Apple Sweet Potato Bake

In my last posting, I made this yummy Stuffed Pork Roast.  I was surprised at how well it turned out!  I needed a side dish to go with it, so I pulled out this recipe.  When we were in Massachusetts over Thanksgiving, my mother in law had this Kraft magazine that had a bunch of recipes.  Many of them were FAR from paleo, but this one seemed promising.  By the time we had gotten back to Virginia, my sister in law, Tracee, had texted me saying that it was really good!  So here it is... with a few minor twists, of course!

Apple- Bacon Sweet Potato Bake

* 1 large onion, chopped

* 6 slices bacon, chopped

* 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

* 2 apples (I used Braeburn), peeled and chopped

* 1/2 cup apple cider (no sugar or anything added- just apples)

* 1 tsp. ground cinnamon

* 1/4 cup chopped pecans

This recipe was easy peasy.  First, preheat the oven to 350.  Then throw the chopped bacon into a pan on medium high heat and let it get nice and crispy.  Once it's crispy, turn the heat down to medium low and remove the bacon to a separate plate.  Keep the bacon fat in there because that's what you'll cook the onions in.  Make sure you let the fat cool down a bit because you don't want to fry the onions, just make them soft. So you throw the onions in there and cook until soft.  Then add the bacon back to the pan for another minute or two.

While all the bacon and onions were cooking, I took the time to chop up the apples and the sweet potatoes.  Then, in a baking dish, just throw the cubed sweet potatoes and the apples.  Mix them up so they are all combined nicely. 

Next, you'll add in the apple cider and cinnamon.  Then, you'll mix everything up so it's evenly distributed.  You could use a spoon to make sure it's evenly distributed, but I think using your hands is easier and faster... and why dirty a spoon when you don't need to, right?

 

Next, pour the bacon and onion mixture over the sweet potato and apple mixture.  Then, cover the dish with some aluminum foil and pop it in the oven.

It will bake for 40 minutes, then you pull it out and remove the aluminum foil.  Top it with the chopped pecan pieces, and then put it back in the oven, without the aluminum foil top.  You'll just bake it for another 10 minutes or so.  I baked mine a bit longer because I like it to the point that it is nicely browned.

So there you have it! Super simple and really really tasty.  It'd probably taste good as a side to anything, but I think it'd be best with a lighter meat like pork or chicken.  Hopefully you'll like it as much as I do!

Enjoy!

Jenn

Happy Birthday Mom

I absolutely love living so close to my parents. They are about 10 minutes down the road, so we get to spend time with them. For my mom's birthday, Curt and I thought that it would be nice to have them over for dinner at our place rather than go to a boring old restaurant. I decided to make a feast, so here's what was on the menu!

• Mussels Josephine (My mom's name is Josephine, so I thought it was perfect!)
• Steak Au Poivre
• Roasted Potatoes
• Raspberry Tiramisu

Mussels Josephine

If you haven't had the Mussels Josephine from Bonefish grill, you are completely missing out! I love the way the sauce has a garlicky, lemony, licoricey (is that a word?) taste. It's delicious to dip the mussels in... when you're out of mussels, it's perfect to dip in fresh, warm bread! I found a copycat recipe online. The only problem I have with cooking mussels is that I get annoyed when you buy a whole bunch of them and some of them are dead. I always wash them and if some of them are open a little bit, I tap them on the counter to see if they close... if they do then they are still alive and ok, but if not, you have to throw them away.

http://www.mrarticle./com/food-and-drink/mussels-josephine-recipe/

Here's a picture of what they look like! I just followed the recipe, except I doubled the recipe for the lemon butter sauce since that's my favorite part!

Steak Au Poivre

Traditionally, this recipe calls for the steaks to be crusted in black peppercorns, but, of course, I made my own modifications!

• 1 tbs black pepper
• 1 tbs kosher salt
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 2 tbs butter
• 1/3 cup Brandy
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 small ribeye steaks
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• 3 minced garlic cloves

First, I let the steaks come to room temperature so that they would cook evenly. Then I patted them dry with a paper towel. I covered both sides of the ribeyes in a mixture of the pepper and kosher salt, then set aside. Next, I heated a pan to high heat and melted the butter with a little bit of the olive oil so that the butter wouldn't burn. If you just put butter in the pan, it would burn a lot faster than the butter and olive oil. I wanted to sear the outsides of the steak to capture all of the flavor. Once the pan was nice and hot, I added the steaks and didn't touch for about 2 minutes. If you want to form a nice crust, you can't touch the steaks... just let them cook. After 2 minutes, flip the steaks and let them cook for 2 more, then remove to a plate.

In the pan, I added a bit more olive oil and then, once that was warm, I added the onions and garlic and sauteed until tender. Steak Au Poivre really isn't supposed to have the onions or garlic, or the mushrooms, for that fact, but I love the flavors they add, so I added them. :)

After cooking the onions and garlic, I added in the brandy to deglaze the pan. Since Curt and I really don't drink brandy, I just bought a few small airplane bottles from the ABC store. The brandy did a good job of deglazing the pan (this means that all the yummy brown bits from the steaks cooking and the onion and garlic, were dissolved into the brandy which helps to flavor the base of the sauce that the steaks will finish cooking in.

After adding in the brandy, I added the sliced mushrooms. I had button mushrooms, so that's what I used, but I bet that portobello mushrooms would taste delicious! Once they were cooked, I added in the heavy cream and stirred until it thickened a bit. I think I added a bit more salt and pepper until I found a taste that was just right!

Once the sauce was made, I returned the steaks to the pan with the sauce and let the steaks continue to cook through. For a rare steak, (like Curt likes) I cooked it for about 5-8 minutes. For the others (medium rare), it took about 10-12 minutes.

So overall, it wasn't exactly traditional, but it was really good!!!

Roasted Potatoes

This is a easy go-to recipe for me. Curt and I love potatoes... baked... fried... mashed...scalloped... and roasted!
* 2 lbs of red potatoes
* 2 tbs olive oil
* 2 tsp garlic salt
* 2 sprigs fresh rosemary, finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. I cut the potatoes into chunks about 1 inch thick and put them on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. Then I just sprinkled the olive oil, rosemary, and garlic salt over the potatoes. With my hands, I just tossed everything together until it was throughly covered, then popped them in the oven. I made sure to move the potatoes around and stir them every 15 minutes for about 45 minutes, or until they were a nice, golden brown!

Raspberry Tiramisu

I stole this recipe from Giada De Laurentiis... http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/raspberry-tiramisu-recipe/index.html

I wanted a nice summery dessert and thought a trifle would be perfect! This recipe was absolutely amazing, although it was a bit intense to make because you needed so many little steps to put it all together... the result was well worth it though!

• 1 cup seedless raspberry jam
• 6 tbs orange liqueur
• 8 oz mascarpone cheese
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 28 lady fingers
• 3 baskets of fresh raspberries

In a small bowl, mix the raspberry jam and 4 tbs of the orange liqueur. In a separate bowl, combine the mascarpone and cream cheeses with the remaining 2 tbs of orange liqueur. In yet another bowl, combine the whipping cream and vanilla. Mix with a hand mixer until stiff peaks form (for a short cut, just buy some Cool whip or ready made whipped cream!). Once the stiff peaks form, slowly fold in the mascarpone cheese mixture until combined.














In the trifle bowl, line the bottom with a layer of lady fingers. Brush the tops with the jam mixture, then layer the whipped cream/mascarpone cheese mixture. Lastly, add a basket of the fresh raspberries on top. Then you just repeat until you are out of ingredients. I think that I made 3 layers... but I'm not 100% sure. Once assembled, cover and let it all set in the refrigerator for a few hours.

The flavors were delicious and after the steak au poivre, this was a great way to end the dinner. It was a great dessert that was satisfying and not too heavy!

Our DELICIOUS dinner!

I know I said that I'd update the blog again tomorrow, but I was so excited about how well dinner turned out tonight that I had to just do a quick update tonight!

The Menu

Garlic Bread

Stuffed Pork Loin

Potato Tart

Green Beans

I had already planned to do a stuffed pork loin for lunches for the week, but since Curt was coming home early, I decided to make it as part of our dinner and we'd have the leftovers as lunch.

One thing that I'm trying to get better at is using the ingredients I have in the house before they go bad. I usually have extra ingredients left over after making the recipes and consequently will have 1 odd potato or a few slices of cheese that will go bad.... so I've been determined to concoct some tasty recipes from them. It was this determination that helped me come up with the potato tart! But first things first:

Stuffed Pork Loin

Again, I don't really have a recipe for this per se. I intended to make stuffed pork chops, but the Asian grocery store didn't have any... they did have a very pretty looking pork loin. So I decided to cut it up and stuff it and then bake the whole thing. (Sorry, I forgot to take pictures while I was assembling most of it!)

1 pork loin

1 bag baby spinach

2 cloves garlic minced

1 cup cremini mushrooms, cut in half

1/2 small onion, minced

5 slices of smoked gouda

6 slices of bacon

In a large skillet, I cooked 3 slices of bacon, then removed, drained and crumbled them, placing them in a separate bowl. Keeping the bacon fat in the pan, I added the minced onions, garlic, and mushrooms and sauteed until all were tender. Once they were almost completely cooked, I added the bag of baby spinach and sauteed it until it was all wilted. I then added the mixture to the crumbled bacon and set aside.
For the pork loin, I cut it in sort of a spiral, so that it opened up flat. I then pounded it a bit with a meat tenderizer (well I would have used a meat tenderizer if I had one... instead, I used a rolling pin). Once it was flattened a little bit, I seasoned it with some salt and pepper, then I layered the gouda cheese, then spread the spinach mixture on top. Then I rolled the whole pork loin up, jelly roll style. I made sure the pork loin was rolled very tightly and wrapped it tightly in saran wrap to keep its form. I then put it in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up.
Once it was chilled a bit, I pulled it back out and unwrapped it, leaving the seam of the pork loin facing down. I draped the last 3 slices of bacon over the top of the pork loin as well. I wanted the fat from the bacon to sort of keep the pork moist since it has a tendency to dry out. In a large skillet, I added a little bit of olive oil and turned the heat on high. I wanted to sear the bottom seam so that it wouldn't fall apart in the oven. I placed the pork loin in the hot oil for 5 minutes and didn't move it. Once it was seared, I moved it to an oven safe dish and baked it at 350. I don't remember how long I baked it, I just kept checking on it to see if it was cooked all the way through.
It was really yummy! I love the way that gouda melts and leaves its smokey flavor on the whole pork loin.


Garlic Bread

I had bought a loaf of french bread for our church group dinner last night, but unfortunately forgot it in my car. By the time I realized it, the loaf of bread had started to dry out a bit, so I sliced up half of it to make some garlic bread and then sliced the rest and left it in a bowl to dry out. I'll make bread crumbs out of it tomorrow (again with the not wanting to waste extra food).

• 4 tbs butter, at room temp
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tsp Italian Seasoning
• crusty French bread

Because the oven was already at 350, I decided to roast the garlic cloves a bit to bring out the flavors. I just stuck the 2 cloves in the oven on a cookie sheet and let them roast until they were soft, about 10 minutes. Once they were nice and soft, I removed the cloves from the "paper" and put them in a small bowl. After they had cooled a little bit, I added the butter and Italian seasonings and mixed with a fork until well combined. Then I just spread the mixture on both sides of the slices of bread and put on a cookie sheet and baked for 4 minutes per side (or until golden brown).

Potato Tart
I got the idea for this when I was watching "the next food network star" Yes... it's a favorite show of mine and it's addicting! Anyway, one of the contestants, Melissa (who is my pick to win), made a potato tart. I had a little bit of extra pie crust and 1 extra potato from the pot pies, and a few slices of bacon and gouda from the pork loin. I thought this would be the PERFECT way to use the random extras that I had... Granted, I had no idea how to make a potato tart, but I made it up and absolutely LOVED it!

• 1 baking potato
• 1 refrigerator pie crust
• 4 slices of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup of flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 8 slices of gouda

I pricked the potato with a fork and stuck it in the microwave for 5 minutes to give it a preliminary cook through. While it was cooking, I rolled out the pie crust and placed it in a pie pan that somehow found its way to my kitchen. I then layered a few slices of the gouda on the bottom. Once the potato was finished in the microwave, I sliced it into thin slices (to make sure it was all completely cooked). I layered about half of the potato on top of the cheese and then added half of the bacon pieces. I then repeated the layer by adding more gouda


, potato and bacon and topped with the leftover gouda.

In a separate bowl, I whisked together the egg, flour, milk, salt and pepper until it was light and well combined. I then poured the mixture over the potato/cheese/bacon mixture and added the tart to the pretty well stocked oven. Since the potatoes were almost cooked before baking, it only took about 20 minutes to finish up. The result was delicious! It was definitely one of my favorite creations ever! You all should definitely try it sometime! I'm sure you can add other yummy recipe extras too like broccoli, mushrooms, onions, etc...













Oh yeah... the green beans... nothing fancy there! I just steamed them in my steamer and tossed with a little bit of olive oil and garlic salt! (I can't make EVERYTHING gourmet) haha