In the Kitchen With Mattie

Filets With Stuffed Potatoes

I know I haven’t been posting much this year at all. Things here at home have been a bit difficult this year. I have been hospitalized twice and three weeks ago my darling hubby was diagnosed with cancer. We and his Drs are hopeful for a full remission but to say we aren’t very frightened would be a lie. They were very hopeful they could remove his tumor without any problems but when they got inside they found it was wedged under some bone so they closed him back up and will start him on chemo treatments to try and get it to shrink and loosen itself so they have better access to it. In the meantime he is home and I was told to get a few extra pounds on him………such a difference from last year when he was diagnosed as a diabetic and I was told to knock many pounds off him! He has lost more than 100 pounds in the past year and we now know some of that weight loss might have been caused by the tumor and not the strict diet he followed. Tonight I made him one of his favorite dinners that he has not had in the past year and he really enjoyed it! He was smacking his lips and making yum yum sounds as he was eating, it felt so good to see a smile on his face after all he has been through for the past three weeks.

Filets With Stuffed Potatoes

Tonight I actually followed the way Cooks Illustrated says to cook a steak indoors. I heated up one of my favorite pans, it is called a “Mineral Pan” made by de Buyer in France, you can do a Google search and learn all about them. Let me just say this about them……..if you love using cast iron but find it too heavy as you age then try some of these pans, the results are the same as you get from a cast iron skillt with less than half the weight. They sear meats wonderfully, you get that steakhouse crust on meats and you can sear over high heat, they hold heat very well and you can finish your steak as I did in the oven right in the pan. These pans are a bit of work as they have to be seasoned much like your old cast iron but again if cast iron is too weighty for you to handle anymore give a small de Buyer Mineral Pan a try, they are also a lot cheaper than many other quality pans out there, seasoning them will ultimately give you a practically non stick pan without any chemicals leaching into your foods. I purchased my pans way back when we were still living in NY but I know they sell them now on Amazon and in some gourmet shops too.

Filet With Stuffed Potatoes

The steaks tonight were almost 2 inches thick so they took a bit of time to cook. I had removed them from the fridge an hour before I was planning to cook them, I seasoned them with steak seasoning and set them on the counter to come up to room temperature.  I heated the pan and then added a bit of light olive oil with a pastry brush. The steaks sizzled when I added them to the pan. I let them cook on the first side for 7 minutes, meanwhile I had the potatoes cooking in our small convection oven that was set at 425 degrees. After 7 minutes I flipped the steaks over and then put them into the convection oven pan and all for 15 minutes, they came out a beautiful medium done and were perfect. I wish I had remembered to take some pictures when we cut into them, they were truly beautiful and looked better than many steak dinners we have had in restaurants, the best part was they even tasted better!

Turkey Dinner

The local store that we love to shop at has started having small half sized fresh turkey breasts pretty regularly.  The price is good and one pack is more than enough for dinner for us with some left over for lunch for both hubby and I the next day. The package I cooked earlier tonight was priced at just a bit over $4 and that’s pretty cheap for two dinners and two lunches. I didn’t want to cook it in the oven so I figured I would just season it with some leftover Williams Sonoma Thanksgiving seasoning I had here, then brown it very well in a saute pan and then put it into one of my pressure cookers for 15 minutes. But as I started sauteing it I realized how quickly it would cook on the stovetop so that’s where I cooked it in my frittata pan. There was some really beautiful fond in the pan by the time the breast was cooked through so I made some light gravy to go along with the rice I made, some fresh broccoli finished off the meal. Hubby loved how crispy the skin came out and the turkey itself was one of the moistest I have ever made without brining, this turned out to be one very tasty dinner and it will be repeated often, as long as the market continues to provide me with these half breasts.

I hope everyone is having a nice summer despite the wild fires and heat waves hitting all over the country,

Turkey Dinner for Two

Pork, Kraut and Pierogies

You had to see the look on hubbys face when he came in from work tonight! Once he realized that he wasn’t dreaming and I really did make one of his favorites during the summer heat he was over the moon happy! This dish is a favorite of both of ours but is something I usually make in cooler weather so it surprised him that I did it during our hot summer months. Food like this were a staple where we grew up and where we live now it is very rare to meet anyone who has ever had it, unless they originally hail from the east coast. I usually simmer this all day on the stovetop but today I made good use of one of my stovetop pressure cookers. I seasoned the meat last night, wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until today, then I browned it well in the pressure cooker. When it was nicely browned I poured 2 bags of saurkraut over it with their liquid, you can rinse the kraut if you find it too sharp for your taste, we like the tang of it right from the bags. I made sure there was just enough liquid in the cooker and put the top on it and brought it up to high pressure for 25 minutes. I shut the cooker off and let the pressure release on its own.

TWO SNOOTY CHEFS SEASONING

This is the seasoning I used on the pork, I purchased it on Amazon. It really has a nice taste and made the pork fantastic.  It is made by TWO SNOOTY CHEFS and is called Hungarian Ragout Seasoning and had caraway seeds, paparika, onion, herbs, spices and kosher salt. I am not a big fan of caraway seeds in anything other than a traditional rye bread but the taste was not overpowering on the roast, the seasoning added just a wonderful hit of flavor to the dish.

Seasoning Mix

While the meat was browning and then cooking I put a pot of water on to boil for some fresh pierogies (recipe on blog here, enter into search box) I had rolled out and filled yesterday. I put them into the pot when the water came up to a vigorous boil and let them boil until they rose up to the top, then I removed them with a slotted spoon and added them to a large saute pan I filled with carmelized onions, I let them saute a few minutes until they were nicely browned and crispy.  Hubby sure was a happy boy when he sat down to eat and when I asked him what he wanted for dinner tomorrow he replied “I want this again”, I guess it’s a good thing that I made more than enough for two meals!

Pork, Kraut and Pierogies

July Fourth Burger

I hope everyone had a nice safe July 4th. Ours was pretty quiet around here. Just hubby and I, our son Matt and hubby’s sister and her hubby. I remembered years past when we would have crowds of friends over for the holiday and this was different but also very nice. I didn’t knock myself out with lots of preparations for the day. I made some potato salad, pasta salad, cucumber salad, sliced tomatoes and lettuce,  sauteed mushrooms and some carmelized onions. We grilled some burgers, chicken breasts, chicken thighs and hot dogs. Speaking of hot dogs, if you are an east coast native who now lives somewhere other than where you grew up, let me suggest you give the new Oscar Mayer Selects East Coast Style Hot Dogs a try, we had them and they reminded us of the taste of the hot dogs we grew up on, they were excellent and we’ll buy them again. We all had a nice relaxing day just sitting around and chatting and everyone left by the time darkness fell. Hubby and I watched the fireworks all the neighbors with small kids were shooting off. While we usually use our regular plates, this year we went all the way and used disposable plates cups and even eating utensils, talk about a fast cleanup, I was finished 5 minutes after our company left.

July Fourth

Cucumber Salad

3      large cucumbers, peeled, cut in half and seeds removed

1      large yellow onion, peeled

1     tablespoon kosher salt

1/4-1/2     cup white sugar, taste and adjust the amount to your taste and the bitterness of some cucumbers

1    cup white vinegar

You will need a mandoline for this salad, either that or the skills to cut the cucumbers and onions extremely thin.

On a mandoline set on the thinnest setting cut one of the cucumbers into thin slices right into a deep bowl, next cut half of the onion right on top of the cucumber, sprinkle with some of the salt and some of the sugar. Repeat until everything is finished then pour the vinegar over the top and cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it into the fridge, remove it after an hour and give everything a good stir to mix it all together well, recover the dish and again place it in the fridge. This dish needs time to develop, I usually make it a day ahead but in a pinch a few hours will do. You will also need to taste it to adjust the flavors for yourself, I like mine with a nice vinegar tang but you may find you like it sweeter, either way it is a personal thing and easy to adjust with more sugar or vinegar. I hope if you try this you like it, it was something that all the delis in our old German neighborhood used to sell when we were kids but it is rare that I see it being sold anymore.

July Fourth Burgers

Summer Corn Chowder

We love summer corn, so sweet and tasty. Yesterday we got 18 ears of white and yellow corn for a great price. Unfortunately I didn’t remember that we have barely an inch of space in the fridge. What to do with all those pretty ears of corn? I left them on the dining room table overnight and gave it some thought, after all how much corn can two people eat!  Today I came up with a plan…………..CORN CHOWDER!!  If you’ve been reading the blog for any length of time you already know I love soups of all kinds and what better in summer than a great one made from the freshest sweet corn.

I pulled the big 12 quart Kuhn Rikon pressure cooker out and got to stripping the ears of corn. When they were all stripped I pulled out the little gadget, also from Kuhn Rikon, that I love to clean the kernels off the cobs. It looks like a little ear of corn and makes really fast work and I like it soooo much better than doing it the old fashioned way with a knife, the blade is VERY sharp so if you get yourself one do be careful until you get used to it. When all the kernels were off the cobs I broke the cobs in half and put them into a big bowl until I was ready for them to go into the pressure cooker. Meanwhile I diced up one large onion into a really fine dice, I also minced up two stalks of celery and one lonely clove of garlic.  Into the cooker I put two tablespoons of butter and sauteed the veggies until they softened, then I added the cobs into the pot along with 8 cups of weak chicken stock. I put the top on the cooker and brought it up to high pressure and let it cook for 10 minutes, by then I figured all the flavor was out of those cobs. I reduced the pressure and removed and discarded the cobs and then added all the corn  along with about 2 cups of diced potatoes and one diced red pepper, I tasted the broth for seasoning and added some salt and pepper, the broth itself at that point was very sweet, almost as if I had added sugar but the sweetness had come from those cobs alone. I put the top back on the cooker and brought it back up to pressure and let it cook for 4 minutes so the potatoes didn’t disintegrate, I did a fast release of the pressure and then added 2 cups of heavy cream and brought it all up to a simmer for 5 minutes. It came out great and I have lots of soup for myself and maybe I’ll pass some along to my neighbor too.

Corn Chowder