Onward and squid-wards

Seems like its been so long since I've posted anything here. Maybe cause its actually been quite a while since I've posted (or cooked) anything in a while. With my new gig taking over my entire day, its been hard to make time and find energy to cook. But I intend to fix that and get back into the kitchen - with a vengeance!

Squid was my food of choice for today. Most of my experience with calamari is deep fried calamari, which I absolutely love. I've even discovered how easy and inexpensive it is to fry it up yourself at home. But, I had some Spanish-style non-fried calamari recently, and have been craving more of it since. When I finally made my trip out to Fairway and back in the blazing heat, I decided to lighten up my original plan of calamari in a sea of olive oil and spices, to a more summer friendly grilled/sautéed calamari. I did save all the tentacles to fry up at a later date. Stay tuned for that!

After an initial google search - I went with a honey-mirin glazed grilled calamari. As always, I put my own spin on the recipe, when ever I didn't have the requisite ingredients. Here's my version of the recipe:

Honey Glazed Calamari

Honey
Apple Cider Vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Red pepper flakes
Garlic powder
Oil

• Wash and pat dry calamari tubes.
• Slice into rings and coat with salt, pepper, red pepper, garlic and oil.
• Drop into hot pan and "grill" till translucent. (this is where I wish I had a grill, or even a grilling pan)
• Mix together honey and vinegar = the glaze. Nuke it for 10 secs if the honey doesn't dissovle.
• Add the glaze to the calamari and sauté for another minute or 2.
• Remove from heat.

I served this on a bed of Wilted Garlic Spinach:

Fresh spinach
diced onion
diced red pepper
Chopped Garlic

• Drop the garlic, onion and red pepper into a super hot pan with a tsp of oil. Let sizzle for a minute. You don't want to let this brown.
• Add chopped spinach. Turn once and turn off heat. Spinach will wilt almost immediately. You don't want to kill the spinach. This spinach dish shouldn't take you more than 5 mins. The spinach will maintain its flavor, color and vitamins.

Plate the spinach, top it off with the Honey Glazed Calamari. A light summer fare will do you good. Good Eatings!

Pulled Pork

This was my first time using a slow cooker and I am in LOVE! I still can't believe how easy it was to make pulled pork. I loosely followed Tyler Florence's recipe, but made some changes along the way (my recipe follows). All in all, pork is very forgiving if you don't have all of the ingredients. It gets soft like butter in the slow cooker.

Most recipes I looked up called for a pork butt, boston butt or pork tenderloin. I am not sure what a boston butt is, and my local supermarket only had pork picnic shoulder cut (aka pernil, in spanish). So that is what I used. It came in full size (about 6-8lbs) or half (about 3-4lbs). My 3.2lbs shoulder fed 3 adults and I have enough leftovers to feed 3 again.

Richa's Pulled Pork

Dry Rub

Chili Powder
Garlic Powder
Mustard Powder
Brown Sugar
Salt
Pepper

Mix all ingredients and "rub" on to a washed and patted dry pork shoulder.
Slice up one onion and spread it on the bottom of the slow cooker.
Set the pork shoulder on the onions.
Prepare sauce

Sauce

White Vinegar
Ketchup
Mustard
Chili Powder
Brown Sugar
Garlic Powder
Salt

I eye-balled everything, mixing and tasting along the way.
Whisk everything and pour on top of the pork.
Set the slow cooker on high, and leave it alone!
I left it for about 5 hours.


This is what it looked like after 5 hours in the cooker.


The meat just melted off the bone, with just a nudge of the fork...

Very little effort was needed to "pull" and shred the pork.
We enjoyed our pork in some whole wheat hamburger buns with a quick cole slaw -

Cole Slaw

Shred half a cabbage, 3 Carrots and 1 Red onion.
Make dressing by mixing Mayonnaise, Mustard, Vinegar, Salt, Pepper, Sugar.
Mix, chill and eat.

Hope you enjoy some pulled pork. Total prep time was about 15mins. Cooking time was 5 hours.

Brunch Quiche

I've never really had a quiche before, I just figured meat + cheese + eggs = yummy goodness. And yummy goodness it was! We had Rachel and Will over and I decided to make a Turkey Sausage Quiche, Rosemary Roasted Potatoes and a green salad.
Since I don't have a pie dish, I made it in a spring form pan (which I LOVE!) It just popped right out.

Turkey Sausage and Cheddar Quiche

1 Frozen pie crust
4 Turkey sausage links (uncooked)
1 Onion, sliced
1 Zucchini, chopped
1 Green pepper, diced
6 eggs
1 cup milk
2 cups Cheddar, shredded

Saute sausage, add onions, peppers, zucchini. Let cool.
Thaw out the pie crust, according to box instructions (or you can make your own). Unroll into spring form pan. Press down around the edge. Prick bottom of the crust with a fork. Fill with the sausage mix.
Whisk 6 eggs in a separate bowl, add milk, salt and pepper. Pour over pie.
Bake at 375 degrees for about 40-45 mins. Half way through, top quiche with cheese. Stick a knife in the center, if it comes out clean - you're ready to dig in.

Rosemary Roasted Potatoes

4 Potatoes
Olive oil
Rosemary
Salt & pepper
Garlic powder
Oregano

Chop potatoes into 1 inch cubes. Mix in the rest of the ingredients and toss to coat. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 mins or till tender.

Octopus with Smoked Paprika

We got some canned seafood from our Barcelona trip - one of which was octopus. I didn't know what to do with it, so a googled for some recipes and found this recipe.
True to their word, it was very simple, and very tasty.

Turkey Chili

An honest bowl of turkey chili.
Delivery at 1:00pm. Hope you enjoy it!
Thank's for choosing Redhead Spinach.
Bon Apetit

Christmas Cookies

Cookie time! This year I don't have any free weekends for my annual cookie swap. But that doesn't keep me from baking cookies. I did my usual White Chocolate Cranberry cookies. Along with Roll-Out Brownie Cookies and some Ambiguous Gingerbread People.
Roll-out cookies take so much more effort! Still worth it though. One lesson I learned - the thicker it is, the softer and tastier the cookie turns out.

Redhead Spinach delivers again!

With the help of my generous ex-co-workers, Redhead Spinach is back in business!
Hope everyone enjoyed their lunch. Any comments, suggestions, complains, requests etc welcome!

Thank you for choosing Redhead Spinach for all your chicken tikka masala needs.