Shrimp and white beans

No photo of this one, yet, but I just needed to rave for a moment. We started dipping into Mark Bittman's big list of 100 fast and easy recipes from earlier this summer, and we have fallen in love with the simplest recipe of all. It's for shrimp and white beans, which we have started eating over toast.

Basically, you take some shrimp (we use frozen from Trader Joe's) and chop them into little pieces. Open a can of white beans, put them in a frying pan with a little olive oil and chopped garlic. Then, add the shrimp. The whole thing cooks up pretty quickly, and somewhere near the end I usually squeeze half of a lemon over the whole thing and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. The last two times we've eaten this, I made a side salad, using the juices from the pan (deglazed a la Bittman with a dash of sherry vinegar) as a dressing. A slice of toast on the side, and the meal's complete. It keeps us full and energized, and the shrimp juice makes a surprisingly wonderful salad dressing.

Maple-Glazed Salmon with Nutmeg Zucchini

Last week, MSC-certified, Alaskan wild-caught sockeye salmon was on sale at Whole Foods. Naturally, we didn't want to do anything too much to it, since Alaskan sockeye tends to have delicious, rich flavor. Jenny found this great recipe for a maple glaze, so when I got home from work, we fired up the broiler and got started on this extremely simple dish. The glaze is nothing more than maple syrup, hoisin sauce, and mustard. We coated the salmon before putting it under the broiler, basted it again about halfway through, and I drizzled just a little bit of glaze right when we took it out of the oven.

For the side dish, we made nutmeg zucchini. Again, a very simple dish. This is grated zucchini lightly sautéed in a little bit of butter with salt, pepper, and a dash of nutmeg.

Both recipes came from a recent cookbook acquisition, Cooking Light Superfast Suppers, which is filled with delicious, low-fat recipes for weeknights. As busy as we've been lately, it's been a big help.

Tuna and Spinach Sandwich with Olive-Lemon Mayonaisse

Watching Giada on Food Network several weeks ago, we spied this tuna sandwich that she was making with some kind of olive-mayo dressing and tuna that's been packed in oil. Not a traditional tuna salad, mind, but tuna chunks with a layer of mayo above and a bed of greens below.

Since we like a good sandwich (and since I like pretty much any sandwich), I made a version of this for lunch. It came together really easily, and it tasted great.

We started with a small ciabatta, which we split into enough pieces for four pieces of sandwich. I can't remember exactly what kind of tuna we used, but we did get it packed in oil. I drained it in our colander but didn't rinse. The oil added some really good flavor. For the greens, we used baby spinach.

To start the dressing, I pitted about fifteen black olives and dropped them into the food processor. Then, I added the juice of 1/2 a lemon and some salt and pepper. I processed until smooth. Then I mixed in a spoonful of store-bought mayonnaise (unfortunately, it wasn't until after I made this sandwich that I decided to try making my own mayo from scratch; remarkably simple, there'll be a post about it soon). The result is a bright lavender-colored dressing that really brightens the sandwich.

For easy transport, and to keep the bread fresh, I wrapped the sandwiches in parchment first. This kept them from getting too dry and crispy.

I ate mine at home and added a crisp apple and some rice pudding to balance it out.

Black-Bean Burgers with Lime-Pepper Fries

Turns out, vegetarian burgers are even easier to make than meat burgers. Thus begins our obsession with black-bean burgers.

One can of black beans gave us four burgers. Just rinse the beans and mash to desired consistency. In go some herbs and spices and an egg to hold them together. I cooked these on our cast-iron grill until browned on both sides. At the end, I topped each burger with a couple of slices of avocado. We spooned salsa on them at the table. Simple, quick, and delicious. On the side, we served some oven-baked fries, tossed with lime zest and pepper.

Olive-and-Herb-Crusted Pork Chops with Collard Greens and Goose-Fat-Fried Potatoes

So, we've been kind of quiet this week, mostly because both of us have been fighting off a nasty flu. We finally kicked it with a little leftover avgolemono, but almost an entire week has gone by since we ate this dinner.

I'd tagged a recipe on Chow that came from the Niman Ranch Cookbook. It was for lamb chops with an olive-and-herb crust, and it sounded totally fantastic. Cut to us with some rotted lamb a couple of days later, either the result of a bad batch from Whole Foods or else we just waited too long to freeze and thaw it after leaving it in the fridge for the first few days.

But I'd already mixed up the bread crumbs and the olive paste (incidentally, both took about 5 minutes in the Cuisinart, and the taste far exceeds the effort). And so we went back to the supermarket, this time opting for some bone-in, center-cut pork chops. We followed the cooking instructions in the recipe, which called for a little searing on the stove and a longer cooking time in the oven. We've seen this on America's Test Kitchen before, and it really is an easy way to get the meat cooked pretty evenly (see below).

To accompany them, I thought we'd use some of our reserved goose fat and fry up a couple of new potatoes. If you ever have reason to cook a goose, I can't recommend highly enough the use of goose fat on potatoes. They fried to a perfect golden brown, and the outside had a superb crispiness that I've never gotten before with oil.

To cut through the meat and fat, I cut up an onion and tossed it into a fry pan with just a tad of oil. Once it cooked all the way down, I splashed in a little leftover claret (which stained the onion red) and stirred in a bunch of chopped collard greens. Then I put a lid on the pan and turned off the burner. The remaining heat cooked down the greens and helped infuse them with some of the oniony wine flavor.

Now, the pork chops cooked pretty well, though we found some reddish spots near the very middle (despite our digital thermometer telling us we were well cooked). If/when we make this again, I'd use smaller chops so I could better manage the cooking time. Also, I think I was too gentle on the chops when pressing the olive mixture into them. We ended up losing a little bit in the pan, which I scraped off and piled on top for extra flavor (surprisingly, it didn't char), but it would have been better seared into the chops.

Pork Tenderloin with Risotto and Green Beans

Lee and I had a pork tenderloin around and have been trying to find the best use for it. I saw a recipe online for pork tenderloin in a caper-olive sauce, but we didn't want the weight of a sauce--especially since I was making a risotto to accompany the meat. Here is what we did, instead.

The Risotto
Chop some vegetables (I used one onion, a couple cloves of garlic and some celery) and saute them in olive oil over medium heat until they start to soften. Then add about a cup of rice. I usually use arborio, but in the midst of daydreaming about grad school applications, added basmati instead. Surprisingly, it worked. After everything mixes together and the rice starts to turn translucent, deglaze the pan with some dry white wine (about a cup). Turn the heat down to medium-low and stir the mixture frequently with a wooden spoon. Meantime, take out a container of chicken stock. When the rice has absorbed the liquid, add about half a cup of stock and stir. Repeat this process until the rice is creamy and tender, with just a bit of bite left in the center. How much liquid this takes will depend on your rice and your kitchen, so be sure to taste the rice from time to time. Finish your risotto with a little olive oil or butter and perhaps some parmesan cheese (we added a couple ounces of parmigiano-reggiano at the end, grating it right over the pan with a microplane).

The Tenderloin
A little olive oil in the pan - sear on all sides, then turn down the heat and cover, turning every few minutes, until the internal temperature reaches 160. We didn't add a thing to the tenderloin--not even a dash of salt.

The Tapenade
Lee made an insanely delicious tapenade with one chopped garlic clove, a bit of chopped parsley, some kalamata olives and some capers. He finished the whole thing off with two teaspoons of port. It was incredible.

We served the tenderloin over risotto with some tapenade on top. On the side, green beans with toasted pine nuts. It was a successful meal, rice blunder aside, and everything came together pretty quickly once the risotto was finished.