Leftover Meatloaf and Mashed Potato Salad

As mentioned below, about half the meatloaf was left over, so we just nuked it. It was served with a potato salad that I'd composed the night before, while the brussels sprouts were cooking. Unfortunately, I wasn't watching closely enough and Idahos boil up faster than Yukon golds, so they were a bit too soft. Nonetheless, I added the usual things: mayonnaise, some whole-grain mustard, minced shallots and celery, pepper and salt. The next night I had to add more mayonnaise and mustard, as the softer parts of the potatoes had melded in and formed a sort of mashed potato dressing. Maybe not the ideal potato salad, but hell, this ain't the county fair.

Smoked Pork Chops, Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

Holt had already smoked the pork chops after he smoked the duck (below), so they only needed to be rewarmed, which we did as part of the brussels sprouts preparation. We cleaned and quartered the sprouts, then steamed them. While that was happening, we fried up some chopped bacon and minced onions; when the bacon bits were crisp, the onions translucent, and the sprouts just underdone, we threw the sprouts in the bacony pan and let them fry and soak up some fat. We then sprinkled in a little white wine, rested the chops on top of the vegetables, covered the pan and let the whole thing steam until the chops were warmed through. When we put the chops on the plates, we tossed some sherry vinegar in the pan with the sprouts, which made them piquant and a good accompaniment to smoky flavors.

Meatloaf

Or as Holt's family says, "Meatenloafer." Also known around the house as "The Vasty Meat Log." There is no real recipe for this, as much of it depends on what's in the fridge and how much of each seasoning you like, but here are guidelines to Barbara's current version.

Beat an egg in a large bowl. Fold in about a pound and a half of ground beef. From here on, the beef should be mixed gently with a fork, just to distribute the ingredients, not squished together. Those ingredients include: a minced onion and less minced celery, perhaps a half cup of breadcrumbs, a couple of tablespoons of ketchup, a tablespoon each of barbecue sauce and sweet pickle relish, a dab of dry mustard and another dab of whole-grain mustard, pepper and salt. Turn this out onto a shallow pan and mold it (gently - again, no squeezing) into a long loaf about 3 inches high and 5 inches wide. You can rub the top with a little more ketchup or barbecue sauce. Bake it at 400 degrees for about a half hour, then at 350 until your instant-read thermometer says it's at 160, about 15-20 minutes. Take it out and LET IT REST for at least 5 minutes, otherwise it will fall into crumbles rather than slices. Serve with - you guessed it - more ketchup.

We had new yukon gold potatoes on the side, adorned with leftover vegetables from the Chicken in Champagne Sauce. There was still about half a meatloaf left over, so if we don't use it for lunch sandwiches (with sliced onion - mmmmm), it should appear again above.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

Ever since Jon and Lois had the risotto at Bacaro (see post for Oct. 13), I've wanted to do a smoked duck. Saturday was still mild and sunny, a nice day for some protracted cooking, since Saturday is my usual bread-making day. I bought a duck at the market and set up the smoker in the backyard. A smallish fire, lots of soaked mesquite chunks, and some water with thyme and rosemary branches in the dip-pan. The gods of the grill watched over it, because I got it off at exactly the right moment, about 2 1/2 hours, when the breast was medium rare, the skin crisp and a dark mahogany, and the legs still springy (to be used for another meal). Since the fire was still going, I tossed four rapidly defrosted pork chops on to smoke,* while we ate the duck with some plain boiled potatoes to suck up any extra fat.

* Emergency meat thaw (for chicken, pork, etc.): toss them straight into a sink full of water, and since they're in there, why not brine them with some kosher salt?

Grilled tuna

Just grilled all of the following: two nice thick tuna steaks, lightly dusted with rosemary and salt; portobello* mushrooms brushed with olive oil and thyme; and uno zucchino in splendid isolation, sliced in two, then sliced several more times in the same direction but just up to the stem, so each half can be fanned out on the grill. Yummy.

*Just overgrown crimini mushrooms: apparently renamed in the 80's. Not yet in the OED. The preferred form, judging by a google count is portObellO. Since it's just a marketing ploy in any case, perhaps we shouldn't care, but I find it more appealing to imagine the name was intended to invoke a Beautiful Port (after all, many a Portobello in the world), than a Beautiful Door.
Portobello

Fettucine with Sausage and Cream

The original of this was a Sausage Alfredo, courtesy of Anita Bernstein, but by the time you've mucked with it, it is related to Fettucine Alfredo only in having cream and cheese.

I know it seems like we've been eating nothing but sausage lately, but each type of sausage has been different,* and so have the recipes. This one was, as usual, created to use up something left over, viz., the half-roll of sausage not used to make Chicken in Champagne sauce, below. Bulk sausage is rather bland, so as we crumbled and fried it, we added a healthy sprig of chiffonaded fresh sage leaves. Then we doused it in cream, boiled it down a bit, and added more grated cheese to thicken. This is a nice quick recipe, as we were coming home hungry from a late lecture; if we had had time to make fresh pasta, it would have been nice over pappardelle, but fettucine are fine too.

*Cincinnati has a thousand words for 'sausage'. See Languagehat and
Languagelog's debunking of the gazillion Eskimo words for "snow."

Yard Sausage and Onions

Eckerlin Meats was one of the original businesses in Findlay Market, and they still carry lots of traditional Cincinnati delicacies - like goetta, which we won't go near. They sell a nice pepper-seasoned "yard sausage," and when I asked them what that meant, they said that it's a traditional name for a type of fresh Mettwurst, and that maybe the sausage was originally a yard long, or sold by the yard (it's not now). That is, they can't explain it, but it's good.

Yard sausage doesn't go well with peppers but loves onions (it's German, not Italian). We fry it in a big pan, with the sausages in a ring around the outside while the onions caramelize in the center. When both are browned, we sprinkle it with a little white wine and cover it so the sausage cooks thorough and the flavors meld.