Brown Sugar Roasted Vegetables is sure to spark interest amongst Vegans

I'm always trying to come up with new ideas using traditional dishes as a base and I am happy to report that I have done just that with Brown Sugar Roasted Vegetables. You won't believe the incredible flavors that blast out of this dish. You already know how wonderful roasted vegetables are. Now tick it up a notch and add a shot of Brandy, some brown sugar, butter, and wow, that's all I can say. I had my doubts with brown sugar and the Brandy. I was afraid it was going to be sweet as dessert. But that's not what happened. These two ingredients actually enhanced the true flavors of each vegetable used. Vegans, take note. You have to try this dish, you will NOT be disappointed. And for all you others out there, do what I did and pair it up with a nice pan fried breast of chicken. I've got leftoevers and it's going into my lunchbag for Friday.

This is simple to prepare and the predominant vegetable here is the carrot. Check out these other ingredients that will serve 4 as a side dish or 2 as a main dish:

8 medium carrots sliced diagonally in 2 inch lengths, peel left on
2 medium parsnips, sliced diagonally in 1 inch lengths, peel left on
12 cloves of garlic, peeled and left whole
6 large boiler onions (about 2 inch diameter), peeled, left whole
1 teaspoon of pepper
1/2 teaspoon of salt (or less)
3 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of butter
3 tablespoons of brown sugar
1/4 cup of Brandy

I like leaving the peel on when appropriate because there are so many nutrients in the peelings of vegetables. OK, that being said, prepare your vegetables as mentioned above. Preheat your oven to 400.

In a large fry pan, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Once heated, simply toss all your vegetables into the pan and saute for about 5 minutes, stirring a few times during the course. You're doing this so that you can lightly brown them and releasing the flavors.

Now, add your salt and pepper and carefully pour the Brandy into the pan. Stir and then add the butter. Once butter has melted, lower your heat to medium low and sprinkle the brown sugar over the vegetables. Stir well so sugar and butter coat all pieces.

The final step is to transfer the pan to the oven and roast at 400 for about 40 to 45 minutes, stirring once at the 30 minute mark. You will notice the vegetables will caramelize with the butter and brown sugar. Remove from oven and let set for 5 minutes before serving. If you want, you may sprinkle a little nutmeg over. Transfer the vegetables to a serving dish and enjoy. I kid you not, you will love these. This side dish would be perfect for special holidays with turkey, roast chicken, pork loin, just about any meat.

Pork cuts costs while maintaining elegance for the holidays

The holidays can be very stressful these days with the economy still badly injured and financial institutions  in a very wobbly state. Jobs are scarce and those still employed wonder if they'll be next on the chopping block. Families continue striving to stretch their dollars while maintaing their quality of life as best they can. Nowhere is that more apparent than with the food budget. The shopper continues to walk a tight rope in making sure that the holiday dinner will be as bountiful and special as in years past.

Prime Rib is too expensive, goose is out of the question, and turkey was too recent. What is the cook to do? How about distancing yourself from tradition and trying the other white meat? Pork can make an impressive centerpiece as an entree with a cut of Roast of Pork Rib Loin, inexpensive and yet so elegant as to make Prime Rib of Beef a bit jealous. The rib roast can be prepared as a "rack" roast or kicking it up a notch, combining two racks and creating a Crown Roast of Pork that will wow even your most discerning of guests. With a Crown Roast, one can fill the center with a melange of sauteed peas, pearl onions, and bacon (or lardon).

So as in keeing with the goal of maintaining simplicity in the kitchen, today you will learn to prepare the rack version of the Roast of Pork Rib Loin. When deciding how large a roast to purchase, count on one rib for the ladies and children, and two ribs for the men and hungrier guests. If you need to purchase two racks but don't want to do a crown, when ready to present, you can stand each rack on its "bottom" and have each rack lean on one another with the ribs crisscrossing each other.

First, start by preheating the oven at 400. You are going to want to sear your roast on all sides so as to lock in moisture and flavor; however, first prepare a rub that you will use before baking, with the following ingredients:

1/3 cup of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of garlic salt
1 soup spoon of coarsely cracked ground pepper
1 teaspoon of Worcestershire Sauce

Mix 1/4 cup of the olive oil and all other ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. Take the remainder of the olive oil and heat it in a large frying pan over medium high heat. Once oil is hot, begin to sear the roast, reducing heat to medium. Sear on each side and ends about 2 minutes each. Once seared, remove roast and set in baking pan.  Do not discard the pan drippings as you will use that for your sauce. While it is cooling a bit, mixt the ingredients together very well. With a brush, coast the entire roast thoroughly. Transfer roast to oven, reduce heat to 350 and bake for 70 minutes for a 3 pound roast. If you are baking 2 racks side by side, you don't really need to increase the time too much because the thickness and size of each doesn't change; however, with that said, you may want to increase the time by 2 minutes per total weight to compensate for the volume. Play it by ear and 10 minutes before finished, using your fingers, push into the meat. If it doesn't sink in, it's done. Remember, pork has to be cooked closer to well done than to rare or medium rare. Medium well will usually be fine. If your oven heats hot, then decrease the times by 2 minutes per pound.

Once the roast is finished, remove and set aside so that juices set in. While roast is resting, return the frying pan with the drippings to the stove top over medium high heat. Add any juices that may remain from the baking pan to the frying pan. Deglaze the frying pan with 1 cup of dry white wine or non alcoholic apple cider, carefully scraping the bottom with a spatula. Reduce heat to low and allow sauce to reduce about 1/3. Next, add the following ingredients,

1 tablespoon of butter,
1/4 cup of chopped parsley
2 tablespoons of heavy cream

Stir all ingredients very well and allow butter to completely melt. Taste for flavor. If you would like to add a little tanginess to your sauce, stir in a small teaspoon of Dijon mustard at the last minute and shut off heat. You may pour this sauce directly over the roast or ladle a couple of tablespoons over each serving. Just be sure to keep the sauce very hot.

There you have it, an alternative to tradition. It is a safe bet that your dinner guests will love this roast and will not miss the Prime Rib or the turkey at all. A baked potato or shoe string frites(fries) would work very well with this cut of meat, as would French cut green beans, steamed brussel sprouts, or sauteed peas and bacon in the vegetable side dish category. A chilled Riesling will pair very nicely. Have a wonderful holiday dinner party and remember, keep it simple in the kitchen and elegant in the dining room.

Roasted Green Beans and Bacon

Even though I am not a vegetarian, I must admit that I love almost every vegetable out there. I guess it stems from being raised to eating vegetables with all my dinners at home. As a child, some of my favorite vegetables were those that most kids absolutely hated, i.e. brussel sprouts, spinach, and broccoli. Well, those were amongst my favorites, along with green beans. Today, I haven't changed. I still love all of them not just because I think they taste great, but because there's so much you can do with them. Boil them, steam them, sauce them, or mix them with other foods. I love it all, especially when I roast them. OMG, you've got to try these roasted green beans. I was just messing around the other day and decided to make green beans and bacon by roasting and I've got to tell you, they came out great. Now it's your turn to try. Here's what we need:

2 lbs of fresh green beans, cut in halves
1 medium yellow onion, diced
18 garlic cloves, whole and peeled
12 large shallots, peeled and cut in halves
1/4 lb bacon, chopped
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt
4 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of butter
1/4 cup of dry white wine or water

This is very easy to prepare and the flavors really come out from the roasting process. It gives a whole new twist to green beans without cooking off the texture and flavors that boiling or steaming tends to do. Start by preheating your oven to 425.

Place the shallots and garlic on a large baking sheet and pour 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, half the salt and pepper and with your hands, mix the ingredients together so that everything is well coated with the olive oil. Set on middle rack of oven and bake for 20 minutes.

While the shallots and garlic are roasting, take a frying pan and heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium high heat and saute the bacon until it is golden brown. Remove and set on paper towel to drain. Remove excess oil from pan and over medium high heat, add the diced onions and saute for about 2 minutes and remove from heat. Over medium high heat, add the butter to the pan, allow to melt and then deglaze with the wine or water. Once deglazed, shut heat off and set pan aside.

Now take the shallots and garlic out of the oven and add the green beans along with the rest of the olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic salt. Mix well so beans are coated. Return to oven and bake for an additional 40 minutes at 400. About half way through, check and toss the beans and return to oven.

Once beans are roasted, remove from the oven and add to the frying pan with the deglazed sauce. Add the onions and the bacon and toss so that everything is well coated with the sauce. Transfer to a serving platter and serve hot. I tell you, this is delicious. You know how roasting brings out the flavors of vegetables and this does the trick with the beans along with the shallots and garlic. If it were me, I'd serve this with a nice sauteed beef steak or broiled lamb. Now I'm hungry again !

Plain and Simple.... POT ROAST

What's not to like about Pot Roast? This is a dish that can be found on the dinner tables of most cultures around the world or at least  a variation  of it. Whether it be pork, beef, or lamb, pot roasting is basically the use of braising, meaning searing at a high temperature and then slow cooking covered in various amounts of liquid. One thing is for certain, it's a way of taking a cheap cut of meat and making it taste so delicious and be so tender.

Everyone seems to have their own recipe for Pot Roast and in most cases, it's a recipe that is handed down from generation to generation. I would venture to say that you make it like your mom made it and your grandmother before her. My mom would make Pot Roast with carrots, potatoes, turnips, onions, and mushrooms. She would use very little beef broth and allow the natural juices from the fat of the meat steam cook the vegetables in the oven. It would be served with a hot Dijon mustard on the side and the juice lightly poured over the vegetables. Oh so good it was. I've made it that way myself; however, I also like making it the way I am about to show you, by slow cooking the vegetables with the meat and then processing the vegetable and juice until it becomes a puree. I cook the potatoes separately this time around by cutting them in halves, sauteing the cut side in olive oil and then finishing with a baking in the oven during the final hour of the Pot Roast cooking. They are freaking great that way! OK, here's what we need for a Pot Roast for 4 people: 

2 to 3 lb. Chuck roast (should be at least 3 inches thick)
2 Large carrots (12" x 1" is a large carrot), cut in 2 inch lengths
2 Large yellow onions, quartered
2 Celery stocks, cut in 2 inch lengths
8 Cloves of garlic, chopped
1 Medium parsnip, cut in 2 inch lengths
2 Cups of white button mushrooms, left whole, stems trimmed
1 Tablespoon of Dijon style mustard
1 Tablespoon of tomato paste
1/4 Cup of chopped parsley
4 Large Russet potatoes, skin on, clean ( do not cut in halves until just before sauteing)
2 1/2 Cups of Burgundy wine (or your choice of Pinot or Merlot)
2 1/2 Cups of beef stock
1 Teaspoon of Pepper and 1 teaspoon of salt
2 Tablespoons of flour and 1 Tablespoon of garlic powder
1/4 Cup of olive oil

Preheat your oven to 350. In a small bowl, mix the flour, garlic powder, and 1/2 of the pepper. Make sure your roast has been patted dry. Take a tablespoon of the olive oil and rub the entire surface of your roast so it is well coated. Next, roll or rub the flour and garlic powder mix all over the meat. There should be enough of it so that the roast will be well coated. Over medium high heat, heat up 1/3 of the remaining olive oil in a large saute pan and sear all sides of the roast until golden brown. This locks in the juices and flavors. Transfer the roast onto a large enough "dutch" oven to fit the roast and the vegetables. You can also use a large pot. Now bring the stove top heat to medium and saute the onions, garlic, and mushrooms in the same frying pan, stirring frequently. Saute for a couple of minutes. Remove the ingredients from the pan and transfer it to the dutch oven. Now deglaze the frying pan by pouring half the wine and carefully and slowly scrape the bottom as the wine comes to a boil. Turn heat down a bit and continue to cook for another couple of minutes.

Either on the stovetop or microwave, heat up the beef broth and unused wine. Add the rest of the vegetables (except the potatoes) to the dutch oven and around the roast. Pour the wine from the frying pan over the roast and the heated remainder of the wine and broth should be poured over the vegetables. The liquid should fill the pot a couple of inches deep, give or take. Anyway, finish by sprinkling the rest of the pepper and the salt over the vegetables, cover and transfer to the oven. Reduce oven temperature to 300 and slow cook for 2 hours. After one hour, turn the roast over and stir the vegetables.

After the first couple of hours, add the remaining olive oil to a saute pan and saute the potatoes cut side down over medium high heat. Saute until nice and golden brown. Transfer to a baking dish and slide in the rack below the Pot Roast pot. Increase oven temperature to 325 and continue baking for one final hour. This should give the potatoes time to cook nicely.

When 3 hours are up, remove the Pot Roast and set aside. Transfer the vegetables to a food processor and add some of the liquid and puree for about 30 seconds. Return puree to the pot with remainder of liquid, add the tomato paste and Dijon mustard and stir well so everything is incorporated. At this time, I should mention that if you can spare some of the mushrooms from being pureed, that would be nice. Anyway, arrange the potatoes around the roast on a serving platter and pour some of the sauce over the roast and potatoes. Sprinkle some of the parsley over the roast for garnish. The rest of the liquid can be transferred to a serving bowl and parsley stirred in. Slice the roast in 1 inch thick slices and serve with 2 potato halves per person, along with a nice helping of extra sauce. Dijon mustard can be served on the side, as it tastes wonderful with the meat. Have a nice loaf of peasant's bread to sop up the extra sauce, you don't want any of it to get away!