StreamingGourmet 
I’ve been trying for a long time to make an omelet that will hold its shape when flipped and slid out of the pan and today, I finally succeeded. The secret? Don’t add milk to egg mixture. It’s that simple. Somehow, the omelet was still light and fluffy and the asparagus and bacon flavors balanced wonderfully. I’m going to make this for breakfast more often.
Today I decided it was time to use the mandoline I recently purchased and what better way to give it a test drive than to slice sweet potatoes for home-made chips? I waited a long time before purchasing a mandoline. I had always wanted one, but whenever I saw one in a store, it was too exorbitant. Not so anymore. I purchased my Swissmar Borner V Slicer Plus for only about $40 and I learned today that it works great. Click on the photo to learn more.
It’s moving day for friends of mine and since they have four children aged 8 and under, I thought it would be nice to bring them dinner at the end of this stressful day. For a family of six plus a grandmother and an au pair, I knew that it would impossible to cook too much, so I decided to make a giant lasagna (and salad and bread). Raquel is health conscious and her children happily eat vegetables, so I decided to pull all of the health levers I could with this recipe: whole wheat pasta, lots of spinach, low-fat cheeses and of course, 99% fat free ground turkey. I made an extra one for my family and I can tell you, it tastes great. Even my picky 4-year old said, “Mommy. I like it.”
I love the chicken quesadillas at Whole Foods. Anyone know how to make the sauce they use? Please comment!
That someone will make this dish for me on Sunday morning:
The other day, I went to the Ferry Terminal Marketplace in San Francisco for lunch. I thought I’d add a mini-photo gallery to this blog featuring the tasty bites I sampled while there. I purchased the Recchiuti Chocolate sauce after sampling it, so watch for a future blog entry where I try out different ways to use the sauce. The Recchiuti representative recommended serving it with pears. Mmmm.
While Americans often refer to a grilled sandwich as a Panini, when we say “panini,” we’re actually using the Italian word for “small bread rolls” (in the plural). Panino is the singular and “panino imbottito” is the phrase used for “stuffed panino” or sandwich. So this posting should be titled, Panino Imbottito with Ham, Cheese, and Fig Jam,” but I’m not that imbottito with myself (i.e. full of myself). Or am I?
After cooking with figs last week, I had a hankering to use the fig jam I purchased awhile back at the Jacuzzi Family Vineyards wine and olive oil tasting center.
Fig jam is pretty sweet, so it’s a great counterpoint to the salty, black forest ham that I’m using in this sandwich. If you don’t live near Sonoma, you can purchase fig jam at Amazon.com. I’ve added a link to the right to make it easy to find.
I’m going to be using my Cuisinart Griddler Gourmet which can function as an indoor grill or a panini press or open up into a griddle. You can use a frying pan right on the stove and just put a heavy lid on top of the sandwich. I do love my “griddler gourmet” though and use it a lot more than I thought I would.
For this sandwich, I purchased Black Forest Ham. In the US, that term doesn’t mean as much as it does in Europe, where Black Forest Ham is a protected designation and therefore is required to come from the Black Forest in Germany. I know that the ham I’m buying has a spicy, sharp flavor that I like. A Virginia ham, or Smithfield ham would also work well for this sandwich because of its salty and strong flavor, but a honey-cured ham might prove too sweet to pair with fig jam.
I’ve also chosen a Jarslberg Cheese. It’s a Norwegian cheese in the Swiss Emmentaler-style family of cheeses. It’s less sharp than Emmentaler, which satisfies my personal taste, while still providing that tangy counterpoint to the other flavors in the sandwich.
This photo shows the amount of jam I chose to use. The La Brea French loaf is nice and crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Most panini you find in Italian cafés are made with Ciabatta and when made properly, chefs use the whole loaf, splitting it horizontally. The loaf I chose was too big to do that, so I cut slices off of it.
I added some iceberg lettuce to the sandwich because that was what I had on hand. You might choose something with a little more bite, like arugula. (I love that arugula is called Rocket in the UK).
I grilled the sandwich under medium-high heat for about 10 minutes. I really wanted the cheese to melt without burning the bread, so I watched the sandwich carefully.
This was a thoroughly satisfying sandwich. To make it even richer, you can add butter or brush olive oil on the outside of the bread so that it browns even more as it grills. You could also use Salami rather than Ham. This version is a nice, relatively lite (I used low fat Jarlsberg cheese and there is no mayonnaise or aioli) sandwich. Buon Apetite!
It’s the day of the party and I have harvested the figs from our backyard. I’m worried. They’re quite firm, so I’m worried that they aren’t ripe enough. Also, they’re green, so they’re automatically not as sweet as black, Mission figs. I’m terrified of putting these figs into the sauce I’m cooking for the pork and ruining the whole dish. The doorbell is ringing and I still haven’t decided whether or not to go forward with this plan of cooking Pork Tenderloin with Balsamic Vinegar and Fig Sauce.
The guests have arrived and they are eyeing the chopped figs suspiciously. We all agree that they don’t smell as enticing as we would like, but they encourage me to press on. I’ve got pizza in the freezer in case of emergency. I set about peeling and slicing about half a dozen of the green figs and I set them aside.
Next, on a separate cutting board, I slice about three pounds of pork tenderloin into 3/4 inch slices and sautée the slices in a large frying pan at a medium-high heat. I’ve chosen the largest pan I have so that I can sautée all of the pork tenderloin at once. So far so good.
I remove them from the pan and place the slices on a cookie sheet. They go into an oven that has been preheated to 200˚F. Then I add a couple of tablespoons of unsalted butter to the pan and sautée the shallots until they soften.
Once they’ve softened, I add the balsamic vinegar (about a quarter cup) and let it simmer until almost all of it has evaporated. This is what they mean by “balsamic reduction.” It really intensifies the flavor.
After the balsamic vinegar has evaporated, there are scrumptious brown bits of shallot that I scrape from the sides of the pan before adding the chicken stock. The chicken stock, balsamic vinegar and shallots are all simmering now until reduced by half. I am nearing the point of no return where I will have to add the figs.
I take the plunge and add the figs. As soon as they go into the pan I decide everything is going to be okay. Simmering the figs in these great juices will certainly soften them up and they should acquire the flavors around them. We’ll have to wait and see if I’m right. In goes the cream.
Adding the whipping cream makes what was just a little something simmering on the stove into a real sauce. I’m thinking now that I need to add whipping cream to everything I’m cooking. The balsamic vinegar smells great and the whipping cream makes it nice and rich. Despite my fears about the figs, the dish is starting to seem promising. Just a few minutes left.
After the sauce has thickened considerably, I add the chopped Italian parsley to give it the fresh kick any creamy sauce needs. I’m ready to assemble the plate with the pork tenderloin, the sauce and the roasted red potatoes I’ve had cooking in the oven.
We are all surprised by how tasty it is. The figs add a little zing to the sauce, but don’t dominate it. My backyard figs have a slight cabbagey flavor, kind of like having brusseles sprouts in the dish. The sweetness of the balsamic vinegar is a nice counterpoint to the nutty, slightly bitter flavor of my figs. I wonder what “real” figs taste like, but then I think, “is there anything more real than food you grew and picked yourself?”
This recipe looks so easy and I know that black figs are sweeter than green figs. Maybe I’ll try this one tonight anyway with my green figs. We’ll see.
For more fig recipe videos, visit StreamingGourmet.magnify.net.
I just picked these figs from our backyard tree. I used scissors to cut them at the stem. I was surprised by a squirt of white juice when I cut them. The white liquid is extremely sticky. It’s so sticky that it’s hard to wash off of my hands. The figs smell a little sour, so I’m scared that this recipe is going to be a total disaster. Check back to find out.
