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Pork Chops with Pineapple Mustard Sauce

Weekends are special around our home. That is a time when we try new dishes and new twists on existing ones.

This weekend I prepared Pork Chops on the grill and ate them with two dishes a friend prepared: Rustic Roasted Garden Vegetables and “Turnover Salad.”

Pork Chop Dinner

Before grilling, the Pork Chops were brought to room temperature and seasoned with salt, ground pepper, garlic powder, and rubbed sage. The way to add sage to a dish is pour it out in your hands and rub your hands together over the dish allowing the sage to drop down seasoning the chops.

Grilled Pork Chops

What makes this dish special is the sauce.

Pineapple Mustard Sauce

PINEAPPLE MUSTARD SAUCE

Ingredients
1 c Pineapple pieces
1/3 c Mustard, spicy
2 t Sugar

Instructions
Place pineapple pieces in food processor and process until liquefied (I used my Ninja). Place liquefied pineapple in small pot with mustard and sugar and heat thoroughly. Spoon over grilled Pork Chops and Serve.

Crescent Roll Crust – Asparagus and Ham Quiche

I wanted to prepare quiche for breakfast but was looking for a lighter alternative for the crust since most quiche recipes call for a standard pie crust. Standard pie crusts are made with a lot of fat and tend to be somewhat heavy and have a flaky, crumbly texture.

I considered using puff pastry, but it is very high in fat and would not have provided the texture of the crust I had in mind. Another possibility I considered was phyllo dough, but that would have resulted in a crispy flaky crust. Plus, although phyllo dough itself is low in fat, in order to achieve the layers it is necessary to brush between each, usually with either melted butter or olive oil.

A friend (who not so coincidentally loves them) suggested using crescent rolls for the crust. Unaware of any other examples of using crescent rolls as crust for a quiche, I decide to try an experiment and use them.

Here are the results.

Crescent Roll Crust Asparagus and Ham Quiche

CRESCENT ROLL CRUST – ASPARAGUS AND HAM QUICHE

Ingredients
5 Crescent Rolls (I used low fat)

1 T Butter
8 Asparagus Spears, fresh
¼ Ham cubed
2 T Jalapeno pickled, chopped canned
1 c Spinach leaves, fresh chopped

4 Eggs
1 c Cream, heavy whipping
½ t Pepper

Smoked Gouda

Instructions
Open the package of crescent rolls. Lay out 5 of them into a 9 inch pie pan starting around the top edge and pressing the dough until it forms a complete crust.

Bake crescent roll pie crust in 350 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Trim off the fibrous end of the asparagus spears and cut into 1/2 inch segments. Saute in butter until soft, add cubed ham and cook until lightly browned. Heat jalapeno pieces with asparagus and ham then place in baked pie crust.

Whip eggs with cream and pepper then pour over asparagus, ham, and jalapenos.

Thinly slice smoked gouda and lay over the top totally covering the quiche.

Bake Quiche in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes, or until jiggling the pan indicates the middle is firm. The cheese will also start to brown.

This recipe resulted in a very creamy quiche with a perfect crust. I will definitely make this again.

Pie Crust Shield

NOTE: You will need to either use a collar of aluminum foil or a pie crust shield to prevent the crust from burning while the quiche is baking. I got my pie crust shield for a reasonable price at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Check after 15 minutes of baking and if the crust edge is browning cover with foil or pie crust shield for the remainder of the time in the oven.

BTW – I baked the remaining 3 crescent rolls on a separate pan while cooking the crust the first time.

Basic Review of Ebelskivers

First of all we want to apologize to all of you for our lack of posting last month, we also want to send a HUGE thank you to John for keeping things going.  Tiffany and I got married last month and it had taken a lot of our free time and unfortunately Lukewarm Legumes suffered.  The great news is we are happily married and have a lot of great posts just waiting to be composed!  Now to your regularly scheduled post about Ebelskivers.

I first heard of Ebelskivers in 2009 from Food Networks “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” series.  Celebrity Chef Aaron Sanchez  raved about this delectable little stuffed breakfast style pastries from Denmark.  I’ve wanted to try them or make them ever since, and recently that dream had become a reality.  Tiffany and I were out shopping and stumbled into Williams Sonoma, and picked up their Nordic Ware Ebelskiver Pan while a little pricey it’s a very well constructed pan.  My only complaint would be the design is not favorable for glass top ranges, which is what we have.  That said, as long as you are careful then I don’t think it’s a huge concern, but don’t come complaining to me if you scratch your glass cooktop.  This is more of a stationary pan, bring it up to temperature and leave it there, the only time it is moved is when you are removing the finished ebelskivers and returning it to the stove.

Before we jump too far ahead we want it to be known that we really enjoy ebelskivers and this is the first of a few posts you’ll see on the topic.  We’ve only made them 6 or so times now and all have been sweet, we have yet to gravitate towards the savory, but we will eventually!

The basic ebelskiver batter we use is very similar to pancake batter.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon(s) Sugar
1/2 teaspoon(s) Baking powder
1/4 teaspoon(s) Salt
2 whole(s) Eggs Separated
1 cup(s) Milk
2 tablespoon(s) Butter Melted and slightly cooled

Combine the dry ingredients, in separate bowl whisk together egg yolks, milk and butter, then combine with the dry ingredients – the batter will be lumpy.

Here is a picture of batter before folding in the beaten egg whites – please note this is a half batch.

ebelskiver batter

Whip the egg whites until stiff, fold in 1/3 at a time.

That’s it!

We typically add an extract to our batter, we’ve enjoyed coconut extract and vanilla extract but your creativity in balancing the filling to the batter is totally in your hands.  If you’re planning on a savory Ebelskiver then don’t use any extracts.

Next comes the cooking part, different people have different techniques but what I’ve found works best is to heat the pan to a med-low heat, have your filling ready, use a nonstick cooking spray or butter in the pan and then spoon in a generous tablespoon of batter into all of the ebelskiver openings. I’ve found it’s much better to under fill with batter than over fill, remember when you add your filling it displaces batter and fills up the rest of the cup.  Once the batter is in the pan quickly get your fillings into as close to the center of the batter as you can.   If you find you’re rushing too much turn the heat down a little.  As I mentioned before it’s much easier to have them a little on the small side than overly huge, however, as you’ll see in the image below the cups do fill up when you add the fillings.

Ebelskivers cooking

Another little trick I’ve been using since our first batch is that once the fillings are in I use my finger and kind of push the filling down and make sure it’s covered with batter.  The reason I do this is it typically produces an ebelskiver that is less likely to leak.  The image above is a cherry and chocolate sauce in coconut extract infused batter.

You’ll notice some bubbles when they are cooking, unlike with regular pancakes this is not an indication that they are ready to turn, even when the bubbles remain.  This just takes a little practice but after your first pan full you’ll have it down.

They sell a pair of sticks to flip/turn ebelskivers at Williams Sonoma for $13, we opted to just use wood skewers, the kind you use for grilling.  We also tried a high temperature slim silicon spatula and it didn’t work at all!  To flip them all you do is gently poke along one side and they should sort of start turning on their own, carefully help it make the complete flip and if you’ve over filled them gently, and carefully squish them into the pan.  You’ll know what I’m talking about if you do it, if you over fill them this is where it will become a problem.  When you try to flip an over filled ebelskiver it doesn’t fit back into the pan, the baking soda reacts and they grow when cooked.  If you do this and don’t squish them into the pan you end up with a most likely leaking ebelskiver that resembles a mushroom – they still taste great but it’s not a great demonstration of the technique used create what should be a uniform and sealed ebelskiver.

I typically plan for a single turn, that’s not to say you can’t flip them back over if you think they need more cooking but it shouldn’t be necessary if you are patient enough.  The finished product looks like what you see below.

ebelskiver's

 

You’ll notice some of these leaked and there is some uneven cooking, this was 100% my fault, this batch is one of our very first batches and we’ve gotten a lot better.  You can dip them in syrup, eat them as is, dust them with powdered sugar, whatever you feel is appropriate.

As I mentioned earlier we have become a big fan of these and we will follow up with additional posts on our success and failures (there have been a few), in the mean time we strongly suggest giving these tasty little stuffed pancakes a shot!

 

 

 

Vegan Party Guest

Anyone who entertains will sooner or later be faced with the prospect that one of the invited guests has nontraditional dietary needs. This is not something new because there have always been people who, because of a medical condition, conscience, or simply personal preference eat a diet different than others.

Our society continues to change, bringing with it added diversity. Greater mobility enables more of us to travel around the world to experience differing cultures.  The sharing of new and alternative ideas & perspectives predominates our communications. Medical research brings better understanding how foods and our diets affect our health both positively and negatively. All of this helps contribute to expanding dietary needs and expectations.

Being a thoughtful host who desires to be hospitable, making my guests comfortable and desiring to accommodate their needs, I contemplated “what would be the best approach to providing foods for the occasion when our guests have a variety of dietary expectations/needs?”

As I have mentioned before, for the birthdays of people who are close to me I have a standing offer to make for their birthday the meal and dessert of their choosing. This last weekend was the birthday of my son’s wife and she asked for Fettuccine Alfredo and Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Of course I was going to fulfill her request, but one anxiety I had is that one of the invited guests has adopted a dietary lifestyle that excludes meat AND dairy. Being that both Fettuccine Alfredo and Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting involve: butter, cheese, eggs, and milk I knew that if I as the host of the party did not make other arrangements, this particular guest would not have anything to eat.

Thankfully, I had inspiration for an experiment. Knowing that the majority of the invited guests preferred traditional dishes and were not familiar with eating Vegan, and were perhaps even repulsed by the idea, I conceived to make what she wanted using both traditional and Vegan recipes and serve them in parallel so the guests had the option to not only eat what they were familiar with but also be able to sample a Vegan alternative thereby providing them with a new experience and helping enlarge their world even more.

Dual Spread Vegan/Traditional

The menu for this party included: Green Salad with Vinaigrette and Ranch Dressings; Fettuccine with Traditional and Vegan Alfredo Sauce; Garlic Bread with Olive Oil & fresh minced Garlic; and both Traditional and Vegan versions of Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. The Traditional options are on the left of this picture and the Vegan options are on the right. (see below for recipes)

Traditional Alfredo Sauce

ALFREDO SAUCE (Traditional)

Ingredients
5 T Butter
4 T Flour

1 c Cream, heavy
1 ½ c Milk

4 Cloves Garlic minced *
½ t Salt
½ t White Pepper

1 c Parmesan Cheese
1 c Sour Cream

Instructions
Melt butter in pan over medium heat, add flour and blend to make a paste. Pour in milk & cream and whisk to remove any lumps. Stir in garlic, salt, and white pepper and heat thoroughly. Add Parmesan Cheese and Sour Cream. Stir until blended and bubbly. Add more milk if needed to produce the desired consistency.

Serve over Fettuccine Pasta cooked al dente.

* You can substitute 1 t Garlic Powder for the fresh garlic, if necessary.

Vegan Alfredo Sauce

ALFREDO SAUCE ( Vegan)

Ingredients
1/3 c Olive oil
4 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
½ Onion, yellow chopped

16 oz pkg Tofu, soft (drained)

2 T Basil, dried
2 T Parsley, dried
8 oz can Mushrooms, sliced (drained)
½ t Black pepper
½ t Salt, Kosher

Instructions
Sauté onion and garlic in Olive oil.

Liquefy in blender.

Add Tofu to garlic/oil mixture and blend until smooth and creamy.

Put tofu mixture in saucepan, add basil, parsley, mushrooms, salt & pepper and heat thoroughly.

Serve over Fettuccine Pasta cooked al dente.

Traditional Chocolate Cake

CHOCOLATE CAKE (Traditional)

For the Chocolate Cake I tried a new recipe called “The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever” and was very pleased with how it turned out.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING (Traditional)

Ingredients
8 oz pkg Cream cheese (softened)
1/2 c Butter, softened
1 c Powdered sugar
1 t Vanilla

Instructions
Blend Cream Cheese with Butter. Mix in powdered sugar gradually and blend until smooth. Add vanilla.

Vegan Chocolate Cake

CHOCOLATE CAKE (Vegan)

Ingredients
3 c Flour, cake
2 c Sugar
6 T Cocoa powder
2 t Baking soda
2 t Baking powder
1 t Salt, Kosher

2 c water
3/4 c Vegetable oil
2 T Vinegar, white
2 t Vanilla

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix dry ingredients together. Mix in wet ingredients just before baking and continue mixing until you obtain an even batter.

Pour into 13 x 9 cake pan and bake for approximately 40 minutes.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING (Vegan)

Ingredients
1/2 c Cream cheese, Vegan *
1/2 c Margarine, Vegan **
1 c Powdered sugar
1 t Vanilla

Instructions
Blend Cream Cheese with Margarine. Mix in powdered sugar gradually and blend until smooth. Add vanilla.

* VEGAN CREAM CHEESE

Ingredients
1 c Tofu, firm
2 T Vegetable Oil
3 T Lemon Juice
1 T Sugar
1/2 t Salt, Kosher

Instructions
Combine all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. Pour into a bowl and chill.

** VEGAN MARGARINE
Earth Balance Brand Margarine

I used Earth Balance Brand Whipped Margarine which is both Vegan and Organic

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Most of the guests at least sampled both versions of the dishes (Traditional and Vegan). Some rejected the Vegan option solely because it was Vegan or that the Vegan version contained Tofu. The guests who at least tried both versions were surprised that they tasted so good and said they never would have guessed they were Vegan if I hadn’t told them. My Vegan guest took what was left of the Vegan Fettuccine Alfredo and had it for lunch the next day.