Mongolian Pork Tenderloin

Cuttin’ The Mustard
We have our cookbook club dinner this weekend, and I have to admit, I have yet to sample many of the recipes from our book. It happens. Sometimes there’s just no time to actually cook, so I end up rolling the dice on a few recipes which I initially thought looked appetizing. (Well, that’s not totally true. I did make a few things…) The good news is our book is full of tasty bites. You might ask, how I can be so sure about the food, if I haven’t been cooking from the book? The answer is that I know it’s good, because the recipes are from Cindy Pawlcyn and Mustard’s Grill.

Known as a Truckstop Deluxe, Mustards Grill has been a Napa Valley landmark for the past 30 years, and no trip to Napa would be complete without eating there at least once. It has always been a favorite of my mother’s, and I remember as a kid being jealous of her going to lunch there with the rest of the Ya-Yas for birthday celebrations. Doesn’t get any better than a good lunch and some wine tasting with the girls!

One recipe I did make is the famous Mongolian Pork Chops, though I did it with pork tenderloins, because it was easier—and I’m a rebel. The ruling from my family was whether I use tenderloin or pork chops, the marinade is a definite keeper, and I plan on putting it into the summer grilling rotation. There is a lot of sugar in the marinade, so be careful when you grill…

Mongolian Pork Tenderloin Read more…

Lemon Rosemary Cornish Game Hens

Miss Manners

Lately, I have been thinking about table manners. I’d like to believe that I handle myself pretty well at the table. I know where my napkin goes, I know which fork to use, and I try not to talk with my mouth full. (I’m a mom. Sometimes you gotta say what you gotta say, even if you just took a bite!) I am confident that I will not embarrass myself or others when we go out to eat. As for my kids?

I noticed that my kids lack a certain basic knowledge when it comes to eating at the dinner table. Just to be clear, it’s not like they are total savages. They do know the proper way. But, it was while watching my son eat his dinner, crouched on the bench seat like Gollum from Lord of The Rings, that I realized perhaps a refresher course is in order.

When I was a kid, we went out to dinner relatively frequently—and when I say out to dinner I mean white tablecloths not “Do you want fries with that?” Dining out was how we celebrated birthdays and special occasions, and my sister and I were expected to act accordingly. It wasn’t always easy. The biggest test was when my dad’s parents were in town and we had to go to a place we called The Morgue. It was a white table cloth kind of club for, shall we say, an older generation—and not, frankly, an appropriate place to bring your young children for dinner.

Kids are going to be kids. Of course my Dad wasn’t always helpful. He once gave my very young cousin a Fireman’s Helmet with a siren as a gift for his birthday during dinner there. You should have seen the reaction when my cousin lit off that siren! It’s amazing how marble can amplify sound. Still makes me laugh.

The short version of the story is that I learned good table manners early on and I have apparently been remiss in the education of my children, at least as it pertains to the less well-known stuff. If I asked them the difference between a salad fork and a shrimp fork I would get a blank stare, but they do know the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork. Baby steps.

Certain foods can be difficult for anyone. Case in point: Game Hens. On a recent outing for my Mother’s birthday, my daughter and I both ordered the roasted game hen for dinner. It was very tasty. It was also a challenge to eat without flinging food everywhere. We muscled through it, and I later found myself looking online for the proper way to eat a game hen which put me back on the manners thing.

I’m starting a Manners Boot Camp at home and this is the first lesson…

Lemon Rosemary Cornish Game Hens
Read more…

Salmon Skewers à la Amy

Spring Broken
We had a great Spring Break: we saw Boston, we saw Gettysburg, we saw D.C. It was ten days of non-stop activity—and now, I hurt. I think we must have walked at least 20 miles. (That may or may not be an exaggeration). We saw some really amazing things, but our feet and legs are paying the price…and we’re still on east coast time.

I am looking a mountain of laundry in the face; I’ve no energy to even bother with it. And don’t even get me started on cooking dinner. The problem with dinner is that we over-indulged while away, so it’s time to start eating better. Simple and healthy is the mantra for this week. Last night we grilled salmon. It’s easy, it’s versatile, it’s healthy, and its tasty anytime, but especially mid-week.

There are many recipes out there for Salmon Skewers, and this is my own take. You can do teriyaki, blackened (Cajun) style, miso glazed…whatever floats your boat. Same goes for whatever you choose to thread in between the pieces of salmon or you could go full-on protein and just do the salmon.

My favorite version is the one below that uses the Creole Seasoning from Morton & Bassett that we carry here at the store. (Check out our Spice Section.) Great for warm weather dinners!

Salmon Skewers à la Amy
Serves 4 Read more…

Spicy Baked Chicken Wings

The Cookbook Club
Four years ago, my sister was inspired by the Food 52’s annual Piglet cookbook competition (it’s going on right now) to start a cookbook club with a group of five friends, and their families, who she knew were interested in cooking. Though some us had met before, and in some cases knew each other pretty well, it was a random group of people thrown together in pursuit of good food. The common denominator was my sister, and her love of friends and cooking.

This past weekend we celebrated our 20th Cookbook Club dinner—which is pretty remarkable considering that to make it happen five families have to coordinate their busy schedules. The cooking and choosing of books is the easy part. Try navigating through the sports, school, and work demands of 21 people. Our cookbook was the Brown Sugar Kitchen Cookbook by Tanya Holland. To say we ate well would be an understatement.

When the club started, nobody thought it would last this long. We hoped it would, but you know how these things go…they eventually fizzle out, or there’s drama between group members.

What makes this group different is it has ceased to just be about the food. The food is fantastic, but the real draw is wanting to spend time and catch up with each other. (If we can do that while having some rockin’ chicken wings and a cocktail, so much the better.) The change happened, I think, the night we went to The Slanted Door for dinner.

In February of 2013, we chose Vietnamese Home Cooking by Charles Phan as our cookbook. (See Bo Luc Lac: Shaking Beef, our What’s For Dinner Wednesday post from February 2013.) But, instead of having a dinner at someone’s house, we decided this time we would do it a little differently. We made reservations for 10 (Adult swim. No Kids.) at the Slanted Door and had Charles Phan (sort of…who knows who was on the line that night?) cook us our cookbook club dinner. (We were hoping he could sign our cookbooks while we were there. Didn’t happen.) We ordered all of the dishes we had made at home, and discussed them as we would at any club dinner. We laughed. We drank. We were loud and it was a blast. (The club is looking at doing the same thing for our next cookbook, Mustard’s Grill Napa Valley Cookbook by Cindy Pawlcyn. Brace yourself, Napa!)

They say food brings friends and family together, and if the friendships that have come out of this genius idea of my sister’s are any indication, it’s true. We call ourselves a cookbook club but it is so much more than that. We’ve bonded over so many other things besides food: woodworking, medical emergencies, teen angst, kids leaving for college… But it started when all of us sat around the table together and ate a really good meal.

If you’re curious, the list of cookbooks we covered can be found here.

Spicy Baked Chicken Wings
Adapted from Brown Sugar Kitchen Cookbook by Tanya Holland
Makes about 20 wings
Her recipe is about perfect. The only thing I would do to improve it is to marinate the wings in buttermilk before baking.