Appetizer: Rutabaga, broccoli and cheddar cheese knishes
Grade: B- (very time consuming to prepare, and the flavor is not that remarkable)
Salad: Chopped spinach with apples, oranges, and raspberry vinaigrette
Grade: B+ (very easy to prepare and quite tasty, but the dressing has a short shelf life)
Side: Mashed potato and rutabaga casserole with carmelized onions
Grade: A! (not much more work than making regular mashed potatoes, but much tastier!)
Main Dish: Sauteed pork tenderloin and pears in mustard-port sauce
Grade: B+ (not too hard to prepare, but the flavor was a little dull)
Desert: Blueberry pie
Grade: A! (very easy to make - not your usual pie crust - and absolutely delicious!)
Appetizer: Rutabaga, broccoli and cheddar cheese knishes
Adapted from: 1001 Jewish Recipes, by Faye Levy
Caution: This is a very time consuming dish to make!Dough:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks butter
~5 tbsp ice water
Mix flour and salt in a food processor. Add butter (cut into ~1/2 inch pieces) and process so mixtures becomes crumbly.
With the processor going, add the ice water through the top until the dough sticks to the side. Knead the dough briefly (might have to drizzle on a little more water to get it to hold together) then refrigerate in plastic wrap for at least 1 hour.
I've never tried making this with margarine, although the recipe says you can, but generally when baking you need the fats to properly distribute throughout the mixture to hold the dough together and give it a yummy flavor, and lower fat products just aren't usually so up to the task.
Filling:
1 rutabega (original recipe is for 1/2 pound potatoes)
1 lb broccoli (stems and florets)
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste (this always bugs me because I never have any idea how much, so just start with a few shakes of a salt shaker and a few grinds of a pepper mill)
Peel and chop the rutabaga (smaller pieces = faster cooking) and boil until soft (~20 minutes). Drain and mash the rutabaga chunks. Meanwhile, cut up the broccoli and arrange the stems on the bottom of a pan (this tip for cooking broccoli comes from Alton Brown). Top the stems with enough water to almost cover, then add the florets. Boil/steam the broccoli until it gets soft (~7 minutes) but is still a nice bright green. Stems are thicker than the florets and so take longer to cook, so putting them in direct contact with the water speeds that up. Also, cooking the florets directly in water means that valuable nutrients could leach out into the water and not into your body! Puree the cooked broccoli in a food processor, leaving small chunks, then add to the rutabaga. Mix in the cheese and egg.
To assemble the knishes, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch thick on a lightly floured surface and cut out rounds with 3 inch diameter. Roll the rounds out a little more to fit more filling. Place ~1tsp filling in the center of the round, then moisten 1/2 the edge of the round with water. Fold the dough over onto the moistened edge to create a half-moon shape. Pinch the edges of the dough together to seal. When all of the knishes are made, place them on a greased baking sheet and brush with egg wash (1 egg beaten + pinch of salt). Poke 2 holes in each to vent steam, and bake at 375F until golden brown (if you can't tell by the tops, look at the bottoms), about 25 minutes. Serve with honey mustard.
Salad: Chopped spinach with apples, oranges, and orange-raspberry vinaigrette
Dressing from: Going Wild in the Kitchen, by Leslie Cerrier
1/3 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1 tsp orange zest (skip if using store-bought OJ)
1/3 cup raspberry vinegar
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (original recipe calls for walnut oil)
Mix ingredients and shake! I find this can be stored for no more than a few days in the fridge.
Side: Mashed potato and rutabaga casserole with carmelized onions
Adapted from: Epicurious
I cut this recipe in half and used 2x as much rutabaga in place of the original parsnips.
6 small purple fingerling potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
1 rutabaga, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
4-5 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 tsp dried thyme (I accidentally used 1tsp - still good!)
3.5 - 4 cups chicken stock
1 bay leaf
3/4 stick butter
1 1/2 white onions, thinly sliced rounds
Combine the potatoes, rutabaga, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, and chicken stock in a pot and boil until veggies are tender, about 25 minutes. Strain well and mash with 1/2 stick butter. Meanwhile, melt 1/4 stick butter in a sauce pan and sautee onions on med-high heat for 5 minutes until they just start to brown. Reduce heat to med-low and continue cooking onions for 15 min until golden brown.
Preheat oven to 375F. Butter a 7x11 baking pan, fill with potato mixture, then top with onions. Bake for 25 min and enjoy! The fingerling potatoes gave this a pinkish tint for a different feel than regular old mashed potatoes.
Main Dish: Sauteed pork tenderloin and pears in mustard-port sauce
From: Epicurious
1 lb pork loin, cut into 12x 1/2-inch rounds
2 large pears, peeled, cored and cut into 8 pieces each
3 tbsp butter
3/4 cup chicken stock
2/3 cup tawny Port
2 1/2 tsp ground Dijon mustard
flour
salt, pepper
Melt butter in a pan and sautee pears until soft and golden, 5-8 min (less if the pears are smaller). Remove pears with a slotted spoon, leaving behind some butter. Sprinkle pork medallions with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour. Fry medallions for 2 min/side to brown, then remove. Don't clean the pan! Add the chicken stock, port and mustard and cook on med-high until it reduces by ~1/2 (approx. 4-6 min). Then add back the pears and pork and continue cooking until pork is cooked through (~5 min) and sauce resembles a glaze.
Dessert: Blueberry pie
Adapted from: Going Wild in the Kitchen, by Leslie Cerrier
Crust
2 1/2 cups sifted flour (original calls for whole wheat pastry flour)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup canola oil (sunflower oil works, too)
2 tbsp almond butter (this is key!!)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
Preheat the oven to 375F. Mix all the ingredients and add a little more oil if it's not sticking together. This is a very crumbly dough - don't over do it with the oil. Reserve 2/3 cups of this mix and press the rest into a pie dish, on the bottom and sides. Poke some holes in the dough with a fork, and bake for 10 min.
Filling
2 cups frozen (or fresh) blueberries
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp flour (original calls for kudzu or arrowroot, which are thickeners that I usually don't stock)
2 tbsp cold water
Heat the blueberries in a sauce pan on med-low heat until they start to simmer (~5-10 min for my frozen berries). Add flour in 1/2 tsp increments until the mixture seems to be thickening a bit. Continue simmering for a few more minutes, and add honey.
Once the crust is done, pour in the filling and top with the reserved bits of crust. Bake for 12 minutes, or until the crumbles begin to brown.
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