Sweet and Savory BLT Salad

Sometimes I think I have rocks in my head. I entered yet another contest at Marx Foods, this one about using sweet items in a savory dish.

Easy peasy, I thought, when I sent my name in.

Yeah, right. I had ideas for bits and pieces of a recipe, but none of it came together in a complete recipe. The only thing I was sure of was that I wanted to make some candied bacon.

But the more I thought of it, the more sweet-savory ideas I had for the four ingredients I had to work with.

I only needed to use two of them, but in the end I used all four. They were: vanilla beans, fennel flower crystals, honey powder, and coconut sap sugar.

I'm not a big fan of coconut, but the sugar is from the tree sap, and it doesn't really taste of coconut. It's got an earthy brown sugar flavor, but it doesn't seem to me that it's quite as sweet as brown sugar.

The fennel flower crystals were interesting. A pale green, they didn't have a strong fennel scent, but they burst with fennel flavor when I tasted them. And I liked the way they crunched. I wanted to use them as a garnish rather than melting them down and losing the delightful texture.

The honey powder is, well, sugar and honey in a small granulated form. Tastes like honey, pours like sugar.

And of course, vanilla beans.

I started with the idea of candied bacon and toyed with the idea of a BLT, but couldn't figure out what other sweet ingredient I could use in a sandwich. I could have baked a loaf of bread using one of the sugars, but it wouldn't have been a prominent ingredient. Hey, I watch Chopped a lot. I think of things like that.

I considered adding something sweet to the mayonnaise in the sandwich ... and then I started thinking about a wedge salad. Yes, my mind wanders off on its own a lot. But once I headed in the salad direction, I saw a lot of opportunities for using the sweet ingredients in a savory way.

If a BLT ran into a wedge salad in front of a candy store, this could be the result.

Surprisingly, it's not really sweet. There are bursts of sweetness from the bacon, but that's tempered by the bacon's saltiness. The vanilla and honey are tempered by the balsamic vinegar. And the fennel flower crystals are a nice accent to the dabs of mayo-based garlicky salad dressing.

Are you ready for this?

Sweet and Savory BLT Salad

For the candied bacon:
1/2 pound bacon
1/4 cup coconut sugar (more to taste)

For the vanilla balsamic drizzle:
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar (the cheap stuff is perfect)
2 tablespoons honey powder
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

For the salad dressing:
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon dried lemon thyme
1/4 teaspoon sweet paprika
Pinch of garlic powder
Small pinch of honey powder
Small pinch of salt

For the salad:

Iceberg lettuce
Tomato
Cucumber
Candied bacon
Vanilla alsamic drizzle
Salad dressing
Fennel flower crystals

To make the candied bacon:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Lay the bacon strips side-by-side on the aluminum-foil-covered baking sheet, trying not to overlap the pieces. The half-pound should fit nicely on a half-sheet pan.

Sprinkle the bacon evenly with the coconut sugar. You want a thin layer over the bacon. If you missed a few spots, you can fill in with a little more sugar.

Bake the bacon at 400 degrees until the bacon is done to your liking, checking after 15-20 minutes, and checking fairly often after that. You've got sugar in a hot oven. There's a thin line between deeply caramelized and burned.

Transfer the cooked bacon to a wire rack to let the grease drip off. This is great warm or at room temperature, so you can make it in advance, if you like.

To make the vanilla balsamic drizzle:
Put the balsamic vinegar in a small saucepan. Add the honey powder and the split vanilla bean with its seeds. Simmer on low heat stirring, as needed, until the sugar melts and the mixture thickens and it has reduced to about half the original volume. You could do this quickly at a full boil, but the point is to infuse the vinegar with the vanilla flavor, so simmer slowly.

When the vinegar has reduced, let it cool, then remove the vanilla pod and transfer the liquid to a suitable container.

To make the salad dressing:
Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl. Taste and adjust seasonings, as desired. I normally thin my salad dressings with a bit of milk, buttermilk, or yogurt, but I wanted to keep this thick for piping. If you're going for a drizzle, thin the dressing to the desired consistency.

To assemble the salad:
Cut a wedge from a head of lettuce and remove the core. Place it on a plate.

Cut the tomato into wedges and arrange as many pieces as desired on the plate with the lettuce. Peel and cut the cucumber as desired. I cut mine in quarters horizontally, then into slices. Scatter the cucumber on top of the lettuce and tomato.

Cut or crumble the bacon (or use whole strips, if you like) and add it to the top of the salad. I'll admit that quite a bit of the bacon "disappeared" long before salad-making time. Use as much or as little bacon on the salad as you like. I'm sure you'll find plenty of uses for any leftovers.

Drizzle the vanilla balsamic over the salad - as much as you like. Leftovers can be mixed with olive oil to make salad dressing, or drizzled over fresh tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. Or, pretend it's an expensive balsamic, and drizzle over strawberries.

Dollop the salad dressing on the salad. I used a piping bag, because I was feeling flowery. I didn't use all the dressing, but it depends on how much you like and how large that lettuce wedge was. And remember, you've also got that balsamic!

Garnish with the fennel flower crystals. I sprinkled mine mostly on top of the mayo dressing. I thought it looked pretty and sparkly there.

And ... serve!

Yum

Pork Stew (Guisado de Puerco)

One of my absolutely favorite cuts of meat is pork shoulder. As a roast, as country ribs, boneless, whatever. It's a tough cut that takes some time to cook, but the result is super-tender meat that's never dry. Or maybe you have to work really hard on it to get it dry.

This time around, boneless country ribs were on sale (Wheee! I love a sale!) and I decided to do a stew.

Meanwhile, I had peppers left over from some Marx Foods challenges. I've entered a ton of them, and many have included dried peppers. So I rooted around in my basket o' dried peppers and emerged with some puya peppers and some New Mexico peppers.

And then for the fun of it, I used some blue potatoes from Frieda's Specialty Produce. I was curious whether the potatoes would color the sauce, or whether the sauce would color the potatoes. Both are pretty strong colors.

Pork Stew with Peppers

2 pounds boneless pork shoulder, cut into cubes
1 can beer
3 dried New Mexico chiles
3 dried puya chiles
1 green pepper, cut into chunks
1 onion, diced
5 small purple potatoes, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
1 teaspoon oregano (Mexican, if you have it)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Salt, to taste

Put the pork in your slow cooker and add the beer plus one can of water. Cook on low until the pork is tender.

It's hard to say exactly how long this will take - it depends on the pork you bought, how large the pieces are, and how hot the "low" setting on your slow cooker is. Figure about 4 hours and cook it longer if you need to.

You want it fork tender, but you'll be cooking it longer the next day, so don't cook it until it's falling apart.

Refrigerate the pork, with all the liquid, until well-chilled. I usually let it sit in the refrigerator until the next day.

The next day, put the pork back in the crockpot along with the green pepper, onion, potatoes, oregano, tomato paste, and salt.

Put the dried peppers in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Let the peppers soak until they are softened.

Remove the stems, seeds and ribs from the peppers, and puree until smooth. If you need some liquid to get the peppers pureed, use some of the chilled liquid from the pork.

Pass the pepper puree through a fine strainer to remove errant seeds and bits of skin, and add it to the slow cooker.

Cook on low until the vegetables are cooked through - about an hour. Taste and add more salt, if needed.

Serve hot. I like it over rice.

Yum

Croissants with Morel Duxelles

Okay, maybe the mushrooms aren't quite duxelles, but I liked the rhyme. And when you're in your kitchen, you can certainly make a true duxelles. There are plenty of recipes online.

I used a duck egg here because 1) I had them from the farmers market and 2) I wanted to make these really rich. A chicken egg will work just fine.

Croissants aren't terribly hard to make, but they do require some time and some work with a rolling pin. This recipe is a little bit easier than the traditional method, since it uses a food processor in the first stage.

The smaller bits of butter also make the dough easier to roll, so there's a little less work involved. I'm not going to lie to you and say that this is as easy as making cake from a mix. But c'mon, it's home made croissants. People will think you're magical if you make these.

Croissants are always best on the day they are made. they lose the shattery crispness in the crust when you store them. They're still good. Just not as great a the could be.

Easy(er) Croissants with Morel "Duxelles"

For the croissants:
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup cold milk
1 small(ish) duck egg (about the size of a chicken egg - or use a chicken egg)
11 1/4 ounces (2 1/2 cups) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick salted butter, cold
1 stick unsalted butter, cold
Eggwash:
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water
For the "duxelles":
1/2 ounce dried morel mushrooms
1 tablespoon butter
Pinch of salt

Put the yeast, water and sugar into a medium bowl and stir to combine. Set aside until it begins to get foamy, about 5 minutes. Add the milk and egg, and beat lightly to break up the egg and combine it all.

Put the flour and salt into your food processor, and pulse to distribute the salt. Cut each stick of butter into tablespoon-sized pieces. Put all of the pieces into the food processor with the flour and pulse about 10 times to distribute the butter and break the chunks just a little. You don't want small pieces as you would for pie crust; larger chunks are preferable.

Add the flour and butter to the liquid in the bowl, and fold gently with a spatula until all the flour is moistened and it is well combined, being careful not to break up the butter. The butter should still be fairly hard at this point. The dough will be very wet; don't worry about it. Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight.

The mixture can be used the next day, or kept refrigerated for an additional day if you aren't ready for it.

When you are ready to roll, flour your work surface generously, and have more flour standing ready. Turn the dough out onto your work surface, sprinkle some additional flour over the top You can be generous here, and form it into a rough square.

Working quickly, roll the dough out to an approximate 16-18-inch (sort-of) square. You don't have to be precise. Because the dough is fairly wet, it should roll easily, but it might be a bit sticky. The point here is that we need to flatten those bits of butter, so this first roll is more about getting that butter flatter and more pliable.

Add flour as needed on top and underneath to keep it from sticking any time during the process. At first, you might need a bit of flour. Later, a light dusting will suffice.

Fold the dough in thirds, like a letter. Then fold it in thirds again, to make a square.

Do this again three more times. Use flour as you need it and work quickly. If it's really hot in your kitchen and you feel the butter starting to get melty-soft, you can stop and refrigerate the dough. If the butter melts, you'll never get the layers you're looking for.

After the last fold, put the dough into a plastic bag and put it into the refrigerator for at least an hour, or up to three days.

Meanwhile, make the mushroom mixture:
Fill a small pot with a couple inches of water. Heat to a boil and then turn off the heat. Add 1/2 ounce of dried morel mushrooms an let them soak until they are softened.

Remove any tough or rubbery bits - I found that the "stem" bit was often just a bit rubbery. Chop the mushrooms into small bits. You could use a food processor, but we're not talking about that many mushrooms.

Heat the butter in a pan and fry the mushroom bits for a minute or two, then let them cool. If you're not using them right away, refrigerate until you need them.

When you are ready to make the croissants, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

The dough may have risen while refrigerated. After an hour you won't see much action, but if you left it refrigerated for longer, you will see that it rose a bit.

Flour your work surface and roll the dough into a circle about 14 inches in diameter.

Cut the dough into 8 pie-shaped wedges.

Pull the outside edge so that it's at least 8 inches wide and pull the dough lengthwise so it's about 10 inches long. It won't look like a perfect triangle any more - it will be more like the side view of a golf tee- but that's okay.

Take the prepared mushroom mixture and spread it over the surface of the triangles, leaveing a little edge uncovered on all sides.

Starting at the wide end of each triangle, roll the dough toward the the point.

Place the finished croissants on the prepared baking sheet with the point underneath. Curl the dough into a crescent shape.

Leave room on the baking sheet for the croissants to rise as they bake. These are pretty big croissants. you might as well put 4 on each sheet, so the have plenty of space.

Cover them with plastic wrap and set aside for 45 minutes. They won't rise much at all, but they should feel puffy instead of firm, and when you gently push on the side of one, the indent should fill in very slowly instead of bouncing back. Brush the croissants with the egg wash.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, until they are golden brown. Remove to a rack to cool.

This recipe was written for the Marx Foods 5th annual Morel recipe contest. For this contest, people were asked to bake with the morels. We were each given a sample of dried morels to work with.

The contest is now open for voting. Cast yer votes RIGHT HERE.

Yum

Pasta dinner ... or is it?

This could be ...

Three-Cheese Stuffed Artisan Whole-Grain Manicotti 

with Wild Mushroom Sauce and Parmesan

That's what it looks like, right?

Look at that sprinkle of parmesan cheese ... and the cheesy stuffing ...

And that wild mushroom sauce on the bottom of the bowl looks pretty good, right?

And the mise en place... all ready to assemble.

Yep, that looks like a mighty fine dinner right there. Right? 

And not a lot of mess, there. Two pots, two bowls. 

Looks easy enough.

Well, actually I'd be LYING to you if I said this was for dinner.

Yep. Lying.

Because this post is for the Marx Foods Dinner for Dessert recipe challenge. The point was to make a dessert that looks like an entree. And I had to use a chocolate rigatoni pasta that Marx Foods sent to me.

Chocolate pasta. How crazy is that?

So, let's see. The rule is that it has to look like an entree. But, um ... they didn't say that it had BE a full-size entree.

Do you see where I'm going?

Now you got it?

They're one-bite desserts that look like itty-bitty entrees.

This dessert is really:

Peanut-Butter-Whipped-Cream Stuffed Chocolate Rigatoni
on softened coffee ice cream with grated white chocolate
Recipe © by www.cookistry.com. Do not republish without permission.

Ingredients:
Chocolate rigatoni
Peanut butter whipped cream (recipe below)
Coffee ice cream, softened (recipe here, or use store-bought)
Finely grated white chocolate

Cook the rigatoni in boiling salted water. Rinse in cold water to chill. Cut off the pointed ends if you want it to look like actual manicotti.

Put the whipped cream into a plastic bag, like a sandwich-size zip-top bag. Cut the tip off the bag. (You could also use a piping bag, but a plastic bag works fine.) Pipe the whipped cream into the rigatoni.

Place the ice cream on a spoon or very small plate.

Arrange the rigatoni on top of the ice cream.

Scatter the white chocolate on top.

Serve.

Peanut Butter Whipped Cream
Recipe © by www.cookistry.com. Do not republish without permission.

1 tablespoon creamy peanut butter
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Put the peanut butter, powdered sugar, and cream in a medium bowl. Beat with a whisk or hand-held mixer until you have a thick whipped cream. It won't be as light and airy as regular whipped cream because of the peanut butter, but it will get firm and will hold its shape a lot longer than standard whipped cream.

This makes more than you'll need unless you're making a LOT of these, but I'm sure you'll find other uses for it. It's really good stuff. If you need a hint, check out this recipe.

You could try making less, but it's kind of ridiculous to whip. Trust me, You'll use it. Or eat it with a spoon.

Do you like this recipe? PLEASE go vote for it here.

Yum

Dill Pickle Soup Oh Yeah!

Every time I enter a Marx Foods contest, I feel like I'm competing on some wacky TV show where I'm given a basket of unrelated ingredients and I have to make something from those ingredients.

But in the Marx Foods contests, I have a huge advantage over those contestants - I have plenty of time to think about what I'm going to make. And even better, I don't have to use all of the ingredients.

The current contest was all about green things, and the package I received included green eston lentils, mint herb crystals, green cardamom pods, dill pollen, and bamboo rice.

Ummmm ... well, okay.

I only needed to include two of the ingredients, but I still found this one very challenging. I can't wait to see what everyone else made, just because it was such a crazy challenge.

I had a few ideas that seemed too un-seasonal, but finally I settled on the lentils. For soup. Because it's winter. And then ... um ... uhhhhhh ... hmmmmm ...

Dill pickle soup!!!

Before you think I've gone completely mad, let me tell you that I've actually eaten dill pickle soup before. I've never made it, though, and my memory of it is pretty vague. But I know I liked it.

I picture my fore-mothers scrambling to make some sort of dinner mid-winter, and grabbing whatever was left in storage. And then, for flavor, grabbing some pickles. Maybe it sounded crazy then, too, but perhaps her husband loved it and told his friends how brilliant his wife was to create this amazing soup. And then they all wanted dill pickle soup.

Or something like that.

If you still think that dill pickle soup is a little wacky, think if it this way: the pickles add a nice tartness to the soup, just like tomatoes do.

For this recipe, use any type of dill pickles you like. I used baby dills, because that's what I had. And some of them were really teeny. When you measure the chopped pickles, pack them lightly into the cup. A little more or less isn't a big deal, but you want the pickle flavor.

Yes, you really do.

You can VOTE FOR ME in this contest HERE.
And be sure to look at the other recipes. There's some awesome stuff. Green. Yum.

Dill Pickle Lentil Soup
When you're chopping and dicing the vegetables, try to get them to about the same size as the lentils. Since this is a rustic, homey recipe, you don't have to be precise about the dicing - just try to get it close to that size.

For the soup:
2 quarts water (plus more, as needed)
1 cup green lentils
1/2 cup dill pickle juice
1/2 cup diced dill pickles
2 teaspoons salt (plus more, as needed)
1 potato, peeled and diced
1 onion, chopped roughly
1 carrot, peeled and chopped roughly
1/2 teaspoon dill pollen
1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed
1 teaspoon prepared brown mustard
Several generous grinds black pepper
1 tablespoon sherry or cider vinegar (optional)

For the garnish:
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon dill pollen
Chopped or sliced dill pickles

Combine all of the soup ingredients in a large, heavy-bottomed pot, excluding the vinegar. Simmer until the lentils and vegetables are cooked through. Add more water, if needed, to keep it soupy during the cooking, and stir as needed to keep the lentils from sticking to the bottom of the pot where they could burn.

Meanwhile, combine the sour cream and dill pollen. Refrigerate until needed.

To thicken the soup and add body to it, use a stick blender to blend part of the soup, or transfer some of it to a blender and blend carefully, then return the blended soup to the pot. (You know about hot liquids exploding from blenders, right?)

Taste for seasoning and add salt, if needed. If you prefer a slightly more tart soup, add the vinegar. Cook for a few minutes more.

Serve hot. Garnish with a dollop of the sour cream and some of the chopped or sliced pickles. I used baby dills and a few of them were tiny enough to slice into small rounds.

Aren't those little cast iron pots adorable? I think they're great for serving soups.

Yum