Today's tip: Re-filling a pepper mill

Today's tip: When re-filling a pepper mill, whether you are using a funnel, a paper cone or a plastic bag with a corner cut out, you may still experience peppercorns escaping, bouncing, ricocheting and landing all over the kitchen floor. Where, if they don't trip you, they at least look disgustingly like rodent droppings.

I used to put the pepper mill inside a bowl, but that did not seem to discourage ricocheting. Ceramic encourages ricocheting, in fact.

Tonight I put the pepper mill inside a paper coffee filter. Voila. No bouncing of the stray peppercorns. And it was easy to load the strays back into the pepper mill.

Scallops with sherry cream sauce

I know, I know, scallops and bacon are almost a cliche, but there's a reason for that: They're a great team! This sauce is rich but you don't need much.

Ingredients:
scallops, preferably ocean scallops -- the big kind! I used 3/4 pound for 2 servings; 4 big scallops
leek, half of the white part of one large leek or a whole small one, carefully washed and chopped fine
shallot, one clove, minced
four cremini mushrooms, sliced thin
four slices of bacon
3 T butter
1/4 cup (approx) sherry
1/2 cup heavy cream
salt, pepper
paprika
arugula (could substitute water cress or any green you like, especially if it has some "bite" to it, as in peppery), washed of course

Cook the bacon in a heavy skillet until it is about half done -- no longer raw, but not crispy at all. Don't throw away the grease!

Salt, pepper and paprika the scallops.

Wrap a slice of bacon around each of the scallops and put under the broiler, at least 6 inches from the flame. (You can secure the bacon with wooden toothpicks if you want, but it's not that big of a deal if you don't.) Check them every couple of minutes and turn, so that the bacon doesn't burn but browns nicely all over. How long it takes to cook the scallops depends on how big they are, but it's pretty fast; mine were done in 5-6 minutes.

Add the butter to the pan with bacon drippings. Saute the leek, shallot and mushrooms over medium heat and add the sherry. Have a lid handy in case it wants to flame up, or add while the pan is off the heat. Let cook a couple of minutes, then add the cream. This makes more sauce than you need, but it would be good leftover with good bread or toast, and it is hard to make a smaller amount of sauce than this!

Arrange the arugula on the plate, add the scallops, add the sauce, pour a glass of wine and enjoy.

If I only had the smaller bay scallops, I would cut the bacon into one- to two-inch pieces and fry it, adding the leeks, etc., then add the scallops and sear them, and make the butter-sherry-cream sauce in another pan.

Pork Tenderloin

Best roast pork tenderloin ever:
2.75 pounds pork tenderloin, in my case, this is two pieces


Marinade the pork for about 2 hours in this mixture

2T fresh ginger (peeled and minced)
5 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 pint chicken stock
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 T kosher salt

After 2 or so hours, remove the pork and pat dry with paper towels. Discard marinade, even though it hurts
Put 2T oil in a cast iron pan and heat

Preheat oven to 350
Brown the pork on all sides, about 2 minutes a side, so 8 minutes on the stovetop.

Slide it into the oven and roast for 20 minutes. Well, after 16, you can turn the oven off and let it coast. Then remove from oven. Let rest, then slice.

This is shown served with tri-color farfalle (butterfly/bowtie) pasta in a simple sauce (butter, flour, cream, parmesan) with kale that has been lightly sauteed with a little pre-sauteed sausage.

Don't hate me.

Rockfish with veggies and supremes of orange

I only recently learned that it's ok again to eat rockfish, as they are again plentiful. Hurray! A lovely fish. My store had them tonight, so that's what I cooked. The veggies were frozen, which I'm OK with -- it's like having a sous-chef to do the prep work! Plus, I don't end up with a lot of veggies spoiling in the fridge, which is probably what would happen if I bought all the individual items in this "Asparagus Stir-Fry Blend." Also, it makes this meal faster than ordering a pizza, which is a definite plus for many of us.

Total ingredient list:

• 1 rockfish fillet (the one I bought was about 12 oz., what is on the plate is about 6 oz. and I didn't eat it all!

• white wine

• 2-3 T butter, most of which stays in the pan. If you really have to, you can substitute canola oil or something, but this is one of those places where I think the flavor of the butter is worth it!
  

• salt

• pepper

• dill weed

• frozen veggie blend -- the kind that lets you take what you want from the bag and put the rest back in the freezer

• 1 T canola oil

• one orange

Step 1: Open the wine. Seriously, this cooks so fast that you don't want to have to stop and do that. Go ahead and cut the orange supremes, which means cutting the sections out of the membranes, or if you aren't fussy, just peel and section the orange. I do prefer to have taken the orange out of the fridge earlier so it is room temp instead of chilled, but that's up to you.

Heat one skillet over medium high heat and add 1 T canola oil. Dump in the veggies, stirring occasionally. Being frozen, they will take longer than the fish! Just watch them and be ready to turn the heat down or off so they don't get soggy.

Heat another skillet over medium high heat and melt the butter in it. Meanwhile, salt and pepper the fish and sprinkle with dill weed.
When the butter is foaming, add the fish, skin side down first. Cook 2-3 minutes. Turn. Add about 1/4 cup of white wine. Cook 2 minutes. Lower heat and put a lid on the pan for another minute. Unless the fillets are very thick, that should be enough. Check with a fork. People have different ideas of what is "done," but you don't want it to be dry. I like to stop cooking it when it is no longer pink or translucent, just milky white but still moist. (Using the lid helps this because the last minute or so is steaming, so it stays moist.)

The white wine and butter will have turned into a flavorful little pan sauce, so you can serve the fish with a drizzle of that and still feel fairly self-righteous.

10 minutes, tops.

This would also be good with shallots and/or almonds cooked in the butter along with the fish, the way I do orange roughy.

Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms

So good, and really pretty easy as long as you can find the main ingredient:

Mushrooms the right size for stuffing. Not huge, like Portobello, although I guess you could use those and each one would be a meal. But too small, and it would be a pain to stuff them, although I suppose you could. This is pictured on a small "bread" plate, so don't think it is a dinner plate with a huge mushroom.

I like mushrooms at least an inch across and two inches across is better. Some stores here actually sell "Mushrooms for stuffing" in the 2-inch size, with most but not all of the stem cut off. Well, the stem is cut off flush with the bottom of the cap, which means I still need to do some work. And that's OK.

This recipe makes enough filling for however many mushrooms you can fit in a 9 by 12-inch Pyrex baking dish or similar pan. I always plan to have an emergency overflow pan because it is hard to tell how many will fit in one pan. And that's OK, too.

• 12-24 mushrooms, depending on size (more smaller ones, fewer big ones, obviously)

• approx. 1 lb. Italian sausage. You can go up to 1-1/2 pounds, and you can use a mixture of hot and mild, or all of either one, depending on what you like. I like hot. If you can buy it not in casings, that is a little easier, but really doesn't matter.
• 1 8-oz. package cream cheese, room temperature (open it while it is still cold, before it gets gooey, and put it on a plate or whatever and let it sit while you do the other things.)
  
• 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. garlic buds or powder (but not salt! or put some fresh garlic in with the sausage while frying it)
• about 2T Worcestershire sauce, give or take
• a couple of T of vegetable oil, your choice, or butter
• 1 egg yolk (could you leave this out? possibly, but I don't)
• Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, about 1/2 cup (or more!)
• White wine
  

Prepare the mushroom caps. Wash or wipe off any obvious dirt, but don't soak. I find that an ordinary teaspoon makes a good scoop to hollow out the mushrooms without piercing the caps. Save the stems and associated innards to make soup, or whatever. You don't have to completely hollow out the mushrooms, just make a cavity for the filling.

Put enough oil or butter in the baking dish to coat the bottom. Arrange the mushroom caps, cap side down. Pour about 1 tsp. of white wine in each hollowed out cap. Let that soak in while you proceed.

If the sausage is in casings, squeeze it out. The casings are edible but tough and chewy, so they aren't an asset here. Fry the sausage, breaking it up with a spatula or fork -- the back of a fork actually does work pretty well. You want it to be fairly granular, not huge lumps. Cook it until there's no pink showing. Transfer the sausage, without the grease, to a bowl to cool. (A slotted spatula or spoon is good.) You could certainly save the melted fat to saute other things in, but we don't need it here.

Combine the egg yolk, Worcestershire sauce and garlic (if you haven't added it to the sausage) in a large bowl and add the cooled sausage and the cream cheese, and up to 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan. Or you can leave out the Parmesan at this stage and just add some on the top later. You can try mixing with a spoon, but truthfully, just wash your hands really well and get in there to mix it all together.

Fill the mushroom cavities with the mixture, put grated Parmesan on top.

You can stop here and refrigerate overnight. Or:

Preheat oven to 350, then bake for about 25 minutes. Might need another 5 or so, if they are really large mushrooms.

To serve, lift out of the liquid that will have cooked out. It is wine and sausage essence and mushroom essence, so unless you are insane, do not throw the liquid away. It's tricky to serve with the mushrooms, which are meant as finger food, but why not have it with pasta or bread after everyone has gone home?

These reheat nicely. I doubt that they would freeze well.

If you have filling left over, and you could, depending on the size of the mushrooms, well -- chop up those leftover mushroom stems and saute them, then make a spread for some good bread and stick it under the broiler.

You can "stretch" the filling, and pretend it's healthier, by adding some bread crumbs, but be sure to check the seasoning so that you don't make it all too bland.

Whole Wheat Bread (well, mostly)

This is adapted from my dad's recipe, and is an excellent thing to do on a cold winter weekend. The house smells terrific. The "well, mostly" part is because it does have some white flour as well as whole wheat.

for two loaves:
2 pkgs or about 3 T of dry yeast, which these days is sold as "Bread Machine Yeast"
1/4 cup warm water
2-1/2 cups hot water
1 Tablespoon salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup of some sort of fat: butter or oil or shortening, melted
4 cups whole wheat flour, approx.
4 cups white flour, preferably unbleached, approx.

• Dissolve the yeast in about 1/4 cup warm water.

• Measure the 2-1/2 cups of water into a 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup or some other larger microwavable vessel. Add the butter/shortening/oil, salt and the brown sugar and heat until it's all dissolved. Yep, you could also do this in a pan on the stove. Let cool to lukewarm. (Baby's bath temp.) Put into a big bowl.
• Stir in the whole wheat flour, using a sturdy whisk if you have one. Add the yeast mixture. Start adding the white flour. When it starts getting too stiff to mix with a whisk or spoon, I'm sorry, but you will just have to use your hands. You did wash them, right?
  
• When the dough is moderately stiff, turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and satiny. It really helps to have flour to keep dipping your hands into so the dough doesn't stick. This is a great stress reliever and I'm not telling you who I think about while I smack the heck out of that dough. (Knead = press/punch the center, then fold the back over, then press, etc. Hard to describe, fun to do.) Why would anyone let a bread machine do the fun part?
  
• Shape the dough into a ball. Rinse out your big bowl with hot water and dry it. Rub it with butter or a little oil. Put the dough in and turn to coat all sides with a little of the oil. Let it rise to double its original size at least once, and twice is better. Takes about an hour each, depending on the temperature. (If in a hurry, put it in a warmish place covered with a clean dish towel. Not too warm, but above the dishwasher (if it is running) is good or inside the oven with just the oven light on is good. Or on top of the dryer. But it is better to not be in a hurry, because the texture will be better.)
  
• Punch down and divide in half, pressing each half into a loaf pan. Let rise again until about double.
  
• Preheat the oven to 375 F
• Bake 45 minutes, but after about 20-25 minutes, brush the tops with some butter or oil and turn the oven down to 350. It will work if you don't do this, but this is better. Also, if the tops are getting brown long before the 45 minutes are up, cover with foil. I've never had to, but I think it depends on your oven.
  
• Take the pans out of the oven and let sit for about 5 minutes, then tip them over to remove the loaves and put the loaves on some kind of cooling rack, or at least a clean towel, so they don't get soggy (which they would do if left in the pans)
• Wait as long as you can stand, but by all means cut some slices while the loaf is still warm. All you really need is butter, or maybe some good soup.
  

This freezes well, especially if you don't slice the second loaf.
You can get away with using more whole wheat and less white flour, but the loaf will get denser and denser. You can make up for this by letting it rise more slowly for longer, maybe. It starts to get into science. It is fun to experiment, but I will tell you that if you are baking at home, trying to use all whole-wheat flour with no white (or unbleached white) flour will yield a VERY dense bread. The commercial bakers have other tricks up their sleeve.

Oyster Stew, again

Oyster stew is such a great supper on a cold night. Especially with these cornbread crackers. And it is so easy. And fast. Once you have the celery and shallot diced, you're just about done!

• 8 oz. (that's a half-pint) of standard oysters and their "liquor." You don't need the extra fancy, more expensive ones.
  
• 2-3T butter
  
• about a cup of milk. I used skim, because that's what I keep on hand, but of course whole milk would taste even better. (Although, because I am using skim, I don't feel at all bad about going with 3T butter!)
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 1 plump shallot (maybe two if they are little), diced fine
  
• salt
• white pepper if you have it, otherwise fresh-ground black pepper
  
• 1/2 teaspoon or more of sweet paprika. I don't used the smoked paprika for this because it might mask the delicate flavor of oysters. Can't think of anything else I wouldn't use smoked paprika in.
• optional but very good: One leftover baked potato, large dice (When I am using the oven for something else, like the pork chops with cranberries in the previous recipe, I often throw a few potatoes in to bake. They can be used in so many things, and they taste way better than spuds "baked" in a microwave.
• also optional, but I wanted to try it: a few "threads" of saffron, if you happen to have some kicking around.
  

Sweat the celery and shallot in the butter. Add the potatoes if you are using them. This is a good time to add salt and pepper, and of course you'll taste it at the end to see if it needs more. Start with 6 good dashes of salt and a couple of pepper.

Add the liquor from the oysters, but don't hurt yourself straining it. The rest can come along later when it is time to add the oysters, which go in last.

Add the paprika -- you don't put it in earlier because you don't want it to burn. I use a lot, close to a full teaspoon for this much stew.

Add the milk. If you need to "stretch" things, add more milk. Heck, even more potato, celery and shallot.

When the liquid is hot and just starting to simmer but before the milk really boils (scalded milk, yuck), dump in the oysters and any remaining liquid. Keep heating until the oysters curl, which really only takes a minute or so, then turn off the heat right away. It's done.

Grab some crackers -- I like cornbread, some people like traditional oyster crackers -- and a spoon. If you are hungry or if you are selfish about shellfish, this serves one as a full supper. You could easily make it serve two, maybe more if it's just a first course and you add more milk, etc.

If you are lucky enough to be sharing with someone who doesn't like oysters, you may find that they like the rest of this "stew" just fine if you call it potato soup, and then you get to eat all the oysters.

Last January I posted a recipe for Oyster Stew made with leeks. That was good, too, and you can look it up. This is more traditional.