Sunday, January 20, 2013

Tapenade

This is basically a recipe from allrecipes, a little modified.

Ingredients:
3 cloves garlic (peeled, but whole)
1 cup (a little more) kalamata olives, pitted
2 tbsp capers
3 tbsp fresh italian parsley
juice from 1 lemon (fresh squeezed is best)
2 tbsp olive oil

1. Put the garlic in your food processor and chop it.

2. Add everything else and chop it.

3. Careful, you want it to come out chopped, not pureed.

Eat on crackers, bread, raw veggies, etc.  Particularly good paired with brie.  This recipe came out quite strong tasting, between the capers and the fresh-squeezed lemon juice.  Bottled might mollify that a bit, but we liked the intense flavor.

I'm sure everybody's French aunt has her own home recipe for this, but this one was amazingly easy and tasty.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Five-Spice Pork with Snap Peas

We got this out of Fine Cooking magazine, which is our new favorite. It's a crockpot dish and really easy.

1/2 cup cooking sherry*
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbs Sriracha or other hot sauce
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
2 lb pork, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 lb sugar snap peas, trimmed

Mix together everything but the pork and snap peas to make the sauce. You can mix them right in the crock if you want. Then stir in the pork, cover, and cook on low for 6 or 7 hours or on high 4 to 5. About 10 minutes before serving, stir in the snap peas and let them soften up just a bit. Serve with rice or bread. Feeds two adults and 3 kids with a bit to spare.

I used Tabasco instead of Sriracha and the dish wasn't spicy at all. The magazine also recommended low-sodium soy sauce but we didn't have any so we used regular and I didn't feel like it turned out too salty. I also think this would be awesome with some broccoli thrown in. 

*You could substitute with apple cider or add honey to vinegar; just use something with flavor (not plain water).