JC Nyman Farms » recipes

October Recipes: Kickin’ Pork Chili and Beef Broccoli Stir Fry

J Nyman — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:17:48 +0000

Kickin’ Pork Chili

This month, I’ve chosen Chili for the pork recipe. Reason? I was inspired by the beans! I’ve been shelling dry beans for next year’s seed and fresh beans for eating this week and wanted to share some of my beany-ness with you.

This is more of a concept than an actually recipe. For those of you who have a favourite Chili recipe already, you could simply experiment with some of the following ideas:

Add Pork

Cut your favourite (or least favourite, as it will take on the chili flavour) cut of pork into one inch cubes.
Season with salt and pepper before browning in hot oil in small batches. Add to chili before simmering.
Also, cook bacon till crisp and crumble into chili. How much bacon, you ask? It’s up to you. How much do you like bacon?
Use the left over oil to saute your onions, peppers, garlic or other veggie additions.

Make Kickin’ Chili

The next suggestion sounded a little odd to me the first time I read it, but then I remembered experimenting with dark chocolate in my chili once upon a time. Suddenly, coffee doesn’t sound so strange.

If you’re using your own chili recipe, simply replace some of the liquid with good quality coffee. Substitute about 1/8 cup of coffee per serving of chili.
If you like the sound of caffeine in your food , but don’t have a favourite chili recipe click on the picture above for a somewhat complex version from Epicurious.com.

Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry

This is one of my favourite, easy stir fry recipes. With luck, there will still be some local broccoli around to use in it!

Ingredients:

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup dry Sherry
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon (packed) chopped garlic
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1 pound flank steak, cut diagonally across grain into thin strips
1 large head broccoli, cut into florets
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Cooked rice of your choice

Preparation:

Whisk first 5 ingredients in large bowl. Add meat; toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours.

Blanch broccoli in large pot of boiling salted water 2 minutes. Drain. Rinse under cold water; drain well.

Heat oil in heavy large wok or skillet over high heat. Drain meat well, reserving marinade. Add cornstarch to reserved marinade and mix until smooth; set aside. Add meat to wok and stir-fry until almost cooked through, about 2 minutes. Add broccoli and stir-fry until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Add reserved marinade mixture and boil until sauce thickens and coats meat and broccoli, stirring constantly, about 2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve over rice.

Serves 4.

I say this is a basic recipe because it doesn’t contain any strange ingredients. However, I’m interested in hearing from anyone who has a similar recipe that can be done without the 1 to 4 hour wait on the beef.

As usual, I love to hear about your kitchen adventures whether you’re using these recipe ideas or not!

Finally! Fall Food! – September Meat C.S.A. Recipes

J Nyman — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:05:05 +0000

For the first time this month, instead of sharing some recipes I like with a few, I’m sharing with many. Normally, I email our Meat CSA members with a couple of recipes in the hopes of helping them enjoy what we bring them more.

I do realize that those who have sought us out and bought memberships to a Meat CSA are probably foodies to some degree and have plenty of great recipe resources. I like to send them anyway, though, because it means I have an excuse to spend time searching for new ways to make delicious dinners. And, it seems that the more I send out recipes, the more recipes get sent to me.

And what’s better than searching around the net and the cookbooks at the library and finding something good to make? Why, having something mouthwatering arrive directly to you inbox, that’s what. (Hmm… You know what I mean. The recipes arrive in my inbox. Although… Having, say, the Garlicky Roast Beef below come fully prepared via email would be pretty Awesome-Sauce. In case you’re interested, I didn’t make up the very descriptive term Awesome-Sauce. Here‘s where it comes from. Funny.)

Alright. What say we get to said recipes before I get too carried away about email delivery food and funny comics.

This beef recipe has a great rub for almost any type of meat. Here it’s specifically for a meat platter but it makes me think of the best darn brown bag lunch around.

Garlicky Roast Beef

(as stolen from the Canadian Living website)

A 3-lb (1.5 kg) eye of round oven roast will yield the pound of beautiful slices you need for the platter, plus plenty of leftovers to enjoy on another occasion.

Servings: 36 slices

Ingredients:

9 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup (75 mL) minced fresh parsley
3 tbsp (50 mL) grainy mustard
1-1/2 tsp (7 mL) each salt and pepper
1 eye of round oven roast (3 lb/1.5 kg)

Preparation:

In bowl, combine garlic, parsley, mustard, salt and pepper. Pat roast dry; rub all over with garlic mixture. Place on greased rack in small roasting pan.

Pour enough water into roasting pan to come 1/2 inch (1 cm) up side of pan. Roast in 500°F (260°C) oven for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 275°F (140°C); roast until meat thermometer registers 140°F (60°C) for rare or 150°F (65°C) for medium-rare, about 1 hour. Let cool. (Make-ahead: Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 2 days.) Slice.

Mediterranean Rub for Pork

Ingredients:

2 lemons, zest only
1/4 cup (50 mL) chopped fresh thyme, or one tbsp (15 mL) dried
1/4 cup (50 mL) fresh garlic
1/4 cup (50 mL) fresh rosemary, or one tbsp (15 mL) dried
2 tbsp (30 mL) fresh sage, or two tsp (10 mL) dried
2 tbsp (30 mL) coarse black pepper
1 tbsp (15 mL) salt

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients and, using a food processor or a sharp knife, chop until thoroughly mixed, but not reduced to a paste.

Store in a jar with tight-fitting lid.

Again, I would use this on anything but I found it on the Canadian Pork Producers website and now shamelessly pass it off as my own. (Oops! Now you know my secret!)

Please feel free to let me know how these work for you or if you have something even more wonderful to do with quality, ethically raise meat. There will be a prize for anyone who can actually email me lunch.

Happy Eating!

Amazon delivered enlightenment today

J Nyman — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:58:02 +0000

We still haven’t recovered our normal pace of life with the winding down of the syrup season so this will be short and sweet. Rather, free of refined sugar. Hopefully next week things will slow down and I will sit down to do more writing.

In the meant time, to keep the adrenaline coursing through my veins, I ordered the book I’ve heard so much about over the years called Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats.

I started reading at the beginning and by page 4 had said “What???”, “No! Not funny!” and, I’ll be blunt, “Holy Shit!” enough times that my husband started to think I was having a mental episode. I’m not prone to this type of episode. Nor am I prone to using profanity without an accompanying profusion of fresh blood.

Like I said, this will be brief. Here are my recommendations so far:

Do you eat margarine? Stop. It’s disgusting and bad for you.
Buy the book: Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats or at least get it from the library and judge for yourself.

Someone did something delicious with our lamb!

J Nyman — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:54:59 +0000

And they sent pictures. Mmmm….

Check out this recipe. It comes from one Luisa, lovely Italian woman who seems to know how to make rack of lamb into the delectable, luxurious dish it is meant to be. Follow these instructions and add friends liberally.

Luisa’s Marinated Lamb for the Barbecue: (as it came to me via email)

Throw 3 cloves of chopped garlic in a big bowl, add the juice of 3-4 lemon (and then cut them into pieces and throw them in the marinade as well), add fresh mint leaves, rosemary leaves (3 spoon), parsley (1 spoon), extra vergin olive oil (1 cup), red wine Vinegar (1 cup1/2) ground black pepper (1 spoon) and an entire red hot chilli pepper crushed into small pieces. Add water and stir. Put the lamb in the bowl and make sure the lamb is being sunken, cover with cling wrap and put in the fridge for 12 hours or simply the night before the consuption.

If you like, once you cook the lamb you can put some of the marinade in a bowl on the table and dip the lamb into it.
Is delicious!

There you have the recipe. I didn’t make any changes and don’t really know if we’re talking teaspoons or tablespoons but, hey, it’s a marinade. Make it so that it tastes good to you!

I have yet to try this but you can bet it will be first on my ‘to bbq’ list for the summer.

Doesn’t it look like summer?