by jphilo | Mar 26, 2014 | Recipes
This recipe has been a family favorite since the first year Hiram and I were married. We found it in the cookbook that came with the crock pot we received as a wedding present in 1977. This pork roast recipe receive the coveted Hiram seal of approval long before the award was invented. It’s easy, delicious, and wows people at dinner parties. Without further ado, here’s one of my all time favorite recipes.
Oriental Pork Roast with Gravy
2 – 3 pound pork roast 1 small onion, thinly sliced
1/3 cup soy sauce 1 clove garlic, minced
Place pork roast in crock pot. Pour soy sauce over roast. Sprinkle roast with minced garlic. Arrange sliced onion on top. Turn crock pot on low setting and cook for 8 – 10 hours. Twenty minutes before serving, lift roast onto a serving platter. Slice meat and cover it to keep it warm.
To make gravy, pour drippings into a measuring cup. Skim off fat. Add water to drippings until you have 1 ¾ cups of liquid. Put liquid in a saucepan. Blend together 1/3 cup flour and ½ cup water. Slowly add flour mixture to liquid in the saucepan. Heat, stirring constantly, until liquid comes to a rolling boil. Turn down heat and let it boil gently for a few minutes. Pour into a gravy boat and serve with the meat.
by jphilo | Mar 19, 2014 | Recipes
Apologies and more apologies for posting this recipe for Baked Corn Beef two days after St. Patty’s Day. But since the dish received the coveted Hiram Seal of Approval, I’m posting it now instead of waiting until next year.
Corn beef with cabbage is not my favorite meal, at least not the boiled version. (It’s a texture thing.) But this baked version, found at the Simply Recipes website, was very, very good. Good enough that when corn beef was on sale last week, I picked up a couple packages and froze them for future use.
Baked Corn Beef
3 pounds corn beef
10 whole cloves
1/4 cup sweet, hot honey mustard
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Preheat oven to 350°F. Take the corned beef from the package and discard the spice packet. To reduce the salt content, place meat in a pot fat side up. Cover with water, bring to a boil on top of the stove. Discard the water, add fresh water and bring to a boil again. Again discard the water.
Lay the corned beef, fat side up, on a large piece of heavy duty, wide, aluminum foil. Poke the cloves into the top of the slab of corned beef, evenly spaced. Spread the top with the hot sweet honey mustard. Sprinkle with brown sugar.
Wrap the corned beef with foil so there’s space between the top of the corned beef and the foil. This creates a way for the foil to catch the juices. Place foil-wrapped corned beef in a shallow roasting pan and bake for 2 hours.
Fold back the foil from the top, spread a little more honey mustard over the corned beef, and broil it for 2-3 minutes, until the top is bubbly and lightly browned.
Let rest for 5 to 10 minutes on a cutting board. Pull out cloves and discard. Cut the meat at a diagonal across the grain into 1/2-inch thick slices. Serve with sauteed cabbage.
The recipe for sauteed cabbage, as well as traditional boiled corn beef and cabbage can be found at Simply Recipes Corn Beef and Cabbage. Luck o’ the Irish to ya!
by jphilo | Sep 11, 2013 | Recipes
The desire to eat healthy, delicious meals received a definite boost with another new salmon recipe. This one required cedar planks, which sounds swanky, but was easy to find in Hiram’s stash of guitar-making wood. And that was the hardest thing about preparing a dish that was absolutely delicious. So delicious, I’ve already added salmon to next week’s grocery list and to receive the coveted Hiram seal of approval.
The original recipe comes from Hy-Vee’s Seasons magazine, though my version has less salt and leaves out a few of the spices. Even so it was full of flavor and low in all the unhealthy stuff like fat and cholesterol.
Cedar Plank Grilled Spicy Salmon
Cedar plank
1 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2tsp Hy-Vee chili powder
1 tsp Hy-Vee cracked black pepper
1/2 tsp Hy-Vee dry mustard
1/2 tsp packed Hy-Vee brown sugar
1/4 tsp Hy-Vee crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp Hy-Vee dried oregano
2 tablespoons Hy-Vee Select olive oil, divided
1 lb skin-on salmon fillet
Fresh lemon wedges, optional
Soak a cedar plank several hours. Preheat grill to high heat.
In a small bowl, mix together salt, chili powder, black pepper, mustard, brown sugar, red pepper flakes and oregano; set aside.
Place cedar plank on hot grill, smooth-side-down, for 10 minutes, being careful not to burn the plank. (If you’re grilling over wood, make sure the flame has died down to glowing embers so the plank won’t burn. Don’t ask Hiram how he knows this.)
Turn plank over and brush smooth side of the plank with olive oil. Brush salmon with remaining oil. Place salmon, skin-side-down, on smooth side of plank. Season top of salmon with seasoning mixture.
Grill, covered, 25 to 30 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.
If desired, serve with fresh lemon wedges.
by jphilo | Aug 28, 2013 | Recipes
Kale has been a staple in our weekly CSA share for several weeks now. Usually I serve it stir fried with a little fresh garlic and salt, which is very good. But variety is a good thing, too, so I was pleased to find a main recipe that used kale in Real Simple Magazine, July 2013. The original recipe called for zucchini but suggested swapping it for other in season vegetables like kale or cabbage.
This dish is very easy to make and tasted divine. The hardest thing was to find puff pastry sheets rather than puff pastry shells. The sheets can be hard to work with, so read the thawing and handling directions before thawing them. (Don’t ask how I know this.) My guess is this would also work with thin crust pre-made pizza crusts, which are easy to find and handle.
If you compare the original recipe to this version, you’ll also see I doubled the recipe, used a different kind of sausage (easier to find where we live), and added a few time-saving tips. This recipe received the coveted Hiram seal of approval several times over. In fact, he asked how soon it would be on the menu again. I loved it too because the puff pastry is dairy-free!
Kale and Sausage Tart with Dijon
1 pound ground Italian sausage
2-3 cups kale, pulled off the stem and chopped coarsely
Kosher salt and black pepper
2 sheets puff pastry, thawed
6 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Heat oven to 400°. Place two pizza stones in oven to heat.
Cook the sausage in a frying pan on top of the stove, breaking and crumbling it with a spoon, until halfway cooked. Transfer to a plate lined with paper toweling; reserve the skillet.
Add kale, 1/4 cup water, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper to drippings in the skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, until just beginning to wilt, 2-3 minutes.
Take pizza stones out of the oven. Spray with a small amount of cooking spray. Unfold pastry sheets onto stones, and prick all over with a fork, leaving a 1/2 inch border around the dough. Spread the mustard on the pastry, avoiding the border; top with the kale. Cut each tart into 8 pieces and serve. Can also swap chopped cabbage or 2 small zucchini (about 1 pound and sliced into rounds) for the kale.
by jphilo | Aug 14, 2013 | Recipes
For several years, the man of steel and I have talked about eating more fish. Unfortunately, neither of us are big fish eaters. Him because he grew up eating fresh seafood in Alaska, beside which Iowa’s inland offerings pale. Me because the only variety we ate during childhood were the bullheads Mom caught on rare fishing expeditions. Bullheads, in case you’ve never tasted them, have a strong fishy taste.
But when Hy Vee’s Season’s Magazine did a spread with some delicious sounding salmon recipes, I decided it was time to put on my big girl panties and cook some fish. Hiram and I were pleasantly surprised, for my version of the magazine’s Encrusted Salmon Fillets recipe was delicious and very, very simple. Here’s the recipe for the most recent winner of the coveted Hiram seal of approval.
Walnut Encrusted Salmon
4 (5 to 6 ounces each) salmon fillets
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
coarse black pepper
1/3 cup finely chopped English walnuts
1/3 cup bread crumbs
1 tablespoon fresh, chopped majoram
1 tablespoon fresh, chopped thyme
1 tablespoon fresh, chopped rosemary
4 teaspoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
lemon wedges
Preheat oven to 425°. Grease a baking dish and place salmon, skin side down in it. Brush top of each fillet with mustard (go easy on this…a little goes a long way) and sprinkle with coarse black pepper.
In a small bowl, mix chopped nuts, bread crumbs, fresh herbs, and salt. Add olive oil and mix well. Divide mixture amongst the flillets and pat firmly on top of salmon. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until crust begins to brown and fish flakes easily with a fork. Serve with lemon wedges.
