Minestrone

How could you not get off the couch for that?

Lately, in the war of Leah versus inertia, the inertia has been winning. When I get home at the end of my 10+ hour days, I just want to sit on my couch and stare at the wall. It's almost embarrassing to think about how much time I spend staring at the walls. And it's not as though I haven't been cooking. A girl does, after all, eventually have to stop staring at the wall, get off the couch and eat. But lately there have been a lot of meals of cheese and crackers. Or cheese and bread. Or sometimes just large chunks of cheese.

To get me out of the funk, CCO and I cooked up a batch of soup, minestrone to be exact. Minestrone is my absolute favorite soup. I don't really know why. Probably something to do with it having both pasta AND beans. Also it's one of the only foods (along with carrot cake) where I willingly eat carrots.

This recipe has sausage added in. You can leave it out to make it vegetarian. Use veggie broth in place of the beef broth if that's the case.

Eat Rating: Awesome.
Difficulty: Easy. You just need a big pot.

1/2 pound pork sausage, casings removed
2 tbsp olive oil
1 white onion, chopped
2-3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 bunch of swiss chard or other greens, ribs removed and chopped
3 roma tomatos, chopped (LN: You can also sub a can of diced tomato with the juice)
2 cans of white beans (Navy or Small White Beans), drained
1 cup of small-shaped pasta (LN: I think I used orecchietti)
7 cups of beef broth (LN: I used better than bouillon)

In a skillet, cook the sausage until browned. Remove from pan and set aside.

In the bottom of a large pot, heat the oil, then cook the onion, carrot and garlic until slightly softened. Add the tomatoes and cook until they release their juices. Add the chard and cook just until it begins to wilt. Add in the beans and beef broth and stir back in the sausage. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the broth has reduced some. Add in the pasta and cook for about 8-10 minutes, until the pasta is sufficiently soft. Serve with some crusty bread and red wine.

Honest ABE

Liz, this one's for you.

I've recently started reading the Atlantic's food blog. There are a lot of articles about how food is produced, the ethics of food, food trends, etc. But occasionally they also throw in a recipe. When I saw this post on an Asparagus Bacon and Egg Sandwich, I knew we had to make it, mostly because it reminded me of my friend, Liz.

Liz is one of my best friends. However, she hates to cook. She eats more salads than anyone I know. I'm half convinced this is because they require minimal assembly. Despite her hatred of cooking, she makes a mean fried egg sandwich. So Liz, this one's for you.

In keeping with my minimal reprinting of other blogger's recipes and to celebrate the return of the camera, I thought I would illustrate this recipe's preparation with photos.

A thought on preparation: I followed his recipe exactly. However, the cooking everything in bacon grease, I felt, overwhelms the other flavors. You can't really taste the asparagus, just the bacon grease. So, if I had to make it again, I think I'd just steam the asparagus, rather than cooking with the bacon.

Eat Rating: Good. Definitely for the bacon lover, though.
Difficulty: Easy to medium.

2 thickly cut slices of bread
Mayo
Bacon
Asparagus
1-2 eggs
Pepper, to taste

Slice your bread.

Cook your bacon.

Cook the asparagus in the leftover bacon grease.

Fry an egg (or two) in the grease.

Slather mayo on the bread.

Assemble.

Spanish-style Pork Roast with Pan-Roasted Romesco Sauce

Juicy circles of pork.

Romesco is a tomato and red pepper sauce from Catalonia, Spain (or so Bon Appetit magazine tells me). All I know, is it looks real good in the picture. When my brother and sister-in-law came over for dinner last weekend, I made a pork loin roast with the sauce and, man, was it good. Bon Appetit tried to convince me that instead of buying pork at the store, I should buy something called heritage pork from one of these web sites. It was not exactly clear to me why buying pork on the Internet was better, so I just picked up a pork loin at the store. The recipe recommends you use a pork rib roast, but they were out at the store I visited. The pork loin worked just as well, same time roasting even. The recipe also calls for Marcona almonds - these are apparently roasted, salted Spanish almonds. My usual go-tos for random ingredients (Whole Foods, Trader Joes, random Hispanic grocery up the street) did not have them, so we subbed regular roasted almonds.

Eat Rating: Very good. Ours was a little too salty, so I recommend omitting the salt from the pork rub.
Difficulty: Medium. You need a food processor for the Romesco sauce. Also requires some random ingredients: Marcona almonds, smoked paprika and dry Sherry. I subbed for the almonds and sherry.

Adapted from Bon Appetit magazine, May 2009

2 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp kosher salt (LN: I'd recommend omitting, otherwise the pork is really salty)
1 tbsp chopped fresh marjoram (LN: I used 1 tbsp dried)
1 tbsp smoked paprika (Sometimes labelled Spanish paprika)
2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 8-10 bone pork rib roast, or 6 lb pork loin
4 large roasted red pepper (about a 15 oz jar), drained
6 garlic cloves, sliced
1 ripe Roma tomato, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup Marcona almonds (or roasted, salted almonds)
1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs
1 cup dry Sherry (LN: Don't use cooking Sherry. It has extra salt added and is generally gross. I couldn't find any at my neighborhood package store, so I subbed 1 cup Ruby Port)

Combine the first 6 ingredients in a bowl and mix to form a paste. Rub the paste on the pork loin and let rest in the roasting pan for 1 hour. (You can do this up to a day ahead of time. Refridgerate and then let come to room temp for 1 hour before proceeding). Preheat oven to 425 and roast the pork for 15 minutes. While pork is roasting, combine the red pepper, 6 cloves of garlic and tomato in a pie dish and set aside. After 15 minutes, reduce temperature to 325 degrees. Place the dish of red peppers in the oven with the pork and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the red peppers from oven and cool.

Continue roasting pork for another 1 hour and 15 minutes (2 hours total) or until meat thermometer read 140 degrees. Remove from oven. Transfer pork to a cutting board and tent with foil. Reserve any drippings from the pan (LN: To be honest, there were practically no drippings from the pork loin, probably because it doesn't have as much fat as a rib roast. But keep any you do have.)

Chop the almonds and bread crumbs in the food processor until you finely ground. Add the red pepper mix and blend until you have a rough paste. Spoon any reserved drippings into a saucepan and add the 1 cup of Sherry/Port. Boil until reduced to about 1/4 cup, about 7 minutes. Let cool 1 minute, then add to the sauce in the food processor. Mix until smooth.

Cut the roast into slices, about 1/2 inch thick if pork loin or between bones if rib roast. Serve with sauce.

With Romesco sauce.