Category Archives: Peaches

Show Me The…Pork??

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No, you may NOT reach in and snag a blackberry *smacks your hand* Make your own darn it!

I think that it has been established that I like pork. Maybe even love it and want to bear it’s oinky children. Though trying to imagine how said children would sound when laughing rather frightens me considering I tend to snort like a pig when laughing hard (maybe that’s not info I want out there on the web. Hmmmm…). As well as what their nose would look like. I don’t have the smallest schnoz in the world myself so join that with a piggy nose and Lord help the child socially. Plus, that only being able to cool down by rolling in the mud part could cause issues. I can see it now… “Junior, how many times do I have to tell you not to come into the house after you’ve been wallowing?!!!” But…but…*snort snort*… MOMMMMMM… I was hotttttt and…*snort snort*… you said no more 3 hour cold showers!” “No dear, no more cold showers. You’ll need those later when all the women see your nose. Now go get one of your brothers and the axe so I can make dinner”.

Maybe it would better if it were the children of a Llama. I don’t think I’d ever eat llama meat. Food for thought…. or dinner. *Snorts* I crack me up.

I started a pork loin roast marinating a few days ago. Yes, a few days. I like to do a two day marinating time usually and meant to make this last night but it didn’t happen that way. Why? Because I’m a lazy slug. What can I say?

I was worried that the three days would lead to an overly salty piece of meat with the texture of liver. I was pleasantly surprised when that was far from the case. We ended up with a pork roast that my husband ate I think 4 pieces of, I ate two pieces which is rare for me (unless I’m eating mid rare beef in which case just set a side of beef and a knife in front of me). Let’s just say that out of a four pound pork loin there is enough left for a sandwich. Add in the salsa that I made (which my husband actually tried…GASP!!) So yeah… it turned out. :-D So if you’re a pork fan or like to have fruity relish/salsas with meat, this may be for you.

The marinade is an extreme adaptation of one from all recipes recipe. The salsa is me though as with 99.9% of the things we think we are creating, I am sure there are 500000000 variations online somewhere.

Roast Pork Loin In An Asian/Mex Fusion Marinade

With a Blackberry Peach Salsa

  • 1 3 to 5 pound pork loin
  • 1/2 cup lime juice
  • 2/3 cup soy sauce
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
  • 2 teaspoons onion powder
  • 2 teaspoons sesame oil
  • 1 small jalapeno, sliced thin
  • SALSA-
  • 1 6 ounce container blackberries
  • 1 large peach, chopped
  • 6 grape or cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered depending on size
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped green pepper
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup lime juice
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
  • 3 green onions, thinly sliced
  1. Mix all the marinade ingredients in a large ziploc bag. Leave the lime halves in the marinade. Add the pork roast, turning to coat. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours and up to 3 days.
  2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. You heard me; 450.
  3. Put roast in a foil lined pan. Again, why make more clean up for yourself if you don’t have to. I want to give a huge kiss to whomever invented foil. On a side note, remember when it was “Tin Foil” not aluminum foil. If you do, that means you too are old like me. Welcome to the club :-D
  4. Cook roast until it reaches an internal temp of 145 degrees; about 40 minutes. Start checking at 30 and frequently there after. It goes up quickly at that temp. But doing it this high, you get a nice crispy outside and a juicy inside.
  5. While it cooks, make your salsa (can also be done earlier in the day)- mix your salsa ingredients. Taste for seasoning but remember all flavors will get stronger as it sits.
  6. When pork is done, let it rest for about ten minutes before cutting. Drives me nuts when people cut meat the second it comes out of the oven. LET IT REST! The juices go back into it and make it that much juicier and more flavorful.
  7. Slice as thin or as thick as you like and serve with the salsa.

 

Is It Permissable To Marry A Panini?

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And what do I do if my husband protests the union? Can we all live in gooey panini sin together?  How do we put the sandwich on our health insurance? And would said insurance cover bite marks in the panini? Can I be hit with domestic abuse charges for the bite marks? I don’t even want to THINK about the issues surrounding procreation and paternal rights!

I like Paninis aka smooshed up crispy sandwiches. I have posted paninis before. Because I like them.

Paninis.

I like.

Them.

Or something.

Shutting up now.

I lied. No shutting up.

I, like most people who didn’t live in whatever city they originated in, hadn’t heard of paninis until fairly recently. Maybe 6, 7 years ago? When I was a kid, crispy sandwiches were old fashioned grilled cheese. Preferably served with tomato soup (though I actually had never heard of that either until I got married the first time at 20). Now though, grilled cheese has given way to paninis, which, if we are to be honest, are really grilled cheese with grill marks and fancy ingredients. Not that I mind. I tend to like fancier ingredients on sandwiches. I grew up in the era of Oscar Mayer bologna, processed cheese food (you hear that Chef Dennis? :-P ) and because I am a product of the Chicago public school system, ham sandwiches on mushy white bread that has been spread with butter. I am shamefaced as I admit to still having a certain fondness for that last one.

But I love paninis. Mentioning that in case I didn’t make it clear earlier. I especially love them with “fancy” ingredients. The following is one I created tonight when I realized I had some Brie I needed to use (I ALWAYS forget it and find it somewhere in the back of the fridge and have to smack myself). I had also bought some white peaches today and had some thin sliced chicken breast to use. Add in some bacon and a couple of other assorted yummies and it made one hell of a sandwich. So go… make this. Eat.

Sourdough Panini With Caribbean Jerk Chicken,

Brie, Bacon & White Peaches

  • 2 slices sourdough bread (preferably the square loaf)
  • 1 tablespoon peach or apricot preserves
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 4 ounces thinly sliced uncooked chicken breast (I used Tysons thin cut chicken)
  • 1 tablespoon (more or less as desired) of your favorite brand Caribbean Jerk seasoning (I used McCormicks)
  • 4 to 6 slices crispy bacon (depends on how gluttonous you’re feeling & whether you’re sharing :-P )
  • 2 ounces thinly sliced Brie, rind removed
  • 1/2 of 1 white peach, thinly sliced
  1. Preheat the panini press.Over medium high heat, heat a medium (lots of medium here) sized pan on the stove until very hot. Add your chicken slices, doing one at a time. Quickly cook on one side until golden brown then flip over. Sprinkle seasoning on chicken and cook other side until it is brown. It probably won’t be cooked all the way but that’s what you want. It will finish in the sandwich cooking process.
  2. Spread one piece of bread with the preserves. On top of that, layer the brie, chicken, peach slices and bacon.  Slap on (yes, you have to slap it on. Just cause.) the other piece of bread. You can lightly (and I do mean lightly) butter the bread on the outside to increase crispiness if you want but really in panini presses there is usually no need.
  3. Toast…grill…cook…. dry fry… call it what you want the sandwich until it is nice and toasty and golden brown. Cut in half and it will serve two people; one if they are starving to death.

I have NO idea how my camera "messed up" and focused on that bag of cheetos in the background! I plead the fifth!!

Shakin’ Things Up A Bit

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If you look back through my blog, you’ll discover that I kinda like drinking. No, not that kind of drinking. Welllll, not often anyway. I’m too old and wimpy and can’t handle booze well. I start giggling like a 16 year old girl out on a hot date with the football team captain. Then I fall asleep. And drool.

But I mean… just…drinking. I am a tea addict and happy about it :-) I love pop even though I am aware of how bad it is for me. To my credit, I only consume about 2 cans worth a week usually. I also love milk shakes and any creamy drinks as evidenced by the key lime shake I have posted and the coconut mocha frappuccino wanna be I posted. I also don’t have them often because I’d like to keep my weight UNDER a ton. This is the same reason I don’t eat much of what I make for the blog as much as I’d love to because it’s yummy! If I did, we’d have to reinforce the bed frame. And the house. And quite possibly the earth. I’d tilt it off of its axis or something and we’d all end up on Venus with all of you giving me dirty looks.

But I can not tell a lie (just call me George). The shake that I made tonight? I drank it all. Well, almost. The boys are staying the night at friends across the street & Zach (my 14 year old) came in when I was drinking it & I kindly let him have the dregs from the blender. hey; there was enough left for him! And I was proud that I didn’t just tell him no and hide myself somewhere safe with the blender cuddled to my chest.

I had some raspberries and a peach that I needed to use up and the dessert Peach Melba popped into my head. But that was way more trouble than I felt like going to. I’m lazy; what can I say? I wanted my fruit and ice cream NOW dammit! So I made a shake! Yep. A nice creamy oh so bad for me shake. But wait! It has fruit in it… REAL fruit… not just fruit flavor and chemical dye number 3000. So I can tell myself that it’s good for me right?

This is nice and tart from the fruit (thus why you have to add a touch of powdered sugar or it’s TOO tart) and while I usually prefer really thick shakes, I was quite happy with the fact that this one isn’t so thick. It made it easier to drink quickly :-D

Peach Melba Shake

(Peach Raspberry)

  • 1/2 cup fresh raspberries
  • 1 medium peach,  chopped (about 1/2 cup)
  • 1/2 cup milk (soy milk, cream, whatever trips your trigger)
  • 1 cup peach ice cream or peach frozen yogurt (can sub vanilla)
  • splash vanilla extract
  • whipped cream and fruit for garnish
  1. Obviously this is pretty easy. Put it all in the blender and..well… blend :-P then garnish with whipped cream and more fruit.
  2. This direction is for nothing. I just felt like it looked empty without more directions.
  3. This one too. Ok, that should be enough now. :-D


 

 

 

 


Memories Are Made Of This

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One of my favorite photos of my dad. It is just so HIM

It’s Fathers Day once again. My recipe won’t have anything to do with Fathers Day; my dad would have pretended to gag and turned his nose up saying I was getting too fancy when he saw what I had done to perfectly good peach jam. He would have then scarfed down half a jar on burnt toast (he liked it that way) when no one was around :-D The man did love his sweets.

I miss my dad. He died in April of ’06. He was ornery, opinionated (you could not be right with my dad even if HE was obviously wrong lol), stubborn, narrow minded, broody and had problems with his temper. He was also funny as hell,  tenderhearted and easily hurt by inattention and feeling he was unloved. He was generous to a fault, loved to cook (he made one hell of a Giardiniera) and loved to eat (his favorite tease for me would be to eat a gazillion pieces of my fried chicken, which he loved and tell me it was ALMOST as good as a Swansons TV dinner.) and was one of my biggest fans. He lived next door to me for the last 8 years of his life and I made 99.9% of his meals. I would cook dinner, plate his up, take it over and he would usually be sitting there watching Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy. He’d ask what we were having tonight, give the requisite “oooo’s and ahhhs”, I would get him what he needed to eat and he would go back to his TV show while I sat next to him and we chatted while he ate if I had time to sit for a while.

I remember long hours of Scrabble where he would teasingly gripe cause it made no sense to him that I always kicked his ass at the game :-P . We would have Rummy marathons that would last for days. Back when he drank (he stopped later in life because he was on so many medications for various health problems and couldn’t drink with many of them) these game sessions would involve his contagious giggle when something made him happy. He had a giggle like a little boy…except when he started snorting lol. I also remember hours of talking during all of this. I could tell him anything and often did.

When I took him to do his grocery shopping, I learned to not eye anything on the shelf or pick things up or say that something sounded good. If I did, it invariably went into his cart no matter how much I protested. My kids of course loved to go shopping with him for just that reason :-D

I miss his smile. I miss hearing him say “Hey hon. Come in and sit a while” when I’d come over. He would be sitting at his kitchen table working on his sweepstakes entries, candles or incense lit and classical music playing. I miss his overly greasy spaghetti or chili (took me years to get him to drain the grease lol.). I miss how everything he cooked had 300 jalapeno peppers in it. I miss his laugh. I miss our Scrabble games and card games. I miss hearing him cuss when people gave stupid answers on Jeopardy. I miss him saying “you’re gonna mess my hair up, girl!” when I would ruffle his mostly bald head. Most of all, I miss the man who was my best friend and my biggest cheerleader. He wasn’t perfect, but he was mine. Happy Fathers Day Daddy.

Lavender Peach Jam With Vanilla

Adapted from the Peach jam recipe in the book “Blue Ribbon Preserves”

  • 3 lbs peeled and crushed peaches (refer back to my Peach Salsa recipe to learn how to peel them easily)
  • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
  • 7 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon butter
  • 5 large sprigs lavender (don’t chop; leave whole) plus more for adding to the jars if desired
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1 3 ounce pouch liquid pectin
  1. In a large heavy bottomed saucepan, combine the peaches, lavender and half the sugar. Cover the pan and let sit for about 2 hours, stirring frequently to infuse the Lavender flavor throughout.
  2. Remove the cover. Stir in the remaining sugar, the butter and the extracts.
  3. Over medium low heat, bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar.
  4. When sugar is completely dissolved, turn heat up to medium high and bring the mixture to a full rolling boil (a boil that can NOT be stirred down), stirring constantly. Remove the pan from the heat and skim off any foam (a ladle works best for this)
  5. Return the pan to the heat and again bring to a full rolling boil. Stir in the contents of the pouch of pectin. Again return to a full boil, stirring constantly. Boil for one minute and then remove the pan from the heat. Skim off any foam.
  6. To prevent the jam from separating, allow it to cool for five minutes, stirring every minute to help distribute the peaches evenly. Ladle the jam into hot sterilized jars, leaving a 1/4 inch head space and adding a small sprig of Lavender to the jars if desired. Make sure to wipe the rims well with a clean cloth. Apply the lids and boil for ten minutes in a boiling water bath. The recipe said that this made 8 half pints but I actually got 11 out of it.

This jam is really quite tasty. I was kind of tickled with it. It has a subtle (Almost too subtle; next time I think I’ll use more Lavender) Herby flowery flavor that melds very well with the delicate flavor of the peaches. I can see using this as a glaze for roast poultry with some Herbs De Provence added to intensify the hit of Lavender you get. Also just adding it to a plain old English Muffin is pretty yummy too :-D . If you try it, please let me know what you think of it. :-)