A Special Saturday Lunch

12/18/10: Breaded Pork Cutlets with Harvard Beets and Mashed Potatoes

Meal details: Last Saturday I pulled together a nice menu for lunch. It included pork cutlets breaded with simple bread crumbs and egg, beets braised in beet juice, sugar, and vinegar, and home-style mashed potatoes.

Defining moments: I have never made pork cutlets before nor Harvard Beets. Entirely new to me!

Recipe sources: I had no printed recipe for the pork cutlets, I was actually told how to do these by Annemarie. She loves pork cutlets and is really the reason behind me choosing cutlets for Saturday! So I can better remember how to make them later, I will write the recipe down here.

Annemarie's Breaded Pork Cutlets

Ingredients:

• 8 pork cutlets
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups canola oil
• 3 cups plain bread crumbs (I used the Panko variety, but Annemarie typically uses the finer type)
• 6 eggs, beaten with a fork
• 2 teaspoons salt

Directions:

Fill a large, deep skillet with 1/4" to 1/2" of oil and start heating oil on medium-low heat. Place bread crumbs and eggs in separate pie plates. Take a single pork cutlet and dredge it in the crumbs, dip it in the beaten egg, then return it to the crumbs. Make sure the cutlet has a good coating.

Check to see if the oil is at the right temperature by sprinkling some bread crumbs into the oil. If it starts to crackle and pop, the oil is ready. If it spurts up at you, it is probably too hot. Gingerly slide the cutlet into the oil, taking care not to spatter. Allow first side to brown, then flip. When second side is brown, remove cutlets to a cookie sheet lined with paper towels. Total cooking time is between 15 and 20 minutes. Do second batch, if necessary. To keep the pork cutlets warm, cover them with aluminum foil and place in a warm (200 F) oven.

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The Harvard Beets recipe comes from allrecipes.com. Find it here. Our mashed potato recipe--a staple in my house--is very straightforward. Here is the simple recipe that we use:

Simple Mashed Potatoes

Servings: 8

Ingredients:

3 pounds potatoes (about one cookie sheet worth)

1 stick butter

2 tablespoons salt

Directions:

Wash potatoes and cut them into halves. We leave the skins on, we love the flavor and texture that they add. Place potatoes in a large pot and cover with 1" of water. Heat to boiling and boil until potatoes are fork tender. For us, it usually takes fifteen minutes to reach boiling point and thirty minutes to cook.

Once fork tender, drain potatoes in colander and return to pot. Mash with potato masher or use an electric, handheld blender. Stir in butter and salt.

What I learned: I am very glad to have chosen these three dishes for Saturday because I have never made them before (in the case of the cutlets and beets), or haven't made them much (speaking of the potatoes). The cutlet recipe is truly remarkable, I think, because there are no fancy ingredients evident at all. All simple, pantry staples: bread crumbs, eggs, and salt. And it isn't that hard to execute, either. May be a bit difficult the first time when coating the cutlets, but you quickly get the hang of things. And, as you will find out later in this post, the results are perhaps the true remarkable facet of this recipe!

I like the beet recipe a lot, too. Very accessible ingredients: beets, beet juice, vinegar, sugar, and cornstarch.

Since we still had some beets from our past farming season, I used them for this recipe. I boiled them until they were fork tender and I kept some of the boiling liquid (beet juice) to use for the sauce. By adding cornstarch to the beet juice, I was able to make it thick and smooth.

Any modifications? No.

How did it taste? Everyone loved the pork cutlets, they were tender, crispy, and flavorful. The mashed potatoes--a tried and true side dish--was superb once again. The beets were OK. They weren't as tender as I wanted them to be; they still had a bite to them. Now, I'm not totally sure what this was caused by. Perhaps I didn't boil them long enough? Or maybe they are past their "expiration" date? I'm not sure.

How about a 2nd time? Yes.

Take it 'Without' a Grain of Salt

6/20/10: Grilled Hot Dogs with Foil Packed Potatoes and Beets. Accompanied with Marshmallows on a Stick. ;)

Meal details: For this Sunday we started up the grill for the first time this year and grilled hot dogs, potatoes, beets, and of course, marshmallows.

Defining moments: This is a pretty standard outdoor menu (see my previous post for evidence), so nothing new for me this week!

Recipe sources: No recipe is needed this time. But for those who are wondering what I do to prepare the beets, here are some quick directions for you. Let me point out that I do the beets a couple ways.

Quick Grilled Beets

Remove leaves from beets and clean under running water. Peel and slice beets into quarters; if your beets are on the smaller side, keep them whole. Place beets in pot and fill with enough water to cover. Bring to boil and boil for ten minutes. Drain into colander and transfer to a long sheet of aluminum foil. Wrap into small packages and seal securely. Don't make packages too large, you need to maneuver them easily when grilling! With tongs, move packages to prepared grill and place over indirect heat. Grill for 10-20 minutes, or until fork tender.

Smokey Grilled Beets (direct approach)
This method gives more of a char flavor to the beets because of the sear that is gained from exposing them to direct heat.

Remove leaves from beets and clean under running water. Peel beets and keep whole. With tongs, place beets on grill over indirect heat. Grill for 30 minutes or until fork tender. Move beets to direct heat and grill for 10 minutes more.

What I learned: I learned a few tips this week. To start, the grill takes about 30 minutes to get up to temperature, the potatoes take an hour and a half to cook, it is a much better idea to baste the hot dogs with BBQ sauce during the last few minutes than ahead of time, I should have used Pam for Grilling, and. . . I think that's it. :D

Any modifications? None at all.

How did it taste? With all those fresh veggies and charred hot dogs, how can you not say, "Wonderful"? Everything was so flavorful that I begin to wonder how food, with no seasoning such as salt, can taste soooo good.

How about a 2nd time? As we dive deeper into the farming season, I'm not sure if we can heat up the grill again any time soon. We have to see.

Freezing Carrots and Beets

10/16/09: Freezing Carrots and Beets

The first time in a very long time we had good crops of carrots and beets. So much so that we had even enough to sell! :) Since carrots are so good in just about everything and my two youngest sisters are beet fiends, I decided we need some during the long winter months.

So this is how the carrot preparation went:

I peeled and chopped the carrots into bite size pieces (something like 1" cubes), I poured them into a 6 quart pot of boiling water with a colander inside, waited until they came to a boil, had them boil for three minutes, lifted the colander and slid the carrots into a bowl of cold water that had a strainer inserted. Once they were cool I placed them in freezer bags.

I also did whole carrots. I chose carrots that were on the smaller side, cut them in half so they could fit in the freezer bags, and did the same procedure as I wrote above only I allowed them to boil for 5 minutes instead of 3. My family likes to place these whole carrots in our spaghetti sauce to add flavor. After they cook for a couple hours in the sauce we remove them and eat the carrots as a side dish.

I also did a few beets. I cut the stem and root off the beet, peel it, chop it into 2 inch pieces, and boil them until they are fork tender. I then place them in freezer bags.

So in the end I froze. . .
4 1/2 quarts of chopped carrots
1 quart whole carrots
1 gallon chopped carrots
2 1/2 quarts chopped beets

To achieve this amount I used about one five gallon bucket of carrots and approximately 1 peck of beets.

Grill Drill

7/12/09: Grilled Dinner Sausage, Red Potatoes, and Beets with Steamed Broccoli and Beet Greens

Meal details: Main course, dinner sausage from Schwan's. Reminds me of a brat.
Side dishes, red potatoes and beets that were grilled along side broccoli and beet greens that were steamed and pan fried, respectively.

• Recipe sources: Didn't follow a recipe this week either.
• Defining moment: We had some of our own farm grown broccoli! Haven't grown this vegetable for years (I barely can remember it) so this was a mighty big occasion, indeed.
• What I learned: I learned that beets are not easy to clean and prepare! I'm so glad I worked on cleaning them the day before. I also learned how to do beet greens (I simply placed them in a pot with a bit of water and a slab of butter), steam broccoli, and cook three large links of dinner sausage. The broccoli took about 20 minutes to steam.
• Any modifications: Didn't have to use a recipe this week.
• How it tasted: I got good feedback about the broccoli, beets, and I really liked the dinner sausage. We have potatoes almost every week so they are sort of self explanatory. :)
• How about a 2nd time? Everything except the beet greens I would do again.

Here is the dinner sausage that I first boiled.



Our new Weber grill in its full glory. :)



A close up of the red potatoes that I grilled in a foil package. I place them right on top of the hot coals.

And hail the mighty beets!