Omnivore

I am on vacation and will begin posting again starting on March 20, 2012. I will definitely have to come up with some interesting and creative new dishes to get off the vacation eating jag and back on the sane route. How I long for chicken Monday right now.

On Friday we were in full throttle eat down. We are leaving for Indian Wells on Sunday to attend the BNP Paribas Open. That’s tennis for the uninitiated. No doubt there will be a lot of challenges in the coming week. Too bad I overate this week. It’s why one should only weigh oneself once a week. So I am eating and drinking away this week and I step on the scale every morning and there is no change. Hah! I say to myself, I can get away with this. Until today. Today it all caught up. No more fun times for me.

Anyway, we had some leftover pork tenderloin and butternut squash. We also needed to use up rutabagas, zucchini, a half of a bell pepper, a bunch of mushrooms, part of an onion, a few garlic cloves, a carrot, some tomatoes, the end of a stalk of celery and a little tomato paste. Solution? First I pressure cooked the rutabagas and combined them with the butternut squash. Then I sauteed the rest of the vegetables and added some oregano from the back patio. John sliced the pork, sauteed a bunch of the mushrooms, and made some pork gravy. Voila, dinner.

Pork tenderloin with mushroom gravy, rutabaga/butternut squash mash, mixed vegetables over arugula

The pork tenderloin dinner is kind of a replay of a usual chicken Monday. Since we had the exotic curried chicken on Monday, a straight-forward dinner seemed the right choice for Tuesday. John roasted the pork tenderloin in the oven at 250 degrees until the internal temperature was between 125 and 130. After letting it rest, he seared it on all sides. He also made a packet of pork gravy.

In the meantime, I roasted a butternut squash. First John split it in half for me and scooped out the seeds. I scored the surface and seasoned it with salt, pepper and freshly ground nutmeg. It cooked for about 45 minutes. The squash was pretty watery so while the rest of the dinner cooked, I mashed up the flesh and tilted the bowl so water could drain onto some wadded up paper towels which I changed a few times. The squash flavor was sweet and concentrated in the end.

The Brussels sprouts were a bit of a disappointment to me. John likes them bitter but these were really bitter. I had to add butter and sugar to make them palatable. No more buying large Brussels sprouts!

Pork tenderloin, gravy, butternut squash and Brussels sprouts

Last week was a hard, hard week from a losing weight perspective. We went out to dinner on Wednesday. We had friends over for drinks and hors d’oeuvres on Friday. And we took Sarah up to Napa Valley for a birthday celebration. Amazingly, I did manage to lose a pound. I’m not sure how.

For Sarah’s birthday luncheon we ate at celebrity chef, Michael Chiarello’s, Bottega in Yountville. I thought I did pretty well (though not perfectly) when ordering. For my first course I had, and this is the description from the menu, Caramelized Brussels Sprout Salad – Citrus segments, toasted Marcona almonds, prosciutto bits, aged balsamic dressing. Not the best choice. The best choice would have been just a plain salad but I am a pushover when it comes to Brussels Sprouts. Danger words in the above description are “caramelized,” “prosciutto bits,” and “dressing.”

Caramelized Brussels Sprout Salad - Citrus segments, toasted Marcona almonds, prosciutto bits, aged balsamic dressing

My main course was the best choice on the menu – Mediterranean Seafood Brodetto – mussels, Gulf prawns, clams and Monterey calamari, forno-confit tomato broth, olive oil crouton, paprika-saffron rouille. I gave almost half of this to John. I only had a bite of the crouton. I felt pretty good about selecting the brodetto. It was quite tasty and light.

Mediterranean Seafood Brodetto - mussels, Gulf prawns, clams and Monterey calamari, forno-confit tomato broth, olive oil crouton, paprika-saffron rouille

We all shared one dessert. After all, it was a birthday celebration! The best part of the dessert was a small scoop of caramel and sea salt gelato with espresso poured over it. It was salty, sweet and bitter. Perfect.

As we left, we ran into the chef himself roasting a whole lamb over a wood fire.

Chef Michael Chiarello basting a whole lamb with salt water.

Last night we went out to dinner. Dining out is a rare occurrence around here. It is just too difficult to eat correctly when dining out. So back to the straight and narrow today. Unusually, though, we had beef. We have a bagful of 6 to 7 oz. pieces of flank steak in the freezer. It is not a high fat piece of beef and as long as I don’t eat too much of it, I’m okay. So tonight’s dinner was 1 1/2 ounces of flank steak, steamed new potatoes and asparagus. Also a couple of steamed tomatoes. The asparagus at our local store is from Mexico and is really tasty and fairly low-priced. I think we will be eating a lot of asparagus since the season is lengthened by being able to buy it from Mexico followed by the great local California supply.

Grilled flank steak with steamed new potatoes, asparagus and tomatoes