Pork tenderloin stuffed with feta and artichokes

I really like pork tenderloin it cooks quickly and it is low in fat, so really it is like a chicken breast.  And like a chicken breast it needs a little help in the flavour and moisture area.  I came up with this recipe the other night when I had a pork tenderloin in the fridge and a large container of feta cheese to use.

My husband loves feta cheese, artichoke hearts and mushrooms, so 2 out of 3 aren't bad!

To feed 2 big eaters or 3 or 4 light eaters. (This fed us 2 for dinner and one for lunch the next day.

1 pork tenderloin
1 cup of crumbled feta cheese
1 small jar of artichoke hearts quartered
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 cup of white wine

Butterfly the tenderloin which I described in pork tenderloin stuffed with mushrooms. Sprinkle the feta over the pork and top with the artichoke hearts.

Roll up and either tie with twine or pin closed with bamboo skewers, which is what I did this time. Cut off the long ends of the skewers.

Add the olive oil to a preheated ovenproof frying pan and brown the pork all over.

Easy roast chicken with carrots and potatoes

I guess it is no secret I love roast chicken, I love the smell of it cooking, I love crispy chicken skin and I love the versatility of it.  Chicken goes with so many flavours and is a staple in just about every culture in the world. Sunday night I was feeling like roast chicken and decided to do another riff on the chicken legs cooked on a bed of vegetables.

I kept this very simple letting the taste of the wonderful free range chicken shine through. There was 4 for dinner that evening, so I used four whole chicken legs cut in half and a whole de boned breast.  I was hoping to have a couple of pieces left over for lunch, but I was sadly disappointed.

To feed 4

2 pieces of cut up chicken per person (maybe extra if they are hungry)
1 medium potato per person cut into chunks
1 carrot per person sliced thickly
1/2 small onion per person or 2 green onions per person chopped
2 cloves of garlic sliced for 4 people
Sprig of rosemary
2 tablespoons of olive oil

Place the potatoes, carrots, onion and garlic in the bottom of a roasting tin. Drizzle with olive oil salt and pepper and toss together.

Easy mediteranean Pork chops

Saturday night I was looking for something easy to make and since we have such cold weather right now, I wanted a dish that would cook long and slow in the oven.  I used the oven because I was at home, but in fact this would have been good in the slow cooker too.  I did not get inspiration from anything but what I found in my fridge and freezer, as I did not want to go shopping.  What I had was 4 pork chops, a can of crushed tomatoes from the summer, and some olives, so for a very cold mid winter evening I came up with a dish with a taste of summer.

This made enough for 4 or 2 for dinner and 2 lunches to pack to work!

4 pork chops
1 quart of home canned tomatoes or Italian jar of tomato puree
1 large garlic clove sliced
8 pitted olives cut in half
the zest of one lemon taken off with a potato peeler

Place the pork chops in a casserole and top with the remaining ingredients and a little salt and pepper.

Cover with a tight fitting lid and place in a 350 oven for 2 hours, during which time you can busy yourself with quilting, and preparing for Christmas.

Indian spiced marinated roasted chicken

I was having some long time friends over for dinner on Saturday.  It was a good job that they were good friends as we were redoing our main floor bathroom. On Saturday morning, not only was the bathroom gutted and empty the entire main floor was covered in a thick layer of drywall dust and littered with plumbing supplies and tools.  Amazingly with a lot of help from friends and family by 6:00 the worst of the dust was gone as were all the plumbing supplies and we had a working bathroom!

This is a recipe that I have done many times, it is easy can be done ahead and is incredibly tasty.
I was cooking for 12, but I will give the ingredients for 6, but having a little left over chicken is never a bad thing. I used chicken thighs as they are my favourite part of the chicken, but you could use 6 breasts or even a whole chicken cut up.

1 cup of yogurt
1 teaspoon of garam masala
1 teaspoon of chili powder
1 teaspoon of turmeric
one clove of garlic grated or through a garlic press
1" of fresh ginger grated
1/2 teaspoon of salt
12 chicken thighs

5 spice duck breast

I had promised my Father when were in Naramata earlier this summer that I would cook one of his favourite things, duck breast, when we returned home.  So last week we went down to Granville Island and picked up two magret duck breasts.  We chose these as they were far more substantial than the regular breasts.  As it turned out it was a good job that we did as we had an unexpected guest for dinner and there was plenty of meat for three.  I love asian style duck and so decided to use some chinese 5 spice to flavour the duck.

2 duck breasts
2 tablespoons of 5 spice
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of white wine

Score the skin in diamond shapes (being careful to cut through the fat but not the meat) this helps the fat to render out. Rub the 5 spice and salt all over the breasts.

Place them skin side down in a heated frying pan and cook on medium high to high until most of the fat has melted and rendered out of the skin.  I poured about a cup of delicious duck fat in to a container to use at a later date to cook some potatoes in.

When the skin is crispy and most of the fat has rendered off pour as much fat off as you can and turn the breasts over.

Chicken with white wine, olive and caper sauce

A couple of weeks ago when I went to Ruby lake resort I had tuna with a wonderful olive caper sauce on it. I thought at the time that this would be a good sauce for chicken breasts, which need a little kick to pump up their flavour.  After sailing on Sunday afternoon, I made this for 5 sitting out  on our deck, but in fact it would not be a stretch to make this for just one as well.

For 4 people

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/2 cup of pitted green olives
1 large garlic clove
1/4 cup of capers
1/2 cup of white wine.
handful of parsley

Bash the chicken breasts with a rolling pin to even out the thickness.  This really helps them to cook evenly, if you leave them with a thicker end I find that the thinner end dries out before the thicker end is cooked through.  Add the olive oil in a large frying pan, then add the chicken breasts.

While the chicken is cooking add everything except the white wine into a mini chopper.

If you don't have one (you really should think about getting one) then chop everything together on a large board or use a mezza luna.

Slow cooked roast beef for a crowd

This is a good method for cooking a cheaper cut of beef if you are feeding a crowd.  Unless you are being reimbursed some of the costs of the meal roast prime rib is not the way to go if you have a lot of people to provide a roast beef meal for.  Also traditional roasting of a good cut of beef can be a bit finicky as you have to get the timing exactly right or you can serve raw meat or over cooked dry meat.

This is simple fool proof and importantly very tasty. You do not want to use a very tough cut, a sirloin tip works fine, just make sure that there is some marbling of fat, but not too much.

I am afraid it is hard to give exact measurements here, so I will give proportions, as it really depends on the size of the beef roast and how many you want to feed.  But it will work for a family of 4 or a party of 40.

Spice rub

1/3 salt
1/3 paprika
1/3 fresh ground black pepper

Rub the spice rub all over the beef.

Then double wrap in foil and place in a roasting tin.

Barbecued chicken thighs.

I felt like some barbecued chicken on Saturday night so I made a quick marinade for some chicken thighs.  I used what I had on hand and I was pleased with the results. There were only going to be 4 of us, but at the last minute it morphed into 6, so we had to stretch the meat a little.

Feeds 4 comfortably, 6 in a pinch

8 chicken thighs
1 hot pepper
handful of cilantro
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon of honey
6 cherry tomatoes
1 tablespoon of chipotle chilli powder
salt and pepper

Add all the ingredients to a food processor, a mini one is best, and wizz until it has created a marinade.  I did everything except the tomatoes first and then added them.

Pour over the chicken.

Meyer lemon custard

Over 20 years ago I went to Greens restaurant in San Francisco for the first time and we ordered the meyer lemon custard.  I had never had meyer lemon and you could not possible get them up here in Canada.  But that custard sticks in my mind as being one of the best desserts I can remember having.  Meyer lemons are rounder than regular lemons and though they have a lemon flavour they are not nearly as sour. Any way when I found 3 meyer lemons in the fridge at Pender Harbour I had to try and recreate that memorable custard. If you are not lucky enough to stumble upon meyer lemons in your fridge or the store, then you could use oranges or regular lemons just up the amount of sugar.

2 of the 4 of us are lactose intolerant and so I used lactaid milk and it was fine, I am sure I could not tell the difference. You could make these richer (and higher in calories) by using coffee cream.

 4 eggs
1/2 cup of sugar
3 cups milk
3 meyer lemons

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Whisk eggs and sugar in a bowl until lightly beaten.

Add milk, the zest of one lemon and the juice of all three then beat until incorporated. Pour mixture into six  ramekins or 4 ramekins and one larger dish if that is all you have . Arrange  in a roasting tin and pour enough water into the roasting tin to cover ramekins halfway up the sides.

Butterflied roast chicken over sausage stuffing

Looking for inspiration for dinner at Pender Harbour, Connie and I went to The Oak Tree Market our go to place for meat when we at Maderia Park.  They usually have a good choice of very good quality meats and home made sausage. This day it was a free range chicken that called out along with some Tuscany turkey sausage.

Roast chicken is one of the ulitmate comfort foods for me with crisp slightly salty skin and a flavourful stuffing.  I have taken to butterflying chicken to roast a fair bit recently. It makes it cook quicker and by opening it out and placing on top of a stuffing of some kind it means that all the cooking juices soak in to whatever it is topping.

Stuffing

4 slices of bread cubed

1/2 red onion chopped

sprig of fresh sage 

3 sticks of celery chopped 

1lb of good sausage meat.

Combine all the stuffing ingredients in a bowl.

Mix thoroughly, the hands are really best for this and place in to a roasting tin, piling it up so that it is about the same size as the chicken that is to be placed on top.

Open up the chicken and place on top.  smear with a little olive oil and a good sprinkle of salt.  Then tuck some fresh rosemary in and around the chicken.

Veal picante/piccata

I am lucky enough to be London visiting old friends and attending an old school friends, daughters wedding.  The first few days I am staying in central London with the woman who used to baby sit me when I was little, so really we are more like family.  When I come to stay with her it is a pleasure to gather local food and cook dinners for the family.

I love veal and this is something that is hard to get in Vancouver, so when I saw some lovely looking veal at the local butchers I had to get some. At home I often use chicken breast or pork to replace the veal, but what a treat to find the real thing. I cooked it the way I like it best which is somewhere in between Veal Picante and Veal Piccata.

To feed 4
4 veal escalopes (or 2 large cut in half which is what we did)
2 tablespoons of flour
1 tablespoon of olive oil
4 green onions
1/3 cup of white wine
juice of one lemon
2 heaped tablespoons of capers
hand full of chopped parsley.

Beat out the escalopes until they are nice and thin and season well with salt and pepper.

Dredge in the flour so that they have a light dusting all over.

Meanwhile heat the olive oil in a frying pan and when it is hot add the veal.

shredded beef on a bun

This Saturday I had a surprise party for my husband who has just retired. He was taken sailing by a couple friends for the afternoon, and so I could only start cooking after he had gone, so the menu had to be simple and quick.  I did put the beef in the crock pot before he left, but apparently he did not notice that I had put in enough for 20!

This made enough 20 people with sadly no left overs, but it would be easy to shrink down for a more reasonable number.

Beef pot roast (I did one pot roast and 4 large braising steaks)
2 cups of tomato puree
1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon of chipotle chili powder
1 teaspoon of Cinnamon
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of coriander
4 garlic cloves sliced
1 lime cut up

Sauce
2 tablespoons of sirachi sauce (or more to taste)
1/4 cup of tomato ketchup
1 tablespoon of brown sugar

Place the beef in a crock pot along with the lime.

Combine all the  other ingredients in large jug.

Stuffed pork tenderloin nuggets

I struggled with what to name this dish, as stuffed pork tenderloin sounds like a whole tenderloin stuffed, but nuggets does sound like you would buy it at MacDonalds! Anyway since I can not remember what Jamie Oliver called it, that is what I am calling it.  This is another dish from the sleepless night with Jamie and it would make a really good weeknight dinner, but we had it for dinner on a girls weekend in Whistler.

This made enough for 6

2 large pork tenderloins
About 1 cup of goat feta cheese
125 grams prosciutto
2 tablespoon olive oil
About 4 tablespoons of balsamic reduction

Cut the pork tenderloin in to 2 inch slices.

Quick and easy jerk style pork tenderloin

The other night I was suffering from insomia, this happens about once a month or so, and when it does, I get up and find something to watch on the tv or utube, or perhaps a season of Downton abbey on the ipad.  Well this evening I started watching 15 minute meals by Jamie Oliver.  I watched many episodes, I really like the way he cooks, we have similar styles, fast and furious and when we are finished the kitchen is a disaster.  In these shows he talks a lot about getting dinner on the table in under 15 minutes, but he does not discuss how long it takes to clean up afterwards.

This recipe comes from that night of Jamie Oliver, he was using some interesting techniques to speed up cooking processes and this sauce was one of them.  The ingredients are based on what I remember and what I had in my fridge. This made enough for 2 of us for dinner and 3 lunches for me.  I am lucky in that I am quite happy to eat the same thing for lunch several days in a row as long as it is something I like.

2 pork tenderloin
2 tablespoons of ground coriander
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tomatoes
1/2 red onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 inch piece of ginger
1 small red chili pepper
handful of mint
handful of cilantro
1 teaspoon of honey
Juice of one lemon
1 tablespoon of vinegar

This sounds like a long list of ingredients but it comes together really quickly.  Cut the pork tenderloin into 1 inch slices.

Roast pork tenderloin with roast vegetables

I really like pork tenderloin, it is pork and I love pork, but it also low fat and tender, and therefore fits in with my healthy eating plan right now.  I picked up a couple of pork tenderloin's from Hopcott's and though there was only two of us for dinner, I decided to cook them both, so that I had left overs for dinner or lunch during the week.

This is a one dish meal (less washing up) and with an addition of a green salad is healthy and very tasty. I used potatoes, carrots and fennel, because that is what I had in the fridge, but winter squash, eggplant or red peppers would have been great too.

Enough for 4

2 pork tenderloins
grated zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of chili powder
4 medium potatoes
4 large carrots
1 bulb of fennel
1 sprig of rosemary
2 cloves of garlic
3 tablespoons of olive oil.

Toss the vegetables with the garlic, 2 tablespoons of olive oil  and rosemary and place in a roasting tin.

Put this in a pre heated 400 oven for about 15 minutes.  While this is cooking prepare the pork tenderloin, by rolling it in the spices and lemon zest.

Sour cream chicken

I am always on the look out for quick and easy (and low fat) dishes to make for dinner.  I saw on Pinterest a recipe for cooking chicken breasts with sour cream on top, which seemed like a good idea, but they had added a packet of ranch salad dressing powder.  I do not like to cook with packages of anything, as then I am not sure how much salt and chemicals I am getting and any way often I do not like the taste.  So I took the idea and changed it up a little.

Feeds two

1 clove of garlic crushed or grated
1/2 cup of grated parmasan cheese
4 tablespoons of low fat sour cream (not no fat)
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

Place the chicken breasts in a small baking dish.

Combine the sour cream garlic and most of the cheese and spread over the chicken.

Tray baked chicken with orange and olives

Friday night I was going to a party planning dinner, we are planning a reunion for the group that went to Ecuador with us in the fall.  We were getting to together to plan the menu and games etc for the party, but dinner had to be provided as it was straight after work.  I offered to bring the ingredients for the main course, as I am trying to keep my diet low fat and as healthy as possible, so I chose boneless skinless chicken breasts as my protein.  This is not my favourite cut of chicken as they can be dry and do not have as much flavour as the dark meat, especially with the skin on, but definitely lean.

Rather blurry picture of finished dish

I was going to fall back on my old standby lemon roast chicken but I really wanted to try something new. So I went down to Granville Island and picked up the chicken breasts and some beautiful sun dried Moroccan olives and threw this together.

Feeds 6
6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (or skin on chicken pieces would be wonderful)
Grated rind of 2 oranges
Juice of one orange
1 red onion chopped
1/2 cup of pitted olives any kind would do, but these Moroccan olives were wonderful
Cut up potatoes I used about 18 fingerling potatoes cut in pieces but any small potato would do
Handful of fresh tarragon chopped
3 tablespoons of olive oil.

Cut the chicken breasts in to pieces.  I cut each one into about 4 large chunks. Then throw everything into a large shallow roasting tin.

Season with salt and pepper then toss everything with your hands and spread evenly over the dish.

Slow cooker Asian beef

I recently bought a freezer back of beef from Hopcott's, so my freezer is full of beef looking to be used.  Much of it is the less tender cuts that need to be cooked slow and long, which really I prefer as they have so much flavour.  Also I have replaced my slow cooker which died last fall and so I was looking to make a dish that I could throw in to cook when I leave for work and have waiting ready to eat when I came home.

Sauce

1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup of hoi sin sauce
1 garlic clove chopped
1" piece of fresh ginger chopped
1 tablespoon of Sriracha sauce (optional)

The night before combine all the ingredients ready for the morning.  Of course you could do this in the morning, but I never have that much time.

Next morning pour over the beef in a slow cooker, I used two braising steaks.

Set the slow cooker to low and leave for work, or cook for 7 hours.

Asian pulled pork

It is no secret that pulled pork is one of my all time favourite things to eat, and since it was my birthday too, along with 3 others this weekend, this was my vision. Not only is pulled pork delicious but a great choice for feeding a crowd, the cut of pork is cheap and really you can not overcook it so there are no timing issues. This weekend with 12 ladies for three days both these considerations were key.  Unfortunately I forgot my camera and I was relying on others to take pictures so I do not have a picture of the finished dish, but here is a picture of the view I was enjoying in the kitchen each day.

Nancy picked up a large pork butt roast at Hopcotts with the vision of pulled pork in mind. I decided to change the flavours up a bit. I have made it with Indian flavours and Southwest or Mexican flavours, but this time I decided to use Asian flavours.

Pork butt roast
1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup of low sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons of fish sauce
Thumb size piece of ginger thinly sliced
2 large garlic cloves thinly sliced.