httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGH5Tyf4u0g
Hey, Food Friends!
Interesting episode this week in that perhaps I should have shown it before Halloween as it has a suspenseful introduction. I won’t ruin it here, but I did something to Helenka – then again, I’m always doing something with Helenka [Helenka rolls her eyes]. Oh, well, you will just have to watch it to see what I mean. 😉
We filmed this just before the summer was completely over, so we are calling it our last gasp of summer, hence all the tropical plants you will see cluttering up the counter and, just to the left of the screen, you may catch a glimpse of Helenka’s designer purse which is also quite colourful (I’m mentioning it because she purposefully brought it on set as a festive prop to use).
On the food side, we are featuring pork chops. I had a tough time, though, choosing which fruit to use (peaches or nectarines) and choosing between our favourite Goat cheese or Blue cheese; so, in our typical fashion, we chose both fruits and both cheeses to create a completely different dish than the one we were following – and quite yummy too. I also swapped out pine nuts for almonds too (just to be completely different, of course). For the salad, we used Romaine hearts with baby spinach, red pepper, grape tomatoes drizzled with a honey mustard dressing. It was very good.
Well, that’s it for this week for notes because I’m sure the video portion will prove how easy and yummy-tasting this recipe was. So, until next time, have more fun with your food and invite some friends to join in, too!
Enjoy!
B & H =;)
P.S. We are working on a Christmas special, so stay tuned. We hope that it will be our best show to date!
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Insight on: Pork Chops with Grilled Fuit
Notes from the Chef’s Sidekick (Helenka)
Oh, my stars. Brian wasn’t kidding about the other-worldly aspects of this episode. We had {duh-duh-duh, cue creepy music and creaking doors} mystery (what), suspense (where) and panic (um, obviously me). But, luckily, the missing ingredient ::giggles:: was found just in time to proceed with the show.
So, yes, we were intent on celebrating the tastes, textures and colours of summer … dragging them out beyond the date on the calendar to enhance our pleasure. And Brian was right: I did want my handbag to be a part of the set decor; I also wore a designer scarf (uh … different designer). The funny thing is that yellow and especially orange are not my colours, but they certainly are most reminiscent of summer. [Moreover, curiously, my native spirit colour IS orange.]
Okay, enough with the extraneous details. It’s time to talk food. One of the many surprising changes during my long existence on this planet is what’s happened to pork. When I was growing up, pork chops had quite a lot more fat in them. I remember being banished to the small stove in the basement when I wanted to fry a couple. Which did take some time and were very messy with fat sputtering all over (like me!). But the taste was sensational. I’m mentioning this because, nowadays, lean pork is more likely to be cooked in the time it takes to grill a steak. If you’re not careful, you end up with dried-out cardboard. And that’s one memory I’d like to forget, thank you very much.
Variations
If you’d rather avoid the need to provide such attention to cooking time for individual chops (and especially if you’d like to make this stunning dish for a crowd), I would highly recommend getting a boneless, rolled and tied pork roast that you can prepare in the oven. I happen to love making pork roasts because the meat is so amazingly tender from the controlled indirect heat source.
If you prefer something other than pork, then I believe boneless chicken breasts would be your best choice (perhaps even the ones for the barbecue that come with skin attached … more unique tastes of summer). For plating and presentation, I would suggest slicing on the diagonal and laying across the salad in a rough approximation of the original shape before adding the fruit/cheese adornment – perhaps in a ) shape alongside the chicken. And, although I do often suggest variations in fruit, I wouldn’t change a thing this time. Peaches and nectarines are luscious fruits, both in their raw state and when grilled to perfection.
By now, I’m sure you must be getting used to me assessing the authors’ finished product with an intense focus (yup, picky, picky, picky me). This time, I believe that chopped peaches/nectarines would have been easier to mix (er … glomp) than sliced. I would also like to have tried to smush the cheese(s) together with the balsamic to create a more cohesive paste before adding it to the chopped fruit.
In any case, though we may have begun the episode with a scary mystery, the end result was a very satisfying conclusion (Whodonit? Who else but the Chef!). At the end of which, we were most pleased to take our final bows (before scurrying off to enjoy our simply sensational dinner).
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