spinach, sausage and caramelized onion quiche

Pretty much what it says on the tin. I had a pound of sweet Italian pork sausage that needed to be used up ASAP and a package of frozen chopped spinach. I've always got eggs in stock, and usually have an onion hanging around, so this was no sweat to make.

I didn't really measure much - I know I used 6 eggs, probably a cup of cream, just a pinch of nutmeg, a pound of sausage, a medium onion, salt and pepper, some Parmesan cheese and a package of frozen chopped spinach. The sausage was removed from the casings and browned in a pan, then I removed it to my pie plate while I cooked a sliced onion in the accumulated fat in the pan, letting it get nicely browned. The residual sugar from the sausage caramelized the onion well. Onion went into the pie plate with the sausage, then I added the spinach, (which I had cooked in the microwave according to directions on the package and then squeeeeeeezed all the moisture I could out of it). I beat 6 eggs with a little salt and pepper, a pinch of nutmeg and the cream. I grated about half a cup of Parmesan cheese into the eggs, beat well, then dumped it into the pie plate over the sausage, onions and spinach. It went into a 350 degree oven for...I'm not really sure how long, honestly. I just kept checking it to see if the middle was set, and when it was, I took it out and let it cool. It was very yummy!

stuffed pork loin

My local grocery store had enormous pork loins on sale for $2 a pound last weekend. I couldn't NOT buy one, at that price. The one I got was around 7.5 pounds. I cut into thirds - one third, I then cut into thick boneless chops, the second third I left whole for future roasting, and the last third got made into this:

I made two cuts in the roast to open it up to a long, flat piece. The filling is a mixture of cob-smoked bacon, green onion, mushrooms, chevre, feta, and baby spinach. I cooked the stuffing all together and then spread it over the meat. I rolled the meat up, tied it with kitchen twine in a few places, then rubbed the outside of the roast with some Irish stout mustard (which is grainy and pretty sweet but also has a nice heat to it) and some grated garlic. It was over a week ago now, so I don't remember what temperature I cooked it at or for how long...helpful, I KNOW! But suffice it to say that it came out pretty tasty. The only complaint I had was that for some reason the bottom-most layer of the roast really dried out. None of the rest of it did...just the very bottom layer that was in contact with the pan while it baked.

pernil al horno

Pernil al horno is a traditional Puerto Rican preparation of pork shoulder. I've used this method of preparation before with a loin roast, which was decent - but a shoulder roast has more fat running through it as well as on top of it which keeps the meat succulent.

Mmmm, porky goodness!

The method of preparation is dead simple, really. For a 5lb roast, I threw 4 big cloves of garlic, half an onion, 2 teaspoons of sea salt, 2 teaspoons of black pepper, 1 tablespoon of dried oregano, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar into a food processor and let it whiz until it was a paste / liquid. The fat cap on top of the roast got scored and then the paste was evenly schmeared over the meat, into every crack and crevice! The roast was put in a pan, covered with foil and stuck in the fridge for about 5 hours, then the oven was preheated to 350 and the roast was added to it. It baked for about 3.5 hours, with the pan being rotated a half-turn every hour or so. I let it sit for about 20 minutes while I prepared my side-dishes, then it was go-time:

The side dishes are spinach sauteed with shallots in a little bit of coconut oil, and a sort of black beak succotash I made up on the fly and really enjoyed. To make the beans, I chopped up a little bit of bacon and let it render in a pot until crispy then scooped it out to drain and reserved about a teaspoon of the fat in the pot. To the hot fat I added half of a chopped yellow onion. I let the onion cook until it was softened a little, then added a can of black beans which I had previously rinsed thoroughly. The beans and onion cooked on medium high for a few minutes, then I added a can of diced tomatoes and a tiny pinch of sugar to balance out the acid. When everything was warmed through, I scooped it into a serving bowl and topped it with the crisp bits of bacon I'd rendered the fat from earlier. It was quite good for just sort of thinking it up on the fly, and while legumes aren't considered part of a "primal" or "paleo" diet, I think enjoying them every once in a while probably isn't that bad. :)

salmon with roasted asparagus and sauteed spinach

In an effort to be more healthy, I'm trying to transition our diet back to a focus on vegetables and protein and far less grains. Thus, tonight we had salmon and two different veggie sides!

I actually cooked the salmon and the asparagus together in a super hot (500 degree) oven. To prep the salmon, I just rolled it in some olive oil. The asparagus was the same, except I also sprinkled a little kosher salt over it. I arranged it all on the same pan and baked it for about 10 minutes at 500 degrees.

Sauteed spinach is something I really love, as there are so many different flavors you can incorporate into it. For this batch, I chopped up three slices of uncured bacon and cooked them until they got quite crisp. I scooped the bacon out and put it on some paper towel to drain while I chopped up half a white onion and sauteed that in the accumulated bacon fat (don't worry, it wasn't that much). When the onion was soft and golden brown, I added some balsamic vinegar and let it cook out for a minute or so. I added a whole bag of baby spinach to the hot pan and tossed it until the spinach wilted. So yummy!

spinach gnocchi

I had a can of San Marzano tomatoes sitting around, and basically I was just trying to come up with a vehicle for some tomato sauce this afternoon. Having an overabundance of leftover mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving got me thinking about gnocchi. The recipe seemed simple enough, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. I had a bag of baby spinach that needed to be used up too, so I figured I'd add it in.

In retrospect, the spinach made the process a bit harder than it likely needed to be. I squeezed all the water I thought that I could out of the cooked spinach, but it still contributed quite a lot of moisture to the dough. I found myself struggling to get enough flour into the dough to get it to hold together, but I did finally get it to a point where it worked. I'm glad I took the advice in the recipe (Mark Bittman to the rescue for the umpteenth time) and plopped a few of the gnocchi into the water to see how they cooked up before I went and rolled them and cut them all.

Once I got the dough to the right consistency, the whole process was pretty easy and had a rhythm to it that I enjoyed: roll out a rope, cut the bits off, roll off the tines of a fork, plop into the boiling water, give it a stir. By the time they were floating and ready to come out, the next batch was all cut, rolled and ready to go.

The gnocchi came out on the slightly chewy side, but I think it was because I really overworked the dough trying to get the right amount of flour into it. Even so, they had nice flavor (I put a little nutmeg in them) and went really well with the tomato sauce. The tomato sauce is just my normal formula of onions, San Marzano tomatoes, a few cloves of garlic, and some dried oregano, which is totally full of win and I would eat it on just about anything.