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Pork Tenderloin w/ Maple-Mustard Glaze

I had a couple of pork tenderloins rubbed with some seasoned salt and pepper all set to go on the grill last night. But the weather didn’t cooperate. The situation called for a last-minute recipe switcheroo, so I dug out an old fave that I haven’t made in awhile.

Rub each tenderloin with about 1 Tbsp [...]

How I make Pad Thai

It ain’t like at a restaurant for sure. Partly due to lack of a good source of some of the key ingredients, like dried radish and dried shimp. Partly due to I like to throw extra stuff in there. Mine is more of a noodle stir-fry with a tamarind sauce, but oh well.
This is one [...]

Mushrooms & Risotto

I started with a recipe from here, but I left out the butter and added two slices of pancetta, diced. Also, in addition to the porcini I added some fresh, sliced criminis. It came out really rich and dark looking from the liquid used to soak the porcinis. It was good, but not fall-off-your-seat good. [...]

Lah’meh fil Meh’leh

For the Pats vs. Colts AFC Championship game we wanted something hearty but also easy to serve in case some neighbors made good on their intention to drop in for the first half. So I threw together a beef stew from a recipe in Fistful of Lentils, a cookbook of “Syrian-Jewish recipes”. The translation of [...]

Curry Vegetable Shephards Pie

I knew I had the makings of a shephards pie (except the lamb) but couldn’t find an exact recipe to match what I had available, so I ended up taking ideas from two separate recipes. One was from Didi Emmon’s Vegetable Planet, the other from Allrecipes.com.
For the veggie base, use 2 tbs olive oil to [...]

BBQ in January

A strangely warm and sunny weekend for New England in January. Patriots vs. Jets playoff game on the tube. How could I not throw some meat on the grill?
I bought a bunch of bone-in chx breasts in the morning. During halftime I rubbed them down with a mixture of:

black pepper
paprika
sugar
chili powder
salt
ground mustard
allspice
cinnamon
a pinch of ground [...]

Dirty dishes, knotty dreads

We recently ate for the first time at an Indian place in Somerville called The Kebab Factory. The word of mouth was that the food was great (it was) if a little overpriced (also true).
The service was just OK. Mostly little things, like we asked for a table for five, waited for 30 minutes in [...]

Tomatillo Sauce

I’ve always stuck with a pretty basic salsa fresca recipe when using tomatillos in the past, but this time I decided to try more of a sauce-ish preparation. We had a little impromptu patio, grill-fest with our immediate neighbors and the consensus was that it came out excellent.

about 20 medium sized tomatillos
1 small shallot, chopped
1 [...]

Block Party

Our neighborhood had it’s 5th annual block party yesterday afternoon. Jenny & I have been fixtures since year one. It takes place in the park right across the street from our house, so it’s almost like having a big party in our front yard.

Our contributions included a big dish of pulled-pork BBQ (saved and frozen [...]

Pulled-pork BBQ

Get a pork shoulder (or two). You can get them from the butchers at Costco, but you have to ask. I haven’t tried asking at Whole Foods yet, which is where I prefer to get my meat, but maybe there too (for 2x the price, I’m sure, but sans the anti-biotics and such).
The Rub (enough [...]