WILD BOAR ROAST

 Okay, this was not as good as I had hoped for but that is my fault for not going with my gut on this one.  The flavor was great but it was tough.  I put it in the oven at 400 degrees and I thought that was too hot - it was!  I would have been better off low and slow on this one.  On a positive note, the leftover meat went back in the dutch oven and simmered for another two hours...tender and ready for stew on another night.

Okay here is where we start, first up is putting garlic cloves in the roast.  I take a paring knife and put a slit in the roast and stuff a lovely garlic clove in the pocket.  Repeat until you have 12 pieces of garlic studding your roast.

You can see some of garlic cloves sticking out of the roast.  Salt and pepper the roast and put in a dutch oven with olive oil that has been heated to smoking hot.

I did take the liberty to chop the carrots and celery earlier in the afternoon.  I now chopped the onions into large 1" chunks and peeled and sliced the apple.  After browning the roast I take it out and throw all the veg and apples in and turn down the heat a bit so it doesn't burn.  

While the veg sweats, I added two sprigs of rosemary to the roast.

I also got out all of the red wine and stock that I needed.

Yes there was a glass of wine for the cook.  I used two cups of Zinfandel and 3/4 cup of both beef stock and chicken stock.

When the veg was cooked down, I added the liquid and then the roast went back in.

It now went into the oven, again it should have been low and slow, 275 for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours not the 400 degree oven for 1 hour.

I added smashed potatoes with butter and parsley on the side.  I don't always succeed but at least I was able to salvage the leftovers and will have a good meal another night.  Eat Well Friends.

PAPPARDELLE WITH TRUFFLE BUTTER AND SHRIMP

 This was our dinner last night.  When I discovered the truffle butter I had to get some so I could adapt Ina Garten's Tagliarelle with Truffle Butter.  Her recipe can be found here:

Tagliarelle with Truffle Butter

First I used my vegetable peeler to get some shavings of Parmesan.

  I put it in the fridge so it wouldn't get too soft.  Next came the shrimp, I took off the shells and then sauteed some garlic and added the shrimp.

I chopped some chives and had sliced a lemon in half when I realized that the lemon and half and half would not be a good combination.  Curdled sauce was not on the menu for the night.  

I took the shrimp out when they were just pink.  I then added 1/2 cup of half and half and half of the container of truffle butter.  While all of this is going on I've got water on the boil for pappardelle.

Once the truffle butter was melted and the pasta cooked I drained the pasta, added it to the sauce and added some of the pasta cooking water to keep the pasta moist.  I then added the shrimp back in and half of the chopped chives.  Once I plated the pasta I added the Parmesan shreds and a sprinkle of chives.  

 

COQ AU VIN

 Time to catch up a little bit.  I made the coq au vin this weekend and a cucumber salad.  I will start with the coq au vin followed by the cucumber salad.  Chicken in wine, coq au vin, is a classic French recipe but I change my up just a bit.  One thing I don't change is using pearl onions but they do take a bit of prepping.

First boil the onions for 1-2 minutes, immediately plunge in ice water.  As soon as you can handle the onions slice off the top of the onion and peel back the skin, then cut off a small portion of the root end to clean it up.  There are some instructions out there that tell you to squeeze the onion at the root base and the onion will pop right out of its skin...don't do it or you will be chasing onion around your kitchen.  These darn things are slippery when wet and hard to get a handle on.

 While the onions were cooling, I took care of chopping up my veggies and the smoked jowls.

Slowly brown the jowls so that you render the fat.

 Once the jowls are a lovely golden brown take out and put on a paper towel lined pan.

Salt and pepper the chicken pieces and brown in the fat in the pan.

 

New it's tie to saute the veg.  I start with the mushrooms and then add the carrots, celery and onions.  I leave the garlic for last so it doesn't burn.  Now I've done some research and most coq au vin have either carrots or celery but not both and very, very few have potatoes.  Since this is traditionally a rustic stew I like to add the potatoes.

Next I deglazed the pan with a 1/4 cup of cognac.  I love using cognac, it adds such a richness and depth of flavor.  I added the chicken back in along with 3 bay leaves and 4-5 sprigs of thyme from my garden.   Next was 1/2 a bottle of a great French Merlot and a container of homemade chicken stock. 

Add the potatoes and pearl onions and bake, covered at 275 degrees for 40-45 minutes. 

Serve with crusty bread or a salad.

And for the light cucumber salad that is a great accompaniment to a rich dinner like the coq au vin.

I started by making the dressing, red wine vinegar, mayonnaise, sour cream, chopped garlic, salt, pepper and dried dill.  Wisk it all together.

Next cut two tomatoes into eights taking out the seeds.  Thinly slice half of a red onion or less if you are not fond of a heavy onion flavor, as you can see from the picture I only used half of the half.  Finally peel two cucumbers, cut in half  and then in half  horizontally.  Take a spoon and scrape out the seeds.  Slice the cucumber and then add all the veggies to the dressing.  

Try to let sit over night in the refrigerator, it will be hard not to dig in but try to resist, it will be worth it.

 

As you can see I couldn't resist a bowl.  

LIGHT DINNER

We had some leftover meatballs and sauce last night with perciatelli pasta as I just couldn't reheat the store brand pasta.  I adore perciatelli and bucatini as they are round like spaghetti but are hollow in the middle and all of the good, warm sauce gets into the pasta tubes! But I digress, we are going for a light meal.

I made tilapia in foil pouches with veggies, a yogurt mustard sauce and ginger-nutmeg glazed carrots with pecans.

I asked the hubs last night what he wanted for dinner tonight, as he has a cold - I shall not name the co-worker responsible for this but payback is not pretty!  Thinking that a light fish dish would be good I actually gave him 3 fish choices, cod, flounder or tilapia.  He chose the tilapia.

I have made tilapia so many times that I jumped in with both feet and knew that it would be a foil packet with aromatics and veggies, but I wanted a lightly sweet contrast to the lemon, garlic and shallots that I would use with the fish.  I had recently gotten a great deal on carrots, 5lbs for 2.99 and the 2lb bag was 2.79  yea I went crazy and got the 5 lb bag.  How am I going to use up 5 lbs of carrots???  Oh childhood memory of glazed carrots but how can I make them pumped up and better...SPICES!!  Hello ginger and nutmeg!

Ok first I started with all or most of all my ingredients, I was still torn between nutmeg and cinnamon as the second spice. 

 I started by peeling the carrots and slicing them into 1/4" discs. 

Next was the mustard sauce for the tilapia.

• 2 T Greek yogurt
• 1 T honey
• squeeze of lemon (don't go too crazy, I have and not good)
• 1 T chopped chives
• Salt and pepper to taste

I then chopped up the veggies I needed to for the foil packets, got the whole veggies ready and was ready to get the oven heated to 425 degrees.

 I've got the carrots in medallions, chopped garlic, chopped shallot, grated ginger, chopped tomatoes, whole sugar snap peas, lemon zest, chopped thyme and two sprigs of whole thyme.

Assembly, foil, tilapia, oil, salt and pepper...

Add the tomato, lemon zest (be frugal with this and the lemon juice), chopped thyme, chopped garlic, chopped shallot, sugar snap peas and squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the filets and seal.  If you want less lemon and acidity add some chicken stock instead of the lemon juice.  

And ready for the oven..

Now for the carrots...

1/4 C of chicken or veggie stock

1/4 to 1/2 C water

Add 2 T of brown sugar

2 T of honey

1/4 t of fresh grated ginger

Add the carrots

cook for 4-5 minutes covered, and then take the cover off and reduce the liquid, as it starts to reduce add the pecans.  The carrots, pecans and spices will caramelize

The sweet caramelized carrots with the lemon based tilapia are great together...sweet, lightly sour, light veggies and no rich sauce..dinner is awesome!