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Friends Food Fun

FFF EP-29 PORK CHOPS WITH A GRILLED FRUIT & CHEESE DRESSING

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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!

Please note: We try and review the recipes in the cookbook. However, in an effort to respect copyright, we are not able to reproduce the actual printed recipes here. If you do have the book, please follow along with us.

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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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Friends Food Fun

FFF EP-28 GRILLED CHICKEN CAESAR

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httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Q2gnewfu8

Hey, Food Friends,

This week’s episode is about that classic salad which just so happens to be a classic drink, too. Any guesses??? It’s the Caesar, of course!

One of my favourite salads, it is also one that I like to order at various restaurants, though none can compare to the one from a local restaurant I have frequented for many years. They make their own dressing which is slathered over the lettuce leaves … and you have to love garlic, too!

Seeing that the book we are reviewing (“Cook This Not That “) had its own version, I was excited to try it to see if I could replicate the flavours that I so enjoyed elsewhere.

We put a wee bit of humour into this episode (yeah, right; like we don’t have fun in every episode) with the orgasmic hearts of romaine (the classic lettuce used in a Caesar – ahh, more classics). [Editor sighs: it’s “organic”, not orgasmic, but I don’t think I’ll be able to change Brian’s mind on this one. He can be so stubborn. I know, I know, I’m equally stubborn.]

I also used a squeeze tube of anchovy paste which is an alternative to the whole version, and much cheaper; plus, we were blending it all up anyway, so it was a no-brainer. If I were making a pizza on the other hand, I would definitely use whole ones as squeezed anchovy paste is not quite appealing on a pizza (your choice though, lol).

My verdict was that, although not the same as the salad from my favourite restaurant, it is a very decent alternative and one that you can make quite easily at home.

So, till next time, have more fun with your food and invite some friends to join in, too!

Enjoy!
B & H =;)

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Please note: We try and review the recipes in the cookbook. However, in an effort to respect copyright, we are not able to reproduce the actual printed recipes here. If you do have the book, please follow along with us.

Insight on: Grilled Chicken Caesar

Notes from the Chef’s Sidekick (Helenka)

Well, you already know from a previous episode’s notes that one way to my heart is to make me a classic Caesar salad, whole anchovies and all.

But this approach intrigued me. I’m always curious to see how fresh lettuce (or spinach) can be transformed when heated (because we’re all so used to the concept of a salad as being something refreshingly COLD).

I loved the taste of the grilled lettuce and thought that the home-made dressing was terrific. And the way it was mixed – incorporating so many flavours – would have been difficult to identify (if I hadn’t been sitting right there and watching). Of course, I probably would have added more garlic as, by the time the chicken was added, there was much more of a neutral component to every bite. And, if you know me even a little bit, “neutral” and I are not best buds.

Variations

Call me crazy (as if I didn’t give Brian enough opportunities to do so, lol) [B falls right into the word trap: She is CRAZY but, then again, we both are and that is what makes it fun!], but I wish the lettuce had been more grilled. What do I mean? Well, the authors’ presentation concept left a lot to be desired, in my view. You’ve read how I dismiss chefs who create something that isn’t easy to eat, especially in public (though I will make an exception for lobster … or crawdads – of which Brian and I have very fond memories). This was one of those dishes. Heaping two enormous romaine lettuce halves on a plate before adding even more ingredients on top may make for a striking picture, but a messy dish to tackle.

So, I could really envision slicing each whole lettuce into one-inch high ROUNDS and then grilling them (imagine pretend lettuce pancakes, though trying to flip them would most likely result in a big mess). Of course, because each round would have significantly less mass, the grilling period would be shorter (though the entire grilling session lengthened). I know it’s not expedient to suggest a technique that takes longer but, sometimes for the sake of the taste and presentation of a dish, I think it’s very much worth it.

The end result, then, would have been a plate piled with a riot of crinkly romaine (with all of it being warm), then adorned with the array of sliced chicken and sprinkles of sun-dried tomatoes and sliced olives. And I wouldn’t need a dangerous pointy implement (knife) with which to attack my dinner.

If you’re a fan of grilled calamari (squid), then I’m sure you could also see it in place of the chicken. Mmmm. Calarami. Caesar dressing. Yum to the max!

In any case, my curiosity was satisfied and so were my taste-buds. Grilled lettuce (especially a seriously crispy one such as romaine with large leaves) is a Very. Good. Idea!!!

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