Cleaning Out The Kitchen

In my opinion, kitchen gadgets are pieces of shit that are targeted towards people looking for quick and easy ways to cut corners in the kitchen. For the most part, these kitchen gadgets take up a lot of precious counter and cupboard space, loose their novelty after three uses, and don't even work very well. So why the fuck do people buy them? Because they are marketed in such a way that they seem to make a "difficult" kitchen task into a quick and easy one. Well it's usually bullshit, with the exception of two gadgets that I will admit to owning. First being an ice cream maker (ice cream recipes to come), which has been used plenty of times and continues to be used and is made by a quality manufacturer of kitchenware, so it hardly classifies as a gadget and more of an appliance. The other gadget being a magic bullet, which serves its purpose as a small blender/ spice and herb grinder, but you will never catch me making something from that 10-second recipe book. Anyway, I'm straying from the point of this post. You can do anything in the kitchen much better than a shitty slap-chop or an over priced panini press can with tools you likely already have. Instead of paying for a slap-chop, invest in a good knife and a steel or sharpening stone and practice using them. Instead of dropping hard earned cash on a panini grill, buy a cast iron skillet and stop playing about.

Cast Iron is amazing for cooking with as it distributes heat evenly, retains heat well, creates a non-stick surface if seasoned correctly, and requires minimal care. In fact, you hardly have to wash it. No wonder people have been cooking with it before I care to think about. They're relatively cheap and even better if you can find a used one at a garage sale or second hand store. 

So, I'm running off on a tangent again, lets skip to the point already. Instead of using a panini press to make a delicious and melty sandwich, grab a heavy pan, like a cast iron one, and a stack of other frying pans, pots, or whatever has some weight and is close by. Paninis are simple things. You need some quality bread, a cheese that melts nicely and your selection of fillings. I managed to find some sliced smoked turkey, prosciutto, arugula, avocado, apples, goat cheese, provolone, and smoked gouda in my fridge. There were lots of other things in the fridge but I thought these would make for some interesting sammies. I placed the cheese right on the each piece of bread so it gets the most heat and melts fantastically. Place the rest in the middle, close the sandwich, and set it in that heavy pan you got heating up. Butter your bread on the outside if you feel it necessary. I chose not too as I had some pretty delectable ingredients that didn't need much improvement. When you got your sandwich in the pan, get a stack of other pans and just stack them on top of your sandwich. I used another skillet and a heavy kettle to press my sandwich. Let it cook for a minute, give it a peak make sure its browning and melting real nice. 

Flip that sammy when it looks nice, and continue to grill on the opposite side with the pans back on top. When that side is golden brown and your cheese is melted, remove from the pan, slice in half and serve with some sort of delicious dipping sauce, and vow to never waste time or money on a useless kitchen gadget while you revel in the enjoyment of eating the easiest panini ever.

Panini with Prusciutto, Smoked Turkey, Provolone, Goat cheese, Avocado and Arugula

Leaning Tower of Panini: (1st & 3rd layer) Provolone, Grilled Chicken, Goat Cheese, Arugula. (2nd & 4th layer) Smoked Gouda, Apple, Grilled Chicken, Goat Cheese.

Double Stuff

Remember when you first discovered the double stuffed oreo? Or perhaps more recently, when a friend first introduced your innocent little mind to the McGangBang? (http://tinyurl.com/a2dmlc) You probably heard the critics, stating the "too much icing" or "disgusting amount of meat". But as a proponent of all forms of delicious, you stayed true to your palate, and argued that too much of a good thing can be even better.

Well my friends, I accidentally stumbled upon my own gourmet, pork-inspired rendition of the double stuff Oreo.
With full intention of stuffing two individual pork tenderloins, I lacked the meat span (if that even makes sense) to close the tenderloins up. A friend who I have recently shared a few amazing meals with suggested I make a sandwich-like creation and wrap the two tenderloins together, with all the stuff inside.



It couldn't have turned out better.

Here's what I used:
- Two pork tenderloins
- Bacon (a half pound to stuff with, and a half pound to eat as you cook and drink a few too many cocktails)
- A bunch of green onions
- Goat cheese (sorry Dan, I know you have a hate on for Goat cheese, but it's delicious)
- Salt & Pepper (as with pretty much any recipe)

Now for how to wrap it all into one delicious creation.
Pull the pork out, let it rest a bit at room temperature and trim the little bit of fat off. In each tenderloin, cut a slit lengthwise to open it up, but not all the way through, making it a flatter more easily stuffable piece. This technique is called "butterflying" but I think they should change it to "lipping" because it looks more like a pair of lips than a beautiful little butterfly.

While it's resting, slice up some bacon into 1 or two inch long pieces and fry it all up. Discard most of the fat and add in a few spoonfuls of goat's cheese once the bacon is cooked to soften it. Cut up a few green onions and mentally prepare yourself for the party that is about to happen on your cutting board.

Salt and pepper each tenderloin, inside and out. Add some goat cheese & bacon mixture to the area where you made the cut in the pork and top with a fair portion of green onions. Do it for both tenderloins, and then bind them together. Use your butcher skills to tie them together with some twine.

Set your oven to 350. Poor a bit of that bacon fat into a roasting pan, and drop your creation onto the pan. I lost track of time when I cooked it but roughly 30 minutes should do. The bacon fat will keep constant heat on the bottom and if you're quick enough with the stuffing, the still-hot bacon on the inside will help get some even heat distribution too.
Don't you dare overcook that shit! People have bad opinions about pork because of that old school thinking that it is dangerous to eat if not totally overcooked. You're not working with chicken here and health standards have improved since World War II... Medium is a totally acceptable way to serve pork.

I was planning on serving this with some fruit salsa (chopped pineapple, peaches and cilantro) but the pork so tasty on its own that we made the salsa our desert. Serve it with some in-season vegetables or a simple salad and you're money.

-dave