Pan-Roasted Pork Chops with Curried Kumquat Chutney and Sauteed Kale

Another day, another experiment.  I have never tried cooking with kumquats before but I saw some at Fairway the other day and wanted to try them out.  The majority of the kumquat recipes I found were dessert recipes, but I really wanted to make something savory.  My Andrea Reusing cookbook has a recipe for duck breasts with kumquats, but since we had already made duck in the past few weeks I wanted to try something else.  I briefly considered making chicken instead, but we eat too much chicken.  When we went through the freezer to see what would work with the chutney I found some organic center-cut, bone-in duBreton pork chops that I had picked up awhile back.  We don't eat a lot of pork chops, but I do enjoy a good bone-in chop form time-to-time so I pick them up on occasion.  I'm not certain how long these pork chops were in the freezer, but it had been at least a few months.  Pork and bitter greens are a natural pairing (see the Baked Pork Chops with Swiss Chard for an example) so the red kale we already had in the fridge seemed like a good idea.  We made a really simple pan-roasted pork chop and a simple sauteed kale with pine nuts since the chutney sounded like it would be pretty flavorful and I didn't want the flavors of any of the dish's components to compete or conflict.

I think that the curried chutney worked really nicely with the pork chops and the kale.  I was really happy with this meal - happier than I have been with one of our experiments in awhile.  The pork chops were juicy and meaty and were a great blank canvas for the chutney.  The chutney was sweet and fragrant, with a very interesting flavor.  It was very different, but I could see using it in a number of different (savory) ways.  The recipe suggests pairing it with goat cheese, which I could totally see, as well as lamb or pork.  I'm not sure I would pair the chutney with lamb, but I could definitely see it with another cut of pork and chicken or turkey.  It is sweet, but not overwhelmingly so and I thought the sweetness and acidity with the meaty pork chop was really nice.  The kale was very simple but I thought it was also nice.  It was a good simple side that would pair nicely with a number of entrees.  I almost never use red kale because I have a mild obsession with lacinato kale (aka Tuscan kale), but I think it was really nice here.  This might be just the wake up call I needed to pick up a bunch or two of red kale more often.
Recipes after the jump!

Honey-Glazed Parsnips

The first thing that I said to Alex when I took a bite of these parsnips was that this recipe would be the perfect way to sneak parsnips into your child's diet.  Look at me, I'm not even a mom and I'm already planning out various ways to sneak things past (or into) my kids.  Braising the parsnips in fresh orange juice, lime juice, honey and lime makes them sweet and smushy.  And don't most kids love sweet and smushy?  I'm pretty sure I did.  There is no parsnip flavor to throw your kids off - if they like sweet citrus, they should like this dish.  The second thing that I said to Alex was that I wish we had broiled or roasted the parsnip spears for a few seconds to just crisp up the glaze on the exterior for a little texture.  While this dish would probably be ideal for a child, as an adult, I find the parnsips to be a little overwhelmingly sweet and one-note.  Perhaps if we had used the Thai chili instead of a jalapeno the heat would have come through a little more, but that would probably make it a lot less kid-friendly.  Alex and I agreed that these parsnips are best served in moderation - a few spears on a plate alongside a salad and an entree.  Anymore than that (like we had on this plate) is just too much.

Recipe after the jump!

Roasted Beet Salad with Oranges and Beet Greens

 

This is another recipe that was inspired by my CSA haul.  I'm really trying to make sure that we use all of the wonderful produce that I picked up so we built this meal around beet salad.  I proposed making Zucchini Cornbread to go with the beet salad.  Alex wasn't a fan of that idea.  Then I proposed making fried green tomatoes.  He didn't shoot that one down, but he didn't jump up and down in joy either.  And then I proposed making a Cherry Tomato and Lemon Salad.  Alex's response was "a salad with a salad?"  So he clearly wasn't a huge fan of that idea either.  But I was determined to make this beet salad so I stuck with it.  How's that for perseverance?

Generally when we make beets we either serve them over some mixed greens with goat cheese and nuts as a beet salad, or we serve them solo.  It has never occurred to me before to mix them with the beet greens.  When I buy beets at the grocery store the first thing I usually do when I get home is chop off the greens and throw them away.  Granted, the beets at the grocery store are nowhere near as fresh as the ones I picked up from Holton Farms the other day.  The greens on this bunch actually looked wonderful.  So I was excited to try them out.  Unfortunately we didn't have enough beet greens to make a dish with just the greens (unless of course I only wanted enough for each of us to have 2 forkfuls), so I had to serve the greens with something else.  I found a few recipes that mixed together the beet greens with the beets themselves and that seemed like the logical way to go.  So I found a recipe that did just that.  I really liked the combination of the sweet onions, beets, beet greens and oranges.  I have never mixed any of those ingredients together before so it was a totally new flavor profile for me.  Our orange was kind of anemic.  I really wish it had more bold citrus flavor, but I guess that's my fault for picking out a mediocre out of season orange.  Even with an anemic orange, the flavor was quite nice.  You want to cut the onions fairly thin so they can't overwhelm the other subtler flavors in the dish.  But when everything is in balance it is truly lovely.

Recipe after the jump!

Skillet Green Beans with Orange

Tonight somehow ended up being all about the Lee Brothers.  Actually, this week has been very Lee Brothers and Susan Spicer-inspired thus far.  We have tried two recipes from each of the cookbooks (and I am planning on making one more Lee Brothers dish later in the week if I happen across some nice wild salmon at Fairway or Whole Foods).  I resolved earlier this summer to use the cookbooks on our bookshelf more often, particularly those cookbooks that I have neglected in the past.  Both the Lee Brothers and the Susan Spicer cookbooks were new to us this year and up until this week we had only made one recipe from each.  Since tonight's soup was so light and fresh, I wanted to make something with a little more substance as a side than a simple salad.  I also wanted to keep the meal vegetarian, so that limited things a little.  We had some green beans and I saw this recipe in the same Lee Brothers cookbook, so I figured those would be a nice accompaniment to our gazpacho.  

These green beans were good, but not amazing.  I liked the idea of blistering the beans to give them some char, but I thought that the amount of orange zest and overall orange flavor was a little overwhelming.  I wish there had been a little heat or just a little something to cut through the citrus flavor.  But with all of that said, I enjoyed the dish and we cleaned the plate.  And to be perfectly honest, how amazing can green beans really be?

Recipe after the jump!