Weekend Cooking: The Kitchen Journal 4

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Today I have a little bit of this and a little bit of that to share and almost all of it fits into my Kitchen Journal. I am now into my third week of this season's CSA (community sponsored agriculture; I wrote about it here), which always increases my kitchen creativity.

Our friends who ran the CSA we belonged to for the last seven or eight years decided to disband their program, so this year we are with someone new. So far we're very pleased with our new farm.

My kitchen adventures have also been guided by the lovely package of Southwest goodies that the wonderful Sarah McCoy (author of The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico and the upcoming The Baker's Daughter) sent me a few weeks ago.

I don't have many photos to share, but I do have some kitchen notes inspired by this week's CSA basket and a few goodies we bought at the farmers market. Oh and a cookbook that I bought on Margot's (of Joyfully Retired) recommendation.

Pasta Adventures

We bought some lovely fresh pesto fettuccine on Tuesday. It sounded wonderful at the time, but when I went to cook it, I was a bit stymied. I didn't really want a tomato-based sauce and we don't do cream sauces. What I came up with is this:

I soaked 3 or 4 small hot dried peppers in a bit of chicken broth for about 15 minutes. In a small pan I placed some chopped sweet onion, chopped garlic scapes, and the chopped reconstituted peppers. I added about 1/4 cup olive oil to the pan and heated the sauce as the noodles cooked (only 3 minutes in boiling water!). I tossed the noodles and warm olive oil sauce -- Oh, yes. Heaven.

Wine and Pork

Thanks to Margot, I bought The Winemaker Cooks by Christine Hanna of the Hanna Winery in California. Our farmers market has some wonderful organic meat farmers/vendors and we bought a lovely pork tenderloin this week. We made the following recipe and even used the recommended wines (well, as close as we could get here in central Pennsylvania). I adapted the recipe a bit to fit the size of tenderloin we had, but I'll give you the original.

Orange Dijon-Marinated Pork Tenderloin

• 4 garlic cloves chopped
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons grated orange zest
• Juice of 1 orange
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 2 pork tenderloins
• 1/4 cup dry white wine

Two hours before grilling, combine the garlic, mustard, zest, juice, oil, salt and pepper in a self-sealing bag. Add the tenderloins and turn to coat. Seal the bag and refrigerate 1 hour. Remove the pork, reserve the marinade, and let the meat sit at room temperature for 1 hour. Preheat grill to medium-high. Grill 3 minutes on all sides. Transfer to a carving board and tent with aluminum foil for 15 minutes. Pour the marinade in a small pan, add the wine, and bring to a boil. Boil for about 5 minutes until it reduces. Slice the pork and serve drizzled with some warm sauce.

The Coppola Pinot Noir was outstanding with the pork. The J. Lohr Chardonnay that we cooked with, was not as wonderful, but not bad.

Strawberries

Finally, I brought home 2 quarts of strawberries from the market. On Wednesday, I made puff pastry pockets. I looked around the Internet and then came up with my own version.

While 2 sheets of puff pastry were thawing, I prepared the strawberries. I chunked strawberries to make 2 cups. I splashed on some balsamic vinegar (oh, maybe a couple of tablespoons) and then added a few grinds of freshly ground black pepper. To solidify the filling, I added 1/2 teaspoon instant tapioca. I didn't add sugar.

I preheated the oven to 400F, rolled out the pastry into 10-inch by 10-inch squares and then quartered each. On each square, I put 1/4 cup of the strawberries, pulled the corners together and twisted the pocket shut. I brushed the pastry with an egg wash (beaten egg with a little water) and baked them until golden brown and puffy. I think about 20 minutes (I forgot to write it down). They were outstanding!

I love cooking with seasonal foods! Tonight we're having grilled pizza with kale (from the CSA) and hot peppers (from Sarah). Oh and we have few bottles of wine to finish off!