Easy Side Dish: Apple Onion Smashed Potatoes

In an effort to blend in the "flavors of the season", I thought about the different flavor combinations that tend to work well together. We were having pork tenderloin and I remembered that as a child, we always had apple sauce with pork. Here is a new recipe that integrates a couple of flavors together that lead to a fantastic side dish.

6 Mini Red Potatoes
1-2 Apples, cored and diced
1 Sweet Yellow or White onion, diced
Olive Oil
Salt (Garlic or regular)
Pepper
Promise or Butter
Milk (splash)

Boil potatoes until soft (when you can easily stick a fork into potatoes, they are ready). While the potatoes are boiling, combine olive oil, apples and onion in a frying pan. Saute over high heat, adding salt and pepper for flavor to taste. Set aside until potatoes are finished.

Drain water from potatoes and smash potatoes using a masher. Add the Promise, a touch of milk, and the saute and mix together. Serve hot.

**One addition I thought might make for an excellent flavor combo would be the addition of turkey bacon or regular bacon with the onion and apple mixture. This would add some much needed salt to the dish.

Stuffed Green Peppers

Last night, for a quick meal, Katie and I cooked up some Stuffed Green Peppers. We first sauteed some ground turkey and seasoned with garlic salt, cumin, Tabasco sauce, and ground pepper. Mixed the ground turkey with some brown rice and spicy Southwestern Salsa. Add to hollowed out green peppers and bake. I think we can tweak the recipe a bit to add significantly more flavor. The recipe is below:

1 lb ground turkey (use the kind with a bit more fat, the extra lean turkey wasn't great)
2 green peppers (seeds removed and hollowed out)
spices/seasoning
1 c. Salsa (your favorite kind)
shredded cheddar cheese (I think extra sharp would be great here!)
Olive oil

Heat olive oil in a frying pan and add ground turkey. Season meet to taste with ground cumin (adds a nice Mexican flavor), basil, crushed red pepper, and garlic salt. Most ground turkey is not salted, so be sure you add salt, otherwise the turkey will be very bland. Cook turkey until it is browned. Add to collander and rinse with warm water to remove excess fat.

In the meantime, start your brown rice. Cook until tender. Add to a large mixing bowl. Add the ground turkey and salsa and mix until all is blended together. Spoon in the mixture to the green peppers and cook in over or on the grill (great smoky flavors) until peppers are no longer crunchy (about 20 minutes). In the last 5 minutes, add cheese to the top and allow to melt. Serve.

Pan Fried Basa Swai

We were walking through the grocery store the other day and stopped by the seafood counter. We saw a deal on a fish we weren't familiar with called Basa Swai. I asked the fish monger what his thoughts were and he told me it was by far the best fish they had, his favorite. Now, was he a really good salesman or could it be that the cheapest fish at the counter would taste delicious? Desperate times call for desperate measures, so we decided to give it a shot, along with getting some culinary advice from the monger himself. He said, pan fry with the Zatarain breading. So, that's what we did.

What an excellent recommendation! The breading stayed nice and crispy with an added degree of salt and spiciness! Outstanding. No extra salt needed, no extra spice needed. And the fish held up nicely, staying firm and not gelatinous.

Here is the recipe:

2 filets of Basa Swai, thawed
Zatarain Breading
Olive Oil

Coat the bottom of a frying pan with oil and heat over highest heat. In the meantime, rinse and pat dry the filets and toss them in the breading mixture. Carefully add the filets to the oil in the pan and heat each side, turning as necessary. The end product should be a nice golden brown, crusted filet. Serve.

Oven-baked Cuban-Style Pork Tenderloin

Tonight, I decided to become a bit more adventurous with my cooking. On the docket, my clean palate of pork tenderloin, the perfect meat to test out new spice combinations. Pork is used across a wide variety of cultures and as such has many different flavors associated with it. One of my favorite dishes is a Cuban-style pork that I had while in Ft. Lauderdale. While I was not sure what the specific spices were associated with this meal, I could sense definite garlic notes, a spice of cumin and paprika, and perhaps something else that I couldn't put my finger on. So, I thought, let's try a blend of these three flavors I knew were associated with this incredibly memorable meal at the Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine in Ft. Lauderdale. The taste of this meal that I prepared was truly fantastic. A nice salty, spicy (not hot spicy, but actually full of flavor) piece of pork that remained incredibly moist and tender. I'll definitely make this again!

Here is my recipe:

1 pork tenderloin, cleaned of silver skin
Garlic salt
Olive oil
Paprika
Cumin

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In an oven-ready dish, coat the bottom with olive oil and roll the pork tenderloin in the oil to coat it. Mix together the garlic salt, paprika, and cumin into a single rub. Rub the mixture onto the olive-oil coated pork. Cook for 25-35 minutes, testing for temperature at 20 minutes. Pork should be cooked to 165 degrees and allowed to rest for 5-15 minutes after cooking prior to cutting. The resting of the pork allows the juices to stay in the meat. If you cut the meat open immediately after cooking, the pork will leak all of the fluid and lead to a potentially less tender piece of meat.

Dining Review: Dinner at Incanto

You may have heard of Incanto, the restaurant where Chris Cosentino,contestant on Food Network's "The Next Iron Chef" & "Chefs vs. City" serves as executive chef. I had the great opportunity to visit Incanto recently with my wife Katie in celebration of my birthday. My thoughts on the visit are listed below.

This trip was my first to Noe Valley, an affluent neighborhood on the outskirts of San Francisco. The area was incredibly quaint, with lots of little shops on the main street and nicely restored Victorian homes. We parked on a side street and walked down to Incanto. We arrived early so we found a spot at the bar, which was placed right next to the incredibly busy kitchen. We reviewed the menu, a single page devoted to all offerings (i.e. starters, pastas, entrees, and sides). On  the other side, we found the wine list. I'm a wine lover (as can be seen by my wine blog) and Incanto focuses on one of my favorites, Italian wines. We chose the Mystery flight and were offered 3 very unique wines (a white and 2 reds).We decided to pair our wine flight with the Harvest Grapes starter.

The Harvest Grapes salad was an interesting and exciting dish. Green, red, and small yellow grapes were sauteed with shaved turnips and toasted sliced almonds and finished with fresh ground black pepper and fennel and hints of shallots. The dish, unexpectedly, was served cold, but was delightful. Juicy grapes coupled with the almonds produced a wonderful blend that reminded me of fall in Wisconsin.

We moved to our dining table and ordered our entrees for the evening. As expected, Katie ordered the Chanterelle risotto while I chose what the waiter called a "more adventurous dish" in the Paccheri with cippolini and gorgonzola with bitter greens.

Katie's risotto was creamy and perfectly cooked. The abundance of beautiful little mushrooms topped the risotto, which had a very creamy, tan-colored sauce. Needless to say, the dish stood little chance of survival at our table.

The Paccheri dish was an interesting creation. Paccheri is a large tubular pasta that was cooked al dente and subsequently sauteed with the bitter greens and cippolini (little sweet onions) and topped with ground gorgonzola cheese. The dish was very full of flavor. Unfortunately, the bitter greens dominated the dish. The cippolini tried their best to overcome the pungent flavor of the greens, but had little chance of defeating the combined flavors of bitter greens and gorgonzola. I thoroughly enjoyed the cheese and onion mixture, with a nice roasted sweet flavor of onion combined with the salty, blue cheese flavor from the gorgonzola. In this dish though, the greens dominated and the pasta offered little "extra" flavor.

Then, we ordered dessert. The Spiced Panna Cotta with pumpkin jam and cranberry was truly exquisite. Panna cotta is a cross between a creme brulee and flan, with a very distinct ricotta cheese flavor combined with nutmeg and cinnamon flavors. When combined with the pumpkin jam, which I could have eaten by itself, and the cranberry syrup, the dessert was an excellent finish to a wonderful evening.

Overall, Incanto offers an exciting opportunity to try an inspired chef's latest creations. I highly recommend Incanto for special occasion dining or for those who simply love food.

A Quick Meal: Turkey Tostadas

Tostadas are the Mexican version of the open-faced sandwich. This recipe uses extra lean ground turkey in place of ground beef to make for a healthier alternative. I love adding extra spices to the meat to create unique flavors one might find at a Mexican restaurant. This meal is fast, requiring about 15 minutes from start to serve.

Recipe:
1 package of Ground Turkey
1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
1/2 white onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Chopped fresh basil
Shredded cheese (I like cheddar with this meal)
Tomatoes, chopped
Spices (I use cumin or Adobo seasoning from Penzey's)
Tortillas
Black olives (optional)

The recipe is so easy. Simply cook the turkey with the chopped onion, garlic, preferred spices and basil, until the turkey is browned. Rinse the meat in a collander under warm water. This step helps to remove any excess fat from the meat and makes for a leaner meal. In the meantime, be sure to toast tortillas. Tortillas require about 5-7 minutes in a 350 degree oven (we use the toaster oven). After allowing the turkey to drain, add it back to a deep frying pan with the tomato sauce and cook for 5-10 minutes. Spoon the turkey mixture onto the middle of your toasted tortilla and add your "fixins". Serve and eat as an open face sandwich. Don't be afraid, these are messy but lots of fun.