EwE: Pork tenderloin with fennel and grapes~

 

I confess…I am a fennel fiend.  I love the anisity of it…but I don’t really care for licorice.  I know…doesn’t make sense to me either.  Regardless, I knew I’d love this dish from the start.  Fennel powder….fennel bulbs….oh my…garnish with fennel…


Step 1 – toast fennel seeds….grind fennel seeds and release that aroma….  Sprinkle the pork medallions with the fennel, salt and pepper….brown them up, then make the sauce….yes…those are fennel bulbs in the sauce….

This recipe was selected by Gaye, and is found on page 119 of Ellie Krieger’s Weeknight Wonders.  The recipe can also be found online here.  You can see what my cooking-mates did with their dishes at Eating with Ellie.

This was a GREAT recipe…and if it had been any meat other than pork, maybe it would have been wonderful.  Maybe it was my choice to use Pork NY Steaks (I swear that’s how they were packaged!)…  Other than that, this was absolutely great!  There was just the right amount of sweet-tart going on…the fennel melted into gloriously buttery bites of numminess… The whole dish was cloaked with the delicate aroma of fennel…  I confess, no.  The fennel didn’t come with those lovely fronds…those are from my garden.  My Florence fennel is lushly gorgeous out there!  I’ll be fixing this dish again…with chicken the first time, and tenderloin after that.  There’s a lot of fennel out there!

WWD: White fish with Pine Nut Brown Butter~

I love seeing how 5 women in different parts of the world prepare the same recipes.  It never ceases to amaze me how we all do the same thing…but each with their own touches….This week our recipe, chosen by Kayte, is White Fish with Pine Nut Browned Butter from Donna Hay’s book, New Food Fast.  The recipe can also be found on line here.  One of the things that truly fascinated me was the different varieties of fish we chose!  I was leaning toward Tilapia until I spied Pacific Rockfish!  Very mildly flavored and firm, these little fillets were perfect for this recipe.

Although I don’t feel like I browned my butter enough, we still enjoyed this dish quite a lot.   The fish still picked up a lot of the butteriness…a lot.  Buttery…and it might be too rich if it weren’t for that little bit of lemon.  We’ll do this one again.  I served it with broccoli…but sauteed Swiss Chard is screaming to me with this recipe.

If you’d like to cook along with us, stop by Wednesdays with Donna Hay.  The recipes are on the sidebar….

 

Eating with Ellie: Japanese-style savory pancakes with shrimp~

Chaya selected this week’s recipe….Japanese-style savory pancakes with shrimp, found on page 183 of Weeknight Wonders.  What a hit at my house!

This recipe is reminiscent of egg foo young in that it makes a battered vegetable pancake…but there are no bean sprouts nor is it heavily eggy.  It was more like a fritter in that regard.  However, without regard, this is quick and tasty…pretty much a weeknight wonder!

I made a half-batch for the two of us as a “snacky” kind of dinner.  We had eaten lunch rather late, so we weren’t really very hungry….even so we ate every bite.   Cabbage, onions, carrots and garlic come together with bits of shrimp held together with a whole wheat pancake batter that was very light.  Hubby found these utterly wonderful and told me not to lose track of this recipe, as he “could eat a mess of these!”  The recipe also had a sauce to brush on top…very simple…ketchup, soy and Worcestershire sauce stirred together.  Next time…a few drops of toasted sesame oil will go into the sauce as well.  I’d also like to try Ponzu (a lemony soy sauce) or hoisin sauce with these.  Definitely a “keeper” recipe!

If you’d like to join us cooking Ellie Krieger’s Weeknight Wonders, please visit our blog page and jump on in!!

Wednesdays with Donna Hay: Dukkah Roasted Chicken

Our Donna Hay recipe of the week was selected by Gaye and is Dukkah roasted chicken with couscous and tahini yoghurt (p54 Donna Hay Magazine Dec/Jan 15).   For some reason I didn’t have coriander leaves (cilantro, as it’s known here in California), so I roasted potatoes “hassleback” style instead of making the couscous.  We really enjoyed this…the spice mixture is quite flavorful!

The Dukkah came first…it’s an Egyptian spice mixture made of ground nuts (I used cashews and pistachios) and seeds (sesame, coriander, cumin, fennel, peppercorns) all toasted and ground together.  I was tickled with the aromas from the toasting seeds…oh my!!  Super aromatic!!  Rather than roasting a whole spatchcocked (cut to lie flat by removing the backbone) chicken, I used two bone-in chicken breasts and we had plenty left over.  I did make the tahini and yogurt sauce to go with the chicken….  I don’t know that I have an opinion about that one way or the other.  It was “okay.”  The chicken was simply the star of the show.  We also had a salad on the side, to round out the meal.

If you’d like to cook along with us, please visit our blog page, Wednesdays with Donna Hay.  Our cooking schedule is on the right sidebar, and these ladies are wonderful about sharing the harder to find recipes.  Donna Hay is in Australia….and I’m pretty excited about the recipes I’ve found on her web page!!

Eating with Ellie: Penne with Grape Tomatoes, Spinach and Toasted Garlic~

This week our selection comes from Peggy… Penne with Grape Tomatoes, Spinach and Toasted Garlic.  Another recipe that goes together in less time than it takes to boil water and cook the pasta.  

There isn’t a lot going on here…whole wheat penne pasta….grape tomatoes and spinach sauteed in toasted garlic olive oil, with a shake of freshly grated parmesan.  I think the lack of popping flavor has to do with the time of the year I fixed this….February.  This would be a lot better with fresh, Summer tomatoes…and a chiffonade of fresh basil.  My only complaint is the flavors are lacking.  Salt and pepper helped some, but not quite enough.  Again… I think it had a lot to do with almost red, semi-tasteless hot-house tomatoes.  That’s okay.  We’ll try it again during the height of summer with fresh from the Farmers’ Market tomatoes, when it’s hot and something quick off the stove is ideal.  There’s a time and place….

If you want to join in, stop by our website, Eating with Ellie, and start cooking!  You’ll find the cooking schedule in the margin on the page.