It's been a long, long time

Whew! Too long between posts. I'm making up for it with a delicious pork chop dish. I came across it leafing through a cookbook, looking for something new and fresh. Except for the pork chops, pretty much everything is a pantry staple, so it was easy to throw this together.

Pork Chops Alla Pizzaiola
Adapted from Food Network Favorites: Recipes from Our All-Star Chefs

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 pork chops, bone-in, about 1" thick
• 1 small onion, sliced thinly
• 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes, with juices
• 1 tsp dried mixed herbs (I used Herbs for Poultry, but Herbes de Provence or Italian seasoning would also work)
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp fresh parsley, chopped
• salt & pepper to taste
• flour, for dredging

Heat olive oil in a pan, on med-high heat. Add olive oil. Season pork chops on each side with salt & pepper; dredge in flour and add to pan. Cook until thoroughly browned, about 4-5 mins per side. Remove from pan and put on a plate to rest -- cover with foil to keep warm.

In same pan, add onions and cook until just softened, about 5-6 mins. Add tomatoes, mixed herbs and red pepper flakes. Cover and simmer for 15 mins, until sauce starts to thicken. Add pork chops back to the pan and cook with the tomato sauce, about 3-4 mins.

Serve pork chops and spoon tomato sauce on top. Top with fresh chopped parsley. We enjoyed ours with a side salad.

The End of Soup Season

Yesterday, it was 60 degrees and sunny. In typical New England fashion, today it was 30 degrees and snowing for most of the day. It's that time of year when I start to tire of roasted veggies and start dreaming about the grill and fresh fruit. Nevertheless, today's wintry weather made me wish I had some hearty soup for dinner instead of my take-out sub.

A few weeks ago, I tried Barefoot Contessa's take on Italian Wedding Soup. It was different from other versions I'd had in that:

1. It was made with chicken meatballs. I used a combination of ground chicken and sweet Italian chicken sausages and baked them.
2. The broth featured a hefty portion of dill; yes, dill!
3. Way more spinach than I'm used to seeing in this sort of soup.
4. I used my own homemade stock! Yup, 10 cups of it. I was a little worried it wasn't going to all fit in my stock pot....

It was pretty tasty overall, with just the right amount of spiciness. You can see the full recipe at FoodNetwork.com.

WBUR Food Blogger Meet-up

I was cruising around Yelp events today and came across this little gem. WBUR is hosting a food blogger meet-up next week at its station on Comm Ave. From what I can gather, it seems like a way to assemble potential bloggers for its Public Radio Kitchen project. Very interesting stuff!

Location details:
Thursday, February 26, 2009, 7:00 PM
WBUR's Studio
890 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215

Playa del Carmen Roundup

I just returned from a week in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. One of the reasons we opted for Playa was that the town was reputed to have good food. Every day, we had tacos of some sort for lunch -- often from a small little stand where the grill is right in front -- those were the best! When we weren't eating tacos, we tried all sorts of places: touristy, off the beaten path, fancy, hole in the wall. Some were hits, some were misses, here are the standouts (for one reason or another!).

Yaxche
On our first night, we went to Yaxche since it offered authentic Mayan cuisine. The food wasn't so hot and like so many places in Playa, the restaurant was next to a construction site (Playa seems to be in a constant state of building and rebuilding). I couldn't decide whether or not my bright green drink looked more like an ecto-cooler or a vegan health drink -- it tasted OK, though. For the rest of the meal, the panuchos (a type of taco) were excellent and Glenn's black stuffed turkey was nothing else if not memorable because of the color.

John Gray's Place
This is restaurant run by a former Ritz-Carlton chef offers solid "New American" cuisine. Service was friendly and the bacon-spinach salad was amazing. One knock against them: the green beans that came with my duck were extremely overcooked. Pricey, but very good food.

Senor Tacombi
It's tacos and smoothies. Served from a converted VW bus! Yeah, it's a gimmick, but it sure was fun. The standouts here were the mango smoothies and the fried fish tacos with red cabbage.

Sur
Right on the main pedestrian strip, sits Sur. An Argentinian steakhouse, Sur boasts open air dining from the second story and fantastic people watching. Hands down, this was our favorite place -- service, ambiance, food, experience. It is pricey, though. We shared meat empanadas to start. Glenn had rib-eye and I had grilled jumbo prawns (I had to remove the heads myself!)

Il Pescatore
Off the beaten path, this small Italian restaurant is run by a Roman hippie who chain-smokes in the restaurant and makes some amazing pasta. On a busier street, the ambiance wasn't perfect, but the food more than makes up for it and prices were very reasonable. We shared gnocchi with black truffle and some amazing fettuccine with bolognese sauce. And it was almost as good as Delfino's in Rozzie.

Eat Your Veggies

Last week at the grocery store, I was looking for some arugula to serve with roasted lemon-pepper shrimp and pasta. I couldn't find any, so opted to pick up some broccoli raab instead. I'm not a fan of regular broccoli, but broccoli raab is OK and I am trying to expand my veggie consumption.

Over the past few days, I had heard several people mention that broccoli was good roasted -- I had never heard of such a thing! Ok, why not?

The net result: crispy florets, intensely flavored and tender stalks. I preferred the florets, Glenn preferred the stalks. I served mine with shrimp and pasta, but this would work well as a side dish for steak.

Roasted Broccoli Raab

• 1 bunch broccoli raab
• 2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
• olive oil
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Remove tough ends of the stalk from the broccoli raab. Toss with chopped garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt & pepper. Arrange in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake 15-20 mins until tender, turning 1-2 times with tongs during the cooking. Serves 2-3 as a side dish.