On Love, Rent and Valentine's Day

Our Valentine’s evening last night was perfect – candles, roses, laughter, good food – five good friends and take out Indian food.  More than a decade ago I ate my last meal out on a Valentine’s Day.  My then-boyfriend and I, truly young people in love, made a reservation at the Hungry I in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston.  It was well outside of our price range (that in itself a testament to our love) and the kind of place with a website declaring, "You don't have to be planning to propose to your loved one, but if you are, it's the perfect place."

I in my ballgown (seriously – gunmetal gray and shimmery) and he in his cap, set out for a meal – and a young lovers’ trap.

That the old brownstone the restaurant is in is stunning is not up for debate – fires roared in each fireplace, grand flower sprays framed each doorway, and staff so kind they must have known we were bordering on spending our rent that night for a meal.   But the tables were packed in and there was no smiling server who could make it feel private.  We had our first adventure with quail (such tiny bones) that was a good laugh, but the prix fixe menu wasn’t quite what we’d hoped for – a little limiting.  And as we squeezed through the crowd at the end of the night, trying not to clear the tables with my skirt, as we wended down hundreds-year-old brick stairways after having a meal whose preparation was painstaking but cost was breathtaking, I looked at my date for a moment. 

“Are you thinking about Monday?” he asked.  I nodded quickly, embarrassed.  “So much better,” he said, “and we’d still know where rent was coming from.”

We’d had our traditional Monday: take out barbeque on the living room floor while watching Monday Night Raw.  (Oh, the things we do for love.)

We realized then that we’d been fleeced by the restaurant-Hallmark-industrial Valentine’s Day complex and I haven’t been out on a Valentine’s Day since.

Here’s hoping your evening -- in or out-- with friends, a special romantic person, or solo, was just as you hoped it would be.

Weekend Pork Roast

The slow roasting of a pork shoulder over the course of a weekend afternoon has become a ritual for me. I love having a versatile starting point for a large meal with friends or small meals through the weekend, from shredded pork tacos to a warm pork sandwich with pickled onions, sharp cheese, and plenty of mustard. Oh – and a potato, pork, and greens hash makes a heavenly resting place for poached eggs.

Walk in the door to this smell after a long day and you’ll feel what home smells like.

My go-to spice blend has been Herbs de Provence, however, I’ve begun to stray – branch out, really. Vary your spice blend by your choice of accompaniments: use a Greek blend and serve chunks of pork on a lemony salad with olives and avocado, tomatoes and a little feta and some cucumber. Use an Italian blend and roast some broccoli rabe with garlic and chili flakes, finished with balsamic.

I really do love the Herbs de Provence and would encourage you to try it (perhaps with a potato and fennel gratin and a greens salad!), but sometimes the lavender can be a bit overwhelming – try a mixture of dried thyme, rosemary, and fennel if the lavender isn’t your speed. Whatever blend you choose, just make sure it is salt free. If you can't find a pre-mixed product you like or want to use what you have in the house, try a combination of fennel, basil, oregano, thyme and sage. The cut of pork is non-negotiable -- you will NOT have the same result with a pork loin roast.  It's just too lean for this kind of cooking and you'll end up with a brick, and you'll want to throw it through my window.

Weekend Roast Pork

Ingredients
4.5 lb boneless pork shoulder, sometimes called Boston Butt
.5 oz blended dried spices
1 tsp crushed red pepper
2 Tbs coarse kosher salt
1 Tbs crushed black pepper

Remove the roast from the fridge 30 – 45 minutes prior to cooking.

Preheat the oven to 275F.

Pat your pork dry. Salt and pepper all surfaces. Combine remaining spices and crushed pepper and fully coat the roast -- anywhere you see pink, add more herbs mixture. This is what's going to create a flavorful crust as the fat starts to render during cooking.

I like to set up everything I'm going to put on the pork directly on my prep surface in advance, so that once my hands get all porky, I can put my hands on what I need without worrying about contaminating anything in my kitchen.

Roast for 6 ½ hours, basting with drippings 2 -3 times during the last hour of cooking.
Remove from the oven and rest 15 – 20 minutes before serving.

I like to pull chunks from the roast with tongs or a spoon (it's that tender) rather than slice – it’s not going to be pretty any way you cut it.

I roasted this all afternoon yesterday while I was pottering about the house getting ready for my other half to come home after a week away.  When we got home from the airport, the house was cozy and fragrant.  When he was settled in (but by no means unpacked) I made a salad of avocado, tomato, butter lettuce and some leftover baby Yukon gold potatoes and finished it with a mustard and sherry vinegar dressing, which helped balance the richness of the pork.  Bon apetit, indeed!

There Is No Polite Picture of a Sausage: Sausages Baked with White Beans

As much as I love a long Sunday afternoon in the kitchen surrounded by my farmer’s market bounty, I dislike weeknight cooking. It’s not that I mind standing at the stove after working all day – the actual cooking I can still enjoy. The challenge is in finding something to make for dinner when I’ve gotten home at 7:30 that takes under an hour to prepare, that doesn’t create another hour’s worth of dishes, that says, “I love you” instead of, “oh, just eat it.”

I added a new weeknight special recently and it does more than tick the aforementioned boxes. It’s the kind of dish that is comforting and kind at the end of a long day, that feels hearty on a cool night, and that can be on the table in 40 minutes flat. It has that lasagne feeling but with significantly less guilt.

This recipe is adaptable – I’ve used Italian sausage, andouille sausage, and both pork and chicken sausages with good results. The quality of the individual ingredients is key because there are so few of them. For the sauce, I either use my own or a higher-end jarred sauce called Rao’s, which is silky and extremely flavorful. For the beans, I prefer to use dried, which I prepare (method below) and freeze in 1-2 cup portions in storage bags. I think they hold up better in this dish than canned, but if you only have canned, give it a shot and just be gentle with them so they don’t turn to mush.

I tried over and over again to show you this dish plated in all of its glory, but there is no polite pictures of a sausage.

Sausages with White Beans and Tomato Sauce

Ingredients
4 sweet or spicy Italian sausages
3 cups large whites beans (dried, cooked)
3 cups homemade or good quality jarred tomato sauce
½ c herbed breadcrumbs (recipe below)
3 TBS grated Parmesan

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

In a 3 ½ quart dutch oven or medium sized skillet, brown your sausages until they have some good color. There’s no need to cook them through, they’ll finish in the oven. Add your sauce and the beans and bring them just to a simmer. Top the with the bread crumbs and cheese and bake for 25 minutes until bubbling and brown.

Serve with a greens salad and a lovely glass of wine.

Cooking note: If you’ll be preparing this in a baking dish that isn’t flame proof, brown your sausages in a skillet. Move them to the baking dish and warm your sauce through in the skillet. Pour the heated sauce over the white beans and sausage, add your crumbs and cheese, and bake as directed.

House Breadcrumbs

I use this recipe as a base and add different herbs to top various gratins or pastas – with a little chopped tarragon and a small amount of Dijon mustard, you have a great topping for a zucchini and leek gratin. I don’t use these in my meatballs or in most places where breadcrumbs are used for binding; I like using these when they’ll have real impact in a simple dish.

Ingredients
1 Tbs butter
1 ½ Tbs extra virgin olive oil
½ tsp crushed red peppers
½ c wheat panko crumbs
½ Italian seasoned panko crumbs
3 Tbs chopped parsley
2 Tbs chopped basil
1/8 tsp fresh ground black pepper

In a small sauté pan, heat butter and olive oil on medium-low heat until just staring to foam. Add crushed red pepper and swirl pan once. Add remaining ingredients. Stir occasionally at first. Once crumbs start to turn golden, reduce heat and turn more often until mixture is uniformly light golden brown. Depending on what you’re doing with these, they may get hit with more heat when added to a recipe, so you’re better off slightly under toasting.

Dried Beans

I’d been wanting to switch to using more dried beans for some time – I feel like the canned products are really inconsistent but mostly tend toward the mushy. It was a bit daunting, though; I didn’t want to need 12 hours notice to serve beans or risk having them refuse to soften (there was a hummus incident once…) Then I read Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks recommend freezing the finish product for future use. From a comment on a Rhulman post about cooking dried beans I found I could skip the soaking and prep my beans in the oven. Now we’re talking.

Ingredients
1 cup dried beans, picked over and rinsed
4 cups water (or, four times the volume of your dried beans)
1 carrot, halved
1 onion, peeled and quartered
1 stalk of celery, halved

Preheat oven to 275 F. Bring beans and water to a boil in a heavy lidded pot. Once they’ve the reached the boil, add the carrot, celery and onion and transfer the pot to the oven. Set your timer for 75 minutes and expect the beans to need 90 minutes, depending on size and age.

I’ve done this with Christmas limas and small white beans and have had great success. When they are finished, I drain them well, dry them as much as possible, and freeze them flat in freezer bags. If you freeze them flat rather than in a clump, they’ll defrost faster. Enjoy!