Pear Butter Pork Chops

I’ve been dying to use the pear butter I made last weekend in our crock pot. Huzzah! Thanks to Tracy for the apartment-warming gift.

Pear Butter

I modified a basic pork-chop-and-fruit recipe from the Canadian paper Metro News. The author of the recipe is affiliated with a massive blog, but I don’t know whether the post appeared in the newspaper or online first, so I decided it would be OK.

Pear Butter Pork Chops
Serves 2

• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 3 thin-cut bone-in pork chops (original recipe calls for 4 inch-thin chops)
• 1/4 cup pear butter
• salt & pepper

1. Season chops generously with salt and pepper.

2. Set a large heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat and heat one tablespoon olive oil.

3. Add chops and cook, flipping once, until cooked through, about 5 minutes per side.

4. Transfer chops to a cutting board and tent with foil to keep warm.

5. Plate meal. Pour pear butter on top. (This is the part I modified! Can you tell? )

Pear Butter Pork Chops

The pork chops were juicy, the pear butter was ginger-y and amazing, and the crackers with brie made for a nice side. Seeing as how we have 14 cans of pear butter, we’ll probably be making this again.

###

Back again

Hi there,

Toby’s busy working for Pet Holdings, Inc. and I’m operating kind of in crisis mode, but we’ve both been doing a lot of thinking about our eating habits and how we’re approaching nourishing ourselves.

This summer, we joined a fantastic CSA and discovered how much we like making soups. We’re continuing to set aside our CSA money every week so we make sure we visit one of our year-round farmer’s markets. My new mission is to get on the P-Patch waiting list.

Now that I’m no longer working part time at Display and Costume, I’ve been trying to contribute more to the domestic aspects of our life, which includes contributing more to meals. I’ve been looking around for newspaper recipes, but blogger Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen sums it up pretty succinctly:

Sadly the newspaper form seems to be dying out so perhaps the future of clipping recipes will be archived web links. I know that on Wednesdays I love to browse online papers from across the country to see what people are cooking, trawling for ideas and trends, and mostly just drooling over recipes and photographs. But there is also something immensely enjoyable about spreading the paper out on the kitchen table and cutting out recipes that you think you’d make one day.

She also talks about clipping virtal recipes for her digital cookbook, which I think is a nice image to have.

I really like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s recipe search engine, and look what I discovered! A 30-day Crock Pot Challenge! We just now are starting to use our crock pot, which we received as an apartment-warming present. I made 16 jars of pear butter in it this weekend… not really the apparatus’ intended use, but it turned out great.

Now I’m looking around for a pork chop recipe that I can use some of the pear butter on. Wish me luck, and I’ll see you soon!

###

Banana (no nut) Bread

I believe the unseasonably warm Seattle weather earlier this month caused my bananas to ripen faster than I would have liked. (I made this recipe in early June) What’s to be done with ripe bananas other than make banana bread? However, I didn’t have nuts on hand, and most recipes I saw were for banana nut bread.

But then I found this recipe from my alma mater, The State News. I was interested to see the recipe was attached to an article about banana bread being a healthier snacking alternative. Really? Healthier than what? With butterbutterbutter? It wasn’t like this was a Cooking Light banana bread recipe… Healthier than Twinkies and Sour Patch Kids, perhaps. You can read the comments below the story if you want a more biting, condescending version of my critique.

I figured I’d give the recipe a whirl, even if the health information wasn’t exactly correct and even if the recipe was snagged from the Food Network.

Banana Bread

1 cup of sugar
8 tablespoons unsalted, room-temperature butter
2 large eggs
3 ripe bananas
1 tablespoon of milk
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

The oven should be preheated at 325 degrees and a 9×5×3-inch loaf pan needs to be buttered.

The sugar and butter need to be creamed together in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Each egg then needs to be added one at a time and beaten into the mix as they are added.

1. In a separate bowl, the bananas need to be mashed with a fork. Then, mix in the milk and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

2. Stir and combined the banana mix to the creamed mixture, then add the dry ingredients, mixing until the flour disappears.

3. Once everything is mixed together, pour the batter into the pan and bake for one hour. Use a toothpick to determine if it’s cooked entirely. Poke the bread in the center with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, then it is finished. Allow the bread to cool for 15 minutes before removing bread from the pan and slicing.

Notes:

• I’m still interested in if you think it “counts” as a newspaper recipe when the newspaper snags the recipe from another source. For more of my musings on this topic, read this earlier post.
• I didn’t get any pictures of the bread. Whoops. But it looked like pretty much every other loaf of banana bread that has ever been baked in the history of humankind, so you’re not really missing out.
• I thought the bread was rather bland when I ate it the morning after I made it, but Toby really loved it and was sad that I took half the bread as a thank-you gift to a school that let us observe their reading classes.

Teacher Resource Room at Adelaide Elementary -- we hope you enjoyed the bread!

###

Lifehackers React to the Demise of Paper Newspapers

Lifehacker opened a discussion on the future demise of print newspapers, prompted by news that the Christian Science Monitor will now appear online only.

I’m still interested in the impact this will have on food reporting. Have the genres of recipe books, food memoir, and food history grown large enough to supplant anything newspapers could report on?

Have there been any discussions of newspapers shutting down their test kitchens as a result of shrinking budgets? I think this would be an interesting story.

ETA: Gannett blog reports that the features sections may be completely ELIMINATED from some papers. Via: a Gannett reporter friend who might not want to be linked.

###

Eating on Election Day

This week’s recipe is forthcoming.

I have my students for an extra half-hour this week. With Tuesday’s election predicted to draw record numbers of voters, schools are modifying classes Nov. 4 to accommodate for the influx of people on school grounds.

I grumbled a bit that I hadn’t read any election stories taking this angle, but never fear, The New York Times has got it covered. There have been several discussions by papers large and small about the safety aspect of holding elections at a school with hundreds of wee ones, but I haven’t heard many discussions about the logistics. It could be a nightmare.

Our school gym serves as the cafeteria. With the gym shut down all day, all P.E. classes must meet outside in the rain. Additionally, to the horror of our union, students must eat lunch in the classroom, violating the duty-free lunch provision of our contracts. We have no idea how long the lines will be, or whether our parking lot will be able to accommodate the number of voters.

Please don’t get me wrong, it’s exciting that we need to grapple with these concerns, as they mean people are finally interested in fulfilling their civic obligations. I just find it interesting that the schools have to handle all the election modifications on their own.

Finally, of course we also cannot have any sort of material supporting one candidate or another, seeing as how we’re much much less than 300 feet away from a polling place.

I wanted to close with a picture of Allison Janney giving her speech at a Rock the Vote event in West Wing Season 4, but I couldn’t track one down. Can you?

###

Busiest Post of the Year

I find it interesting that a large amount of traffic to this site is generated by people searching for the phrase “busiest bar night of the year.” If you Google that phrase, our very own Clipped and Diced comes out as the top link.

It’s surprising to me that more “real” articles haven’t been written on this, other that ones that mention the myth/commonly held notion in passing. When I went to my new favorite site, Google news archives, there wasn’t much available.

You would think the “busy bar night” story would be one of those recurring articles that are written every single year, although the information doesn’t change much. (Another interesting piece, uncovered in my search for cliched newspaper articles, can be found here)

Is it just too obvious to discuss?  If so, then why are so many people searching for it?

Back in 1960, the New York Times alleged that New Year’s Eve was the biggest bar night. Don’t you love that language — “the annual brouhaha associated with seeing in the New Year will be no more than a blurred memory in the convalescent reveler’s dulled brain.”

This 1996 article from the Hartford Courant seems to provide a more modern view. I also enjoyed this article, although I could only view a snippet of it without paying.

Finally, I appreciated Access Winnipeg’s May 2008 article claiming that Good Friday is the busiest bar night, “Good Friday being the only holiday that lands on a Friday every year.”

And there’s always good old Spartan Tailgate, keeping it real with the best bar night of the year for single guys.

What’s your experience as the busiest bar night of the year?

P.S. Speaking of bar nights, meet your fearless Clipped & Diced authors at The Elysian in Seattle’s Capitol Hill next Friday evening!

###

Cooking for Two, the second time around

I was checking out Google’s new, expanded newspaper archives this weekend, because Toby’s been feeling under the weather and I’ve renewed my pledge to attempt to cook more. First of all, let me say that I’ve believed this site will revolutionize Clipped & Diced since the moment I heard about it on Lifehacker.

First of all, as a big visual person, I was floored to see the timeline breakdown of when articles were published. Here’s what I saw when I searched for recipes.

One of the first pieces I found was an LA Times article discussing the increase in recipes designed for two diners. Toby and I receive subscriptions to several magazines targeted for two-person households, and we have a few cookbooks along those same lines. The interesting part of the article to me was the fact that it was printed in 1986. It could have very well been written today.

Look at the increase in articles that match the term “Cooking for Two” over time.

Twenty years after the L.A. Times article was written, the Pillsbury Bake-Off caught onto the trend and added a Cooking for Two category, as I discovered from The (Doylestown, PA) Intelligencer. However, it appears as though by 2008, the category was eliminated. Never fear, I contacted the folks at Pillsbury as to the history of this category, and perhaps they will get back in touch with me.

I needed more facts and figures. So I went to the US Census Web site and trolled through a few reports.

The image is tiny (I took a screen capture from the PDF I opened at school), but you can see two-person households increased from 25.2 million in 1980 to 34.4 million in 2000. That’s a lot more potential subscribers to Cooking for 2 magazine.

The previous image may have seemed dramatic, but this graph indicates that the average household size actually only decreased from 2.75 people to 2.59 people between 1980 and 2000. According to the Cansus Bureau, “The steepest decline in average household size occurred in the 1970s, a period coinciding with the baby-bust period, relatively low levels of immigration, and increasing proportions of people living alone.” Additionally, the relatively small chance between 1990 and 2000 may be because of “higher immigration levels and the tendency for immigrants to live in larger households.”

Have I mentioned the Census Bureau is a delightful source of random interesting information?

For our attempt at a two-person meal, Toby and I settled on a 2004 recipe from our very own Seattle Times.

Red Curry Chicken Saute with Coconut and Lime

- 1 baby bok choy
- 2 green onions
- ¾ teaspoon cornstarch
- ½ cup light coconut milk
- 1/3 cup reduced-sodium and fat chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
- 2 boneless and skinless chicken breast halves
- 3 teaspoons vegetable oil, divided
- ½ to ¾ teaspoon red curry paste
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- Hot, cooked rice

1. Separate the bok choy leaves, then cut both stems and leaves on the diagonal into ¼-inch-thick slices. Discard all but 2 inches of the onion greens. Slice thinly on the diagonal and set aside.

2. Put the cornstarch into a measuring cup and whisk in a couple tablespoons of coconut milk. When smooth, whisk in the remaining milk. Combine broth and fish sauce. Slice each chicken breast in half crosswise, then lengthwise into thin strips.

3. In a heavy skillet, heat 1 teaspoon oil over medium heat. When hot, put the bok choy stems into the pan and stir-fry 2 minutes. Add the leaves and cook another minute. Remove from the pan.

4. Pour the remaining 2 teaspoons oil into the pan. When hot, add chicken and cook, stirring, about 3 minutes, or until just cooked through. Remove from pan. Put the curry paste into the pan, mashing briefly with the back of a spoon. Add green onions, saving a few for garnish, and stir briefly. Remove pan from heat and slowly add coconut milk, stirring until well-blended with the curry. Put back on heat and stir in broth. Simmer a couple minutes, until thickened. Pour juices that have accumulated around chicken into the pan and simmer 30 seconds. Stir in lime juice, chicken and bok choy. Simmer a few minutes to blend, then spoon over rice. Sprinkle reserved green onions on top.

Notes

• I was able to do this! Me! So it’s really not that difficult.
• Toby thinks you should add more curry if you attempt this. Not a lot, but some.

The funny part about this was that we actually had a hard time finding just two chicken breasts, so we increased the recipe by half to add another breast in. Cooking for two fans claim that too many leftovers just won’t do, but I’m floored by the fact that both Toby and I will have lunch ready to go tomorrow!

This begs the question, if you live in a one- or two- person household, do you cook for two? Or do you reap the benefits of leftovers? And how much is too much when it comes to leftovers?

###

Food Reporting at its Finest

I am fascinated by the work of Michael Pollen, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Listen to his great interview with Terry Gross of Fresh Air, which aired tonight.

(Note: Look at the above link I sent you to for The Omnivore’s Dilemma — they came out with a mass market edition of the book! They never come out with mass market editions of nonfiction books, other than like, Silent Spring!)

Among all the interesting tidbits I learned, I was particularly excited about Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden. I longed to find a picture of her down in the dirt of her garden, but the Library of Congress archives failed to turn up any gems.

I regret that Toby and I have neglected this blog, which still takes up a significant portion of my creative brain space. Alas, I am teaching an after-school program, coaching track, co-chairing the Math Team, did I mention our classroom library is up to 1,304 books, and I’m working at Display and Costume until Halloween, so perhaps after that I will be cooking more frequently…

Getting Braver

I’ve been getting more daring in my cooking attempts. While visiting friends in Boulder, Colo. (food pictures and stories forthcoming), I made guacamole and even helped prepare a slow cooker chili recipe. They sound simple enough, but they were a real stretch for me.

Now that I’m home, I’m attempting to get back on the healthy, home-cooked band wagon. This morning I decided I wanted hard-boiled eggs, yet… I had no clue how to make them.

Searching recent newspaper articles, prompted by the recent Easter holiday, I’m sure, I discovered there are a lot of people who stress out about eggs.

Luckily, Moyra Fraser answered my call. This Telegraph reporter explained how to create hard-boiled eggs that will offer sunny yellow centres. I’ll post later with my results.

###

YWCA Cookies

Watch your backs, Girl Scouts. This was way ahead of your time, Mrs. Fields.

Apparently, the YWCA ladies can bake a pretty mean cookie.

It all started when I had a hankering for some chocolate chip cookies. I found a 1977 article buried in the back of the Washington Post that began thus:

It is highly unlikely that the Downtown YWCA’s recipe for chocolate-chip cookies will ever be revealed. But that doesn’t stop people from asking. Or from trying to reproduce it.

The popularity of the cookies has fended off competition from Famous Amos and the Famous Amos knock-off called The Famous.

But a cooking teacher in Arlington took up the chocolate-chip cookie challenge two years ago when the Y re-buffed her request for the recipe.

This teacher, a Mrs. Carol Finkelstein, spent two years trying to recreate this famous recipe — at one point, the article says, she even considered taking the YWCA cookie to be analyzed by a lab.

But if this cookie is so legendary, why haven’t I heard of it? Famous Amos, sure. Toll House, of course. The Neiman Marcus urban legend, yes. But I’ve certainly never been to a YWCA or a YMCA and discovered cookies so good they prompted a two-year quest for the recipe.

I was so perplexed I e-mailed the PR coordinator for the YWCA in Washington, D.C. Apparently, my ignorance was so profoundly idiotic that it didn’t warrant a response. So I stepped up my online investigation.

The National Capital Area YWCA recently held a YWCA cookie bake-off, in the spirit of those great original cookies. Again, though, this article assumes I already know the wonder of the cookies! The article goes on to explain that thousands of these cookies were sold from one YWCA in ONE DAY. Barbara Bush and Sandra Day O’Connor are apparently big fans.

But this is the only non-newspaper place where I can find mention of the “famous” treat. Frankly, the Post and the New York Times seem borderline obsessed with them. This Post article provides a pretty good history of the cookie, which was baked by the same four women from 1951 to 1981.

I think a large part of my intense curiosity surrounding these cookies is the fact that I am so perplexed that something treated as common knowledge in several articles was so totally foreign to me. Reporters constantly struggle to walk the line between making sure their readers have all the background information they need without making the article sound like they’re talking down to readers.

For example, I feel as though people in my generation chuckle a bit when local news stations do specials on Internet predators or the newest, hip thing for kids. I wonder if my great-aunt would be laughing similarly at me and my twitterpations over a freaking famous cookie. (P.S. My spellcheck recognized “twitterpations, but not twitterpate)

And what will happen in the future, when people forget that “tots” is a reference from Napoleon Dynamite and Brittany and Paris are no longer household names? When I first thought about this, I figured it wouldn’t be a problem people could go to Wikipedia or the Urban Dictionary to track down dated references. But if the YWCA cookie is so completely erased from most circles of pop culture, isn’t it inevitable that this will happen to some degree even in our time?

And as for the recipe? I spent too much time researching this weekend and not enough time baking. Check back in a day or so!