fresh spinach
1 mango, peeled and diced
2 T crumbled queso fresco or mild feta

Directions:

Brown the bacon and drain all but a tablespoon of the fat.  Saute the onion until it's very soft.  When the onion is done, pour in the red wine vinegar, lime juice and honey.  Stir well and keep warm until you're ready to assemble the salads.

To assemble the salads, put a handful of spinach on each plate.  Top with half of the mango, then the bacon, dressing and finally the cheese. 

adapted from Southern Living

Summer Fruit Salad

Poor Connie.  I feed him a lot of fruit.  He's not terribly fond of fruit but most of the time he gamely eats it.  I'm not great at eating just a piece of fruit myself so I make sure to include it in salads on a regular basis.  This salad has been on the menu for a couple of weeks.  First the avocados weren't any good so I had to buy more and wait for them to soften.  Then, this didn't go with any of the meals we were having.  Finally, along came spinach lasagna and I thought we'd have a great match. 

The salad was great.  The spinach lasagna, not so much.  I was testing the recipe for a magazine so I'm not allowed to say much.  But, my comment would be that the texture was like baby food and it tasted just about the same.  The rest is headed for the trash.  Thank goodness the salad was wonderful!

I left the grapes in the fridge at the office so they didn't go in.  I'm not sure I'll add them next time even if they do make their way to the home fridge. 

What did we think?  We would have loved more ginger flavor.  I thought it added a bit of heat to the dressing but not much else.  Connie would've mixed the cilantro into the dressing.  I was ok with it on top of the salad but would've liked it in the dressing also.  Otherwise this was great.  Very refreshing and a unique blend of flavors.

Summer Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

1/2 c bottled poppy seed dressing
2 t freshly grated ginger
2 avocados, thinly sliced
4 c loosely packed arugula
2 c halved seedless green grapes
1 mango, julienned
1 c diced fresh strawberries
1/4 c thinly sliced green onions
1/4 c chopped fresh cilantro

Directions:

Mix the poppyseed dressing and the ginger. 

Toss the rest of the ingredients with the dressing.  Serve.  As you can see in the photo, I used the avocado as a "bowl" for the dressing.  Next time I'll try tossing the salad as the instructions said.

adapted from Southern Living