Date I made these recipes:
February 14, 2015 – Valentine's Day!
Cooking with Love –
Comfort Food that Hugs You by Carla Hall with Genevieve Ko
Published by: Free
Press
ISBN:
978-1-4516-6220-7
Recipe: Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Root
Vegetable Ragout – p. 196-170 for the pork and 99 for the ragout
The Big Chocolate
Cookbook by Gertrude Parke
Published by: Funk
& Wagnalls
© 1968
Purchased at Talk Story Book Store, Hanapepe, (Kauai) Hawaii (Talk Story is "The Western-Most Bookstore in the United States )
Recipe: Cocoa Cream
Cake – p. 56-57
And now time for a quiz:
When I say "Hootie Hoo!" you say:
a) Did
you just swear at me?
b) Is
this a new secret ingredient on Chopped?
c) Carla
Hall
If you chose c) Carla Hall, give yourself a pat on the back.
Those of you who are fans of Top Chef should remember Season 5 when Carla Hall competed as a
cheftestant on that show. She won me
over with her sunny personality and southern-based comfort foods and came
"this close" to winning Season 5 only to be beat out by that year's Top Chef, Hosea Rosenberg. Poor Carla—had she stuck to cooking what she
knew instead of going off in a different direction, she would have nailed it.
Not to be deterred, Carla came back for more kitchen fun and
frolic on Season 8 – All Stars – but was eliminated in episode 13 of 16. Dammit!
Seems to me though that she won "Fan Favorite" somewhere along
the line and although it's not the same as winning the big show, it will do.
She was certainly one of my favorites from both seasons.
It was on Season 5 that we learned that Carla's catchphrase,
Hootie Hoo!, was created as a way
that Carla and her husband could locate each other more easily when out in
public. It probably beats the heck out
of yelling "Matthew! Hey Matthew"
(her husband's name) in a store filled most likely with several other
Matthews. I may have to try that with my
husband, Andy.
And perhaps capitalizing on her newfound popularity, she became
one of five co-hosts on ABC's TV
show, The Chew, that premiered in
2011. Carla, along with fellow chefs
Mario Batali and Michael Symon, natural food foodist and author Daphne Oz and
host Clinton Kelly (he of What Not To Wear Fame), chat about food and
entertaining and decorating and everything in between, Monday through Friday,
much to the delight of their collective fans.
No doubt these same fans – like me – were giddy when Carla
published her first cookbook, Cooking
with Love (how appropriate for
our theme, right?) and then her follow up, Carla's
Comfort Foods: Favorite Dishes from
Around the World. I must confess
that I do not yet own the comfort food book, but no worries, I will undoubtedly
acquire it soon. Maybe as early as this
afternoon?
So many of Carla's recipes sounded so good that it was hard
to settle but ultimately, I decided on Pork
Tenderloin Medallions with Root Vegetable Ragout. What Andy and I both loved about this dish is
that it tasted great plus made us feel somewhat heart-healthy. The pork was marinated in orange juice and
you can't go wrong with roasted root vegetables tossed with healthy herbs. The fact that I also made a chocolate cake
for dessert from another cookbook is beside the point. It's Valentine's Day people. Time to indulge!
Compared to selecting Carla's pork and vegetable ragout,
selecting just the right chocolate dessert for Valentine's Day was an exercise
in torture. I have several chocolate
books and went through each of them very carefully but my eyes started to glaze
over and I was in danger of becoming overwhelmed. I mean, one recipe was for a Sachertorte and
damn, while this is one good dessert (made famous in Austria ), the assembly made this a
no go. Same with a few other recipes.
At then at long last, I came across this easy but delicious
recipe for Cocoa Cream Cake from the
cookbook The Big Chocolate Cookbook,
published in 1968. Baked in a loaf pan,
this cake is similar to a pound cake except it contains cream instead of butter
making it much lighter and therefore healthier, right? Exactly.
And so after slicing and dicing and sifting and folding,
Andy and I ended up with one lovely dinner for our Valentine's Day repast. And the bonus is that we have leftovers. Yum!
Happy Valentine's Day!
Pork Tenderloin
Medallions with Root Vegetable Ragout – Serves 6
Note: You will need
to marinate the pork for at least 2 hours.
For the pork:
*2 whole pork tenderloins (each about ¾ pound)
½ cup fresh orange juice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard
1 tablespoon honey
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil
For the ragout:
2 medium carrots
2 medium parsnips
1 small rutabaga
1 medium turnip
1 medium Yukon
gold potato
2 ½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
1 small yellow onion cut into ¼-inch dice
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
½ cup Chicken Stock (page 54) or store-bought unsalted
chicken broth
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped
Freshly grated zest of 1 lemon
*And now a word from Ann about the pork tenderloins: I am not a fan of pre-wrapped tenderloins
that are injected with up to 12% saline solution. Sure, it makes the pork last longer but in my
opinion, it screws with the flavor.
Unfortunately, the number of grocery stores that carry non-treated pork
products (even chops) is shrinking.
Luckily, Target carries "au naturel" pork and I used that and
you should too, if you have the chance.
Back to our directions, start by marinating the pork for at
least two hours. If the pork still has
silverskin (the thin silvery white membrane on the meat), trim it off. Rinse the pork well, then pat dry with paper
towels. Cut each tenderloin crosswise
into 2-inch-thick medallions.
In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the juice,
garlic, mustard, honey and Worcestershire. Add the pork, seal the bag, and turn
to coat well. Seal and refrigerate for
at least 2 hours or up to overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Remove the pork from the marinade and wipe off any excess; discard the
marinade.
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Heat half of the oil. Add half the pork and cook, turning once,
until well browned, about 2 minutes per side.
Transfer to a half sheet pan.
Repeat with the remaining oil and pork.
Transfer the pan to the oven and bake until the pork is
medium in the center, 140F, about 13 minutes.
Serve over the Root Vegetable
Ragout and drizzle with the pan juices.
Ann's Notes: I could
have sworn that we had a jar of Gulden's
(spicy mustard) in the fridge but we did not.
Gulden's was my dad's favorite
mustard but when I was growing up, we could only get it when we visited my
grandma in New Jersey . Naturally, we stocked up on that and
everything else my hometown grocery stores didn't carry. I tell you what, I still chuckle every time I
think about how low to the ground the back of that car was on the way home! Anyway, without Gulden's, I was forced to use Grey
Poupon which was fine even if it wasn't quite correct.
Also, in the perfect culinary world, I would have either
roasted the vegetables first at 425F before turning down the oven to 350F to
make the cake and the tenderloins or vice versa. Note that I said "perfect
world." In reality, I wanted to get
the cake out of the way first so I did and then turned the oven up to 425F to
roast the veggies since they took a while and then turned down the oven to make
the tenderloins. And this is why Carla
Hall is on TV and I am not!
As to the vegetables, leave ample time to slice and dice
your way to a ½-inch dice, making them as even as possible to ensure consistent
roasting.
Preheat the oven to 425F.
Peel the carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, turnip, and potato and
cut them into ½-inch dice. Combine them
on a half sheet pan, toss with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, and season with
salt. Spread the vegetables in a single
layer.
Roast, stirring and rotating the pan occasionally, until
tender and golden, about 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat a large skillet over medium heat. Heat the remaining ½ tablespoon oil. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently,
until tender, about 3 minutes.
Stir in the butter until it melts, then stir in the roasted
vegetables. Add the chicken stock and
season with salt and pepper. Simmer
until the stock thickens and coats the vegetables, about 3 minutes. Stir in the parsley, thyme, and lemon
zest. Serve hot or warm.
Ann's Note: My
grocery store moved a lot of the produce section around (when I wasn't looking)
and so I had to work hard to find the rutabagas. And although I am no expert, I have cooked
with this vegetable enough that what I bought didn't look like a rutabaga but
it was under the "Rutabaga" sign so I brought it home. And then I cut it and was definitely puzzled
as the texture was nothing like a regular rutabaga. So I used it sparingly and that was probably
best because it tasted kind of crunchy—sort of like jicama only not. So I don't know what it was but it was
actually pretty good! Meanwhile, Carla
says to use one and only one Yukon
gold potato and that is one potato too few so I made up for the lack of
rutabaga by adding another potato. So
sue me!
Cocoa Cream Cake –
makes a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan)
1 cup heavy cream
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½ cups sifted flour
1 cup sugar
½ cup cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Butter a loaf pan (9 x 5 x 3 inches) and dust with cocoa.
Whip the cream until it is stiff. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and the
vanilla.
Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, and salt
together. Sift gradually over the
batter, folding as you sift. Pour into
the prepared pan.
Bake in a 350F over for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the cake is
springy to the touch and shrinks from the side of the pan. Remove to a cake rack, and after 10 minutes
turn the cake out to cool.
Serve this with sherbet or ice cream or use it as a base for
any dessert, preferably one topped with chocolate sauce.
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