Weekend Recipes: Red Curry Pork with Peppers

I’ve always had a secret love affair with curry dishes. I don't eat it all the time, but when I do, oh my. There’s something special about a rich, milky broth with a hint of spice, blended with a bowl of fluffy white rice. I’d never made it at home before, and with our budget being a bit tighter, I needed some curry in my mouth. Immediately.

I had some boneless pork chops, some curry, and some veggies in my fridge, and determined tonight was a good night to be brave and try to make pork with red curry and bell peppers. I found this recipe online, and was happy because it was loaded with veggies.

With the broth, hearty vegetables, and savory flavors, you’ll want to eat bowl after bowl. Enjoy!

Red Curry Pork with Peppers

- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1 onion, coarsely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1 lb pork tenderloin
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 6 ounces zucchini, diced
- 2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
- 14 ounces coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon bouillon 
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 4 tomatoes, peeled seeded and chopped
- handful fresh cilantro, chopped

• Cut your pork into large cubes, and season lightly with salt and pepper.

• Heat oil in a large skillet. Sauté both the onions and garlic for 2 minutes. They should be soft, but not browned.
• Add your pork, letting it brown for a few minutes.
• Add bell pepper and zucchini, allowing them to soften. 

I left the bell pepper seeds in for additional heat

• Finally, add your coconut milk,  curry paste, bouillon powder, and soy sauce. Allow it to boil, then reduce heat. Cover the meal, and let it simmer until some of the sauce reduces and thickens.

• Add tomatoes and cilantro, and allow the tomatoes and cilantro to gently soften. Stir gently, then serve with white rice.

Delicious dinner rolls, Texas Roadhouse Style

I love eating bread. It’s not uncommon for me to sit across from the panaderia (That’s a Mexican bread shop, for you gringos) and drool until the freshest buns come out. Then I inhale them. 

I’ve always wanted to try my hand at making bread, but was always terrified about the idea of working with yeast. Yeast. It sounds horribly difficult. However, if you’re afraid of something, face it head on. So here we go. I decided to follow a great recipe that I pulled off of Deliciously Yum. She mimicked Texas Roadhouse Rolls, which are sweet. Buttery. Delicious. It’s like eating a pillow and a marshmallow, but a lot better, because no one frowns on it.

So… don’t be afraid like me. Don’t be ashamed to eat these. Enjoy. Don’t share.

Wannabe Texas Roadhouse Dinner Rolls

Yields 18

2 1/4 (1 envelope) active dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 cup lukewarm milk
3 tablespoons melted butter, slightly cooled
1/4 c. sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
melted butter for basting rolls

Instructions
1. Combine yeast and lukewarm water in your bowl and let stand for 10 minutes (until yeast starts to foam and bubble).


2. Add milk, melted butter and sugar to the yeast mixture and mix well. If you’re luckier than I am and have a standing mixer, use the paddle attachment. 

3. Add 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups of flour to make a batter.  You want it to be very wet.

4. Add egg and salt and mix well. Again, if you have a mixer, switch to the dough hook and with the mixer running on medium speed, add remaining flour. Continue mixing for 5 minutes or until dough is smooth. I used my mixer, and a rubber spatula. 

5. Sprinkle some flour onto the counter and place dough on top. Let it rest for 10 minutes. While it rests, grease another bowl with butter. Place dough inside. Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel and place in a warm place until dough has doubled in size, about 1 hour.

6. Remove from the bowl and punch dough down. Place dough on floured surface and roll out into a square about 1/2 inch thick. 
7. Cut your dough into rectangles, about 3 inches by 2.5 inches. Place dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover with a towel and let rise again until doubled in size, about 45-60 minutes.

This is far too long. I had to recut these bad boys down.

Now we let them RISE.

Nice and puffy.

8. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake for 10-15 minutes. You’ll know it’s ready because the bun tops will be golden. Remove from oven and baste those buns with melted butter.

9. Enjoy them quickly. 

Three-meat, two cheese lasagna

There’s something comforting about a delicious lasagna that makes me happy on all levels. It’s saucy, cheesy, and just a little spicy. It hits all culinary levels of satisfaction, and leaves me perfectly sated.

Don't you just want to eat all the cheese?

Lasagna also happens to be a favorite of my husband, who is the most meat-and-cheese focused man you’ll ever meet. If I am ever in trouble, you can bet that this will be the dish that I make him so that he forgives and forgets (Mostly he’d forget because he’s so busy eating).

I’ve adapted this recipe from my mother’s own, removing the ricotta for preference. Of COURSE you can add ricotta mixed with eggs. Of COURSE you can add spinach, fresh mushrooms, or other veggies of choice. However, for sake of beauty and simplicity, I present to you my most basic three-meat, two cheese lasagna.

Andrea’s three-meat, two cheese lasagna.

Approximately 12 servings

1 pound hot Italian sausage 

1 ½ pounds lean ground beef

50 slices of pepperoni

½ cup cubed yellow onion

3-4 roma tomatoes

½ cup water

2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste

2 (6.5 ounce) cans canned tomato sauce

3 teaspoons Italian seasoning

sea salt

ground black pepper

seasoning salt

red pepper flakes to taste

10-12 lasagna noodles

16 ounces mozarella cheese

 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon cooking oil

•  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
• Cube your tomatoes and onions. In the pot you’re planning to cook your sauce, sauté your onion and tomato at a medium heat, seasoning them with your Italian seasoning. Cook until the onion becomes tender. This lends a great flavor to your sauce.
• Add your water, tomato paste, and tomato sauce to your pot, and set it at low to simmer while your meat cooks.

Leave it boiling as you prep your other ingredients. 

• Cook your ground beef at a medium heat, seasoning it with seasoned salt, salt and pepper to taste. Allow it to cook completely, then drain the grease.
• Remove casing from hot Italian sausage, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon as it browns. Make sure that the sausage cooks completely.

• Slice pepperoni slices into halves, drizzling them into sauce. 

• Add sausage and ground beef as well, stirring well. At this point, taste your sauce. If it’s too sweet, add some more seasoned salt or salt to your sauce, stirring it and tasting again. I also like to add ½ teaspoon to a full teaspoon of red peppers to the sauce. Leave it on low.

Thick and beefy, the way I like my... sauce.

• Now it’s time for noodles. Bring water to a boil in another pot, and add salt. Place noodles in the water and cook until al dente.

• While the noodles boil, begin shredding your cheese. If you’re cool, you’ll use this activity as a way to work out your forearms.

My arms are SO buff. 

• Once the noodles are ready, begin layering your lasagna. Begin with a thin layer of sauce, followed by lasagna noodles. Make sure to overlap noodles. Cover noodles with a heavy layer of mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Repeat layering process until you have reached the top of your pan. Sprinkle the top liberally with mozzarella.
  

Sauce to die over. 

Noodles.

The more cheese you add, the more flavor. 

• Cover your lasagna with foil and place in the oven for 20 minutes. At the end of the 20 minutes, remove the foil and leave in the oven for another 10 to allow for the cheese to brown.
  

• Serve after ten minutes, allowing for the lasagna to set. If you don’t mind soupy lasagna, dig in!

We may have gotten over-excited and over-eaten.

Beautiful Buttermilk Pancakes

I love breakfast. I love going to breakfast. I love being woken up to breakfast. I love making breakfast. Needless to say, it's about time I focused on something that I loved: breakfast. 

One of the things that I particularly enjoy to consume and create are pancakes. There's something beautiful about a simple, fluffy pancake. It can be wrapped around a sausage, or it can be enjoyed with its brethren in a stack. For years, I'd been using a simple, cheater's version of pancakes that my mom used from Bisquick. However, I decided to go a little bigger and better with my cooking. I received Two Dudes, One Pan from my husband for Christmas this year, and was determined to make their buttermilk pancakes. 

Buttermilk beauties

They are, simply put, some of the best pancakes I have ever eaten. I ate two pancakes while trying to cook a stack, and then sat down and ate some more with a side of bacon and hot coffee. I'm actually excited to eat them again tomorrow for breakfast. 

Buttermilk Pancakes

yields approximately 12 pancakes

3 cups buttermilk

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Canola oil, as needed

• Whisk together the buttermilk, eggs, and half of the melted butter in a medium bowl

Don't mind the bacon in the corner

• Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Stir in the wet ingredients with a wooden spoon until only a few dry patches remain. Mix in the rest of the melted butter until only a few dry spots remain. The batter will be lumpy (don't worry, it's the buttermilk's fault). 

Take your lumps 

• Brush a nonstick pan or skillet with oil and set it over medium heat for 1 minute.
• Brush the pan with a little more oil and ad 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake. (If you are using a griddle and cooking several pancakes together, leave about 1 1/2 inches between each pancake.)

• Cook until each pancake's surface bubbles and the edges are dry, approximately 2 to 3 minutes.
• Flip the pancake over and cook until the other side is browned, 2 to 3 minutes. 

I love the color.

• Place pancake on a platter and set aside while you cooke the remaining batter. (You may need to re-brush your pan with more oil.)
• Serve the pancakes immediately with maple syrup or fruit topping.

I had more pancakes to photograph, but I ate them. 

Enjoy! 

Quick blueberry biscuits... in under 30 minutes!

We had a dinner party go bust today. Matt was going to have a friend over, and I was supposed to cook a beautiful meal for all of us to enjoy. But… then Matt had to work late. I had a headache. We were both tired. It was downhill from there.

I felt badly that I wasn’t going to make something, so I looked online for something sweet and simple that I could put together quickly. I had a small basket of blueberries, and had a hankering for something comforting. I found this recipe on Plain Chicken, and the biscuits were heavenly.

Quick blueberry biscuits

Approx. 14 biscquits

2 1/4 cups Bisquick

1/3 cup sugar

1 cup wild blueberries

3/4 - 1 cup buttermilk (I used fat-free)

• Preheat oven to 450.

• Stir together bisquick, sugar and buttermilk until soft dough forms. Fold in blueberries. 

Your dough will be wet.

Be careful to not over-mix the blueberries!

• Scoop dough with large cookie scoop or ice cream scoop (3 tablespoons) onto ungreased cookie sheet. 

• Bake 9-12 minutes or until golden brown.

If this isn’t enough sweet for you (it was for me), add an icing to the biscuit.

You’ll need:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 to 2 Tablespoons milk

Combine powdered sugar and milk. Drizzle over biscuits.