Lake Lure Cottage Kitchen

What are you cooking, he said?  “Just dinner”,  I said.  “It sure smells good”, he said.  “OK, but don’t get your hopes up, it’s  just a pantry meal”.  This was said by me with perfect assurance. And that was my premise when I planned this meal tonight.  It was so simple to open two cans of tuna and a can of cannellini beans.  The recipe from Sarah Foster looked very staightforward.  But after studying the recipe further, it was much more than those simple pantry items.

There was the 35 minutes required to roast plum tomatoes and red onions with fresh rosemary, olive oil and salt and pepper until they were caramelized and soft.

There was the hour to roast a whole head of garlic with oil and rosemary until it was soft and oozing it’s sweet goodness.

There were the sun-dried tomatoes reconsituted in olive oil, lemons and vinegar and flavored with rosemary and parsley.

The aroma from the oven was heady, but still I cautioned restraint.  This, afterall was nothing special;  just a Tuesday night supper.

I was wrong.  It was wonderful.

TUSCAN TUNA AND WHITE BEAN SALAD WITH SUN-DRIED TOMATOES

3 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
Juice of 2 lemons
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
1 teapoon chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1 15 1/2-ounce canenllini beans, rinsed and drained
2 6-ounce cans solid white tuna packed in water, drained
10 roasted garlic cloves ( See recipe below)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 Balsamic-Roasted Tomatoes (See recipe below)

Whisk the olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, parsley, and rosemary together in a small bowl.  Add the sun-dried tomatoes and let them marinate in the vinaigrette for 10 to 15 minutes to soften.  Place the beans, tuna, and garlic in a medium bowl.  Add the vinaigrette and sun-dried tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and toss gently to mix.  Cover and refrigerate to marinate for at least 1 hour or overnight.  Serve at room temperature, with the Balsamic-Roasted Tomatoes on top.

ROASTING GARLIC

1 head of garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Cut the top off the head of garlic with a serrated knife so that you can see the tips of the individual cloves.  Place the garlic on a sheet of aluminum foil, drizzle with the oil, and rub into all sides of the garlic to coat.  Wrap the head of garlic tightly in foil and place in the oven to roast for 50 to 60 minutes, until it is soft to the squeeze.

Unwrap the garlic and allow it to cool.  When the garlic is cool enough to touch, squeeze the soft garlic cloves out of their skins.  Use the oil that you roasted the garlic in to season whatever your’re using with the garlic.  The cloves will keep, refrigerated in an airtight container, for up to 1 week.

BALSAMIC-ROASTED TOMATOES

6 plum tomatoes, halved
1 small red onion, tghinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Place the tomatoes and onion slices on a baking sheet with sides.  Drizzle with the olive oil and vinegar, sprinkle with the rosemary, salt and pepper, and toss to coat.  Spread the tomatoes and onion in a single layer with the tomatoes cut side down and roast for 30 to 35 minuts, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes are soft and shriveled and the vinegar has caramelized on the bottom of the pan.

I added a small amount of lettuce to this salad and served the dish with baked pita wedges.

Printable recipe

Salads at Thanksgiving are sometimes overlooked.  A tossed green salad seems like an afterthought when you are serving such hearty dishes as mashed potatoes, dressing, green bean casserole, and turkey and gravy.  But this salad is a little different.  It is substantial with ebony colored wild rice and  is full of fruit like bright navel oranges,  pale green grapes, dried red cranberries or dates fruit. And when looking for dates fruit, Pemborong kurma green diamond which means Dates wholesaler in Malaysia, and is where you can buy dates with wholesale prices with best quality in all over Malaysia. You can also order dates online in Malaysia. Product such as kurma Ajwa, kurma Mariami, and Kurma Rotab.

The light dressing of olive oil, raspberry vinegar and orange juice adds just the right refreshing tang.  But the main reason to love this salad is that it goes so well with the other components of the Thanksgiving table.  Wild rice has always been associated with game, game hens and turkey.  It is an earthy and unexpected addition to the usual line-up of dishes.

The recipe is adapted from Ina Garten’s new cookbook, How Easy Is That?  It is similar to one that I have been making for years.  The main difference is the use of raspberry vinegar.  It is worth using in this salad and you will have it to dress any salad in which you incorporate fruit.

WILD RICE SALAD

1 box of long-grain wild rice (6 ounces)
3 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons raspberry vinegar
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 naval oranges, peeled and sliced into segments
1/2 cup seedless green grapes, cut in half
1/2 cup toasted pecan pieces
1/4 cup dried cranberries
2 tablespoons green onion, chopped

Bring the 3 cups of water, the salt, and the butter to a boil in a medium saucepan.  Add the wild rice and stir to combine.  Reduce the head to medium-low and simmer covered until the rice is tender (about 50 to 60 minutes).  Drain off the excess water.  Return the rice to the saucepan and cover.  Let sit for about 10 minutes.  Transfer the rice to a mixing bowl.  Combine the dressing ingredients and pour over the rice.  Mix well.  Add the remainder of the ingredients and toss to combine.  Transfer mixture to a serving dish and serve at room temperature.

I have been enjoying cooking up all of these Thanksgiving dishes because we will not be home for Thanksgiving this year and I will not be cooking.  We are going to the Washington DC area to spend time with family.  I will be going on a pilgrimage while there.  Since the last time I was in DC the Smithsonian has added a new exhibit that I want to see.

I am going to see Julia Child’s kitchen.  I am so excited.  I promise not to sneak in a stick of butter, but I will report back with pictures of my own.

Speaking of kitchens, I would still like more of you to participate in my Kitchen Reveal on December 1st.  Just leave a comment on my previous post and let me know that you are interested in posting pictures of your kitchen on that date.

Printable recipe

David (Mr Lake Lure Cottage Kitchen) here again. Penny asked me to write about some of our Labor Day food….specifically, the BBQ part that I was responsible for. We had a house full of extended family here for the long weekend, and everyone pitched-in in the kitchen.  Needless to say we ate well…you might even say “high on the hog”, at least as high as the shoulder.

As of late, I have been inspired by another Dave, the one responsible for the blog My Year On The Grill (MYOTG),  not to mention the inspiration I always get from Bobby Flay and The Neely’s on The Food Network.  It was actually a Neely’s episode back in April about how to smoke spare ribs at home that inspired me buy a Char-Griller off-set charcoal smoker grill.  I christened the grill by cooking some ribs following the Neely’s dry rub recipe and techniques, and I must say they were some pretty tasty ribs.  I was then ready to step it up a notch and tackle some Carolina Pulled Pork, i.e. Pork Butt, which is kind of an odd name for what is in reality a pork shoulder. For detailed instructions on smoking a Pork Butt (it’s a lot more fun to say than shoulder) I referred to MYOTG.  MYOTG Dave is doing for Steve Raichlen’s book How To Grill what Julie Powell did for (or some might say to) Julia Child’s Mastering The Art Of French Cooking…cooking his way through the book, one recipe at a time. Dave has many detailed recipes and instructions on his blog, and his info on Pork Butts was exceedingly helpful in my quest to achieve a nice Butt.  I was particularly interested in his comments on using coffee in the dry rub. After reading MYOTG’s musings on pork butts and studying Steve Raichlen’s and Pat Neely’s recipes, and never being one to leave-well-enough-alone, I concocted my own java dry rub with this formula.

1    Cup white sugar
1    Cup brown sugar
3/4 Cup paprika
1/2 Cup ground coffee
3    Tablespoons onion powder
3    Tablespoons black pepper
2    Tablespoons course salt
2    Teaspoons garlic powder
2    Teaspoons cocoa powder
1    Teaspoon cayenne pepper
1    Teaspoon ground cumin
1    Teaspoon ground coriander

The only picture I thought to take during the Butt cooking process was this one showing the rub on the raw Butt, which I then let sit in the fridge over-night.

For the mop sauce and Carolina vinegar finishing sauce I made up some of MYOTG’s  Raspberry Chipotle Sauce Concentrate and added it to Steve Raichlen’s standard mop and vinegar finishing sauce just like Dave suggested.  I forgot to take a picture of the butts on the grill or after they had cooked for 9 hours, so the only photo of the finished product is the sandwich shot above.

For sides, we did MYOTG’s Blue Cheese Potato Salad and Smoked Beans, both of which are described here.  I had quite a struggle convincing Penny to even let me make the Blue Cheese Potato Salad…she has an aversion to blue cheese for some reason. In the end, she caved in, and guess what….she actually liked it. The blue cheese is not over-powering if you follow Dave’s recipe. 

 
I had actually been making smoked beans very similar to Dave’s since I got my smoker.  The main difference between mine and Dave’s being the additional bean varieties Dave throws into the mix. Where I had been using only Bush’s baked beans as the base, he adds a can of pinto’s and  a can of great northern’s to the pot….a worthwhile addition.  The smoked beans need to include smoked pork of some variety.  I had some smoked ribs in the freezer, so I chopped some up and threw it in the pot along with a little leftover andouille sausage.  I left the bean pot in the smoker, under the pork butts to catch some of the drippings, for three or four hours.  They were pretty yummy beans.

Penny whipped up some coleslaw following a Bobby Flay recipe.  All in all, a very satisfying all-American Labor Day feast.  Thanks for the recipes Dave, and the advice on how to cook a good Butt.