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July 24, 2008

I'm a Y-peeler person

On Tuesday, I went to use my trusty Y-peeler to peel some potatoes and it was broken. I'm not sure what happened to it, but it wouldn't peel. My gear gets banged around and I've been treating it harshly for 5 years, so it's no wonder it broke. I rummaged through my client's utensil drawer and found a red Zyliss swivel-peeler. It had nice serrated teeth on the peeling blade. But I'm so used to a Y-peeler, that I had a lot of trouble peeling my potatoes. It took me twice as long to peel the potatoes. I made a mental note to put my broken peeler in my clipboard case so that I would find it when I emptied my case at home and I could grab another one from my stash of them. Yes, I have a stash of them. Of course I forgot to do that and on Wednesday when I needed to peel carrots, I found the broken Y-peeler in my utensil box. I immediately put my broken peeler in my clipboard case. Wednesday's client had a Oxo swivel peeler, which I struggled with to get two pounds of carrots peeled. I decided that there are two types of peelers and I'm a Y-peeler through and through.

Posted July 24, 2008 10:31 PM in Miscellaneous | Comments (2)

July 16, 2008

Sweet Onion Bread Pudding

Last week when I was planning menus, I came across this Onion Bread Pudding from Cooking Light. It came up in a search for southern side dishes. I was looking for something to pair with Creole Cod. I've never had a savory bread pudding and it sounded good, so I decided to add it my client's menu to go with their cod.

Of course, I had to tweak it. The first problem was that I needed it to be no more than 3 Weight Watcher POINTS per serving. The original recipe is made in an 8x8 pan, serves 4, and weighs in at 8 POINTS per serving. My first task was to reduce the serving size. One quarter of an 8x8 pan is a huge serving, so cutting cutting the serving size in half was not unreasonable. OK, so that got it to 4 POINTS per serving. I decided to use a whole grain bread rather than french bread and nonfat milk instead of 2% milk. I also wanted to add more onion. Those changes brought it down to 3 PTS per serving.

The recipe calls for slicing the onions into 1/4-inch slices and cooking the onion slices, while keeping them intact. The intact onion slices are placed over the bread mixture and topped with cheese. Cooking the onions while trying to keep the slices intact seemed like too much work to me. I decided to slice the onions and caramelize them, then add half of the onions into the bread pudding mixture and spread the other half on top of the bread pudding.

For the whole grain bread, I used one of my favorite loaves from the supermarket bakery. I trimmed off the crusts and cubed the bread.

I also let it sit for 30 minutes to let the bread absorb the milk and eggs before baking it. It filled the house with a wonderful aroma while it baked.

This is a pretty bad picture of it. I just got a new digital camera and I haven't had time to figure out the best settings for food photos.

Continue reading "Sweet Onion Bread Pudding" »

Posted July 16, 2008 9:38 PM in Cook Dates, Recipes | Comments (4)

July 8, 2008

These are really good beets (even if they are plums)

Pork, plums, and blue cheese, oh my. Boy, the Peppered Pork Tenderloin and Blue Cheese Plums recipe in the July issue of Cooking Light jumped off the page and seared itself into my mind. Tonight was the night to try this recipe. It calls for grilling, but I wanted to adapt it to the oven and stove so I can make it for some of my clients. (I don't use my clients' grills.)

This dish lived up to my expectations. It was easy to prepare, bursting with flavor, and colorful.

When I presented this dish to Tom, he asked "Are these beets?". "No, they are plums". "Looks great." "Mmmm, the pork is delicious." "These are really good beets, even if they are plums."

The pork tenderloin is rubbed with fresh rosemary, black pepper, fennel seed, coriander, and salt. Rather than grilling it, I seared the pork in a grill pan, then roasted it. I grilled the plums in the grill pan. Then filled them with the blue cheese. I served the pork and plums with Garlic-Thyme Crispy Potato Cakes (add roasted garlic and fresh thyme to this recipe.)

Posted July 8, 2008 8:15 PM in Test Kitchen | Comments (0)

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