Menu for 3/8/11 -- Boeuf Bourguignon and Caramelized Endives with Poached Pears

Tonight was a quick meal kind of night here at the Dude2 household, so I decided to use some of my leftover Boeuf Bourguignon, accompanied by a recipe for caramelized endives out of Seven Fires.  We also had some extra D'Anjou pears laying around begging for attention, so I decided on a whim to make some poached pears with red wine syrup for dessert (that's the picture above).  I'd never made them like that before, and I have to say it was really good.  And very easy.  Here are the recipes:

Menu for 3/2/2011 -- Pork Tenderloin with burnt brown sugar and orange confit

* We shared this on EKat's Kitchen Friday Potluck -- check it out! *

I'd been eyeballing this recipe in Seven Fires ever since I got the book, and I finally got a chance to give it a shot tonight.  A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I got a shipment of fresh organic oranges from her parents in the southwest.  The oranges were fantastic, and we juiced a number of them.  I saved the peels with this recipe in mind...

This pork tenderloin is layered with orange peel confit, thyme, and burnt black sugar.  I served it with my special recipe rosemary scalloped potatoes and an experimental recipe for collard greens that turned out quite good. There are four recipes tonight, so I'll try to do a better job organizing them than I did on the fajitas post (I was pretty tired when I wrote that one).  If you start at the top and go down, you should have everything done at about the right times.  Here we go:

Menu for 2/27/2011 -- Porterhouse steaks with smashed beet salad (Dude2)

* We posted this recipe over at Hunger and Thirst for Life This is a great blog on traditional foods and foraging. *

Today I decided it was time for some primal cuisine.  Beefy grass fed porterhouse steaks, brazenly seared over open flame then slow roasted in the smoke of a downed pecan limb, served with charred, smashed beets and greens and a robust malbec wine.  It was delicious.  Here's what to do:

Menu for 2/15/2011 - Beef and Potato Pie (Dude2)

Beef and Potato Pie, from Seven Fires. Sweet peas braised in butter for the veggies, and some local red wine for the refreshments. I substituted organic canned tomatoes for the fresh tomatoes in the recipe, and forgot to put in the boiled eggs (they made a nice side dish though, c'est la vie). Overall I'd say the recipe was very tasty, and it was amenable to being made in a kitchen with almost no gear -- we are moving right now so we are "house camping." It makes cooking good food that much more interesting.

The potatoes were thickened with egg yolks, which is something I hadn't seen before. After spreading them over the top of the filling in the cast iron skillet and decorating the top with some lines and grooves, you toss the whole mess in the oven for a while to brown and further dry the potatoes on top to form a nice firm layer. All in all, it was very good and I'll have to record it as a useful technique.

The little one liked the pie, but was not too keen on peas this time. She's not feeling well though, so that might explain it. I'd add this recipe to my list of things to do again, especially during cold weather. Thumbs up.

About and hour and a half total cooking time: