Sunday lunch: December 2010 issue of Everyday Food + February 2011 issue of Living edition. This was actually the lunch from the weekend before last; I’ve gotten a bit behind on my updates!

1. Emeril’s Cumin and Orange Pork Loin
I’ve never roasted pork loin before, but tying it up with twine was really fun. More glaze seemed to end up on the floor of my oven than the pork—the only thing I seem to know how to baste properly is Thanksgiving turkey—but the meat ended up moist, and tasted great.

2. Turnip and Potato Mash
Super simple dish where half of the potatoes one would usually use is replaced with an equal amount of turnips. The switch makes these very light and fluffy.

3. Gingered Golden Fruit Chutney
Putting apples, raisins, and tons of brown sugar in this made me skeptical about what it would turn into and if it would go best with the dessert rather than the main dish, but the onion, vinegar, and spice seemed to bring this solidly to the savory side.

4. Ginger-Lime Soda
Sadly, I couldn’t find ginger beer and had to substitute ginger ale. The drink still turned out okay, though honestly, I think plain ginger ale is yummier.

5. Île Flottante with Crème Anglaise (Floating Island with Custard Sauce)
The February 2011 issue of Living is absolutely gorgeous and full of dessert recipes to die for! Since I haven’t had an île flottante in over 10 years, I nearly fell over when I saw this issue had a variation on the dessert and resolved to make it as soon as possible. Although I think I overcooked my crème anglaise—it thickened to a consistency that resembled actual custard more than sauce and was slightly grainy—and was too lazy to make the caramel, the dessert still turned out to be utterly amazing. (Note: Although the recipe calls to drizzle the dessert with custard, a traditional île flottante is lightly coated with caramel and floats on top of a pool of crème anglaise.)

Sunday grilling: pseudo-tailgating, pork burgers edition.

1. Manchego-Stuffed Pork Burgers
Since my grocery store doesn’t carry anything as fancy as Manchego, I simply didn’t include it and spread some goat cheese on the toasted burger bun instead. It turned out great, though dad complained that the burgers were a bit on the “falling apart” side of things when he tried to flip them and that the cheese would have held them together better. The combination of spices and olives is quite amazing.

2. Deviled Dip with Baked Potato Wedges
Unfortunately, the dip didn’t really go with the potatoes, though each component was delicious by itself. It would be great with some salty potato chips and maybe a few more dashes of Tabasco. I omitted the herbs and garlic on the wedges on the account of the dip and baked them plain.

3. Game Night Margaritas
Good lord these were strong! I had to add a whole lot more grenadine and use a lot of ice to get them to a drinkable level. I don’t now if there was too much tequila or triple sec for the amount of lime juice + grenadine. Need to work on my margarita ratios.

4. Apple Pie
This time I put in lard in the crust and got the correct amount of salt into it. It turned out heavenly! Rolled out very nicely and flaked well once baked. In an attempt to get the pie to look less boring, I did a top crust similar to what I’ve seen in an issue of Martha Stewart Living a few years ago. The effort to use up our ridiculous harvest of apples continues!

Sunday grilling: kebabs & apple pie edition.

1. BLT Pasta Salad
Used whole wheat pasta, one head of regular lettuce, and didn’t include chives because they somehow didn’t make it onto my Grocery iQ list. Wish I hadn’t forgotten them; I think the salad would’ve been way better with chives.

2. Wine Marinaded Beef Kebabs
Because I couldn’t find a package of meat small enough and wanted leftovers, I increased the meat to about 2½ pounds. This meant I had to increase the red bell peppers and onions to two—though we did end up with a Frankenkebab that was two pieces of meat and eight pieces of pepper, whoops! Swapped red onions for the yellow. Nixed the cherry tomatoes to prevent veggie overload.

The recipe for the Essence isn’t actually included in the kebab recipe page, but you can find it here. I wouldn’t make it again without some major modifications like cutting the cayenne way down and nixing all the salt, since the marinade calls for soy sauce. I had already cut the salt to one tablespoon and used low sodium soy sauce, but the meat turned out ridiculously salty. I also took out the rosemary, since I already had oregano, thyme, and a ton of spices.

3. Apple Pie
We are currently being overrun by apples, since the tree in our backyard finally caught up to the season. This means I’ll be baking nothing but apples for the next month at least. I used the Joy of Cooking recipe for apple pie and decided to brave making my own crust for the first time in years. I usually hate making pie crust since I can’t do it quickly enough and it ends up sticking everywhere when I roll it. However, since I discovered I could use my KitchenAid and learned a few tricks from years of watching Martha Stewart + the Food Network, I figured it wouldn’t be as difficult as it used to.

I was mostly right, though I discovered too late that the recipe called for vegetable shortening, which I didn’t have, so I had to make do with just butter. I also managed to misread the amount of salt and put in one tablespoon instead of one teaspoon. Next time should be easier—and there will definitely be a next time since I have at least half a tree’s worth of apples to use up—and I will make sure to include the secret ingredient that makes good pie crust so great: lard! ;)

4. Modified “Creepy Crawlers” Cocktail
The October 2010 issue of Everyday Food predictably includes some Halloween themed recipes, one of which is the Creepy Crawlers Cocktail: a concoction of pomegranate juice, both light and dark rum, simple syrup, and lime juice. Since the recipe makes only one serving, I modified it to fill a pitcher, which conveniently used up the last of our light rum. I didn’t want to get a bottle of dark rum, so I replaced it with black tea, and cut the sugar in the simple syrup down since I figured the pomegranate juice would be sweet enough, especially without the dark rum. The drink still turned out way too sweet though, so I’ve cut the sugar out completely for this recipe. You can feel free to dissolve some in the water if the drink isn’t sweet enough for your tastes.

South of the Border Pomegranate Tea

1 cup light rum
1 cup strongly brewed black tea, cooled
2 cups pomegranate juice
½ cup fresh lime juice, strained (from about 2-3 limes)
1½ cups water
(½ cup sugar, optional)

Combine all ingredients in a pitcher and stir. Serve over ice. Makes 6 cups.

Sunday grilling: Labor Day edition.

1. Cuban Hot Dogs
We don’t have a panini press, I didn’t want to bother with the buttered skillet, and we avoided throwing them on the grill for fear that they would fall apart. However, they were quite good regardless.

2. Tomato-Avocado Salad with Lime, Toasted Cumin, and Cilantro Vinaigrette
This vinaigrette is amazing! Toasting cumin is actually quite simple: just throw a tablespoon of seeds onto a small, nonstick skillet over medium-low heat for a couple minutes, stirring occasionally. Once the cumin is a light, chocolate-like brown, pour it off into a mortar and grind.

3. Grilled Peach Cobbler
The first time I’ve ever made dessert on the grill; it turned out quite well and baked super quickly. It wasn’t very sweet and the peaches were permeated with a nice, smokey flavor. I used honey-almond granola—since I’ll have to finish off the bag with yogurt, I wanted it to be edible—and skipped the ice cream and caramel sauce.

4. Sweet Tea Mojitos
So delicious, I may have to make it again just because. I used only half of the sugar called for, since I couldn’t in good conscience put two cups in only five and a half cups of liquid (just thinking about it makes me feel ill). Even then, about a quarter cup of it precipitated as the cocktail cooled in the fridge. I also reduced the rum by half a cup, since my pitcher was about to overflow, and threw in only one handful of mint—I’m not a big fan of minty things. The result was slightly minty, slightly sour, plenty sweet, and delightfully boozy. A perfect drink to sip from a jar, sitting outside on a sunny and warm evening.

Since Memorial Day this year fell after the end of spring quarter, I had the chance to celebrate and grill with the family. In an attempt to improve on the somewhat liquid turnout of the patties two summers ago, I decided once again to make the turkey burgers with bacon, Swiss, and spicy mayonnaise from the July 2008 issue of Martha Stewart Living. Last time I made these, I tried to save some time by chopping the red onion and cilantro that go into the patties using a food processor, which turned them into mush and made the patties runny and nearly impossible to grill. This year, I sucked up the tears and diced the red onion by hand, which resulted in perfectly shaped burgers:

And no problems on the grill for my dad:

Following the recipe practically to the letter, I also made the spicy mayonnaise instead of the Real Simple homemade Caesar sauce I substituted last time. It definitely had a lot more kick than I expected—and about as much as I could stand eating—but paired wonderfully with the cilantro and Dijon in the patties. Rounding out the burger filling were lettuce, tomato, and hickory smoked bacon, all on sourdough buns that I baked myself the day before!

For the liquid accompaniment I used the Kiwifruit Caipiroska recipe in the current (June) issue of Living, which turned out too bitter for everyone’s tastes. Already planning for next time, I’m thinking about making either watermelon margaritas or the Pimm’s Cup recipe in the same issue.

The whole table, before everything got devoured:

Overall, a success—with even some leftovers for lunch the next day!