Slow-Roasted Pork Shoulder with Carrots, Onions and Garlic

As of late, I've become a HUGE roast pork fan. Seriously, it has replaced my trusty standby, pot roast with french onion soup mix, as the #1 most desirable roast meat at my house. And it's all because of this Fine Cooking recipe, which absolutely kills in its simplicity. This is THE dinner if you're a nervous cook and your mother-in-law is coming over, because it's easy, can be started in advance and gives you plenty of time to clean your kitchen while it's in the oven. (It's also truly great, though, if you don't care what shape your kitchen is in and you have the ability and desire to turn the pan drippings into pork gravy). I have actually strongly considered buying a 6 3/4 to 7 lb. roast for the two of us, based solely on the idea of pulled pork leftovers, but haven't found anything larger than 3 1/2 lbs. As such, I cooked for around 3 hours at 300 to get to a solid 165-170 degrees. I skipped the last step, breaking up the pork, and instead just put the vegetables in for the extra time at 375 degrees. The vegetables need the full amount of time in the recipe to soften.

Confessions: I have made this dish twice, and neither time did I let the pork sit overnight. I did let it sit at room temp both times.

Next pork stop: the Porchetta-Style Roast Pork in bon appetit's June 2010 issue. Can't wait!

Stir-Fried Beef and Sugar Snap Peas With Sesame Oil and Seeds

First, to get this out of the way, the point of this Good Appetite recipe from the NY Times is that you, at home, should make it with humanely-raised, grass feed beef. Right. My sell on this really is, good Asian food you can make yourself at home with fresh ingredients you can control, which may or may not include the beef.

As with the large difference in price between grass-fed and other beef, there was a large difference of opinion in our household on this one... we both loved the green, fresh, crunchy sugar snap peas, which are really the star here. We both loved the light, delicate pan sauce and pairing it with the hot sriracha sauce. I loved the dish overall; my husband thought the meat needed more flavor (I think maybe he wanted the grass fed). He suggested that the origin of his problem was the size of the beef strips: the recipe dictates 1/4" thick, and mine were probably more like 1/3". Next time (there will be a next time!) I'm letting him slice.

Lemony Grilled Lamb Kebabs with Peppers and Onions and Mint and Scallion Relish

Again with my attempts to vary proteins... these two recipes were a part of Real Simple's June 2010 mediterranean spread. The smartest thing about the kebab recipe was to keep the vegetables and the lamb as separate grilling items, as opposed to putting them on one kebab. Love the look of a colorful kebab, but it's difficult to pull off even cooking of each part. The hardest part of this recipe was carving up the lamb boneless leg. Navigating around the fat and connective tissue made me feel like I was on Grey's Anatomy. The most recent (June 2010) bon appetit actually had a prep school on trimming this piece of meat, which was probably the worst "how to" ever, as it didn't really give any further direction than, "navigate with your knife around the fat and connective tissue." But I digress. The real star here is the mint and scallion relish (note: unless you chop as fast as Jamie Oliver, you cannot whip this up while the kebabs are on the grill-- they cook fast!!!). Think of it more like a dipping oil, and add some soft pita to your grocery list so you can finish the relish once you've eaten your lamb kebab.

Linguine with Shrimp and Lemon Oil

So, not everything I make goes into the blog. Sometimes I'm starving and frantic and forget to snap a photo. Other times, the recipe completely bombs for whatever reason (hello, Jamie Oliver's favourite curry sauce from Happy Days with the Naked Chef). This recipe almost fell into the latter category, but I gave it a judge's save.

Here's the deal: I've mentioned before (here and here) that I love Giada. Love her. Love her because her recipes are so, so, so reliable. Make it the first time for company reliable. As such, I started cooking the Linguine with Shrimp and Lemon Oil from Giada's Kitchen without intensely studying it. I was humming along well into the third paragraph when I realized that I had reserved a cup of the pasta cooking water (as directed in paragraph 2) but had no clue where it went, as the recipe did not so indicate. Panicked, I threw it in with the cooked linguine, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Immediately it became clear that that was a mistake. I don't know where the pasta cooking water goes, but it does not go back in the pasta. [ed.: Actually, now that I've seen the online version of the recipe I do know: "some" should be added after the addition of the lemon oil to bring the pasta to the desired consistency.] I hastily drained some of it out, but flavor dilution was an obvious concern. With this in mind, I ate the pasta and was not wowed. My husband, aware of the pasta water disaster but somewhat removed from the situation, liked it fine. Flash forward to the next day, eating the pasta for lunch. The reasons for selecting the recipe came back to me: good warm or good cold, incorporates enough veggies to make this a one-dish meal and light enough for summertime.

I'm planning on trying it again-- maybe with frozen shrimp this time, so at least if it fails I won't have spent 30 minutes peeling and deveining.

8/12 update: made it again WITHOUT adding any pasta water and it was a success! The peppery taste of the arugula really popped against the lemon flavor.

Halibut with Citrusy Tomatoes and Capers

My husband loves to do things like go to the fish counter, ask what's fresh that day and then make up a recipe on the spot. I cannot do that (hence this blog's title, "I Cook the Recipes"). I like going to the store with a set list of ingredients to pick up for a week of cooking. Either way works, but where we've really run into problems is a combo of the two-- he goes to the store and improvises and I'm left cooking. Panic at this predicament has led to a number of failed preparations of halibut, which I love and which is not cheap, people.

The foregoing was the reason I pulled this heart-healthy halibut recipe out of Real Simple's November 2009 issue. The list of ingredients is short enough that if he picks out fresh halibut at the counter, I can do a quick memory recall and grab tomatoes and OJ to complete the dish. Added bonus for picky eaters: the substantial topping makes a non-fishy fish even less so. Next time we make this, I want to pick up a good crusty bread to sop up the extra tomatoes and sauce.

Oatmeal-Raspberry Bars

This recipe for Oatmeal-Raspberry Bars is one that's been floating around in my recipe file for awhile-- since June 2009, to be precise. It was in a great feature for summer picnic food in Real Simple. I immediately recalled it when Central Market had a $2.99 raspberry sale last week! These bars are the same basic concept as the Corner Bakery raspberry bars, but with the addition of oatmeal and fresh raspberries. In my mind, this makes this a healthy dessert (even though my husband tasted one and his first question was, "how much sugar is in these?!") I made a change when I made these and used the whole pint of raspberries. Substituting in baking was obviously a bad idea; they tasted great, but were a little watery because of the extra fresh raspberry. C'est la vie. For the seedless raspberry jam, I used seedless raspberry spread -- it was more jelly-like than jam, but given the whole raspberries I think this works. I'm excited to try out other berries in the future-- blueberries in particular seem like an easy switch-- and maybe a low-sugar or Splenda jam. Oh wait... I just said I would stop substituting...

Flexible 4-Step Chicken (Rustic Lemon-Onion)

My mom is obsessed with Melissa d'Arabian. Like, facebook friends obsessed. She's recommended quite a few of Melissa's recipes to me. This one, the Flexible 4-Step Chicken from last year's season finale, is specifically geared to be a quick weeknight meal. The most genius part about it is the idea of slicing the chicken crosswise to cook. Once pounded out and sliced, the chicken will cook in about 10 minutes (5 minutes a side) on medium-high heat. I also went ahead and added the chicken back to the pan at the end for a couple minutes to really get the sauce to set.

Now that I've made this, I really want to go back and re-watch the season finale to hear her other suggestions of items to swap out!

Pasta with Asparagus, Pancetta and Pine Nuts

Low-cal! Fast! Bacon! Good leftover!

There probably isn't anything more to say other than... this recipe is a keeper! I found it in the "Dinner Tonight" section of the Cooking Light website. It was also the first time I had ever heard of "cavatappi" pasta-- it's a combo between macaroni and spirals. Because I love crispy pancetta, I cooked it a little longer-- about 8 minutes -- and flipped the pancetta about halfway through so it would brown on both sides.

Confession time: I added a little extra pancetta. I think it still qualifies as "lower cal."