The Leftover Foodie

White Trash, A Heeb, (Some Chick From Wisconsin), And A Bean...

(I'm sure that most of my readers are hip enough to know this title is in reference to a NOFX album of a similar name, and not a racist, anti-semitic admission on my part- although the 'white trash'  moniker does occasionally apply fittingly to myself...)

 

 

 

Ask me for a dish that I like better than really good rice and beans, and I'll tell you there aren't many.

 

 

Red, black, cranberry, white, purple, green doesn't matter.  Throw some rice in the mix and serve with some sort of something "animal-y" (or not) and I'm usually a pretty happy guy.

 

 

That being said I've never made my own as I usually rely on the much more experienced hands (I'm sure) of the authentic (i.e. shitty holes-in-the-wall) cooks at the authentic shitty holes-in-the-wall that I love to visit whenever possible.

 

Good rice and beans is one of those dishes that I feel "chefs" try and fancy up too much and as a result loses some of the appeal for me.  Thus my fear in making them myself is that I'd try and do the same.  

 

It's not that "gourmet" rice and beans aren't good, they just aren't as soulful, or "real".   And like most things pertaining to poor people food, poor people do it better.  Call it out of necessity, but people making food the same way for hundreds of years because that's all they've had, have it down better than people who's toughest decision is which locally sourced organic farm to get their beans from.  Again, not that anything is wrong with that, it just loses something in the "authentic" department along the way.

 

In other words, gringos usually fuck it up.  

 

But, what can you do?

 

For me, I invited  a South American friend and his gringa girlfriend to add some sort of credibility to the dinner (he's Colombian, but for the sake of this story let's pretend he's Mexican.  They're all the same, right?) (I know that they aren't, I'm purposefully making broad generalizations to show Americans ignorance to all things non-white)

Here we are, like a veritable rainbow of beige-to-slightly-darker-beige...  

 

 

We're the best!  

 

(obviously I'm not pictured here, but I'm generally considered to be pretty white by the cooks at all the restaurants I've worked in...) 

 

Anyhoo...

 

Let's get this train wreck back on course, shall we?

 

So as I'm sure you've deduced by now, I did eventually decide to cook black beans and rice, and I could think of no better accompaniment than a nice big, juicy, cumin and lime crusted pork loin...

 

So that's what I did.

 

Here's my "before" shot that I've become so famous for (I haven't):

 

 

After prepping  the veggies, I started by sweating some chopped bacon, ham, and chorizo in bacon fat and lard (of course!);

 

 

Added the peppers (Anaheim in this case), celery, and onions:

 

 

 

When those were sweated down (10 minutes or so) I added some garlic, hot sauce, and a box of tomato along with a glug of cider vinegar, chicken stock, and some beer:

 

 

and brought that to a boil and then down to a simmer and simmered for a few minutes before adding the star of the show, the black beans:

 

 

See all that fat forming on the top?  That's flavor, baby, and natural, good-for-you flavor too...

 

I then gave it all a stir:

 

 

And let it simmer for however-the-fuck-long-you-want, it might even benefit from a night in the fridge and a reheat.  It certainly wouldn't suffer from it.  But in this case it simmered long enough to make some white rice, a pork loin, and a chicken breast for Liz because she doesn't eat pork (I know... I know.)

 

So the pork.

 

Ah, pork.

 

I wanted to do an authentic-y spice rub so I toasted some cumin and ground it up and seared the shit out of it on a hot ass pan:

 

 

I for sure started this while I was building the beans to save time, but really, if you did the beans first and then did everything else, the beans are just going to be better for it...

 

 

Meanwhile:

 

 

into:

 

 

That's the same pan I cooked the pork in, afterwards I strained the pan drippings into the bean through a china cap (why not?).

 

A note on pork:

 

Pork is the best thing ever in the whole world.  That being said, the conditions that most supermarket pork is raised in is beyond reprehensible.  If our government had any sort of balls of their own that weren't owned by the big corporations there would be sweeping changes made to our food system, and there'd be a lot of people in jail (including most of the government officials who let these heinous conditions thrive).  However, where things of greed and corruptibility are concerned, the bad guys continue to win.

 

 It's neither a close nor a fair fight.

 

So what can one do in the face of such insurmountable odds?  

 

Don't buy it.

 

This pork is pasture raised and humanely slaughtered.  

 

You know how I know that?  I know the butcher.  

 

In this case I bought it at Fairway and asked about it.  

 

Is it more expensive?  

 

Yes.

 

Is it better tasting, better for the environment, better for the pig, and better for you?

 

Also, yes. 

 

As much as I love pork, steak, chicken, lamb, wild boar, buffalo, deer, and what-have-you, I'd rather not eat it than give money to the bad guys.  

 

I'm lucky that I can make that choice.  Not everyone can, and I can't hold anyone else responsible for the decisions they make to feed their families, but PLEASE!  If you can, only buy free range humanely raised and slaughtered animals.  It's like a vote with your money.  If we can get enough people to not buy the horrible products that the big animal feed lots shove down our throats, then maybe they'll be forced to change their more-than evil ways.  

 

Maybe not, but at least you'll be doing yourself, the environment, the farmer who chose to raise it humanely, and the animal who gave up it's life without being asked if it'd like to a big favor by respecting those things over cost.

 

Plus, and most importantly IT TASTE BETTER!

 

 

-End rant-

 

One of the many benefits of buying good pork is that you can cook it medium rare with no ill effects.  Some people still aren't ready to take the leap of faith but even the USDA has recently changed it's position on the minimum temperature pork is safe to be eaten at. 

 

So here's mine, deeply browned on the outside, and pink, juicy, and flavorful on the in...

 

 

I mean what goes better with black beans and rice with cumin scented pork loin than Pacifico?

 

Cheers!

 

(not a product endorsement)

 

So while I rest the meat (ALWAYS REST YOUR MEAT FOR A MINIMUM OF TEN MINUTES!!!!) I cooked up one of my favorite side dishes ever:

 

 

Kale!

 

 

Doesn't that just scream "healthy!!"?  It's just sauteed in olive oil with browned garlic and a touch of butter added at the end for richness...  It goes with any dinner and is crazy delicious/good for you...

 

(also not an endorsement)

 

Anyways, these next shots are pretty much just food porn, so I'm gonna give 'em all to you as I couldn't decide on just one, so here's a bunch of shots of sliced pork:

 

 

 

...and then one more of the rice and beans:

 

 

and then (because this post is beyond long enough)...

 

 

and finally:

 

 

I mean, come on...

 

So in the interest of time conservation (one of the things my blog will attest to the fact that I'm least interested in) I'm gonna wrap this up.

 

Just a quick aside; the next night(-ish) I chopped up the pork and heated it up in a pan with some green salsa, and heated up the rice and beans, some shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream and hot sauce and made some killer stoner gringo burritos that were very, very good as well...  Just in case you were at a loss for leftover possibilities...

 

Anyways...  As my friend Oscar (he's my Mexican friend from the pictures) would say: "jajajajaja..."

 

(for some reason they say that instead of "hahahaha."  They're so different from us...)

 

Thanks for coming over Oscar and Jane, I hope you'll be regular visitors to the old Leftover Foodie!

 

(I may even convince Tom to come over again one day!)

 

Not for nothing, but I missed a perfect meal to photograph the other night which makes me sad as this was a good one (grilled scallops in the shell!!!), and am off to Vermont for the week this coming week, so between the two things I don't have anything to post until I can download pictures from my Vermont trip.  So, and I'm sure this will seem tragic for my ardent followers who've become accustomed to my prolific post rate, I probably won't post any real posts for a week or two (or thirty).  But I'm going to try and remote post some pictures to the blog as a new "see, I haven't forgotten you" gesture, and hope to get crackin' on some good stuff over the rest of the summer (I can feel myself going on a "wood fire cooking" spree as many times as I can get my hands on a grill).

 

Apart from that, go fuck yourselves or something, I'm on vacation!

 

Love, and miss you guys already,

 

n*

 

 

 

Scape-ing The Bottom Of The Barrel, Or: Last One, I Promise!

Call it a mishmash, call it one last bit of laziness, call it what you will, but here, at last, is the last of the scape themed posts.

 

By now you know the drill.  Scapes are good.  I like them.  So let's just jump right into this one, shall we?

 

This first one is leftover from the last meal I had made in the last post (scroll down if you don't believe me).

 

The next morning I had some scapes, some bacon, and a dream.  They all came together in what I like to call "breakfast."

 

Here's the pictures:

 

 

I rendered off some bacon and added scapes, then beat some eggs and made a scramble, which I put cheese on top of and put in a croissant (why not?)

 

 

 

It was very good, you should have one.

 

This next one is a side dish that I often make with various different components.  In fact, I believe I was recently bemoaning the fact that I had made an orzo salad and not taken pictures of it when lo-and-behold!  I was going through my old pictures and found not only this orzo salad, but one which has scapes in it (of all things! right when I was doing a scapes post!  And I refuse to believe in a god...)

 

So here I boiled some orzo in heavily salted water (are you seeing a theme to my cooking yet?) and rinsed it off in cold water to stop the cooking so it didn't become mushy (what, you think food stops cooking just because you take it out of the water?)

 

In the meanwhile, I chopped up some nuts (and took a picture of it for some reason):

 

 

Some parmesan (look how artful!):

 

 

and of course, our hero!  

 

 

I added them all to the orzo along with a good amount of good quality olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh herbs (I usually like to use tarragon but any fresh herbs will be nice) in this case I used tarragon and fresh basil and added it all to a bowl.

 

 

 

and tossed it like a prison proverb...

 

 

...apparently there were also peas involved.

 

This is a good base for a just-about-anything dish.  Especially in the warmer months it's become my "go to" dish for BBQ's, pot lucks, friends over, you name it...  

 

Start with the orzo, parmesan cut into bigger chunks, some sort of nuts (I prefer slivered almonds that I toast up), and a fresh herb.  Then add whatever vegetable you have lying around.  I usually cook and then chill mine in an ice bath like we talked about in the last post and have used any number for season-appropriate things from corn and peppers, to peas and, well, scapes I guess...  

 

Let your orzo-salad-related-imagination run wild...

 

Lastly we have a delicious dish that was supposed to be the second post on my "Maine Trip" post that I never got around to (I assume it's because I'm too awesome to finish things).

 

We start here with a good place to start in any occasion, scapes cooked with bacon (again).

 

 

 

And with this solid foundation, the only improvement-upon could only possibly be one thing, and that's farm fresh pork chops!

 

 

 

combine all three ingredients (butter, oil, salt and pepper aside)...

 

 

warm up a farmers market fresh biscuit, 

 

 

And have yourself a camp out style pretty little picture of a dinner...

 

 

Worse ways to spend an evening, I promise.

 

So there they are, all of the garlic scape dishes that I cooked last year.

 

Funny thing is as much as I truly do enjoy enjoy them I haven't touched one this year.  No real reason, and I'm sure if I saw any I'd gobble them right up, but so far my summer has been a scape-less as last summer was scape-full...

 

Oh, life.  You silly little thing.

 

Anyways, I have a new-new post that I made last night that I'm just about to start working on, and then of course I have many many others planned that I just haven't gotten around to yet (I'm sure I will this time...).

 

So to brighter days, huh kiddo's?

 

To brighter days...

 

See you then,

 

n*

 

 

Scape-gate Part II, The Only Wiener-less "Gate" Currently On the Interweb...

 

Ahhhh, summer.  

 

I think we'd all agree it's such a great time of year, and what's better than a perfectly cooked steak in the summer?  

 

How about a nice cooked steak with a nice cool potato salad?

 

Better than that?

 

How about a nice cooked steak with a cool potato salad with scapes in it?

 

You want more!?

 

How about a nice cooked steak with a garden-fresh scape-and-pea-filled potato salad and a lettuce wedge with homemade ranch dressing with bacon crumbled on it?

 

More than that?  Go fuck yourselves, cause that's some good summertime eating right there...

 

(Now you have to remember that this was last year, so some of the deets are a little fuzzy, but I remember this being a pretty good one, so let's get started, shall we?)

 

We start with an always-good-place to start where potato salad is concerned; with potatoes.  

 

As I'm sure no one has ever seen one before, here's what potatoes look like.

 

Notice the "skin"on the outside.  That's where all the nutrients are (if you listen to common knowledge that is).

 

Anyhoo, for these you cut them up into "same size-y" pieces and boil them in heavily salted water until they are cooked through, but not over cooked (a cake tester or knife should slide through and back out with no resistance, but not be mushy).

 

In the meantime, I took the hero of our story:  The garlic scapes...

 

 

and cut them up into pea sized pieces:

 

 

notice I left my knife in the shot in case you weren't sure what you cut things with, and I also left the ends uncut for reference...

 

I'm so great.

 

So take those pieces and boil them in heavily salted water.

 

 

and then the most important step, and one of the biggest differences between home cooks and restaurant cooking; using an ice bath.

 

 

How much ice used was one of the biggest surprises for me in a restaurant kitchen (along with how much salt, and how much heat), almost every vegetable cooked went into huge tubs of ice water to stop the cooking and lock in the color and flavor.  Most home cooks just don't have the ice making capacity in their freezer so ice baths don't get used that often, but it makes a HUGE difference in freshness of vegetables.  Even roasted vegetables got par-cooked in hot salted water and then iced down before being sauteed or roasted a la minute at pick up.  It's a trick I use often at home, and the best part is that you can reuse the same water to do all your veggies if you time out the order (green stuff with make the water green so do them last). 

 So with this done, I turned my attention to some fresh peas and gave them the same treatment.

 

 

I then combined the now-room-temperature-to-slightly-still-warm-but-not-hot potatoes with salt pepper, scapes, peas, and mayo (homemade if you have the time, it's toooootaly worth it!) and mustard with some fresh herbs and voila!

 

Yummy, garlic-y potato salad.

 

That went in the fridge to cool.

 

Whenever later, I brought the steak out to come to room temp (another very, very important step that often gets overlooked at home).

 

 

I seasoned it,

 

remember, lots of salt (most of it falls off when cooking) and LOTS of heat (you want a rip-roaring pan for a big piece of meat like this one if you want a nice crust on it, like I know you do)

 

I apparently used some sort of reddish "other" seasonings as well besides kosher salt.  If I had to guess I'd say Spanish Pimenton (smoked paprika) was involved, as well as ground cumin possibly (maybe not though)  and as always lots of fresh ground pepper...

 

Give it a couple/few minutes on one side, and flip...

 

 

 

That crust is so nice it deserves another look...

 

 

Oh yeah!

 

So when it's done (pretty rare to med rare in this case) you HAVE to let your meat rest (another thing home cooks don't do often or long enough).

 

 

 

See all those juices pooling on the top?  Those get absorbed back into the meat and make it nice and juicy, just like good meat is supposed to be...

 

So apart from that I took a whole head of Romain lettuce and cut it into quarters length-wise, seasoned with salt and pepper and poured over a homemade ranch dressing (it's worth it) along with some crumbled bacon on top of it, to make this:

 

 

 

All and all it's adds up to a pretty good dinner (Thalia actually ate some of the steak, but Sage says it "taste like Muenster cheese")...

 

Sure garlic scapes weren't the "star" of the show, but they were there!

 

I mean, hey!  What do you want from me!?  I made you a nice dinner and all you can do is complain about the fact that I sold this to you as a garlic scape heavy dinner when in fact it's just a component in one of the side dishes!!?

 

Well, fuck you!  How about that?  

 

Jesus...

 

Whatever.  I'll try harder next time, okay?  I'm sorry I didn't live up to your lofty expectations.  Can't we just have one quiet dinner without you rubbing my deficiencies in my face the whole time?  Just one fucking dinner!?

 

Fine.  You know what?  It's getting late and I have a lot of dishes to do.  So...

 

Yeah, I'll call you tomorrow or whatever.  Maybe.  I just don't know...  

 

I mean, yes.  I will call you tomorrow.  I'm sorry, my feelings are just a little hurt right now, so I'm probably just being contumelious, but I really do need to start on these dishes...

 

No, no, it's fine.  I'll just do 'em, thanks for offering though.  I'll call you tomorrow, okay?

 

Till then, dickwads...

 

Till then...

 

n* 


 

E-scape-ing With Another Old Post, Or Will I Ever Cook Again?

 

Forgive me if it seems like I'm drawing this post out, but it might have to be a three parter...

 

Truthfully, it is three separate posts worth of stuff, but I'm sure you could probably guess that I've yet to put heat to pan and camera to results.  

 

What can I say?  At least I'm consistently disappointing.

 

So delving into my past (again) I came across a bunch of posts that I had been photographing over the course of the summer last year all pertaining to one of my favorite little green guys, the garlic scape.

 

What is a garlic scape you may be asking (probably not as I have pretty sophisticated reader(s)?

 

Well a garlic scape is a shoot that comes out of a garlic plant about this time of year that if not cut will inhibit the growth of the garlic pod, which is why most farmers cut it of either way.  Good news?  It's delicious.  Bad news?  There is no bad news!  It's a win/win!

 

Hooray for nature!

 

So to begin our adventure, we start where we so often do, at grandma and poppa's house, more specifically this time, in their garden...

 

 

 

That last picture is the garlic plants in their natural state, the scapes are the shoots shooting up (as it were).

 

So what do you do with garlic scapes?  

 

Well, I counter your dumb question with a smart one:  what can't you do with garlic scapes...  (see what I did there?)

 

They are like a mellow, less "spicy" version of garlic that will add a wonderful flavor and nice toothsome bite to just about anything you'd add any vegetable to.  I like them cut into one to two inch pieces and sauteed in butter with salt best.  

 

Last summer I went on a veritable garlic scape rampage and put them in just about everything, and that just-about-everything benefited from them.  

 

But we'll get there, first let's spend some summertime-y time with my children in the garden.

 

Now my kids LOVE the garden.  They love planting, they love watering, they love weeding, they love picking.

 

There's a calm and a seriousness that comes over them when they are in the garden that reminds me of the way people act when they are in a huge Cathedral even if they aren't religious.  They respect the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They love just about everything in the garden except the food that's grown in the garden. 

 

With the exception of carrots and fat peas that is...

 

Oh well.

 

So what does one do with garden fresh garlic scapes?

 

Well, if you're trying to get three posts out of this like I am, you wait until next time.

 

So that's what imagonedo.

 

So until then, my friends...  

 

Until then... 

 

"peas" out,

 

n*

 

An Oldie But A Goodie (And Let's Face It, It's all I Have At This Point)

So let's visit ridiculousness.

 

In the past several months I've hosted a bevy of dinners that would have been perfect for this blog.

 

Just last week I had a couple of friends over and I made a killer orzo salad and shaved fennel and arugula salad with fresh mango and grapefruit that would have been an easy "summer salad" or "what to bring to a picnic/BBQ" post.

 

Shooting fish in a barrel easy.

 

I had Spanish Tapas night with a famous punk rock singer recently that was crazy good and easily photographable.  And a Chicken Riesling  cook-off (unbeknownst to them) with Balthazar that I'd call a tie.  Their spaetzle and onions were better, my sauce was better, and the chicken was a tie.

 

These are just the "big deal" nights.  I've cooked pastas, and pork dishes, steaks, and chicken galore.  

 

I cooked a lamb leg on a wood fired grill just a weekend ago up at Liz's moms that would have looked like a photo shoot for Sauveur's "back yard BBQ" issue...  

 

If I had taken any pictures of them that is...

 

Conversely I've been taking tons of pictures lately.  Albeit mostly kid related, but my camera hasn't been in the shop or anything.  In fact I'd say it's been either around my neck or in my bag almost every single day except when I left it at Sages school after doing a cooking demo of strawberry short cake with 15 adorable children (also ready-made for a post).

 

Alas, my iphoto cache remains food-photoless...

 

So what does one do with an influx of free time and a commitment to writing the summer months away with no pictures?

 

I'll borrow the wise advice that any serious music lover would tell to a person sick of all the bubblegum pop called rock and roll these days that doesn't know where to look for new music that doesn't suck:

 

"Go back, young man.  Go back..."

 

So I've been flipping through some old pictures and came across a post I never did for some reason.  

 

At the time I think I was my last post with my "old" camera, so it wasn't new and shiny.  But looking at it now I wish I could eat it, so I guess that's good enough for a post, huh?

 

So without further ado I present to you the best idea I can't figure out why no one else has ever done (that I know of that is, I'm sure it's been done a billion times, I've just never seen it...)

 

Pork Chop Parmesan!!!

 

 

From what I remember (this was well over a year ago after all) I picked up some Salvatore BKLYN Ricotta some fresh mozzarella, organic pork chops, skinless chicken breast (for Liz, I know, I know...) and whatever else you can see in this picture (some basil?).

 

I wrapped the pork and chicken in plastic wrap and beat the crap out of it until it was the same amount of thin all the way through:

 

 

 

 

I set up a breading station with flour, eggs, and in this case panko breadcrumbs:

 

 

Breaded them and fried them on a shallow pan with a cup or so of (probably) peanut oil:

 

 

Until:

 

 

I let them drain for a few minutes and then added some sliced mozzarella...

 

 

 

I put that in the oven to melt, in the mean time I made a simple tomato sauce and pasta.

 

 

This is what pasta looks like...

 

After that I checked on the stuff in the oven.

 

 

See?

 

(this was so long ago I actually still wore glasses!)

 

In the meantime, meantime I made them pretty with the brilliant addition of a basil leaf...

 

 

 

Did other things:

 

 

 Notice the empty Snapple bottle, this was an important part of the process I guess...

 

And made it all look like this:

 

 

I then grated some parmesan for good measure (the best kind of measure)

 

And finally...

 

Yummy dinner...

 

Given the choice between pork chop, and the always delicious Chicken Parmesan I know I'd choose pork chop almost every time, so that's why it surprises me I've never seen it on any menus...

 

Oh well...

 

Give her a shot next time you want an easy/impressive dinner, or if you want to have a "red sauce italian dinner night" along with some crappy wine and an okay dessert on a red checkered table cloth...  

 

It's the kind of theme night that some might think is cute, or for some it might remind me of my horrible, born-and-raised-on-staten-island "italian" ex-girlfriend (think Jersey Shore) that made my friends and I the single worst "authentic" Italian meal we've ever had in our lives (we still joke about it often, in a "glad we all made it out of that one alive" sort of way---seriously she threatened to put a mob hit on us)...

 

Anyhoo, neither here nor there...

 

Neither here nor there.

 

So I guess that's all for now, I'll comb through the past a little bit more and see if I can't find another post or two, and maybe I'll start taking some pictures of all these good times being had at Chez Gerloff, or in this case Casa Gerloffino...

 

See you then mon amis, er, amica mia...

 

See you then.

 

Chow,

 

n*