Notes on a Holiday Meal

I got a little creative today while cooking the holiday meal. My inspiration for this sudden burst of creativity was my husband. He's a great lover of hot sauce and finds the New Year's meal a bit on the bland side. It's not that it doesn't have much seasoning, it's just that it the flavors are more subtle. With this in mind, I set out to kick up the holiday meal.

Here's what resulted:

Roast Pork and Sauerkraut

Since I chose a pretty lean cut, I knew there wouldn't be much in the form of pan drippings for gravy. Instead, I chose to prepare my sauerkraut in the oven. First, I roasted the pork until it reached 140 degrees Fahrenheit and then added a mixture of sauerkraut and chopped granny smith apples. I mounded the mixture over the pork as well as surrounding the entire loin. You can add caraway seeds to this mixture, but I didn't have any and am not a huge fan of caraway. The whole thing cooks together until the internal temperature of the pork reaches 160 degrees Fahrenheit. I let the entire roasting pan rest for about 10 minutes and then served the sliced roast on a bed of the sauerkraut and apples.

Mashed Potatoes

Typically, I like to add garlic, horseradish or wasabi to kick up mashed potatoes, but none of those options seemed to match the main course very well. I was making apple crisp at the time and thinking about what to add into the mashed potatoes when nutmeg came to me. A dash of nutmeg and there was an earthy dimension to this wonderful side dish.

Some minor tweaks and our traditional meal took on a whole new dimension. It was a great meal! One that did not require hot sauce. It's a New Year's miracle ;-)

Irish Oatmeal

Irish Oatmeal, porridge, pin head oats, steel cut oats -- so many names for such a wonderful way to start your day. For most of us in the US, McCann's is the brand we see in our local grocery store. The first time I bought a can of oats and cooked it up according to the directions, my oatmeal turned out chewy and the oats had a bit of a bite to them. I did everything that the directions suggested and couldn't understand what I did wrong.

In the Fall of 1999, I went to Ireland for the first time. We stayed in B&Bs and enjoyed Irish oatmeal at each location. One morning, I decided to ask the host her secret to the porridge. It was so creamy and wonderful that it had to contain heavy cream, half and half or at a minimum whole milk. I was surprised to learn that there was no dairy in there at all. She said that she always uses Odlums Oats. And she cooks them the night before. In the morning, she reconstitutes and cooks down a second time. It was such a simple answer. We hustled over to the local Tesco and bought a few bags of Odlums Oats to bring back home with us. I've since run out of Odlums and am back to the McCann's, but with the new technique in hand, my oatmeal turns out great every time. And since I do the majority of the cooking the night before, its easy to send my family off with a wonderful porridge breakfast on a weekday.